Title: Seasons of change
Author: MPRose
Rating: K+
Genre: Friendship
Status: WIP (Updated yesterday, previously in September 2018), currently at 27 chapters and ~135k words.
Library Category: General
Pairings: None so far (2nd year, guys)
Summary: An attempt to go against a popular trope. What if, instead of becoming dark/grey and gaining more power that way, Harry had been a little more considerate? Begins with a small change in first year, and sticks close to the original, but sometimes small changes can add up to change the world.
Link: FanFiction.Net

Original divergence is when Harry wants to buy and send gifts for Christmas in first year, and talks to people to learn how to order by owl. Hermione misunderstands his relationship to the Dursleys and gives him a book to offer Dudley, which he does on a whim. It starts a correspondence and friendship between them. Most changes originate from that, some being far-fetched (like what happens with Sirius) and others more logical, but I liked that there is nothing that made me instantly hate it as a fix-fic. The real changes appear quite progressively with characters still being themselves, IMO, with the exception of Dudley (I'm of the opinion that any character developpment with him before the Dementors is exagerrated), and even if they notice things sooner than in canon, the end results aren't always the very best they could hope for.

What really shines is the interactions between the characters: it's a fic about the trio as a whole and there are too few of those (the absence of romance, for now at least, helps in this regard), but the other characters are nicely explored too, most notably the little parts about Neville's family and Snape's progressive and reluctant change of opinion about "the troublesome trio".

The author sometimes tries too hard to include elements of canon, like the Duelling club bit (and some descriptions are quoted nearly verbatim, even though they tend to skip what remains the same) and does use some annoying fanon (like notice-me-not, and magical cores are mentionned once or twice), but second year is starting to show some nice butterflies:

Spoiler

It's currently approaching the end of second year, and both Ginny and Hagrid have been petrified, with Wormtail apparently taking Ginny's place to open the Chamber while Sirius is after him. Dumbledore has been suspended.

Nothing stood out horribly to me, grammar-wise, but I tend not to notice those things, so I'll let others comment on that.

All in all, it's an enjoyable timewaster with some nice ideas that probably lacks a little ambition.
I give it a 3.5/5, rounded down (for now), but I can see it going up if the plot thickens.

 

I agree with most of what the OP says. 3/5

 

Summary alone was an instant black flag for me and probably was for most. Absolutely no hook to it at all.

And that continues throughout the first chapter as well. It has a cute, sorta squinty heart warming feel at the start of it. Yet has absolutely no narrative that invests you in the story. Read eight chapters through and eventually just started skimming waiting for something interesting to come along.

It didn't.

The writings decent, and that's it's only saving grace. No hook eight chapters in, dialogue is heavy yet uninspiring and it falls into that problem of making characters far too mature for their age which almost everyone makes, but it's rampant in this fic.

2/5

(If more's needed to form an opinion I'll slog through the rest.)

 

It was a bit of a chore to get past the first chapter. An incredibly bland opening (please excuse my dickish sounding mannerism)

You can just tell there wasn't a whole lot of effort put into it (the first chapter, line, paragraph, etc., should always be the writer's best).

This is the opening line:

This was bland, confusing, and only explains itself when you read further.

Ultimately, it's just a feel-good fic. Aside from the disappointing prologue (I sound like a bit of a dick right now sorry), there's nothing bad of note that I can think of with this. Nothing good either.

If you feel like reading something to feel better, or there isn't anything else to read, sure.

I'm going to rate this a 2.5/5, and very tentatively bump it up to 3/5. Ultimately belongs in Almost Recommended. I can't say it's bad but I can't say it's good either. A little towards the bad side though.

 

My review contains minor spoilers for the first chapter.

I decided to give the story a try, my initial impression from reading the first few paragraphs already has me a bit skeptical about finishing the story. The fact neither ron or percy (who lived in a wizarding family of 9) knew how to owl order or even had a faint idea on how it worked has me baffled.


Opinions on the Writing:
I've read / skimmed through most of the story and you can tell the newer chapters are less polished. The main thing appears to be punctuation. but rather than a lack of it you find it in excess. an extreme example is 4 commas in a sentence that has 12 words.


Opinions on the plot:
my opinion on the plot / story line is similar to everyone else, its primarily a "feel good story". The pacing is fine but I'm a bit worried about the 3rd year.

I don't see myself reading any future updates (until its finished) and With current story progression I wouldn't be surprised if the story hit 300k words by the time its completed. With that being said its taken the author almost 6 years to get to 3rd year.

2.5/5, the writing is passable and if you are into feel good stories you might enjoy this one.