Finally! a counter to the fan fiction staple of muggle telescopes being so much better.

Ah, yes, only an OC can take out six Slytherins in a wand fight all by herself with nothing more than some measly training from a couple housemates.

Oh I love Valeria's solution to Minister Fudge's influence! Perhaps it's a little -ahem- underhanded, but I think it's perfectly within character, and I was honestly hoping we would see something like this. She's a Dark Witch, after all! I apologize for not reviewing earlier, but I've been tearing through the chapters like mad. Quite a good read!

Must you make a fool of everyone not named Valeria, Daphne or Tracey? However clever or prodigious they are it is highly unlikely they can so often outsmart every person they come in contact with, specially one such as Dumbledore, a genius in his own merit. The way I see it you're taking everything in cannon at face value, believing there's no deeper meaning behind it, and offering obvious solutions and workarounds to make the girls (specially Valeria) look very smart and clever. Did anyone ever mention Valeria seems like a self-insert? That's why. I am aware this review is overly late and I don't know how you're faring in the new fic about the later years, but I do hope you got your head out of these 'fix fic' concepts.

Also I might have missed it, but how did the Carrow twins steal the diary and, more importantly, why?

LOL.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore stopped ... thinking and began to plan.

Sounds like a prescription for trouble to me.

Enjoyed it.

The first three Potter books had a combined wordcount of nearly 270,000 words. CONGRATULATIONS

I don't usually read stories without my favorite character (Hermione), but you hooked me early and kept me reading all the way to the end. Thanks for sharing your very different look at Harry's first three years.

I am looking forward to the sequel.

a bit wordy but very nice

I'm trying so hard to like this, but what the main character did to Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle was beyond deplorable. Pouring the equivalent of acid on them while they're in a body bind and leaving them for hours unable to move or scream and just being tortured by the potion she dumped on them? That's so fucked up. Yes they're racist little bullying shits. Yes they should be taught a lesson for going after her. But what she did was on par with something Voldemort would do. Something that would be considered a war crime by modern muggle standards. She's eleven? Ugh. Kind of hard to care about a character so stupid and cruel.

Mr Dimwit Rudeginger sums up Ron Weasley in three words.

So, burned through the story in a day, until six in the morning without sleep, and I did overall enjoy myself.

Val was interesting enough of a character and I liked the takes on Daphne and Tracy. The way you portrayed magic was interesting and the progression of Val, her strengths and weaknesses were fun to explore.

I especially liked Val's muggle family and their initial set-up, what with the professions of her parents, the mind-set and interests of her brother and her seeming closeness to all of them but with that comes a big problem I had with your story.

What you were telling and setting up, in a lot of times, didn't match with what you ended up showing.

The family, for example. For one, so far, the jobs of her mother and father didn't lead anywhere. They more than most parents should have a different enough perspective to not really be all that cool with what Val lived through and indeed, you are telling us that her father is super worried about the implications of magic and how her parents are horrified at what happened and yet, we never see them do anything about it? If anything, they are just props for Val to receive muggle stuff from them. Her father sending his daughter a machine gun, for example, kinda broke my SOD. I realize that wands can be more horrifying weapons than guns could ever be and that what they learn at that school can be used for a lot of fucked up shit but the mindset is different. The kids there aren't taught how to use magic to cause the most damage, in fact the mind-set imparted there is a more peaceful one, where violence and malfeasance is discouraged.

Machine guns have no other purpose than violence, finding it a bit hard to swallow that a father as responsible as he seems to be, has to be from his vague profession is totally okay giving his daughter machine guns, especially seeing how we never saw her learning of to handle one. When did he teach his 13 year old kid how to handle one of those? In Britain? His job can only explain so much.

But that's a small thing. Way more worrying is that the parents never contact the school or are seemingly not that much in contact with Val. I realize we can't see every pointless interaction, but seeing how Val generally stays in school for the holidays, that's a bit of a counter to the whole close family angle. I get that Val is ambitious and her family is supporting of that but there is being okay with that and generally not caring about spending time with Val, and seeing that she even goes and does stuff with her friends for long periods of time even in summer kinda points to that. We never even get to see her shopping trip with her mother, it was said they were but we never really got to see her spending time with her other than the Leaky Cauldron scene which was a pity.

And maybe that was on me, but I also kinda expected the brother to become a way bigger character in the story. That he would be some kind of confidante she would bounce of ideas off at times and that he would even help from time to time. After the talk they had in the first year where he helped her figure out the issue behind the tasks, I was sure that was where this was going. I mean, fair enough that they didn't have any means of real communication in year one, because she was still learning but we got the wizarding version of texting and that wasn't really used to keep in contact with the family at all. Only to dictate demands and shopping lists at most. I also kinda expected her brother to go with her when she went to check up on Harry in that summer, was there a reason he didn't go with her?

That there would be conflict with her family, that she is obviously drifting off more and more to the wizarding side and leaving them behind. I mean, the mother said explicitly that she was glad that that wasn't happening, which was you telling something, but every other instance that happened since then clearly shows the opposite, that she barely has anything to do with her family any more.

