d_s_t_e's Wattpad Reviews

Fred and George and the Toilers of Trouble by MCliffordAuthor [Harry Potter]

"Preceded by rumors of their prophetic birth, pure-blood twins Fred and George Weasley follow in the footsteps of their three older brothers by attending a school for witchcraft and wizardry. All should be well...but from the moment they enter Hogwarts Castle, the identical boys are met with high expectations, troublesome situations, a mystery fifty years in the making, and their ever-imminent expulsion. Aided by two classmates and using their newfound aptitude toward mischief-making, the twins are compelled to resolve the mystery in order to avoid being ejected from the school and excluded from practicing magic for the rest of their lives."

On my ninth birthday, my parents gave me a gift that they knew was going to be special even before I did: my very own copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I'd heard my mom mention it before as something I might enjoy reading, but at the time I had just shrugged it off. There were already so many books I couldn't wait to read that it was difficult to believe that the one matching my mom's brief description could actually match up to them. I never could have imagined that one book would surpass all others to such a huge extent that I would end up rereading it over ten times and doing the same with all three of the sequels that were available. Having spent all my life just picking up books that caught my interest in the library or at rummage sales or reading ones that were given to me, I never knew what it was like to impatiently wait for a release date until books five, six, and seven.

Many people, I eventually realized, spent this time reading fanfiction, stories about all the same characters but written by other authors. The concept sounded fantastic until I took a peek at one and found that it wasn't the same at all. The characters didn't act like themselves. They didn't sound like themselves. Some of them weren't even described correctly. I must have only read a couple pages, but I just knew that all the magic was gone. I hunted a bit more, but it wasn't long until I just gave up on it. My younger self had become convinced that no one else could get it right.

And that's why the highest compliment that I can pay this fanfiction is that it gets things right. The Fred and George that we all know and love are right there, front and center, getting the page time that, if you're like me, you always thought that they deserved more of. In the original books, Fred and George were a never ending joy to read about, always up to something funny and delightful, and this book gives you even more of what you loved in a way that's original and yet totally in character. And the same is true for every character from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley to Professor Dumbledore.

In fact, there's not a single mistake in canon to be found anywhere. Every detail of the magical lore, the setting, and the character backstories lines up exactly with the foundation that was established in the original books, and every place where the story sets off into original territory is completely believable, so much so that I wouldn't be too surprised if I confused a few things from this fanfic as actual canon in the future.

I will admit that there were a few places where the story didn't line up with the way that I would have imagined things, and that was a bit disappointing to me personally, but the impressive thing is that they were only ever in those areas that were completely left up to the reader's imagination. I really can't fault the author for not having exactly the same interpretation of characters and lore as I did when it comes to things that never were spelled out in the original books. Besides that, there were so many more places where the original parts of the fanfic painted a picture that was even better than I could have imagined.

Characters like Lee and Angelina who were only briefly mentioned in the original books come into the spotlight here with fully rounded and interesting personalities, backstories, and struggles. Old favorites like Hagrid are fleshed out even more fully than they already were. And original characters like Professor Parsimonae and Dandy the house elf fit right in as if they always belonged.