Usually an SI is written vaguely enough that even if it is the author you can’t tell. Once you’re past the first chapter the fact that they’re an SI rarely matters to the story and it’s just a Mary/Gary Stu OC to act as the reader’s avatar.

Meta knowledge usually acts as the motivation to accumulate power and be prepared for inevitable war etc but is rarely deployed in the sense of changing the timeline. Usually the SI tries to stick to the stations of canon and not interfere until they have accumulated enough power to be untouchable, as changing events results in butterfly effect that makes the world unpredictable.

 

When I read fiction, the protagonist is someone I empathize with, root for, feel bad for and so on, but I don’t usually consider them an avatar for myself. My favorite protagonists are more like people I’d want to be friends with, and reading is like hearing about this crazy thing that happened to them.

 

I'm only a few chapters in so far, but it's an incredibly well written fic. That alone would probably raise it up to a 5/5, but additionally we have some strong world building, lots of interesting character work, and some uniquish takes on magic, and how it feels to use. I'll hold off actually rating it until I've finished, but I think it's looking good.

 

Read it over about a week - an interesting facet of this fic is that it never actually felt like it hooked me, but I was always relatively happy to pick it back up. I think that's due to the author's overall writing skill - the prose is tight and easy to read, grounded, good pace, just overall high quality writing without having any major strengths or weaknesses.

I've got some minor quibbles. The author lets some characters really fall by the wayside. The SI, Tracey, Daphne, and Sally are this 'circle' of a friend group, and Sally gets practically no development - she's there but extremely undefined.

The biggest issue for me is the classic SI interacting with a known plot thing. I can see how the author's trying to kind of... play with it, with the whole threads of fate thing and the SI's status as a... creature hybrid of some sort. It's a self-aware thing to do, but the end result is still kind of contorting around the stations of the canon in a way that strains believability. The SI is like... grounded, fairly shrewd, fairly careful, but when it's time for end of the year wackiness it's just like.... ok time for Canon Events let's throw caution to the wind.

I just need more to keep me invested - I need the SI to have a real goal to strive for, something over and above what a realistic normal grounded actual person would have, or else like... what's the point.

4/5, it's really quite decently written. I'll probably check it in a year or something and see where it is.

 

Much like most fics, this suffers from the "Why not just tell Dumbledore about everything you know?" approach.

It's good on the technical side of things, and it has its moment, but ultimately, there's no pull, nothing to get you looking forward to what's gonna be written next.

 

Well as of the last update Dumbledore is in the know about voldemort's resurection and the triwizard cup so expect some more drastic cannon divergences from here on out

 

I know I’m bumping my own thread but in recent chapters we’ve seen a much larger cannon divergence and the development of what is clearly the central original plot line. Risk this will just be a cannon rehash seems less and less likely with each chapter..


Writing remains excellent, update schedule could be faster but we’re getting about 1 chapter per month.

 

Is the main character still a mediocre student or does the story now show signs of having a proper protagonist?

 

She wasn’t mediocre last time you asked.

She was clearly top of her class, and continues to be. She’s not about to go beating Voldemort in a duel because she’s 13-14 but she’s obviously quite talented.

edit: just read it, man. I think you’ll like it.

 

So why didn't you say "yes she's powerful" when I asked if she's powerful?

Let's try to pin down a straight answer to the question:

Does the main character have prodigious innate magical talent such that they are on the path to becoming a Dumbledore/Voldemort level wizard, once they complete their education?

Edit for edit:

Whether I would like it is precisely what I have been trying to get you to clarify. I only read fics where the main character is a Dumbledore level wizard (or a Dumbledore-in-waiting). In the Harry Potter world, they are the only real characters with any true agency.

 

I don’t know. It seems she might. If not through conventional wizardry through some only recently being explored unique magical talents related. I can’t read the authors mind. It’s not a noodlehammer fic but neither is she cannon harry. I wasn’t lying earlier when I said power level wise I was thinking of Victoria (although it’s been the better part of a decade since I read VP so I might be remembering wrong)

 

That's an interesting take, I don't think that's necessarily accurate. Just for example, Minister Hermione Granger pushes through social reforms, and Lucius Malfoy has tremendous influence over the Ministry despite his middling talents and Dumbledore's counter influence. Even a very average witch or wizard without access to a lot of resouces has a tremendous amount of agency.

 

Well, Minister Hermione exists at a time where no Dumbledore-level talent is around.

As for Lucius, the only reason he is any threat at all is because Dumbledore is not prepared, morally speaking, to seize control for himself. But at any time of his choosing he could have just walked into the Ministry and declared himself in charge and there's nothing anyone could have done. All of Lucius' actions are done at Dumbledore's tolerance.

 

This is quite the argument to make for a series where Lucius unleashes a Basilisk (by proxy) on a school full of students under Dumbledore's care. And also gets Dumbledore sacked from said school.

I get the reasoning. But it feels fairly specious. Like claiming the British Empire or the other great powers didn't have 'true agency' circa 1900 because of the sleeping giant of the USA. I doubt most of their colonies would have been sympathetic to that sort of logic.

 

I think you may be confusing canon Dumbledore for your HC version. Magical power does not trump all other forms of power regardless of magnitude

 

That's not the pro-Dumbledorean-wizard argument you think it is.

 

I ended up reading up to and including chapter 37 which is a decent chunk of the fic.

The writing itself is very digestible. No complaints on that front.

