Hello! You can call me Astoria Grace, if you'd like. I enjoy school, fandoms, debate, cooking, Harry Potter, and simply books in general. I'm a quick-witted Slytherin who will stop at nothing. My determination fuels me, and my artistic nature helps me dream. I'd love to hear from you all, please read my stories and tell me what you think! I am fifteen years old, female, and I live in the United States, but that's all I'm saying about that.

I can't live without music. I'm into alternative, folk rock, and the like. My favorite band is Twenty One Pilots; they are absolutely incredible, no question about it.

Let's talk about my Slytherin pride. I couldn't be happier with my house. (I do have a splash of Ravenclaw in me... It was a rather difficult choice for the old Sorting Hat!) Slytherins are NOT evil- I'll clear that up right away. We're precocious, driven, and witty. We think things through and usually choose the option that will benefit us the most. We love each other and have the strongest house pride of all. Slytherins are clever and cunning... But artistic as well! I mean, think of Draco. He couldn't go two minutes without acting something out. He practically lived a charade game! Slytherins are smart, yes, but they know the proper balance. You won't catch us locked in the Library on a sunny day when mischief is just waiting to get made, and Gryffindork butt is just waiting to get kicked. Not that we don't like to read, though. "Brains over brawn" is what my dear Professor Severus Snape said, and I fully agree. In the Muggle world, Slytherins tend to be actors, artists, lawyers, doctors, and writers.

I'm Fictosexual. Okay, not really... But I do struggle with Fictophilia!

I'm a Christian. That doesn't make me a hater, but I do stand up for what I believe. I believe that everyone has a right for free speech. I love God and Jesus, and thank my savior for redeeming and saving me.

*Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Spoilers* Okay, time to talk about that best-selling book: The Cursed Child! (Please know that I'm giving my personal opinions only, and do not intend to undermine the feelings of any other person in regards to the book.) I recently purchased The Cursed Child- didn't we all?- and literally devoured it within three hours of its delivery. It was a great book- a fine book, I'm not going to deny it. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed the read. Many of the characters were hilarious and some were just plain adorable (hint hint, Scorpius. Sorry, I'm a sucker for Malfoy men.) I'm glad that Draco Malfoy got at least a bit of the redemption that I think he deserved, and I loved what I saw of Astoria Greengrass Malfoy- well, "saw" isn't the right term... but whatever. I also adored the hints of Rose/Scorpius towards the end, since I really like that ship. I was beyond delighted that Albus and Scorpius were both Slytherins and lovable heroes. I'm also on board with Hermione being Minister of Magic, though it didn't really correlate with the information that Rowling had released on her future.

My main problem was that things were too... murky. I felt like things were missing, for instance: Teddy and Victoire. I really would have liked to have heard more about their relationship, especially since I really ship them. I also thought that the time-skips from year one to year four were quite weak. The shock that Albus must have experienced in becoming a Slytherin must have been tremendous, but I felt like the book/play sort of glossed over all that drama. Albus Severus Potter went from shocked to pure angst to wretched bitterness in what seemed like three (short) pages.

Plus- and don't flame me for saying this- I thought that the plot was a bit, well, awful. Entertaining? Yes. Gosh yes. A well-planed and intelligent masterpiece worthy of JK Rowling? No, not quite. I never thought that Time Turners were some of the stronger points in the Wizarding World, and the idea of an entire book/play centered on them just doesn't seem very functional. I genuinely found it to be muddled, confusing, and sort of dumb.

Not to mention the ideas that were tossed around- and later confirmed- of Voldemort having a child. I just... I just... NO. I'm not saying that he was engaged in abstinence of necessity, but it just doesn't make sense to me. If Bellatrix Lestrange (and yes, I know that she did have feelings for the Dark Lord) was really carrying his child, and birthed Delphi shortly before the Final Battle at Hogwarts, there should have been at least a smudge of evidence. In the original seven books, there was none. Nothing about her showing, nothing about her having an affair of any sort with anyone, or anything! Also, the debate over whether or not Scorpius was the bastard child of Voldy seemed forced and really unrealistic, as if (the author) Thorne wanted Scorpius to have a trial to endure, so made up the most interesting thing he could imagine off the top of his head.

