Before we get down into the review, lets see what we have to work with. This is a fanfiction of Harer Potty, specifically of his son who is apparently named James. I have mixed feelings of this from the start because I am a fan of fanfiction, having spent a decade and nearly 2 million words writing on fanfiction -dot- net and reading hundreds of fanfictions across multiple fandoms. However, the only one I avoided like the plague was Harer Potty. I read the first couple, saw the first and last movies, and overall found it remarkably average compared to other stories I have read that don't have its popularity.

So with this being a fanfiction of Harer Potty, there are a few things to know going in. 1. It will not be sellable for money no matter how much work is put in, only made for pleasure on the author's part and to share a fandom the author loves. So I will be taking it less seriously. 2. The story will need to be able to stand on its own weight, providing necessary information on its own without outside sources being required.

Also the author is German and not a native English speaker.

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TLDR; A quaint little fanfiction of Harer Potty.

Main Character - There is no main character - Making the main character distinct from the rest of the cast was the first problem. I knew James was, because that was the name of the story, but there was nothing else signaling to me he is any more important to the narrative than anyone else. Especially with us being thrown 10+ characters very quickly, most of whom don't go away. In addition, a main character needs a primary flaw to work through on a journey or needs to have a truth to present to a flaw'd world by which to heal a bit of the world. It is a bit like comparing Iron Man to Captain America in another way. James Potty seemingly had neither, if only because he was too normal. Quite literally too normal for what I was given. I got the sense his father was supposed to be extremely important, politically powerful, and a bit of a celebrity potentially, but this was never utilized. Instead Super-Famous-Rich-Father is as normal as the 9-to-5 every day joes struggling to make it pay check to pay check and his kids are your every day brats. This was cute for the slice-of-life aspects, but I got the sense the story was specifically aiming for a hero journey without even knowing what that is or how to begin.

Side Characters - oh mama! - There is a lot of side characters. It was precisely what I dreaded. There were a lot and you had basically no warning labels on any of them explaining their signifiance or what they were doing here. There is an obvious expectation that the readers need to have read, if not completely memorized, the Harer Potty series. We do get a sentence or two for most of them to get a slight idea who they are, but this is basically nothing. The pacing of introducing the characters was overwhelming to say the least. Normally a story, when it expects readers to go in blind, will give you time and pacing to get to know the roles and attributes and personality of characters a few at a time. This fanfiction falls into the very normal fanfiction trap of not doing that. This is a problem, as I mentioned above before starting the story, because then the story cannot be evaluated on its own weight because it cannot exist unto itself. You have to do reading outside of the story to be able to understand the story. This is less problematic for a series after book 1, but is crucial for fanfiction, stand-alone novels, and the beginning of a series. I will get a bit more into this later.

Grammar - Not native-English Speaker - I knew going into the story that the author was German and English was not his or her native language. To my pleasure it was still easy to read. The words are technically correct, so the author has learned a lot of English and is doing quite well. At this point the problem with the grammar is more advanced into the way that germanic languages and English differs in our way of thinking. Words in german are usually divided into masculine and feminine types, while English is more past, present, and future tenses. This way of thinking was evident in the story as the verb tenses were pretty random but were phrased in ways very common by non-native English speakers who haven't grown up with thinking of words in past, present, and future tenses. I am quite proud of the author doing so well at the basics that now the problems are mostly more advanced.

World Building - None to speak of - One of the things I remember being a positive thing about the first Harer Potty book I read as a kid was how much effort was put into world building. Whats-Her-Face put time, words, chapters, and pacing into slowly bringing you into a world that existed parallel to our own but was also unique. This was done for the sake of new readers who hadn't already been swimming in the Hogwatts hat goo for 20 years. This story does none of that. Even less than I would expect from fanfiction trying to explore it from another perspective for people who already are familiar with it. The story is basically nothing but dialogue with no exploration and learning to be found. Its incredibly minimal. It is also very fast paced and takes you from point A to point B in no time at all, seemingly skipping the journey and transition between the two.

Plot - Starts off meh - Didn't read very far so I cannot speak for later chapters, but the first several I read were... well, they were words, at least. We start off with a minor scuffle between kids, them annoying one another, and then we meet people only long enough to say 'hi', and then we find ourselves on trains meeting people that apparently already know each other outside of the story so the story doesn't bother with actually meeting them anyway.

Where. To even. Begin.

The problem, which I briefly touched on, is who the intended audience is. You have basically two choices of readers with fanfiction: 1. Those already familiar with the universe and story. 2. New readers who are not.

To appeal to people already familiar with the material you need to bring about new things to incite them and make it different and interesting. A different angle, an adjusted dialogue, a what-if that lies at the heart of any fanfiction to say 'what if this was different, what changes would that bring to the original story'? In this case as a fanfiction of 'what if we followed Harer Potty's son?' then we would explore that. And to do that is very simply to use what tools you already have at your disposal. The author went out of his/her way to express how famous and politically powerful Potty is, but then never utilized it, and instead went so far as to make it oddly the opposite as if he wasn't. Not even as a humble father, just as one that was both powerful and not at the same time. Instead the author disregarded it and refused to make it different from the original story. If you want to appeal to people familiar with the Potty story, then bring something new and different.

Example: You said Potty was powerful and with influence. Use that. Have him personally drive his son to Hogwatts, depriving him of the experience he himself had, and then have the Hogwatts staff put his son into a house/clan/thing he will be comfortable in instead of the snake one because he no likes snakes... And then either reveal or leave it a mystery where he belonged. And with kids not being stupid, would see how pampered he is, and that would influence his time in school for the worse. For Potty it might have been a positive thing to have a rich/powerful family backing him, but for James it wouldn't be. And this is easily believable because to Harer, it looks like love and affection he didn't have at Jame's age, not realizing he was depriving his son of oppurtunities. This is just an example of how to use even one detail you have chosen to present as a utilized tool to make it different.

To appeal to new readers you need to take the time to give the story slowly, piece by piece, and bring them gently into a world you know that they don't. If it is different, thats fine, but you need to be gentle and slow about it. And this story wasn't. I had no clue who the guy after the train was until I suddenly was reminded "oh he was the huge guy who beat Potty's door down wasn't he?"

And this story does neither. Neither takes the time to gently bring new readers in, and seemingly offers nothing new to interest older ones. The author seems to have no clue who he or she wants to appeal to, because it fails to reach anyone I could imagine.

I already mentioned how the story has nothing to make James different or a main character, or really even interesting to begin with, and how there is a mind-blowing number of side characters suddenly, and how the world building is non-existant. Combine these and the plot just suffers horribly even after the fact that the author doesn't seem to know what he or she wants. We are expected to know the background story, like all 8 books I guess, and then still want nothing new and interesting that makes this story stand apart, with characters that don't have anything not-normal about them to make it anything more than a slice-of-life. If the story wanted to be a slice-of-life, then it would be okay, but it very much aims to be more, and then just isn't in every aspect.

I cannot rate the story, nor would I wish to. This is a passion project by someone trying to share his/her passion for a fandem with other people while using it to practice a language he/she is not fluid in. For that I do love it, and would encourage others to read it if only to encourage the reader to continue doing better and learning and improving.

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