By Viridian
Reviews
mantis posted a comment on Wednesday 29th April 2009 3:52am
Very clever move, elevating Gringotts and the goblins in the eyes of the Wizarding community at the expense of the Ministry. The publicity is probably worth ten times as much to the goblins as the gold Hogwarts would have paid for the upgraded wards. Speaking of which, I assume Harry is paying Rita her usual rate for the stories being published in The Quibbler? Xeno doesn't pay his writers, after all, and agit-prop of that quality deserves remuneration. I especially loved Mundungus Fletcher's "occupation" -- considering that the man is a fairly notorious thief, his distrust is probably just as good publicity as Molly and Madam Malkin's plaudits.
You know, the specifics of the Quibbler's stories about Fudge's secret advisers may be barmy, but they're not wrong that he's acting on bad advice from some very bad advisers. I suspect the stubby-fingered hand of Dolores Jane "Quisling" Umbridge behind Fudge's malignant stupidity.
"At the time, she’d only had a few months to prepare for their journey. This time around, she’d hopefully have years..." This time around, there shouldn't be a Horcrux-hunt, because Sirius already recovered three of them; all that remain are the Sorting Hat and either the diadem (assuming the Hat wasn't enchanted instead of the diadem), which Harry could dispose of at his leisure in the Room of Hidden Objects, or Nagini, if Voldemort gets the chance to create that one in the first place.
I'm kind of hoping this year will climax with a Dementor massacre -- Summoning Charms and/or a massed army of Patroni forcing the vile things onto the new Hogwarts wards to die en masse like midges on a bug zapper.
That bit where Harry's wand heated up makes me wonder what would happen if he wielded the Elder Wand. I'm assuming that in this continuity, Dumbledore's plan to nullify its power succeeded, one way or another, since it apparently played no important role in the dark timeline, but that doesn't mean Harry won't end up its master in the new timeline. I'm thinking that taking out Voldemort is going to be the easy part; the hard part, the part for which he'll need the help of all his friends and especially Ginny, will be stepping back from the brink afterwards and not becoming the next Dark Lord himself, as Dumbledore fears.
So Wormtail is out of custody... is the "agent in place" someone he recruited, perchance? And now it looks like he's planning to recruit some Muggle terrorists. Bad news...
mantis posted a comment on Monday 27th April 2009 4:13pm
"openly flaunt my authority..." The word you want there is flout, not flaunt; to flaunting means boastfully displaying, e.g. Malfoy flaunted his wealth by buying Nimbus 2001s for the entire Slytherin Quidditch team.
I like that, to Neville, Draco is "Bellatrix's nephew." The little ferret isn't even a significant enemy in and of himself, it's his connection to the Dark B*tch that makes him worth the trouble to thrash.
A bit rude of Harry to snoop on Neville's conversation with his Gran, unless Neville wanted him to be there; he should be careful about violating his friends' trust in any way, especially now that he doesn't need to conceal The Secret (TM) from them.
Interesting that Harry's future memories are starting to fade. Probably a good thing, on the whole, as long as he remembers the key facts; the details of his friends and their interactions are less useful by now anyway, given how different they've all become as a result of his careful manipulations. He's already used most of the important memories, anyway, taking out Quirrell, diverting Dobby, saving Ginny from the Chamber, and having Sirius collect the Horcruxes. (The locket, at least, should have been ridiculously easy, sitting in its cabinet at Twelve Grimmauld Place -- had you noticed that? Alert fans picked up on the passing reference to an old locket in OotP and correctly predicted that it would be revealed as the Horcrux stolen by Regulus A. Black in DH. Actually, if the Cup was in its canonical location it might have been surprisingly easy, too: the Gringotts Goblins wouldn't necessarily turn Sirius in, and as Bellatrix's cousin they might even allow him access to her vault.)
"shooting sparks at moving targets..." Heh! I have the Trio, Sirius and Lupin using wand sparks to practice aerial dueling in my own fic, since any real offensive spell, even Expelliarmus, is dangerous when flying.
Nice to see some indication that Fred and George are actually two people with distinct personalities, rather than one mind inhabiting two bodies. George was slightly more perceptive and responsible in canon, I thought, just as he is here. I've noticed in the more recent chapters that they don't finish each other's sentences so much, either.
I really liked the memory Harry used to conjure his Patronus this time; I was, as I mentioned before, deeply moved by that scene in the Chamber after he revealed The Secret to his friends.
Fate's getting ugly -- Harry's broom being destroyed at his first match in Year 3 is one thing, but in the original timeline there were no deaths at the school until Cedric -- and his, technically, occurred off campus. In fact, the first death at Hogwarts was Dumbledore's (unless you count the Death Eater who snuffed it in the fight right before that -- I don't). I like Melissa, too; it would appear literally true now that "the only good Slytherin is a dead Slytherin."
