For some reason this fic completely bewildered me. Every important incident that would have established the characters was either glossed over, only alluded to as a way to justify extreme behavior, or just wasn't explained at all. It took until the start of book 2 to hear about a key part of Harry's life that completely explains the behaviour of several characters for so much of book 1.

 

I only got through a few chapters before I had to sit this one down.

It was somewhat promising at first, but once it hit the Hogwarts arc, I couldn't continue.

First things first: single quotes for dialogue. Just... no. There are some mistakes ("The elf seemed the enjoy

The characters are aged up, so the politics aren't as cringey, but still enough to make me shake my head. I just don't feel as much of a connection as I should with Harry; I neither sympathize or empathize with him. He, and the rest of the characters, simply feel too alien.

Let's also talk a little bit about Hermione's treatment. I don't understand how Hermione's beatdown, courtesy of Daphne, managed to slip past the notice of the teachers. She also would, most likely, have reported it to the teachers. In addition, the "clever" way Hermione ended up in Slytherin just rubs me the wrong way; it reminds me of those bad Indy!Harry fics where he solves some ridiculously contrived problem just so the author can heap him with meaningless praise (and pair him with another girl, woohoo!).

I'm not even mentioning Harry's issues with girls. Is this set-up for slash?

In short, the fic, while somewhat interesting, is too unrealistic for me to enjoy; it gives off the vibe of Pureblood wank, which I detest in fanfics. However, the author does have a good grasp of

 

Welp. Accidentally clicked something that submitted the post before I got to finish. I can't figure out how to edit, so I'll wrap up my review here.

The fic isn't poorly written. It has some good ideas, and the author has a good grasp of the English language, save for a few errors here and there. As such, I'll give it a 3/5.

 

To answer your question simply, no. The author explicitly says in the AN that Harry will be paired with one of four female characters and only one.

This story is also taking a lot of heat because it's showing the 'other' side's point of view in an AU that makes the situation reasonable to me. If it's not your thing, it's not your thing, but we also have to remember that Cannon is EXTREMELY implausible.

 

How did you even arrive at that idea?

 

I've sent the author link to this thread some time ago and today I've read the latest chapter.

The description was changed it now reads:

And there was the Author Note where YakAge mentions some fixes (including tweaking Harry's behaviour in the first chapter to fit his age.

Spoiler

Also, some people may want to know, that there was a large leap made in terms of Harry's "girl issues".

 

A story about political intrigue and differing interests stemming largely from culture friction between muggle-borns along with factions supporting them and the more conservative elements of the society. And between this there is our Harry and his little band of pureblood princes(ses) embroiled in plots that have the potential to upturn the world. Add a dash of a uber wand, manors and mansions and you have it.

Now that is off my chest, there is something in the story that kept me interested. I guess it is the sheer effort that the author has put into it. The world building is good and relatively solid. The characters are interresting. The interaction is fairly good.

The thing that irritated me most is that I kept scowling at the super refined speech of the first year students only to realize that they are in fact much older. Then there is Dumbledore who is seemingly not able to control schoolyard attacks on Harry's person(32 times in a year). Though. to author's credit it seems that he does not intend to bash Dumbledore.

I would rate it 3.5.

 

So far it's a very decent effort. I would rate the first half of the story 3/5 - it's prone to inducing blue balls with how coy it is with presenting information - but, in the second half things clearly pick up. Issues get resolved, characters move forward, choices are made, in short there is progress. It makes me hopeful for future chapters, as the author has consistently demonstrated his ability to maintain a well structured story. So the second half gets a solid 4/5.

I have only two gripes with this. The first is, of course Dumbledore. Very few authors are capable of writing a good one, but in this case, his character is flickering towards sheer incompetence or being so subtle that no other character (or the reader) can figure his angles - and something tells me the author is having difficulty with it as well.

The second is ambition. The sheer scale of the story keeps increasing - new characters keep getting introduced, the politics (both in school and in the ministry) are getting more murky and there are generally signs of an impending clusterfuck of cluttering plot threads. I hope YakAge proves adequate in juggling all the stuff he's introduced.

I'll lean on 4/5 for now. I feel it can go either way from here, either to greatness, or mediocrity.

 

I started randomly reading this story yesterday. Not much to say so far other than that this is one of the most inconsistent stories I've ever seen. There's a bunch of plot changes, which could be interesting, but then you remember that the author starting talking about runic warding patterns within the first five paragraphs, Harry has a super!wand using a Black family relic wand, which somehow are arbitrarily notoriously unusable by decedents of the family.

Then, there's what I call the "political story checklist" where authors go down the list and mark off all the ingredients they think are needed when writing purebloods. Like, in this story, you have Arcturus and Harry talking all "sophisticated", yet a few moments later Harry is a stuttering wreck as soon as he's near a girl. It's so jarring to the point that I had to put the story down and skim along to see if there's any braid-tugging.

