This, I assume its Trow too, and it can't be Dumbledore, there was somewhere in the story where the second person interacts with Harry or use to interact with Harry, I can't remember which chapter but it was there, would be hard for a portrait to do. So that ruled out Dumbledore and Lupin, and Trow is a constant in Harry's life, who also sees the most of him out of any adult in the story.

 

I like the fic, but Snape is irritating.
Its an extremely badly thought out plan.
You can never ever put a person through a pre planned scenario like they seem to have done and expect a particular result.

Especially the part where

Spoiler

Snape kills Hermione`s parents
That didn`t even make sense.
Snape is like.. don`t worry, I wont kill the girl. Although I do think I can stop them being friends if I kill the girls parents.

And I must say I`m glad about what Harry did at the final fight. I was rooting for him to do that in the forest, but at least he did it later on.

And as far as the identity of that second person, its probably Dumbledore.
Basis are 2 points:
1) He is supposed to have blue eyes.
2) He knows Toms past. And I don`t mean someone told him about it, but the way it was written, it certainly seemed like it was Dumbledore who saw it happen.

I don`t even think it is a portrait either.
I think somehow they managed to trick everyone into thinking that he is dead, while he really isn't.

I would rate this 3/5. I like it, but I still don`t see myself recommending this fic to my friends. Its mostly a guilty pleasure. Writing seems good enough, but I cant rate a fic high, when I know almost anything that happens is because it was forced to be that way, not because it just happened to be that way.

If Snape was a lot less involved, and some of the things happening were coincidences, then I would have rated it 4.

 

Thanks for the add and the comments everyone

 

1) There are many character's with blue eyes and I can't recall but I don't think we were ever told what Trow's eye color was, let anyone many others.

2) If Dumbledore did die and did proclaim Snape as his successor, why would he have kept Tom's past a secret. It's highly possible that Snape was told, and due to having trouble in managing a school, a child's future and the Horcrux hunt, he enlisted the help of someone else. It doesn't have to be Trow but I doubt it's Dumbledore.

My reason for not believing Dumbledore is quite simple: it would immensely hurt the story if Dumbledore were alive since he would never allow Snape to change the school into what he has, even if he were dead, he also would never allow a student to kill another and with the way the mysterious person is talking, Snape is the superior which makes me inclined to believe that Snape told them of Tom's past, not the other way around.

 

I like the story. There are a couple of bad part or weak point, but overall a good read. I still think there's something missing to make it a 5/5 and I think it's mostly because of the writing style. I think it could use some polish, maybe a bit more description, better dialogues some times.

As for the great plan, I think it is possible in a world of magic to conceive and execute one. We need to remember that Snape probably adjusted his plan from time to time depending on Harry's reaction and on Voldemort's action. And as we see at the end of the school year, Harry is starting to see right through it and has decided to take challenge Snape's decisions in his own way.

I'd give it a 4/5. It's fun and engaging, but it still needs some work.

 

Needs a LOT of work, prose-wise. Far too many spelling mistakes as well.

Also, Trow is Dumbledore. You read it here first.

 

Spoiler

Chapter 24

"Tell me if you've heard this story before. There was once a practical orphan who lived in an abusive and damaged environment. He grew up hard and cold, distrustful of everyone around him. Upon entrance into Hogwarts, he was hailed as one of the most promising wizards of his generation, potential falling off him in waves. He accomplished tasks far ahead of schedule, easily bypassing most in his year. He was very charismatic, gaining a loyal band of followers that would do anything for him. Tell me, have you heard this story before?"

"What is your point?"

"My point is that you're losing him."

"I am not even close to -"

"He is growing up! Surely you can't be as short sighted as me. He is the beast trying to break from the chains and who do you think he is going to come after when he realizes who put him in the chains in the first place?"

Spoiler

Meaning that Snape shouldn't make the same mistake Dumbledore made, letting Riddle become Voldemort. There's no question that it's Dumbedore.

I also think he is Trow, we see him coughing blood a couple of times so he did fight Voldemort, only he didn't scape the fight unscathed.

Either that or Trow is Trow and Dumbledore is a ghost (unfinished business blah blah blah).

 

If Trow is Dumbledore or the other person talking to Snape is Dumbledore I'd be very disappointed as the only way for that to be true is if Dumbledore was extremely out of character. That line of thinking brings up another problem, even if Dumbledore is completely dead and gone: Dumbledore would hate what the school has become and, I find it very unlikely that Snape would disrespect as much as he has by making it so. Snape was Dumbledore's closest confidant - even more so than Harry and unless something went drastically different in this story's timeline it's hard to accept that Snape would behave in this way.

