Title:
Proving Ground Triptych 1: You Could Be Great
Proving Ground Triptych: Interlude 1: The Other Evans Girl
Proving Ground Triptych 2: The Tarnished Crown
Proving Ground Triptych: Interlude 2
Proving Ground Triptych 3: The Basilisk's Fang
Author: Draigwyrdd
Rating: T
Genre: Mystery (only the second book is tagged)
Status: Year 1-2 finished, Year 3 WIP
Words: 533k
Library Category: The Alternates
Pairings: Only a minor one at this point, but not the focus of the story
Summary: When Harry Potter finished Year 8 at Stonewall High he didn't expect his normal life to be turned upside down. Instead of joining his friends in Year 9, Harry is plucked from the dreary Muggle world and dropped into a weird and wonderful world of wands and wizards. As he tries to fit in he must deal with escaped convicts and high expectations only to find he never was normal.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14068028/1/Proving-Ground-Triptych-1-You-Could-Be-Great

So, as the summary hints, this is an AU where Hogwarts starts at 13, but it only has five years instead of the usual seven. Thus, students take their OWLs and NEWTs in years 3 and 5, respectively, at the same ages as in canon. Other AU elements include the Dursleys being caring and decent people overall and the Wizarding World being bigger than it is canonically -- there are more students per year, several teachers (and apprentices) for each subject, and more magic schools in Britain.

The general idea for the first book would be sort of cramming Philosopher's Stone and Prisoner of Azkaban together. Nothing has really changed, so Sirius escapes and a sometimes odd-acting Quirrell is also at Hogwarts, but the way the year unfolds, while similar at times, certainly differs from the original, as Quirrell's purpose is different and Harry is sorted into Slytherin. The author has included some original ideas to complicate the story, I imagine, since none of them have been resolved at this point. This is a theme that continues in the second book. The third is only just starting (even though it's reached 78k words). I have to say that even though the title suggests three books, an AN in the second books states that we should expect seven. The upload schedule has been steady for over a year, so that wouldn't surprise me.

The original ideas I mentioned are interesting enough that I thought the story would reach completely original territory by the end of the second book. Although the author does succeed at creating a novel setting (to my knowledge, although I've seen something similar), it's not as extreme as one might initially think, because the third book shows a tendency to return to more familiar events for some reason. The potential of the ideas remains.

The focus seems to be mostly on daily school life and, occasionally, worldbuilding. The plot takes a secondary role for most of the school year.

The good
- The writing is good and has little to no mistakes. The prose isn't the best I've seen, but it's more than decent. The dialogues are generally well-written.
- The interludes are great, in my opinion. They offer a different POV than the main books (which are exclusively Harry POV), but I found the prose to be more engaging, which made me enjoy them a lot. WARNING: They add to the story, but reveal things that had not been known by Harry at the end of each book, so you might want to skip them if you want to stick to Harry's POV.
- The plot so far has been refreshing and it includes new ideas.
- Harry seems to be competent, or at least we are told he is (see The bad).
- There is extensive worldbuilding of decent quality. Some of it seems pointless, but I'd say it generally adds to the story. Personally, I've enjoyed some bits about Death Eaters (in book 2).
- There is no kid politicians, people of Harry's age behave in a believable way.

The bad
- Glacial pacing. As can be deduced from the wordcount, the books are long. This is mainly caused by the focus on daily life, which sometimes is excessive -- it shouldn't take 7 chapters in the second book to reach Hogwarts and 9 in the third one. In fairness, the summer between the second and third book is much more eventful, but in the case of the second book there is no saving grace. Also, when talking to his Slytherin friend group (6 people), everyone has to give their opinion about everything. Finally, the are some recurring events throughout year 2 that become repetitive really fast.
- Harry's competency: some characters speak of his supposed talent, but I don't think the text has done justice to those claims. He seems above average, but nothing to write home about. This makes his achievements seem a bit unrealistic.
- Harry is a bit passive: as a result of the different upbringing, having made muggle friends at Stonewall, etc., Harry's character is different. He certainly lacks the sarcasm of canon and is, in my opinion, blander. However, while not abundant (he often stays silent and observes), there are moments where he shows grit.
- Lacking magical theory: despite the focus on school life, magical theory is not abundant and is only mentioned occasionally, and rarely explained. While this is handled better in book 1, the way it usually is mentioned is through the odd homework discussion, where a concept is mentioned, but conversation ends before it can be explained.
- Some character voices are a bit off, in my opinion. Specifically, some Dumbledore and Voldemort's dialogues have rubbed me the wrong way.

