Title: New Blood
Author: artemisgirl
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Romance
Status: In-Progress
Library Category: The Alternates
Pairings: Gen (currently)
Summary: Sorted into Slytherin with the whisper of prophecy around her, Hermione refuses to bow down to the blood prejudices that poison the wizarding world. Carving her own path forward, Hermione chooses to make her own destiny, not as a Muggleborn, a half-blood, or as a pureblood... but as a New Blood, and everything the mysterious term means. ((Short chapters, done scene by scene))

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13051824/1/New-Blood


It's a powerful, Slytherin!Hermione-centric fic. The technical writing is very good, I haven't seen one typo in the fic so far. Hermione has to work for her power, it's not just handed to her, and we see her practising and failing. And the dialogue and everything is generally age-appropriate, good balance between magical and relationship development and there's good representation from all houses. She's also keeping her parents in the loop so they know what's going on at Hogwarts and they are supportive of it. No 11-year-old politicians either.

It's pretty long-winded though (65 chapters for Book 1 alone, at 121k+ words and currently midway through Book 2) and there are a few fanon elements that I don't enjoy (Hermione's a bit too socially aware, elementals, ship teases between Harry, Draco, Blaise, and Cedric, magical cores, rituals but overall I'd give it a 3.5/5. rounding up to 4.

 

Nope.

 

156 chapters and 310,000 words. At least have the decency to combine the chapters so I have to click less. Standard slytherin house tropes. A concept of new blood (that creates a "Great House), power gifted by "Magic itself", Hermione is good at magic cause "gift", magical reserves done poorly. The paragon of Hermione and Slytherin worship. 1/5 but I won't rate officially because I only read the first three chapters.

 

I read the first four chapters and couldn't continue. Already in this span: goblin negotiation, Luna spouting a prophecy, "Slytherin is the best!" (direct quote), bad dialogue in general, Flourish and Blotts book porn, Hermione being special because she performs powerful accidental magic; it's full of tropes. Add that to the writing, which tries to pull off the short-paragraph and short-scene snark characteristic of stereotypical Slytherin fics, but doesn't have the necessary punch. If I had a couple more drinks in me I might be able to finish this and give it a 1.5 for lack of spelling errors, but I'll hold off on an official rating for the same reasons as Randy above.

 

The prose was legible, which shouldn't be as big of a deal as it feels like nowadays. The author's writing is unobtrusive (at least after the flashback chapters stop), but the concepts included are clichéd and trope-y.

Hermione is characterised... with effort. I won't say she is characterised well, but there are believable elements to Hermione's progression. OP protag is OP; not much to say there. Despite being portrayed as completely ahead of the curve, Hermione does face enough obstacles that it doesn't feel like the power trip of a particularly edgy 13 year old girl --instead, it reads as the power trip of a reasonably edgy 16 year old girl: much more tolerable.

Honestly, disregarding the lacklustre prose and the unimaginative worldbuilding, this reads almost like a Hermione version of Victoria Potter -- except Hermione is more overpowered than Vicky... also less of a cunt than Vicky, but that's neither here nor there. (Apologies to Taure for any offense caused.)

In general, considering the current irl situation, this fic kept me occupied for long enough to read its 300k word glory (/s), which merits at least a 2, imho. I'd maybe bump it to 2.5 for the sake of guilty pleasures, but I'm rounding down so it doesn't matter anyways.