I assume it was "the agent in place" that attacked both Harry and Melissa; was he perhaps that other prefect she argued with? I had thought it was Nott, but he wasn't in the Slytherin stands at the time of the attack -- he was up in the air, flying Seeker for the Serpents. Did he get the Snitch, or was the match called due to the attack on Harry? I would think that if they postponed a match because one team's Seeker was attacked the week before by a party unknown, they'd have to interrupt one where a Seeker was attacked mid-game by someone definitely from the opposing team's House. Of course, they could award the Snitch and its 150 points to the attacked Seeker's team by default -- I would think that would be the best way to discourage such violent cheating in the future.
Good idea, setting up anti-Dementor wards for the school... and a very good idea playing fair with Goldfarb. I have no doubt Harry's working relationship with a senior Gringotts goblin will continue to come in handy as long as he retains Goldfarb's trust.
mantis posted a comment on Monday 27th April 2009 4:12pm
"openly flaunt my authority..." The word you want there is flout, not flaunt; to flaunting means boastfully displaying, e.g. Malfoy flaunted his wealth by buying Nimbus 2001s for the entire Slytherin Quidditch team.
I like that, to Neville, Draco is "Bellatrix's nephew." The little ferret isn't even a significant enemy in and of himself, it's his connection to the Dark B*tch that makes him worth the trouble to thrash.
A bit rude of Harry to snoop on Neville's conversation with his Gran, unless Neville wanted him to be there; he should be careful about violating his friends' trust in any way, especially now that he doesn't need to conceal The Secret (TM) from them.
Interesting that Harry's future memories are starting to fade. Probably a good thing, on the whole, as long as he remembers the key facts; the details of his friends and their interactions are less useful by now anyway, given how different they've all become as a result of his careful manipulations. He's already used most of the important memories, anyway, taking out Quirrell, diverting Dobby, saving Ginny from the Chamber, and having Sirius collect the Horcruxes. (The locket, at least, should have been ridiculously easy, sitting in its cabinet at Twelve Grimmauld Place -- had you noticed that? Alert fans picked up on the passing reference to an old locket in OotP and correctly predicted that it would be revealed as the Horcrux stolen by Regulus A. Black in DH. Actually, if the Cup was in its canonical location it might have been surprisingly easy, too: the Gringotts Goblins wouldn't necessarily turn Sirius in, and as Bellatrix's cousin they might even allow him access to her vault.)
"shooting sparks at moving targets..." Heh! I have the Trio, Sirius and Lupin using wand sparks to practice aerial dueling in my own fic, since any real offensive spell, even Expelliarmus, is dangerous when flying.
Nice to see some indication that Fred and George are actually two people with distinct personalities, rather than one mind inhabiting two bodies. George was slightly more perceptive and responsible in canon, I thought, just as he is here. I've noticed in the more recent chapters that they don't finish each other's sentences so much, either.
I really liked the memory Harry used to conjure his Patronus this time; I was, as I mentioned before, deeply moved by that scene in the Chamber after he revealed The Secret to his friends.
Fate's getting ugly -- Harry's broom being destroyed at his first match in Year 3 is one thing, but in the original timeline there were no deaths at the school until Cedric -- and his, technically, occurred off campus. In fact, the first death at Hogwarts was Dumbledore's (unless you count the Death Eater who snuffed it in the fight right before that -- I don't). I like Melissa, too; it would appear literally true now that "the only good Slytherin is a dead Slytherin."
I assume it was "the agent in place" that attacked both Harry and Melissa; was he perhaps that other prefect she argued with? I had thought it was Nott, but he wasn't in the Slytherin stands at the time of the attack -- he was up in the air, flying Seeker for the Serpents. Did he get the Snitch, or was the match called due to the attack on Harry? I would think that if they postponed a match because one team's Seeker was attacked the week before by a party unknown, they'd have to interrupt one where a Seeker was attacked mid-game by someone definitely from the opposing team's House. Of course, they could award the Snitch and its 150 points to the attacked Seeker's team by default -- I would think that would be the best way to discourage such violent cheating in the future.
Good idea, setting up anti-Dementor wards for the school... and a very good idea playing fair with Goldfarb. I have no doubt Harry's working relationship with a senior Gringotts goblin will continue to come in handy as long as he retains Goldfarb's trust.very
mantis posted a comment on Monday 27th April 2009 8:35am
"This has gone utterly pear-shaped." A singularly acute observation, Mr. Potter; it appears you have some 'splainin' to do.
I've always liked the "hoofbeats of a zebra" metaphor; figures it would come from Hermione's father, since dentistry is a medical profession. Hermione's got a point, too: Harry's worried about someone guessing the truth because he already knows it's possible, but it's not likely to occur to anyone else, with the remotely possible exception of Dumbledore. The professor Harry should be worried about is Trelawney, actually -- she might just prophesy something that would give Dumbledore a real hint one of these days.
Was the "bloke from Wisconsin" E. Gary Gygax, by any chance?
