I Can’t Stop Thinking About How Like

With the regularity rogues are poisoning everything under the sun in Gotham, do you think Gotham has “Do NOT buy local” campaigns?

Spoke to a gen z person the other night and apparently the young folks don't know about the very legal sites from which you can access public domain media (including Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and other Victorian gothic horror stories)?

Like this young person didn't even know about goddamn Gutenberg which is a SHAME. I linked to it and they went "aw yiss time to do a theft" and I was like "I mean yo ho ho and all that, sure, but. you know gutenberg is entirely legal, right?"

Anyway I'm gonna put this in a few Choice Tags (sorry dracula fans I DID mention it though so it's fair game) and then put some Cool Links in a reblog so this post will still show UP in said tags lmao.

Ginny and Harry, two main characters

I find it really sad how overlooked is the rarity of Harry and Ginny's couple dynamic.

In stories like Harry Potter where the main character is clearly the main character and not just the person who gives us their point of view for the story, it's very common that the love interest isn't an equal to the hero. Usually, the love interest is one of the helpers of the main character which inevitably creates an unbalanced dynamic where a lot of the life experiences of the love interest revolve around the main character. Take Ron and Hermione, they are not equals to Harry. They are equals to each other, they are the only two people who know what it means to be Harry's best friend in the war but the stories/adventures they are involved in aren't theirs. They are not equals to Harry, which doesn't mean they are less or more, just something else.

Ginny on the other end is the only character between the young ones - besides Harry obviously - that is a main character in her own right. She has her own story, her own friends, her own adventures, her own giant trauma, and her own relationship with darkness. She has her own hero story with her leading the rebellion at Hogwarts and her own helpers, Neville and Luna.

She is a main character whose story we don't have the opportunity to read. And Harry is her love interest just as much as she is Harry's one. She may understand Harry perfectly and so be perfect for him, but Harry understands her perfectly too and therefore is the only logical love interest for her.

And even after the books she keeps being Harry's equal becoming famous in her own right with professional Quidditch and then assuming the most influential role in Wizarding World sport as editor of the sports section for the Prophet.

She even has her sort of prophecy with the whole being the first daughter in seven generations and the seventh sibling, something that supposedly makes her quite powerful, something that we see, something that even Slughorn, a man who knows pretty much all the people who are worth being known, recognizes.

To solidify this point, her story is circular like Harry's. If Harry starts this story as someone who needs to be rescued and who is in search of a family he ends it with him protecting other people for a job and having a loving family. Ginny starts her story as a young girl who as such has to hide her true ambitions, as someone who because she wrote in a diary faced unspeakable horrors, and she ends the story with being famous for her talent, the mother of a youngest sibling and girl that she'll make sure will grow up not needing to hide her ambitions and a journalist, reclaiming her passion for writing.

Harry and Ginny are basically two main characters with a lot of secondary characters in common who happened to find each other and get married. It's basically a cross-over between two stories it's just that we've read only one of the two.

When did Dumbledore figure out Volditom had created Horcruxes?

As I see it there are two options 1) before Halloween ‘81 or 2) in Chamber of Secrets. Both options are problematic.

If Dumbledore knew about the Horcruxes before the end of the first war, it would somewhat explain (not excuse, but explain) his certainty that Voldi would return and his insistence Harry had to stay with the Dursleys under blood protection. It would, however, also mean he squandered the 12 best years to hunt down the soul shards. Seriously. Every player is alive, Tommyboy is disembodied, his followers are imprisoned or busy saving face. Prime time for investigating.

If he only knew after seeing the diary, his insistence Harry would only be safe with his blood relations makes even less sense. Without the immediate threat of Death Eaters/Volds himself checking up on Harry and finding a better placement for him are reasonable courses of action. And then he still didn’t call in any help. He did a lot of ground work, but he still waited four years before actively hunting the artifacts down. Get Mad-Eye Moody and some cursebreakers on the job ffs.

Did he even want the threat of Voldemort to end?

Dumbledore explain!

So I was rereading Harry Potter, when I came across this and thought- what if instead of Cedric Diggory, Cassius Warrington had been chosen to compete in the Triwizard Tournament?

Imagine Dumbledore calling out the name of the Hogwarts champion and it isn’t a Gryffindor, or a Ravenclaw, or even a Hufflepuff, but it’s a Slytherin. A student from a House most people hate.

Imagine Cassius Warrington getting up, and three out of four Houses are booing at him and shouting things like “NO!” or, “We can’t have a Slytherin champion!” or demanding a retry. But he’s a Slytherin- he’s been dealing with this shit since he got sorted, so he keeps his head high and joins the other champions.