I also enjoyed the depiction of magic, with the approach to dark magic being especially unique. It was perhaps a bit too Star Warsy in the idea of it having a corrupting and tempting influence, but innately evil magic does unlock some interesting worldbuilding opportunities, such as the mystery of the dark object that Selwyn was discovered to be harbouring.

However, ultimately I found the fic to be excessively angsty and the main character too passive. It is fine that as a young student she is not able to go toe to toe with older students magically. But she never really seems to use the fact that she has an adult’s experiences and maturity as well as detailed knowledge of many secrets of the world.

In particular, she does not conceive obvious solutions to her problems and execute them. For example, she has constant money trouble and this is a repeated limitation on her ability to solve problems. But she knows about the Room of Requirement, which is full of mountains of abandoned property, some of it very valuable. She could easily just help herself to a trunk full of that stuff and sell it. But she never does.

That is one example but I feel the story is full of situations where the character just passively wallows in negative emotions instead of being proactive and using their advantages to solve problems.

In many ways the problem is that this isn’t enough of an SI fic. The MC’s meta knowledge is rarely ever used and they do not act like an adult. The fic is basically an 11-year-old OC goes to Hogwarts fic, not an SI fic. Sometimes that approach works well. But here, the MC faces a lot of quite extreme adversity such that it becomes a problem that they aren’t using their advantages to overcome it.

While the writing makes the opening very readable, and once you are through the opening you keep reading because you have invested into the fic, ultimately I do consider the fic to be fundamentally flawed and it only a matter of time before those flaws exceed the reader’s tolerance and sunk cost investment.

The opening is probably 3.5/5 but overall I would rate it 2/5.

 

I think this is the only Harry Potter fanfiction that I still follow. But I agree with some of Taures criticism. I would have preferred the MC to be more actively involved in the story. The whole idea of fate forcing its way through changes wasn’t something I was a huge fan of either.

Still all in all I enjoy the story quite a bit and like a lot of the more unique twists that it has.

 

Fair enough, if it didn't hook you after 37 chapters, its not for you. Thats way more than a fair shot for this fic. I do think you're essentially correct about the good writing making it easy to keep reading even if its not exactly the most exciting during first year. I think thats what newcomb was getting at with this

Since I read through 2nd year in one go, I might have just sailed past it that. I do think ever since chapter 49 when she tells dumbledore about Voldemort coming back, and becomes increasingly willing to meddle in events because shes no longer worried about losing the benefit of foreknowledge the story is moving in a direction that addresses these complaints. But 300k words is a lot of words to get to that point.

Just more evidence of the superiority of mira mirth's each year gets that year number worth of chapters format, I always thought more authors should play around with that.

 

Hello ! Perpetual lurker here but I wanted to pop on this thread because it's been a while since a fic, and an SI one at that, actually held my interest. Like many said here I really appreciate the writing, the twists are original and the characters are convincing.

Regarding some of the faults pointed out, I see things a little differently.
Her not using more of her knowledge : most people don't have as extensive knowledge of the lore as the people on this forum. She also spent 4 years not giving her HP knowledge any thought because it was just a story. So some of that would be lost. Besides I personally would be bored out of my mind with a HP geek SI.

As for her not being adult enough well that's the point. She's not an adult. This isn't like a time travel fic where an adult mind is sent to the past. This is a reincarnation. So while the character remembers another life, she isn't that person anymore yet she's convinced that those memories make her an adult in mind. Which is part of what makes her an unreliable narrator. Consider all those times she asks herself "why am I like this ?" (Yes there is another explanation but it's not incompatible with this one)

"Angsty" is a strong word. People lie (naruto fanfic) is angsty. This actually amuses me (which goes to show how certain works may be perceived differently from one reader to the next). Perhaps there's a reason she's not selling items from the Room. Such as the risk of being caught doing it and someone asking questions leading to the Room being discovered. Or not being able to identify cursed objects. If it were so easy - then curse-breaking wouldn't be the elite job it's made out to be.
Being an orphan and penniless WOULD be frustrating, and doubly so for someone who has the memories of an adult... but clearly is still a child. And considering where she was sorted and the obstacles she faces, there's only so much you can do while being a student and this would have been an incredibly frustrating read if she had the sort of freedom players had in HL for example.

The one that did bother me at first was Pettigrew.

Spoiler

I thought she dropped the thing too fast when she failed to get the Map, and that she could have sent an anonymous letter to a number of people, the most obvious choice being McG.

But think about it. We all have our bias - there are some that will paint Dumbledore as a horrible schemer, those that will villify the Weasleys, those that turn Snape into this tortured hero.

Spoiler

It seems the SI has a more nuanced take on Sirius Black. And I agree with that. I'm not convinced his influence on a younger Harry would have been beneficial. Nor would him finding out at 11 his parents were killed by a psycho and then finding out shortly after that they were betrayed by one of their best friends and that this friend framed another and another best friend just went AWOL... it's a lot. How the hell do you ever learn to trust your own friends, your first friends in fact, after that ? That too coming from an abusive household.

Yes she didn't voice all of that but I think this happened on a subconscious level for the character (but definitely think the author knew what she was doing).

Spoiler

Plus it is revealed that she has some sort of seer ability that drive her decision making without her realising it.

Anyway so all things considered it's a 4/5 for me for now, mainly because I skimmed or even skipped a couple of paragraphs (though to be fair finding that perfect balance of storytelling and worldbuilding in a world your reader is already familiar with is not an easy feat and I'm sure it wouldn't have happened for an original work).

(also thank you for reminding me of mira mirth ! last I read that fic it hadn't been updated past year 2, I have a LOT of catching up to do)