Neville's counter-Howler was awesome -- the idea of writing a civil, dignified rebuke into a Howler is brilliant. Knowing how clever Hedwig is, I wouldn't be surprised if Harry specifically asked her to deliver it in front of Madam Stebbins, too.
oregonbird posted a comment on Monday 27th April 2009 8:29am
And now, I run to your blog with quick feet...
mantis posted a comment on Sunday 26th April 2009 9:44pm
Hagrid's getting a wand? Yay! Major coolness. Given what a rough time he gave Umbridge without one, I can only imagine what a force of nature he'll be after practicing with the Gryffindor Six for a while...
"They followed Draco, didn’t they?" Sort of says it all, doesn't it? Slughorn's a much smoother article than Draco Malfoy, and in this timeline Harry should be able to put his talent for schmoozing to good use, just as he has Rita's gift for invective. We know Slughorn's a good sort, ultimately -- he helped gather the relief force that assailed the Death Eaters besieging Hogwarts at the end of DH, and dueled against Voldemort himself along with McGonagall and Kingsley Shacklebolt.
Harry really hasn't been as close with Hagrid this time, has he? His friendship with Hagrid before was driven partly by his insecurities -- Hagrid was a very comforting figure for that version of Harry. This Harry needs that sort of comfort far less, and Hagrid's utter inability to keep a secret could be a serious danger to him if he let something slip. On the other hand, Hagrid hasn't needed Harry as much, as he was never suspected of being behind the Heir of Slytherin attacks because there were no such attacks, and he won't have to defend Buckbeak to an unsympathetic Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, either.
I like the way Harry analyzed the difference between Slughorns pursuit of ambition and Snape's or Malfoy's; Slughorn obviously has a better intuitive grasp of game theory, something from which all the Slyths could probably benefit. When you have the choice, it's almost always better to make your interactions with others non-zero-sum games.
Neville's new Boggart form makes a lot of sense: he never had much fear of Snape in this timeline, and now the greasy git's been sacked, he's out of Neville's life for the time being... whereas Bellatrix will be Neville's nemesis as long as she lives. (And I really, really hope it's Neville that gets to cancel her ticket in this timeline. I'm not one of the fans that disliked Mama Bear!Molly taking her off the count as such, but it still should have been Neville -- denying him a grudge match with Bella was a bad case of Epic Fail, even if he did get his Crowning Moment of Awesome by beheading Nagini with the Gryffindor Sword.
Interesting insight about how the quality of education at Hogwarts affected the course of the war; DH seems to bear out the notion that the forces of light were far more dependent on Albus Dumbledore than they should have been, considering how fast the Ministry fell after Dumbledore's demise.
Interesting... let's see what that Boggart turns into...
oregonbird posted a comment on Sunday 26th April 2009 12:43pm
So far, so brilliant! I'm going to be up until midnight, and the cat can go catch a mouse. Do you know, my only fear of death is that I'll leave something good half-read? You are now on my 'finish before death' author list.
mantis posted a comment on Saturday 25th April 2009 8:16pm
Just what I was afraid of... Harry's memories of the dark future make him even more vulnerable to Dementors.
I think the Patronus charm is supposed to be more powerful than you're giving it credit for; in canon, a strong, corporeal Patronus can apparently rout any number of dementors it encounters.
Holy $#!%! I was expecting Harry to summon his Patronus and send them packing once he was inside the wards, but... damn! Talk about the best offense being a good defense. That might be the first time in Wizarding history someone's ever cast "Accio Dementors"
"if I gave Bill a big sloppy kiss the next time I see him?" That would be one of the advantages of being a dog Animagus -- you can get away with giving a big, sloppy kiss to anyone you want to.
We’re not worthy!" ROFLMAO! I figured Gred and Forge's reaction to actually meeting the Marauders (all that's left of them, anyway) would be something along those lines. Harry's reassurance is a little hollow, too, since it was probably Sirius and James, not Remus, who did the majority of the pranking.
I'm not sure Harry really needs to be worried about the alarm spell on the Cup -- even if it would alert Vapormort, who's presumably still lurking in Albania, that the Cup had been stolen, there's not a whole heck of a lot he could do about it in his current form.
"Voldemort’s familiar was eaten by Norbert in the original timeline." I can't imagine that would be very healthy for Norbert, and I loved the way Nagini snuffed it in DH, but that's pretty darned cool all the same. And Harry shouldn't have to worry about Nagini this time around, any way; Voldemort created that Horcrux after he came back from Albania, though before his full resurrection, using the murder of Frank Bryce.
Handing Wormtail over to the Ministry is looking to be an unqualified catastrophe; they should have killed him and handed over his corpse. By now he's probably free and on his way to Albania to meet up with his Master again. I wonder if the Terrible Toad has anything to do with this? I always wondered if her real job was to be Fudge's "handler" on behalf of the Malfoys and the other wealthy ex-Death Eaters who own the Minister. Occam's razor would suggest she's the Ministry official most likely to have sent the Dementors to ambush Sirius near the Burrow, just as she sent them to attack Harry at the beginning of OotP.