There's something here, but it's just covered in writing decisions that don't really make any sense. The actual pureblood/political stuff is about average I'd say. There was an attempt. I'd give it a 2/5 for the section of chapters I've read so far.

 

Hah, after reading it, no.

Though it would probably have received a higher rating from DLP of it had. There's quite a few H/L fetishists around here.

 

She isn't Lily for certain.

Personally, I think she might be Tom Riddle's grandchild. The time line fits and she constantly mentions her 'grandfather' being her mentor. Compatible with a wand made of 'ground dementor bones' much?

 

The writing is good and I am enjoying a different take on light side winning the war and the results from it. Not really sure why we need a fear of women but because it hasn't really become a big issue I'm willing to overlook it until we see where it goes. 4/5 from me.

 

I have just read up to chapter 13. I can safely say this is the most confused I have been reading a hp story in a long time. Does it get better? From what I have seen Harry and Arcturus seem to have a adult relationship and then Harry goes all wussy and stuttering with people. I think I may stick around for a few more chapters so give the author a chance but so far 2/5 just for the different plot rarely seen.

 

It does get better. His thing with women/girls is some kind of trauma that will be explained more later. After a while the interactions with girls get less cringe worthy so stick around the story gets quite good.

 

Thanks Darthlawyer just finshed up to the most recent update and I do agree it does get better. 3.5/5

 

2/5

I made it 7 chapters in before giving up. The pathological fear of women is very jarring, as is Harry's reactions to near everything. His crippling need to keep things secret for no other reason than to keep them secret seems to me to be the oddest thing. As is the fanatical hatred of everyone towards the "Darkers." There might be good reasons for it, but it should be explained much earlier in the story.

Harry's constant fragility for no good reason is another problem I have with the story. It's only compounded by his complete unwillingness to seek any help in the matter.

 

The protagonist has flaws, truly terrible.

This could be a good moment to complain that some people feel the need to have everything explained immediately, but this is in large part explained immediately. In the first chapter.

 

The first few reviews put me off, but I didn't have anything good to read last week and picked this up.

Kept on reading, and was pleasantly surprised. Harry's issues with women get mostly sorted out by winter break of first year. The author likely needed a good excuse to write an overly provocative and "sexy" Rose, which I didn't really mind in spite of its cheesiness. From what I gather (without spoiling too much), Harry's been emotionally abused/neglected by strong willed women in his youth, and that's supposed to account for his slight sociopathic (or somewhat autistic, yet cold/ruthless, depending on how you look at it) tendencies. I can buy that.

I didn't take too much issue with the Hermione POV bits. I figure it was done on purpose, and not out of some weird obsession with Granger. Harry flat out says he has a "plan" for her, and I felt like it was the author saying they did too.

It's a lot more interesting to watch things unfold from her perspective when a mysterious figure makes a dramatic and destructive entrance into the great hall. She is a muggleborn thrown into a world that's very different from the canonical universe. She went in thinking she'd finally belong, but she was very wrong. Between a murder in a school, house power struggles and a tense political climate, she's in over her head. The other part of the plot that unfolds would have been awfully boring, had it been written from entirely from Harry's (or for that matter, Draco's) perspective.

Which reminds me. This is one of the rare occasions that I found a likable Draco. Rather surprisingly, Daphne was the more grating of the side characters, but maybe we'll see more of her soon. I'm not too happy with how Bella's portrayed, as she seems a bit dim and one dimensional, but that could've been handled a lot worse. Tracey also has some nuance to her, which is nice.

The speech is jarring at times. There are moments that feel like the author is doing a piss poor job at emulating posh people. Such as this:

However, it doesn't bother me too much, and I'm willing to let it slide. Maybe that's how purebloods talk in this AU.

At any rate, the first book is really just there to set the scene, and it could've been a bit shorter. The world building is great, and I'm curious to see where this goes.

There's maybe what, 10 decent Slytherin!Harry stories in the fandom? That's kinda my thing, which is why I was this patient with the story in the first place. At this point, I'd give it a tentative 3.5/5, rounded down. All depends on how the later years go. I'll post with an actual rating when year 3 is finished, or something.

 

The biggest problem of this story is that the whole interpersonal dynamics between Harry and everybody of his age at school is a confusing mess and makes no sense to me. Nor is the political structure which feeds the background conflict in any way explained in a fashion which makes sense whatsoever. Either the Black family has political influence or not. The writer uses it both ways and just when it's convenient for a scene.

The story is completely inconsistent and feels completely aimless. All you have is a few mysteries the writer dangles before the reader and some impression of "potential".

I read it but don't particular like it. If that makes sense.

 

I'm impressed by author's commitment to allowing Harry to screw up. Especially considering that this only a middle of the second year.