Then there is the, for the lack of a better word, gender related stuff. Really early in the fic, you had these bits where you addressed the sexism and patriarchal structures of the wizarding world, making them way, way bigger issues than in canon, with stuff like McGonagall wanting to talk to the man of the house, how the school board and stuff really expects men to be in charge all the time, how muggle borns needed either a teacher or a male guardian to go with them, stuff like that. It was a bit eye-roll worthy, tbh. I mean, I'm sure there are shades of sexism even in the wizarding world and stuff, but by all accounts, it seemed to be better in canon than it was in the muggle world in the 90s. A lot of high positions in the ministry were filled by women, no one really talked down to women based on gender and stuff like. Not saying it was perfect on the feminism front but it seemed unnecessary to make things worse. I know fanon likes to go with really backwards/outdated takes on the whole nobility and marriage stuff, but that's all fanon.

So yeah, the initial impression I got from that was that we would have a lot of super patronizing male characters who are smug assholes who look down on women and will get constantly shown up for that by the main cast of the three girls.

Only it never comes up again (that's a good thing). All the issues the characters face are not due to their gender and discrimination based on that or glass ceilings but rather mostly on racism/blood related issues and making enemies based on that and ambition.

So, it was weird to clearly set up something so heavy handed like that, going intentionally a very clear different path from canon but then outright ignoring it for the rest of the story. I'm glad we didn't go that route, mind you, but it was confusing and hang in the back of my mind for the duration of the whole fic.

And I have to say, for a story that in its early stages set itself up to explore issues like that, it takes a surprisingly traditional/clichéd path with the gender role-coded behaviors of the main cast. I mean, we have three girls and three boys as the main cast and all girls are the smart, cautious, know how to behave and think types and the boys mainly fall in the dumb, act without thinking, no social grace category. Sure, Neville and Val kinda blur the line more on that front but generally speaking even they fall prey to that at times, Val more than Neville admittedly. Then we have the usual "boys are dumb" or they get hit when they say/do something thoughtless and stupid things which is a bit double-standard-y as the reverse would very much not be okay. Can't see the narrative and the people within the setting being cool when Ron for example would hit Tracy whenever she said something they considered dumb. I know it's not presented as something serious in-story, or in the trope in general as its used mainly in anime, but still.

I am not sure I know where the romance will be going but the hints that we saw kinda surprised and bored me. The three boys and three girls thing kinda sets some expectations in that it seems rather likely that at least two (traditional) couples will form there and no one really had any interesting chemistry in that regard so far, imo. Then there is the canon couple thing with Astoria and Draco teasing which I have to say kinda baffles me, as Draco, in this story, is set up as a clear antagonist to the faction her own sister belongs to. Did Daphne not tell her sister anything? It's impossible for her to have a good impression on Draco, even on his points like networking and dueling, his negative traits overshadow them by a large margin and given how they all, family included, kinda set themselves against Voldemort and all, seems kinda weird Astoria would go for the kid of Voldemort's former right hand man. I mean, they publicly antagonized and humiliated Draco a few times, even.

I mean, I could get why Astoria, being young and a teenager, would go against people trying to tell her what to do and all, but that no one in the girl trio seems to care that she wants to date Draco seems a bit weird to me. If nothing else, shouldn't there be some concern? Why would you want your sister/the sister of your best friend to date your fucking bully?

On the point of introduced plot points that get suddenly dropped, we also have the whole Val being hated by Slytherins issue. The conflict there was initially super interesting. She was an outstanding student and excelled and her success as a muggleborn later put her into conflict with her house. This process of escalation ultimately led to the big show-down where Val fought against 6 other people and won and then...this issue kinda gets dropped. We were told that this was a huge deal, that Val had essentially gone from "too weak to ultimately bother with" to "next big thing" and that her stomping six purebloods on her own would lead to even greater animosity between her and her house, that while what she did was satisfying and all, it was ultimately not the best call in the long run.

Only it gets dropped. Nothing really comes from that. Sure we get some small stuff here and there, and we see her worrying about her status in Slytherin but ultimately it doesn't seem to be a big deal anymore. No one is really bothering her and no one is bothering Tracey and Daphne on being friends with her. The resolution on that front seemed a bit unsatisfying to me. Kinda expected a cycle of escalation or at least for higher years to never really involve themselves into this, seeing it should have been beneath the notice of people in the higher years to fight with the younger kids but it was set up and then kinda dropped.

I did like the story overall, and it held my attention and interest from beginning to end and sorry that the negative aspects are so long because one can usually say way more about stuff one didn't like than about the stuff one did. I did like way more stuff than I did

Valeria: "Dramatic Angsty Backstory"

Daphne: "Lol no"

Great story! Valeria is a very interesting character. She's mucked up the original canon pretty good, didn't she?
I take it with Sirius "merely" being in St. Mungo's we'll see more of him far sooner than in the books? Maybe Harry living with him far sooner in Grimauld Place?
And of course I'm always curious where Valeria's path will take her :)

Way to clean house and wrap up bigoted gits.

Damn. That was nasty, but hopefully successful for a time. I always wondered if the preventing of girls into boys areas was secure. My concern was not just retaliation, but gang rape of a girl by dragging her into their area that had many boys. I prefer her usage.