I can't help thinking that having three intact Horcruxes in one place is a very, very bad idea; Harry really ought to destroy them post haste, if he knows a way to do it (as he presumably does, having done so in the dark future).
"At least now you know why it was so hard to get anything past Dumbledore." Actually, Dumbledore couldn't have used Legilimency on the Marauders much, if at all, because he never caught on that they were Animagi -- not exactly a small secret, that.
"members of the Wizengamot who maintain that Muggle-born witches and wizards should be removed from Muggle households as soon as they are discovered..." Now that's an interesting idea. I don't recall there being such a faction in the books; it would fall between the chauvinist Malfoy faction and the egalitarian faction represented by the Weasleys and Dumbledore. It does make a certain sense though -- something along the lines of Psi Corps in Babylon 5, for magical folk. It's not clear that Grindelwald was a pureblood chauvinist, actually, and in my own fic his "Wizards should rule over Muggles" ideology counted the Muggle-born in the former category; removing them from their parents the moment their powers were detected would make sense from that point of view.
Siccing Rita on the Malfoys sounds like a brilliant idea -- what an opportunity for schadenfreude! But the direct attack on the Ministry might not be such a good idea; I'm thinking there's going to be a war in this story even if Harry succeeds in preventing Voldemort's return altogether. That aside, your characterization of Rita is excellent; even when interviewing Harry, on whose good side she has every reason to want to stay, she can't resist asking confrontational, sometimes even invidious questions. Fortunately, this version of Harry can handle her grilling with aplomb and volley her hardballs right back at her; I got the impression they were both, on some level, enjoying the verbal fencing match.
mantis posted a comment on Saturday 25th April 2009 2:38pm
I liked the way Harry arranged things so that Remus would have to swallow his pride and accept payment for his tutoring services over the summer.
I liked Molly's reaction to Ginny winning the tournament; I'd been kind of afraid (as Ginny must have been) that she'd be upset that Ginny had participated, rather than proud of her performance. Molly, of course, turns out to be a duelist to be reckoned with herself, but we didn't learn that until the very end of the series, when underestimating her proved to be Bellatrix's last mistake.
"Neither of them could think of what Neville’s grandmother was playing at..." Would that be because he failed to mention in the letter that all the families she's been inviting over have daughters around his age who don't believe in Crumple-Horned Snorkacks?
"he was asking if he should just change his name to Malfoy and be done with it." LOL!
"I trust the Ministry about as far as I can spit a dead ferret." Good line, but Douglas Adams' addition of an adverb makes it better: "as far as I can comfortably spit a dead ferret."
So I guessed right about what Gran Longbottom was doing. Mean old battleaxe.
Uh-oh... I hope Harry's up to casting his Patronus; he's never done it in this timeline, after all.
hawkswench posted a comment on Friday 24th April 2009 9:46am
Your story is very interesting, I have been reading it most of the day as I just found it this am.
mantis posted a comment on Monday 20th April 2009 12:02pm
"I can’t really afford to slack off for three months, now can I?" Hogwarts summer break is only two months -- classes start the first of September and end at the end of June.
"I can’t believe they cooked up something that devious without any input from you." Interesting insight; I think it's probably true that Ginny is the most Slytherinesque of all Harry's close friends. Anyway, it was very clever of the girls to take out some Obliviation insurance. I'm thinking, though, that it might not be such a bad idea for Harry to write [i]everything[/i] down, password-protect the scroll like the Marauder's Map, and seal it up in his Gringotts vault. The password could be some piece of information from his childhood that nobody else would know, and a cryptic clue that he, and only he, would be able to use to figure out the password unless [i]all[/i] his memories were obliviated. For example, the scroll might ask about some of Harry's accidental magic incidents, and then ask what punishment he received for them. (E.G. "Regrowing my hair after Aunt Petunia cut it -- a week in the cupboard under the stairs. Shrinking Dudley's old sweater -- no punishment, she thought it shrunk in the wash. What color was the sweater? Brown with orange puffballs.")
"He’d think back, later, on the irony of such a thought." Ouch. What future horror are you foreshadowing there, anyway?
The discussion of Hermione and Ron's possible future prefecture seems a bit premature. It's something they might have discussed during fourth year, or the summer after it -- I didn't think the badges coming as a total surprise in OotP made all that much sense -- but this soon?
Your characterization of Dumbledore looks way off the mark to me, but justifiable given the canon up through HBP, even though I wouldn't have agreed with it before. As I've mentioned, my own surmises regarding Snape turned out to be mostly right when DH came out, and the same holds true for Dumbledore -- though of course I never guessed at any of the things that weren't even hinted at prior to DH, his relationship with Grindelwald and the deaths of his parents and sister. I'll be interested to see how much DH canon you incorporate into this story; I can't see any way of working in the Hallows, there's no way they wouldn't play a significant role in Harry's future memories, but the Grindelwald/Ariana/Aberforth material could easily be incorporated, I would think.