But hey, maybe the author will provide a story/explanation in the next book that would make absolute sense and I'm grasping at straws here.

All in all I enjoyed the story, though I agree with Taure in that the magical combat over-simplified and ignores the versatile nature of magic. But the fights were still fun to read and stories that are able to incorporate that aforementioned versatility of magic in the fights are extremely rare so I won't hold it against the author too much.

All in all I really enjoyed the story, probably would have enjoyed it a bit more if he had a good beta to clean up some of the chapters. Solid 4/5 from me; it belongs in the library.

Like I said above, I think your story would benefit a lot from a beta, or even from the WbA sub. Thanks for the story, enjoyed it!

 

I don't know whether to love this story or hate it.

The plot is certainly interesting, but could the author please for the love of God proofread his chapters before posting? The spelling mistakes hit me over and over like a ton of bricks. And not only that, but there are missing words all over the place and words that just plain don't make sense.

The author apparently can't remember what he wrote two chapters previously either. 5 girls and 5 boys per class? Let's see... Potter, Malfoy, Nott, Zabini, Goyle, and Crabbe. Davis, Parkinson, Bulstrode, and Greengrass. This is pretty simple math, unless Crabbe or Goyle is doing a gender-bender and the author didn't bother to tell us. How about Harry knowing where the kitchens are but seeing a house elf at Tracey's house for the first time? The Houses being around more than a century? No kidding. Harry summoning a bag of wands, containing his wand, with his wand?

These are examples I came up with in about 2 minutes. This story could use a beta, but it could also use an author who reads what he has written.

 

It's magic, of course you can summon a bag of wands containing said wand. I'm surprised that kind of thing doesn't happen more often in fanfiction!

 

Please tell me you are joking. In case you weren't, the point was that you can't summon your wand with your wand. Because if you have to summon it, its not in your hand to summon with, you know?

 

He was joking.

 

I had trouble telling if it was sarcasm too. The way you know is the ! at the end of the sentence instead of a period.

 

Maybe the wand is both in his hand and not in his hand.

Silly Muggles and their "logic".

 

Taure's got it right. You do know that HP's magic system is Rowling's subtle attack on materialism? Kwan Li is exposing the dialtheistic interpretation of truth. Didn't somebody say in the books that if trivialism is defined as the result of accepting a logical explosion, then trivialism is something which contains all things? But then, if you deny trivialism, your denial of trivialism is contained within. Ultimately, you're denying your own denial... Oh wait, I'm talking nonsense again, sorry.

Joking aside, I couldn't get past chapter three. I really wanted to like this, but it just didn't draw me in? It's a lame excuse, I wish I had some better criticism for this, since it seems like it has a tightly-knit plot (some head-scratching errors aside), but I just couldn't force myself to keep reading. Not gonna rate it, since it seems unfair to.

 

This story is pretty meh, I'm not seeing what everyone else is seeing, and certainly not a 5/5. I guess what some people see as 'done well', I'm not.

 

I like the story. Enganging plot, Harry and Blaise are interisting, and one of the rare fics I liked Lupin. I strongly dislike Hermione, and she and Tracey had both a big problem. Blank, no matter how much you inform us of Hermione awesomeness I saw little to justify her "reputation". The best part for me were the dialogues, they were fun, dramatic, fluid and great overall.

My main critics are how Hermione and Tracey are boring and the syuoidity of Snape's plan. Really, it's a train wreck and a cliche one. If you are planing to do a H/Hr pairing you need to do serious work on her. I give it 4/5, since the Battle Classes are really fun to read.

 

What I liked about Hermione's character was the slow progression from smart enigma, closed off to the world, to the sequence at the end of the train ride where it seemed like Harry and Hermione didn't want to separate from each other. Then she did something to show she was truly Harry's friend.

I think Kwan does a solid job with her character, though I can understand why some won't like her.

 

The scenes with Snape and the other 'mystery' chap reminded me so much of the opening to the first Deus Ex.

 

The premise of the story, the whole idea... is utter rubbish.

I just can't get past that. It colors pretty much everything in the story, since all the characters are acting in accordance with that.

Just... not seeing it. The writing is good in a lot of spots, but the dueling itself is kind of meh and as previously stated the overarching story just does nothing for me. 3/5. Not bad per se, but a long way from great.