I’m not totally sure what you’re doing with your life if not reading these fics, but I’m recently obsessed and I’m going to shout about them for a minute.

The Fifth House and The Prophecy by @Ameripuff

(What are we calling this, The Fifth House series? The Pathfinder series?)

What I really love about these fics is that they evoke all that YA speculative fiction nostalgia that sucked most of us into HP in the first place. You’ll see a lot of things that parallel the HP series (a kid learning she’s a mage and entering a magical school; House rivalries; a group of new friends; a mystery and a prophecy; forays into forbidden corridors and forests) — but because it’s set in an entirely different school (in the US) with OC’s, it feels fresh, its own story and not just a canon rehash.

On the flip side, while I never thought I’d be into a fic set in the US with an entirely OC cast (because I like fanfiction usually for exploring the characters and situations from canon) Drew makes it clear that these stories are set squarely within the HP-verse, with a lot of fun, engaging references to familiar things (Weasleys Wizard Wheezes has gone international, American students refer to it as “Three Dubs,” and you see plenty of their products throughout these fics; there’s an enchanted handbag style called “The Granger”; the Herbology textbooks are authored by Neville).

The result is a wonderful mix of old and new, and its in this setting that Drew crafts a story that’s captivating in its own right. These fics stand out to me for two reasons especially: the mysteries and the characters. He’s really, really good at planting all these little seeds that start to grow and develop and get tangled together along the way, until the mystery is solved and you’re like “OMG.” And the characters? I don’t remember the last time I was this attached to a group of OC’s in fanfiction. I’m attached to them the way I’m attached to HP characters and Percy Jackson characters. Like, I want to write fanfiction of his fanfiction. If I hadn't been reviewing as I went, I'd have torn through both of these novels in about two days.

THE FIFTH HOUSE follows Willow Carter, a nomaj-born mage who enrolls at Gampton Hall, a school heavily modeled after Hogwarts but with distinct differences (a big one being that it’s not a boarding school). You’ll see they have four Houses that parallel the Hogwarts Houses, but there’s more to them than that. Willow struggles with the insane sink-or-swim ethos of Gampton, where not only is there hostility between the Houses, but the upperclassmen are total asshats to the first years. This story is tame in terms of descriptions of violence and so forth, but you may have a bit of a hard time wading through the bullying Willow endures, simply because it’s so wrong (and the story really does hit home for anyone who’s experienced this kind of social ostracization as a kid). If you can push through that discomfort, it’s well worth it in the end.

To make things worse, Willow and a few other students are branded as weirdos because the sorting hat tries to sort them into a new “fifth House.” That, and Willow’s wand isn’t working and she’s soon transitioned to remedial classes. (When I tell you how badly you will want to punch half the faculty at this school in the face…)

Eventually Willow makes friends with the rest of the ensemble cast:

Maleficent Murgatroyd — a talented mage from a prominent, well-to-do magical family, and Willow's first real friend there

Sib Hooplander — an introverted boy from the backwoods; he is the most precious thing in the world and I will protect him with my ENTIRE LIFE

Incheon Ryong — a cheery, wisecracking kid who develops a fantastic bromance with Sib

Lily Smith — a kindly girl who is a major Quidditch enthusiast

THE PROPHECY switches to Sib’s POV, and I might have enjoyed this book even better than TFH because the mystery is more complex and there’s a lot more humor (helped by the fact that this is now a tightly-knit group of friends and doesn’t involve the bullying that TFH did, as well as the fact that Sib’s POV means his bestie Incheon gets a lot more screen time). But there’s still plenty of drama and angst, because this is not an easy year for Sib, who is about to know a lot of grief. We also get a new group of first years as supporting characters, and they jump right off the page and make everything even better:

Hye-lin Bae — who definitely DOES NOT like Incheon

Hedges and Beene (aka Adam Hedges and Bradley Nuffledim) — who have to be listed together here because they’re always together, and they’re always acting like delightful morons

Quinta Rodriguez — who knows how to do magic that no 11-year-old should know, and whose misanthropic attitude is channeled into scathing one-liners and zippy insults (the phrase “cram it, jackwagon” is currently living rent-free in my mind)

Okay, look, this rec got out of control very quickly, so I guess you can see how much I really love these fics. They’re a gem. Now please go read and review them so we can collectively force motivate Drew to write the next in the series.