"Deeds, not words, you uninspired bookends!" Now that's an inspired insult for a pair of identical twins.
mantis posted a comment on Friday 17th April 2009 10:30pm
"A sorrow shared is a sorrow divided." That's a variation on Callahan's Law: "Shared joy is increased, shared pain is lessened, and thus do we refute entropy."
The fatalism to which Harry is tempted by the way certain events, or at least themes, seem to recur despite his best efforts puts me in mind of the iconic line from Walter Miller's *A Canticle for Liebowitz*: "Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing?"
I knew letting Hermione into the secret would be an especially good idea -- her notion to write up a timeline so they can compare events is excellent.
I love Harry's selective revelation of "Weasley is our King." With that confidence-boost, and practicing as a reserve from his second year, Ron's true potential will probably manifest in his first game, to Slytherin's chagrin.
Here's hoping the proof that he's seriously underestimated the evil festering away in Slytherin house will teach Dumbledore some humility about his judgement; I'd like to see him back on form as this story progresses.
I love professor Flitwick playing along with Luna re: the wrackspurts; I always saw him as having a pretty sharp sense of humor, as well as being one of the kindest of the Hogwarts staff.
"an older Ravenclaw student who had enormous round glasses that made her eyes look huge." You're not a Sluggy Freelance fan by any chance, are you? Because that Ravenclaw sounds suspiciously like Gwynn. I hope her encyclopedic knowledge doesn't derive from reading the Book of E-Ville in the restricted section...
"Enervated" I wouldn't normally quibble over a misspelling this small, but the fact is that "enervate" means the opposite of "ennervate;" it's the double-n version that awakens stunned people.
The duelling tournament was a lot of fun, and everyone's behavior during and after it seemed very much in character, particularly Ginny's angst about having won "unfairly" and Harry's reassuring her.
mantis posted a comment on Wednesday 15th April 2009 9:57pm
WTF?! The "agent" has access to the Chamber of Secrets? What the bloody 'ell is going on here?
Oh... so Harry's been out for a month, and she got the diary... and then it got her.
You'd think Harry would have though to use mirrors or some sort of lens to protect himself and the others from the basilisk's gaze -- after all, petrification is reversible, death is not.
"This ponce is Voldemort?" ROFLMAO!
Okay, why not just hit the basilisk with an Avada Kedavra and have done with it? At this point, letting his friends know he's capable of the Killing Curse seems like the lesser evil by far.
"At least we’re in an appropriate place." Another belly laugh -- what a wonderful bit of mordant wit, having Harry finally reveal his secrets in the Chamber of Secrets.
You managed to move me to tears with Harry's friends reaction to his revelations -- even though I knew they would react that way, being the people they are both in canon and here. JKR herself only accomplished that maybe five or six times in the series. Not always at the places everyone expects, either -- I think the most affecting scene in the series, for me, was Kreacher's account of Regulus' death; a close second was when Dumbledore said, "I am not worried, Harry. I am with you." That was the moment I knew for certain he was going to die that night, and it hit me much harder than his actual death in the following chapter -- the torch had passed.
"What does it look like from your end of time?" Have you ever read Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere?" This version of Luna occasionally calls to mind one of the terrifying Mr. Croup's better lines: "Some of us are so sharp, we could just cut ourselves." Asking questions about the future is almost as dangerous a business as making three wishes, although it's mitigated some by the fact that the future under discussion can -- indeed, has -- been changed.
"Now drop the cloak before I get creative." Heh -- another example of Harry sounding like Miles Vorkosigan. Miles is a master of that sort of non-specific threat, all the scarier because of it's latitude. One of his best lines is "Ivan... are you challenging my ingenuity?" Knowing just what havoc Miles' ingenuity can wreak, his cousin Ivan backs down instantly.
"There are far worse ways to die. You’re probably going to discover one or two." Kickass! I was chanting an exultant "yes, yes, yes!" throughout this scene, but that was the icing on the cake. Of course, Draco's expulsion still leaves "the agent in place" in place -- he, whoever he is, is the real threat, and it's not at all clear that this outcome even represents a failure of his scheme -- it depends on how much of a Xanatos Gambit he's really running.
"Harry frowned. She must have already been affected by the Diary, he mused." You know, sometimes even this version of Harry can be amazingly obtuse...
"And after that, Fred and I will do things to them that Harry’s too nice to think of." Heh. The twins haven't a clue just how not-nice Harry can be... but on the other hand, they may well be able to come up with things that never would have occurred to him, just because his sense of humor isn't quite as warped as theirs.
"It means fewer people I’ll have to kill later on." Very, very blunt, but the subject under discussion was a good reason for Harry to show his friends a bit of just how ruthless he had to become in the dark future he hopes to avert.
It's a pity Harry didn't have time to grab the Glock before going down to the Chamber of Secrets -- he could probably have done more damage faster to the basilisk with an unlimited supply of 9mm bullets than with curses. Ah, well, it worked out anyway.