Overall, I believe this is way better than the usual trash you can find these days in FFN, but some of the issues did not let me enjoy the story as much as my favourite ones. So, i give it a 4/5 with the potential of going up depending on the following books.

 

I've finished book 1. The author could very well have improved on some of what I say in the latter books

Something about the flow of the story is not quite right. There are occasional errors as well.

I don't really see this as a point for/against the story. Kids are always going to get positive reinforcement and that's what we see. Voldemort can be considered the most neutral and authoritative source (on this topic) when he calls Harry ordinary.

Voldemort's voice was most noticeably off. Dumbledore is truer to the original. The author is aware of this and seems to avoid the strongest voices of canon (especially Snape).

I'm wondering if some of the passivity is to avoid the problem above.

There's a very different focus in this story - on Harry's relation with other children and school activities instead of magic (until the last three chapters or so). It touches upon the general culture of the wizarding world, though there are some plot points embedded in them. I found it greatly enjoyable and refreshingly childish.

I'm torn on rating this now. I'll read some of the sequels before doing that.

 

I won't make any authoritative comments on the matter, for I've not read the whole thing, much less its sequels, but what I can say is that - even bored at work as I currently am - I haven't found a single reason to progress past chapter eight, or about halfway through the first book. It isn't that the story is egregiously bad, the writing or the plot itself, it's the fact that it's just boring. It's like re-reading the original story, only the changes made, mentioned above by the OP, seem purposefully designed to detract any tension or potential for conflict and thus any interest on reading on whatsoever. It's like re-reading Philosopher's Stone, only Harry is a bit older, the Dudley's don't hate him (they're quite reasonable about the whole thing), he doesn't meet Draco Malfoy and when he does he isn't as obnoxious as in the books, and though he gets into Slytherin - very innovative I know - no particular conflict arises from it and because he hasn't met Draco before and he's nothing like the books anyways, it's basically like getting into Gryffindor with Ron, only with a differently coloured tie. Beyond that, Harry doesn't go with Hagrid to retrieve the stone from the bank, there are no ominous warnings about the third corridor, Snape doesn't inmediatly grill him on his first potions class, and basically every conflict that one might expect, and actually gets from re-reading Philosopher Stone, is completely absent. Of course, the author 'fixes' this, by having Sirius break out during Harry's first year, but this is not actually fix, because we the reader already know that Sirius is not actually a bad guy, which we did not know when we first read PoA, and so any tension that - once again - existed in the original books, is simply not there. So far the only mystery I've encountered is how the author is planning to justify Sirius' escape from Azkaban, given that Canonically it happens two full years later. To me, and I'm sorry to say, it seems that the whole animus of the story is making Harry Potter fit better with what the author considers to be 'sensible' first book (no eleven year olds wielding magic, less racist children, less Dumbledore using the school to bait Voldemort, etc. etc,), but it only results in an absolutely boring read.

So, in short, and for the ADHD crowd; the author doesn't justify whatsoever why one should read his book instead of the original - much the opposite in fact - which is why I dropped it and did just that. No rating of course, but if I were inclined to give it one, it would not be very high anyways, so perhaps its for the better.

 

I've read the sequels ('The Tarnished Crown' and 'The Basilisk's Fang') also, and I'm going to echo Niez.

I think there is an interesting idea here of combining multiple years into one. Outside of that, it's a consistently worse version of canon. Everything is defanged - not, perhaps, to the extent that other fics mutilate the setting to fit onto a Health & Safety inspector's clipboard, but still.

The greatest example is, as mentioned, the Dursleys. Petunia has had an utter personality transplant; she's now not a gossiping hypocrite who cares about appearances above all, she's obsessed with cleaning, gracious with giving Harry money and leeway, and even shops at Madame Malkins' later. "Isn't magic so convenient, Harry dear?" Vernon gets to grumble occasionally about foreigners or some shit but backs Harry to the hilt when the Ministry starts shitting on Harry. Dudley is somehow the most accurate of them all and even then he's been softened to not even hit Harry with his Smeltings stick.

Frankly I'm somewhat convinced that the author doesn't have the necessary mean streak to really do awful things to her characters, or (worse, IMO) not the wherewithal to express it. Other complaints I've got about them is a surprising focus on Welsh, the expansions to the lore all being bore and unimaginative, the prose being basic even at the nominally most exciting times. The final confrontation of the first 'book', for example, was a complete bore. Quirrel burns to ash in a few sentences as soon as Harry touches him, Harry blacks out, end.

Also Daphne's a lesbian so that's not on either. 2/5.