Imagine Harry trying to catch Warrington alone because he doesn’t really want to associate with Slytherins (plus Malfoy has this tendency of being around the guy ALL THE TIME since he got chosen), but at the same time he’s also fair enough not to want him to walk into the first task unprepared.

Imagine Warrington walking over to Harry a few months later, and Ron and Hermione both jump into a protective stance, wands out, but instead of attacking Harry he just tells him to stick the egg underwater. (Because Slytherins don’t forget those who helped them out).

Imagine Warrington and Harry helping each other out in the labyrinth.

Imagine Harry being devastated when Peter kills Warrington- because Voldemort doesn’t care what house they’re form, a spare is a spare.

Imagine the uproar that causes among the Slytherins, because some of their parents really are Death Eaters and they know what really happened.

Imagine Slytherins fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts and shouting “This is for Cassius!”

second that!

harry’s patronus changing from prongs to padfoot one day and sirius’s reaction….. would like some fic of this

I don’t know why but as soon as I read “Elizabeth” as an option my mind went to “Beth”. And the more I think of it, the more I actually like the sound of Beth Potter.

The simplicity of a single syllable matches the anybody quality OP pointed out. It also sounds less playful than Lizzy/Lizzie does which could work well thematically with a child pushed into devastating duties way too young while still being a nickname and familiar.

And then there’s the near rhyme with death. I will shut up now.

Anyway. If we follow the canon naming pattern Harry’s middle name would be “Lily”, right?

I’ve seen a lot of really bad genderbent Harry Potter names, but “Hariah” is by far the worst of the bunch.

How the hell did the Weasleys seemingly just bounce back at the end of Chamber of Secrets? Until OotP Ginny having been possessed, kidnapped, used to almost murder multiple other students, and nearly murdered herself isn’t mentioned. at. all.

I can almost understand Arthur, Molly, Bill, and Charlie. The latter two are very removed from the situation thanks to literal physical distance and Arthur and Molly are some of Dumbledore’s most devout followers, so while they have a sense of the scale thanks to “basilisk” they are easily reassured that the danger has passed. It helps that a) wizarding society is creepily cool with a lot of dangerous nonsense in general b) they have no clue what horcruxes are, so the possessing diary is written off and c) Harry Potter was responsible for solving the situation aka the designated knight in shining armour figure for the entire society.

But what about Percy, the twins, and Ron? They carry the guilt that their youngest sibling could be possessed for hours at a time without them knowing, they know Harry well enough to see a person (and even more importantly, a child) and not the Boy-Who-Lived, and they saw how the adults utterly failed to keep them safe when literal pre-teens could figure everything out.

So how about an UA in which the younger Weasley children do not get over everything within a summer and a lottery-won vacation, but carry shadows in their eyes. The boys independently keep checking on Ginny until she explodes at them, because this kind of support is opressing to her. They band together, doing mental headcounts every once in a while until they have an instinctual awareness of each other. 

Ginny and Ron especially are rarely far from the other, united by having been in the chamber. It is written off as the youngest being close.

Fred and George grow less likely to rile their siblings up. Their eyes are still as sharp, but their jokes are designed to check in, to cheer up. They circle around their little siblings reminiscent of their tactics on the Quidditch pitch, ready to protect them at any moment and in any direction. Fred and George start teaching their most distracting charms in stolen hidden moments at the Burrow. Hogwarts failed to protect their youngest, Fred and George are not going to let that stand. Their sudden gentleness to Ron and Ginny is encouraged as them growing up.

Percy finds himself with a shattered faith in the system, no, the people filling it. He watches the twins teaching spells with hidden barbs and can’t find it in himself to care about future chaos. He runs interference, distracting the rest of the family with detailed questions on anything he can think of and he can think of plenty. He covers and then he joins, explaining patterns in organization and how to work with around With the rules. So what if he enables his siblings’ mayhem? What good is a system when it fails to protect his family? He doubles down on study: law books, schoolbooks, treaties, protocols. He smiles and preens and shows off his new Head Boy badge and talks about working for the Ministry while learning any and every loophole he can offer as escape routes and how to eventually change the very foundation of his world. His plans are applauded as following a respectable path and promising career.

Ginny takes to the twin’s teaching like a duck to water. She takes glee in every successful beam of light shooting from her wand and evaporating the twig she is practicing on. Every trap prank the twins fall into builds her confidence. She returns to Hogwarts with her head high and tricks up her sleeves and her brothers at her back. She tackles classes and learns to turn classmates pestering on them. Her eyes roam the halls for the unprotected and those who would abuse it. She knows what they look like. She is not letting that happen on her watch. Adults worry over how easily she seems to overcome the last year, but her new connections with classmates cause relief.