One quibble I have with the use of curses in this story, and others I've read, is that it appears to me that in canon, Reducto and Diffindo only affect inanimate objects. Snape used Reducto to blow up rosebushes in the garden after the Yule ball with no concern about blowing the students under them to a bloody pulp, and from the results it appeared he had no reason for concern; Harry had D.A. member practicing it where it might have hit other members, and the Hex used it to smash shelves in the Department of Mysteries with no concern about hitting each other (also, if it was capable of wounding, they'd have been better off using it to smash Death Eaters).
We've seen Harry use Diffindo on Cedric's bookbag to slow him down so that Harry could catch up and tell him about the dragons, on the tentacles of the brain that attacked Ron in the DoM, and on the chains holding Mrs. Cattermole to the defendant's chair in the Wizengamot courtroom, while Hermione used it to cut Ron free of the spell ropes one of the Death Eaters in the café fight wrapped around him. In no case did the spell accidentally cut the flesh adjacent to its inanimate target, and nowhere in canon is either spell used to harm a living person or animal. Furthermore, there is a canonical spell that does do what you have Diffindo doing to living flesh in this story: Sectumsempra.
I think that Rowling's type of magic treats the living tissues of animals (though not plants) as qualitatively different from inanimate matter; magic that affects one typically ignores the other. This also explains why Avada Kedavra, which slays any living target without fail and passes through shielding charms as though they weren't there, can nonetheless be blocked by a solid object -- a statue, a wooden table, etc.
Lovely H/G sweetness at the end of this chapter. I'm thinking, though, that if I were writing a story like this, being the H/C shipper I am, I would posit that Harry reconnected with Cho some time after the Massacre (she wouldn't have been at Hogwarts then, having graduated in HBP), and they had a relationship that gave Harry some respite from the darkness of his losses and his quest, until she was killed. That would leave him puzzling over which of the two girls he had loved in the previous timeline to pursue in the new one -- plenty of opportunities for angst, there. I expect he'd still end up choosing Ginny, because he has no intention of letting Cedric die this time around, and he knows that Cho would be happy with Cedric.
mantis posted a comment on Wednesday 15th April 2009 8:13pm
Good summary of the last few chapters from Arthur's POV; it's always nice seeing the effects this version of Harry has on those around him.
I love the idea of siccing Rita on Gilderoy Lockhart -- if anyone deserves to be in the crosshairs of one of her hit-pieces, it's him. (Or Umbridge, of course -- I always though Harry and Hermione underutilized Rita's talents in OotP.) Treating Harry as a high-value source rather than a target is sensible, too -- Rita would have done it in canon, if she was smarter. It's actually a good thing that she has the journalistic ethics of a snapping turtle, though -- a [i]good[/i] journalist wouldn't let herself become so dependent on one source that she acts as a tool of that source.
I'm again wondering if you're a fan of Lois McMaster Bujold -- Harry reflecting on how he's changed his friends reminds me of the summation at the end of "Komarr" of Miles' positive impact on the lives of the various women he's been involved with.
It had occurred to me that, unless he and Ginny made love at some point during their "sunlit days" together at the end of Harry's sixth year, the older Harry of your prologue probably died a virgin. Looks like I had that right. I'm imagining, somewhere down this timeline, after he's revealed the truth to his friends and he and Ginny are old enough to be comfortable with that kind of physical involvement, her shock at discovering that he really doesn't know any more about sex than she does.
"It is true that Ms. Granger has an exceptionally well-organized writing style, though you tend to do better when required to think on your feet." Yeah, that's Hermione's greatest weakness, as I mentioned in an earlier review: she tends to freeze up when there isn't enough time to think things through, whereas Harry's natural tendency is to *act* -- and his instant, unconsidered reactions to crises have an uncanny way of producing successful solutions (grab Quirrell's face, stab the diary with the basilisk fang, etc.).
Why *didn't* Harry ever ask McGonagall about his parents in canon? You'd think by late in OotP, after her ringing defense of him in the face of Umbridge's malice, he would have been past being intimidated by her manner, and in that book particularly he had a lot of reason to want to know what James and Lily were like at school.
Harry's dealings with Rita and Slughorn remind me of one of Lazarus Long's aphorisms: "Never appeal to a man's 'better nature.' He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage."
Nice little moment with Cho, there. Of course, as a Harry/Cho shipper I've always maintained that she's basically a nice person. There's a lot of hostility and vilification of her in the fandom, based on very little canonical evidence -- most of what we see of her in canon suggests that she's a rather sweet girl, just rather more emotionally labile than Harry was equipped to cope with in OotP, and I'm happy to see you going along with that interpretation. I really hope merged!Harry can prevent Cedric's death and Cho's resultant heartbreak.
The weather on a given day being different in the new timeline is a bit disturbing, whether it's because some events are random and can change beyond the changes that Harry causes, or because something Harry's done is having a literal "butterfly effect."