And I have to say that nothing will persuade me that a few Transfiguration spells is all it takes to transform an ordinary man (or as ordinary as HP himself can be) into a replica of the Dark Lord. Especially when half of the spell casters never even finished their magical education. (Harry, Ron, and possibly Draco as well never went back for their seventh year, and therefore never graduated Hogwarts.)

Also, Delphi having silver-blue hair just seems really juvenile. Don't get me wrong, I love multicolored, wild hair. I mess with mine all the time, and it's fun to write a character with exotic looks... in fanfiction. Personally, I just thought that her ultra-powers, secret identity, and hair were way overboard. She seemed like the Mary Sue of the villain world.

There were also some confusing inconsistencies. For instance, one of the points in JK Rowling's series (especially book five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix) was that even though Umbridge was an absolute monster (I HATE THAT WOMAN!) she was a far cry from a Death Eater. Remember what Sirius Black told Harry? "The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters"- that was directed towards Umbridge in a sense, telling Harry that she may be wicked, but she wasn't exactly a lover of the Dark. Yet in one of the alternate time loops, she was a Dark witch who was able to levitate with Dark magic and everything. It just isn't really consistent to the Umbridge of JK Rowling's world. Also, Albus Potter, the child of a Muggle-raised Half-blood (Harry P.) and a member of a notoriously Muggle-loving family (Ginny W. P.) didn't know what a tattoo was, when he saw Delphi's bird mark. Even though in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ginny and Harry laughed openly about what tattoo Harry had on his chest. How would Albus be so oblivious? I get that his dad and he had a massive falling-out, but that wasn't until he was eleven. And Scorpius Malfoy, the pure-blood child of two members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, uses phrases like "no way Jose". I don't care how relaxed about blood-status the younger Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy became, that kind of language just seems really unrealistic. And Rowling's Cedric Diggory, the boy who Dumbledore called "good, and kind, and brave" would never turn Death Eater after nothing more than public humiliation. Plus, the girls' cry of "Don't damage our Diggory, Mr. Dragon!" during the first task not only scarred me for life, but also confused me since the dragons were all nesting females. Are Hogwarts girls all idiots, or was it just not obvious that the task was to get an egg from the mother?

Also, many of the characters were quite out of character, in my opinion. Moaning Myrtle, for instance. I'm not sure if it was sexy in the live performance of the play or what, but to be honest, her constant references to folks being "naughty" creeped me out. And the Trolley Lady? Gone is the smiling witch who handed Harry Potter and his cute little pre-teen pals candy. Oh no, we're treated to a thousand-year-old monster with no name and spikes for hands. She genuinely scared the shirt off of me. Harry also seemed like a far cry from the middle aged dad of the Deathly Hallows epilogue who encouraged his horribly named son to be brave and happy despite whatever House he was placed in. I just can't imagine the Chosen One being such a jerk to his son (though I'll admit that Albus was way out of line). Severus Snape from one of the alternate timelines also seemed off. And of course he had to die all over again, as if it wasn't enough reading that once (in the Deathly Hallows). And the Hermiones and Rons in some of the different universes seemed absurd, no matter the events that had steered them along their paths.

I'm sorry, I really am, but this book just wasn't worthy of having JK Rowling's name on the cover. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, but I'll never be able to accept it as canon. I like to think of it as a creative (though flawed) fanfiction with an insane amount of publicity. So go read it (if you haven't already) get a bushel of good laughs from the cute dialogue- I'm not discouraging that. I'd give it a solid three out of five, or six out of ten. It was a good book, but not great. It was fanfiction, not canon. It was magical, but not Harry Potter. It was Jack Thorne, not JK Rowling.

Takes bow. J'ai terminé.

Also, please check out my Fictionpress.com account! I'm AstoriaGrace.