Title: The Duellist
Author: JoustingAlchemy
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Status: In-Progress
Library Category: The Alternates
Pairings: None yet.
Summary: Harry Potter chances upon a duel in Diagon Alley, beginning a life-long obsession with combat. A new path is thus forged; but down which meandering roads will it take him? World-building. Hogwarts starts at chapter six.
Links:

• https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14283546/1/The-Duellist (FFN)
• https://archiveofourown.org/works/50733505/chapters/128160067 (AO3)

An AU that begins in year one and presumably will run until year seven. It begins as in canon and shows off more and more AU elements as it goes. So far, the first year is complete and it's heading for the second year. It seems like there's mini-arcs of a few chapters that take place between school years, in which Harry gets over his head and more of the AU elements are made clear.

When I say AU elements, it's a bit of a grab bag. I would say there's three main parts of which they consist:

1. A lot more fairy tale / real-life mythological creatures mixed in. There are fae, there are a lot more magical creatures than we see in canon, and these are all excellently horrible things to encounter. They're not whitewashed as just being fun things that mean well, they're treated with some reverence and terror.
2. More elaborate wizarding society, with a larger population. This is mostly shown as in politics, in the sense that there are multiple parties for what used to just be "purists" and "anti-purists". We don't fully know the details or beliefs of these parties yet, but there's mentions of Campbellians and Gampists and Eeyrians and whatnot. The main issue is probably still muggleborn integration but we haven't actually seen much of that being a plot element yet. This is also more elaborate than most fanfiction gets - the story visits a dilapidated magical family that you rarely see in the "rich pureblood vs repressed muggleborn" dynamic most fanfics set up.
3. The wizarding world differs a lot more from the muggle world than it does in canon. This has so far mostly shown up in side mentions, e.g. a mention that the Ottoman Empire still exists magically here without its muggle counterpart.

These expansions are to my taste. There's pitfalls to avoid here but so far they've been avoided and it's largely been a pleasant read.

Other points that might be important:

• In first year, Harry hangs out with Susan Bones and a Ravenclaw basically-OC. Most characters in the fic so far have been OC. The pitfall of "let's have OCs replace canon characters" has been avoided, but Ron and Hermione or Draco have mostly been shoved to the side. Dumbledore shows up when he did in canon and his tone is largely on point, though also his lines haven't actually changed all that much so that's fairly simple to do.
• Harry is a little more emotional than he is in canon, and once cries. It doesn't get annoying and he's not a slash-esque weeping cocksock, but that's personal tolerance.
• No pairings yet. There's a bit of tease with Susan who, judging by the continued absence of remarks on the subject hasn't grown her customary wobblers yet, but nothing concrete. Daphne Greengrass has shown up and wears glasses (an innovation?) but hasn't actually talked onscreen yet. The category is F/M so I presume it'll end in a hetero pairing for Harry if it ends in a pairing.
• The duelling's unfortunately kind of simplistic and about what most fanfics make it. Harry casts spells well beyond his years - Accio in first year, for instance. It's mostly firing magic at each other so far, shields, and occasional mentions of transfiguration that Harry can't do yet. I do like a bit more creativity, but we'll see what professional duelling looks like.
• Hermione shows up, is said to be an annoying little swot, and thereafter isn't really relevant again. I cannot understate how rare it is to have Hermione be just kind of there in the background. I find it fantastic.
• Magical Theory is mentioned but mostly as "laws" proposed by theorists, which are then replaced by more accurate laws as counterexamples are found. There's tinges of Latin and Old High German in the spellcasting and whatnot but it doesn't really dominate.

That said, there are a few points that mar it.

• There's mentions of magical exhaustion. It's shown up exactly once so far.
• The author throws in references frequently and then adds a little footnote at the bottom where he explains how clever he is. I find this somewhat offputting.
• The author struggles a bit with resolutions. I feel like they're over a little too quickly. All the elements are there, but aren't used with the right effect to my mind and so lack a bit of the narrative satisfaction you'd otherwise get.

All in all, not a guilty pleasure but something genuinely good that has the capacity to become something great, and I'll be following the updates.

4/5.

 

I read the first chapter, and I have to say that the fic has an extremely strong start. I won't give it a rating until I get further in, but at the moment I'm excited to see where it goes. The writing is great, with the author's characterisation of a realistically child like Harry being especially good.

 

I'll start with an admission that I could barely get through the first chapter by skipping through most of the middle, and that's already saying a lot given how short the chapter actually is, but you can take this for what it is - proof that my rating does not necessarily reflect on the quality of the rest of the fic. I will briefly summarise this chapter here with my take on it.

----
The first chapter starts off with a flashback into Harry's first outing into Diagon Alley, where he witnesses an Auror and some hitwizards arrest a criminal. Afterwards, he hangs around an ice-cream place that is not Fortescue's with the ice-cream shop attendant providing some very lacking context on the arrest.

Why the author felt the need to crowbar in an OC to do what Hagrid could have accomplished I have no idea, but given how terribly characterized Tom the Barkeep was, I'm almost relieved he didn't try to replicate Hagrid's accent and just opted to invent a character for the sole purpose of one dialogue line. In fact, Hagrid's sole contribution seems to have been to tap the bricks on the wall, gift Hedwig and then vanish into thin air, leaving Harry to wander around on his own.

Getting back to the ice-cream peddler, despite his very limited and useless contribution, the man is mentioned 8 times throughout the first chapter in Harry's inner monologue, apparently having made a huge impression. Harry then proceeds to completeley ignore this OC's entire input to the story and seeks out the criminal after coincidentally meeting the arresting Auror on his next solo outing into Diagon Alley where he now lives because of plot reasons.

The Auror apparently becomes so star-struck by meeting a child celebrity that he allows Harry to meet and talk ideology with the criminal without any supervision. The way this dialogue is written seems to imply the criminal will undertake the noble work of mentoring young Harry, who is written as simultaneously very bright at book learning and too dim-witted to realise how associating with a known criminal would be A Very Bad Idea™.
----

If the rest of this story is like the first chapter, I would struggle to give it a 2. On account of not having the grit to stomach the shoddy writing, I'll err on the higher side and give it a 3 in case it does get better and the first chapter was simply poorly conceived and rushed in order to get Harry into the plot a little bit quicker. I definitely don't think it belongs in the Library, but I can't honestly rate it any lower without reading more of it, which I have zero intention of doing.

 

I suppose that you've named yourself aptly lol.

 

I'm a good few chapters in, so I think I can give it a rating now. The author loves their OCs - in fact, 90% of the characters with speaking roles are OCs. This is a bit of a weakness as time is not taken to fully flesh out these characters, or they don't have strong personalities in a lot of cases, so they can sort of get lost in the background. The author will mention them in their ANs, and more than once I've thought 'who?' to myself.

The world building is quite good, as is a lot of the imagery and descriptive writing. With that being said, the actual plot seems very muddled, and it's not very clear where it's going. In addition to that, it looks like a lot of PS's scenes are being replicated, and in inserting those story beats into what would otherwise be a very different story, the interesting premise is watered down.

I might keep reading, but I couldn't give this more than a 3/5. I do have hope that the writing will continue to improve as the story goes on though.