Have I mentioned yet that you write Quidditch scenes very well? That's a tricky thing to do repeatedly -- part of the reason Harry misses so many matches in canon, and why JKR said that she heaved a huge sigh of relief when she reached the point where she'd never have to narrate another Quidditch match again; Luna's commentary at the Gryff-Slyth in Book Six was a desperate effort to find something original to do with a Quidditch scene.
So the question is, did Snape intentionally time the end of that detention so whoever stunned Harry could get the drop on him? I was going to stop reading at the end of this chapter and get some sleep, but now I have to know...
mantis posted a comment on Wednesday 15th April 2009 1:57pm
There's something rather sad about the mistletoe scene. I can certainly see why Harry would evade like that -- if Ginny had kissed him on the mouth, he probably couldn't have helped kissing her back a lot more intensely than she was expecting, which probably would have scared her, but what he did do still hurt her feelings. I didn't care much for the way JKR wrote Ginny in the last two books -- I think she illustrated the difference between "character development" and "personality transplant" -- but your Ginny is adorable. She reminds me of a girl, the younger sister of one of my high school friends, with whom I was a little bit in love back when we were both too young and innocent to really understand our feelings or do anything about them.
Good to know that, even in the dark timeline, Percy ended as a hero, not a Death Eater. It looks like maybe Harry will be able to divert him from the path of pratitude in this timeline... unless, of course, he's "the agent in place" -- he could be and still be acting in his family's interests as he sees them, especially if whoever he's working for has threatened to harm his family unless he follows orders.
Actually, I'm starting to think the agent might be Nott, if it isn't some older Slytherin original character. (The only Slytherins we ever knew by name in canon, as far as I can remember, were those in Harry's year, and those on the Quidditch team, none of whom seem terribly likely -- though I suppose it could be Warrington or Bletchley. Surely not Marcus "failed his NEWTs and had to repeat his seventh year" Flint, and I always understood Boll and Derrick to be slightly older versions of Crabbe and Goyle -- big, dumb, and ugly.)
"'Or else what?' Sirius demanded impudently." Under the circumstances, that was not only impudent but rather imprudent, too.
"Or else I’ll have you buried in a dress." LOL! Trust merged!Harry to actually come up with an effective threat to follow the typically futile phrase "If you get yourself killed, I'll..."
"He wondered, not for the first time, exactly how smart that cat really was." Smart enough to be scary, for sure. Crookshanks reminds me of a saying about cats I saw once on a lapel button: "Cats know your every thought. They don't care, but they know." And as Kipling's Cat Who Walked By Himself would remind us, his kind may enjoy being petted and fed and having nice, warm, dry houses to live in, but they're never quite entirely tame.
"I imagine that’s all part of his plan." Speaking of people who are smart enough to be scary....
"Appearances aside, I don’t like secrets." An excellent point, actually; what Harry's doing is probably harder on him than it would be on, say, Hermione, because if there's one thing Harry Potter truly, deeply, passionately hates, even more than he does Lord Voldemort, it's being kept in the dark. That's probably even more true for this Harry, because in the dark future, the secrets Dumbledore kept from him did no good at all and enormous harm, whereas in DH it actually was important that Harry not know Snape's true allegiance, not learn of the Hallows too soon and get diverted by their siren call away from the hunt for the Horcruxes, and, especially, it was vital that he not know that his blood in Voldemort's body would protect him from dying -- because it was precisely his intention to die, for the sake of the whole Wizarding World, that pulled Voldemort's fangs, left him incapable of harming any of the people for whom Harry chose to sacrifice himself. (One variant of Christian theology holds that Christ did not know when he went to the cross that he would be resurrected; I suspect JKR may subscribe to that belief. I know she made mention, before DH came out, of the fact that her own Christian faith would be somewhat more visible in the final novel than in the previous ones.)
"...request permission to issue a formal challenge to Mr. Malfoy for insulting my head of house." This Harry may not be "Dumbledore's man through and through," but his sense of loyalty to McGonagall rivals his allegiance to the Headmaster in canon.
"You are, of course, free to appeal my ruling by lodging a formal complaint with my head of house." That's a good way to rationalize the prefect's power to deduct house points and discourage its abuse, although it won't help much when the prefect in question is Malfoy and the head of house is Snape -- the latter has no more sense of justice and fairplay than the former. Also just like Percy to be able to cite chapter and verse from the school's bylaws -- he might well be the only prefect that carries the entire Code of Conduct around in his head.
You know, it's never confirmed in canon that Ginny wrote that valentine; most people just assume she did. I've always suspected it was Malfoy, and that he instructed the dwarf to deliver it to Harry in front of Ginny in order to humiliate them both. Fred and George could also have been behind it, though -- they're certainly clever enough (an open question in Malfoy's case), and their sense of humor is pretty low.