Ron needs a moment to figure out he is in the protected innermost circle instead of a layer of protection. Somehow, he doesn’t mind as much as he would have months ago. Where Ginny obliterates targets, he listens to Percy and picks up patterns in the rulings and how to force a specific reaction. He applies chess strategy to students, professors, apparently a mass murderer after his friend. He sees patterns in Fred and George’s tricks and points out flaws and new angles. He knows whatever he will find himself in, he has his siblings at his disposal and they will heed his call. His knight brothers, the twins ever unpredictable and quick to strike, his rook in Percy, ever the reliable cover. Ginny is still unshapen, but he can see the bishop in her straight-forwardness, a queen in her power. He draws Harry into the fold, his friend, his rook, his king, his to protect with his other siblings. Hermione is drawn in as well, his friend, the researcher, his bishop. They are his, the pieces that make up his heart,  and he will be damned if he looses them. His sudden uptick in grades and lack of temperamental outbreaks are welcomed. The way he eyes the world and points his questions cause wariness in his parents.

TL;DR: UA in which the younger Weasley children are more (?) traumatized by Chamber of Secrets and start seeing the world as an adversary and band together as a force of nature.

THIS!

Oliver absolutely would be the kind of person to overbearingly ensure his team is in peak mental and physical condition so they'll perform their best on the pitch. He'd obsessively read up on human requirements and observe their fulfillment in his teammates. Even more so if his mum is a healer. His seeker and match-winner being in suboptimal condition? Not. Acceptable.

And I love the extremely diligent Percy, freshly assigned Prefect, taking personal offence at nobody listening to him when one of his charges needs help.

Between them, they might actually figure out a way to keep Harry from returning to Privet Drive six years early.

Just one question: does Percy join in on kidnapping Harry with the flying car?

Harry Potter being smaller than all first years (which we all knew anyway) but twice as feral.

Prefect Percy immediately noticing his small stature and being worried, Boy-Who-Lived or not. So he always offers him more help or just lends an ear. At first Harry is wary of him, no one is nice to him for no reason. Either it's a trick or with his new fame in the picture, because they want something but slowly he begins to trust Percy. Percy feels like a big brother for the first time in a long time. Ron and Ginn rarely went to him with their problems, they preferred Charlie or Bill (he couldn't blame them as he too preferred them but it still hurt), or worse the twins (that hurt worse). They didn't care for his advice. For his knowledge.

Harry was a breath of fresh air....well somewhat. Things he said were concerning and when Percy tried to get an adult to help (*coughMcGonagallcoughDumbledorecoughHisMomcoughHisDadcoughMADAMEPOMPFREYcough*) they brushed off his concerns which was more than a little concerning. So he just vowed to help Harry whenever and however he could. Then Harry somehow made the Quidditch team. At eleven. AT ELEVEN.

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Oliver Wood loved his new seeker! He was timid at first but quickly found his confidence! Sure it was on the feral side but that's how Oliver liked his players! I mean, look at the twins! Plus Harry had the perfect seeker build! Though...he was on the small side. But Oliver chalked that up to the lid being literally eleven but when he looked closer he realized that no...Harry was really small. Too small. And Oliver would know, his mum was a healer and she taught him some stuff considering his love (obsession) with Quidditch.

So he pays more attention. And what he witnesses and notices is not...good. it's very telling. He tries to go to some adults about what he's noticed but nothing came of it and that really got him mad. Then out of no where Percy Weasley came up to him and started lecturing him on Potter's health and all Oliver could think was, oh thank Merlin I'm not the only one who's noticed!

He and Percy stayed up well past curfew talking about their smallest cub and somehow it ended up with them coparenting the Boy-Who-Lived. Oliver would be completely honest and admit he didn't think it would be so difficult until the troll incident....then the dragon incident.....then the CERBERUS incident!

Oliver became something of another big brother to Harry and another confidant. So when Harry told him more about what happened at the Dursley's (because Harry never called it home. Never) Oliver was already plotting to kidnap the boy from the house or the station whether Percy thought it was a good idea or not.

ok but if bruce wayne somehow came upon zuko fresh out of banishment he would lose his mind.

black hair? check. bad parent(s)? check. trauma? double check.

bruce: how’d you get your scar?

zuko: my dad got mad at me for saying that killing people is wrong so he lit my face on fire and banished me.

bruce, vibrating with excitement, already pulling adoption papers from his utilility: that’s terrible. how do you feel about capes.