YMMV / Princess of the Blacks

• Captain Obvious Reveal: By the time it was revealed Voldemort was sending fake visions to Danny, most readers had already guessed as much.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Learning that Narcissa Malfoy was once a client of Jen when she was younger shouldn't be funny, but then it evolves into everyone in the room save for Jen calling each other out on their own sexual practices (Tonks changes gender during sex, her mother spied on her parents in their bedroom when she was younger, Sirius screwed several dogs and had puppies as a consequence, trying to justify it by saying he was a dog when it happened.) Jen asks if there isn't a Black who isn't a deviant as she breaks into laughter.
  • Voldemort appearing in the middle of Diagon Alley and destroying a building in the process? Horrifying. Announcing his return with a hammy "I'm baaccck"? Hilarious.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Jen. Abandoned by her biological family because they thought she was a Squib, horribly abused by the Dursleys (who acted worse than they did in canon) before being blinded and kicked out onto the streets in London at the age of 5, raped a year later by several junkies. It's no wonder why she decided to become the person she is now.
  • Tracy Davis also shows some signs of this. Typically a Jerkass to anyone and everyone around her prior to the series, she also faces prejudice from her own family and house, despite being Sorted into Slytherin, simply because she is Half-Blood. Her grandfather even tried to marry her off to some Jerkass just to make sure that she wasn't his heir before Jen killed him and prevented any of the bastard's plans from coming to fruition. At the very least, Tracy has started opening up to others, mostly within Jen's "court" and is starting to find herself among actual friends for a change.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Jen. Just Jen. She has her struggles as well as her triumphs, her flaws and her virtues. A well-written character who is complex and someone, while one to avoid in real life, is still relatable and you feel you have to root for.
  • Dursleys’ deaths at the hand of Jen.
  • Luna, too. Jen is probably the first person to believe in her imaginary creatures and recognizes that Luna is someone unique.
  • Sirius, despite just getting out of Azkaban, is determined to find Jen. How does he find her in the first story? He asks Professor McGonagall to send a letter to Jennifer Potter written by the Quill of Acceptance, so he can know the address of her current location and find her there. Kudos to McGonagall, for going along with it.
  • Jen defeats her dragon in the First Task by turning her statue of one into a life sized golem, allowing her to kill the dragon and claim it's corpse as spoils.
  • Danny, despite being a Butt-Monkey and thorn to Jen's side on the grounds of being a Noble Bigot, gets an Offscreen Moment of Awesome in the 3rd Task, using the Bubble-Head charm at one point. Harry in canon never knew the spell.
  • Slughorn endured months of offscreen torture because of his refusal to brew potions for Voldemort, stunning everyone who had expected him to fold like wet cardboard.
  • Jen finally killing BOTH Voldemort and Dumbledore in Mêlée à Trois. Giving Voldemort to Baron Samedi AND getting away with Dumbledore’s death.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • After Dudley kicks bleach into Jen's eyes, the Dursleys refuse to take her to a doctor and once it becomes apparent she's been blinded, they abandon her on the streets of London. Jen was five at the time.
  • Dumbledore clearly crossed it before the series began, when it was revealed that he bound Jen's magic out of fear that she would become the "dark" aspect of the prophecy, not realizing it was actually referring to her blindness, hence "knowing nothing but darkness" . That's right, Dumbledore essentially crippled Jen and was essentially the source of all her traumatic childhood. And he doesn't even realize that what he was did was evil.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Candyland. The workers might be fine there, but no child should ever have to work at a brothel.
  • Jen’s first onscreen ritual, establishing once and for all that she is not a good guy.
  • Jen’s backstory. Also a Tear Jerker.
  • Jen freaking out over the smell of bleach, since it reminds her of the day Dudley kicked bleach into her eyes.
  • Petunia being Forced to Watch as Dudley has his organs organized in alphabetical order right before Vernon is disemboweled and forced to eat his son's organs and then burned alive with her screams magnified so that the neighborhood could hear it. Then again, considering that this was the result of Jen getting payback for the abuse, no one is going to mourn them.
  • An in-universe example. When Jen learns that Dumbledore is ultimate responsible for her being sent to the Dursleys, Lily describes her reaction as the most terrifying thing she’d ever seen.
  • Even Jen finds the Pooka she summoned disturbing after it opens it's mouth so far it's neck rips apart and extends several whiplike tongues to swallow a full grown Mandrake whole.
  • Draco finds Bellatrix’s honest laughter (as opposed to her Laughing Mad) to be the most terrifying sound he's ever heard.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Dolores Umbridge. While still a racist woman, she is more pragmatic and entertaining rather than a strawman. Umbridge ends up being a Jerkass Has a Point, giving accurate reviews of the professors at Hogwarts. She also has her Pet the Dog moments, particularly with Professor Vector as she reassures the woman that she did well in her review. She also manages to give a better first impression in her first class, treating Jen and her classmates more respectfully and reasonably. The fact that the author took inspiration from Harry Potter: Junior Inquisitor regarding her position as the new History of Magic teacher certainly helps.
• Squick:
  • Sirius is seriously squicked out to realize the young girl manning the door at Candyland has nipple rings despite only being eight.
  • Besides Jen being the manager of a child brothel (at 14, she's easily the oldest one there and apparently she was one of the older workers when she was 9), an in-universe example occurs when Danny learns the hot new student he was checking out is his twin sister.
  • Voldemort applies the Dark Mark with a foul smelling paste that's revealed to be feces, blood, bile, and phlegm mixed together. The solution for removing it is equally foul as they have to "fight humors with humors".
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Bellatrix becomes Jen's mother through the Blood Ritual, yet they only have one scene together in the second book and only interact again in the last book during the Battle of Hogwarts.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Lily was originally intended to be the less sympathetic of the Potters. Instead she's become The Woobie.
• The Woobie: Lily, big time.

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