Melissa is a neat OC -- the elusive decent Slytherin JKR never gave us, at least among Harry's generation. I wonder if the Bulstrodes have some giant ancestry? That would explain their rather impressive size. Although as clever as she is, I'd worry that she's the agent if you hadn't already made clear that individual is male. The really interesting question is, whose agent -- not Lucius Malfoy's, as I thought before this chapter, because he wouldn't consider his son and heir an expendable cat's paw. I don't see how he could be working for Voldemort himself, considering the Dark Tosser's current whereabouts and condition. Nott Sr., perhaps? He was supposed to be in on the diary plot, and he's possibly the last of Voldemort's original coterie of Death Eaters (would that make him a DE OG?).
"if he didn’t already have a boyfriend..." Huh... interesting bit of implied slash... or is it really slash when it's two gay OC's, rather than at least one character who's canonically straight? Anyway, it explains how she knew he had no ulterior motive.
mantis posted a comment on Tuesday 14th April 2009 11:02pm
A couple of additional thoughts: Harry's rant about the "coward's way out" reminds me of Mark Pierre Vorkosigan's "Don't you dare pity me!" rant near the end of Mirror Dance; it may not quite qualify as a Crowning Moment of Awesome, but it's certainly stirring and cathartic.
The other thing is that Sirius in canon kept wanting Harry to be James, and treating him more like a peer than was perhaps appropriate at his age (though he was absolutely right that Harry should have been told about the prophecy sooner); this Harry actually is, in most ways, the person Sirius desperately wants him to be, and I look forward to seeing how their friendship develops.
One of the effects of the changes I made to establish my own alternate Potterverse is that Sirius won't get killed the way he did in OotP. (Harry will have the two-way mirror and know what it is at that point in the time-line, so when the Dark Tosser tries to use the false vision of Sirius being tortured to lure him to the DoM, Harry's reaction will be something along the lines of "Nice try, Tom. Pull the other one, it's got bells on.") That will have major ripple effects down the road, because he's arguably the most ruthless member of the Order of the Phoenix (though Moody might contest that title) -- his reaction to an Imperiused Minister of Magic won't be "OMG run and hide," it'll be "figure out which Death Eater is pulling the Minister's strings, and take him off the count." Followed by a bloody purge of the quislings like Dolores Umbridge who willingly did Voldemort's dirty work.
1001 Practical Jokes and Dirty Tricks -- it could have been worse; for a moment there, I thought he'd gone and bought them The Anarchist's Cookbook. Not a bad idea down the road, actually, especially if Voldemort still manages to seize the Ministry and institute the Taboo on his name -- they could use that to pull a bunch of his loyalists into an improvised minefield, and Apparate away just before the fireworks start. I also kind of wonder what mayhem F&G could get up to with a copy of Grimtooth's Traps for inspiration....
mantis posted a comment on Tuesday 14th April 2009 7:43pm
Poor Dawlish, always the patsy.
"When know one was looking" should be "no one."
Interesting that Harry mentions Sirius' brother; I always thought it sad that Sirius died before he could learn that his brother died a hero, trying to destroy what he apparently believed was Voldemort's sole Horcrux. (Yeah, I know that wasn't confirmed until DH, but really, who else would "R.A.B." have been? Virtually the whole online fandom had that one figured out.)
Finally! Good to see Harry having a real confidante at last. In the original timeline, Sirius had a huge amount of potential that went to waste when he was killed, so I'm very glad to see some of it coming to fruition here. I also loved his reaction to finding out how he died before ("Killed by a stunner? Because I stopped fighting to taunt her?" -- when you put it that way, it is pretty embarrassing, isn't it?), and Harry's "Try not to do it again, all right?"
"I’m glad he and Tonks got together, though I never would have pictured it." That's probably because Sirius wouldn't really know Tonks at this point -- we know he was fond of her, but she was just a little girl, five or six years old when he was sent to Azkaban, and he hasn't had a chance to meet the adult Tonks yet.
How does Harry know his Patronus is still a stag? He hasn't summoned it yet in this timeline, and it might have changed to whatever animal is associated in his mind with Ginny. (Incidentally, there was one H/G story I rather liked in which Ginny's patronus turned out to be a mongoose -- she'd apparently read "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" at some point, and associated Rikki with Harry the serpent-slayer.)
"I may be up for a bit of grave robbing as well." Oh, clever. No bone of the father for you, Dark Tosser! And if Sirius can gather up the Horcruxes and he and Harry can destroy them, maybe there won't be anything for the Death Eaters to even try to resurrect. They ought to do something to preempt Barty Crouch Jr.'s escape, or expose him if he's already out, as well.
I love all the gifts. Trust Percy to disguise a warning about rule-breaking as a present. "Playwizard" made me chuckle, and the watch was lovely... although it also recalled a certain scene from "Pulp Fiction." I hope Harry doesn't get in trouble by going back for it when he needs to be making a quick getaway later on...
mantis posted a comment on Tuesday 14th April 2009 7:06pm
I don't think butterbeer is supposed to be an intoxicant to anyone but house-elves; my impression was always that it's the wizarding equivalent of root beer or ginger ale.
"'But even if you did tell her,' George agreed, 'we’ll just mention that you slipped and called her ‘Mum’ and she’ll forget why she was mad.'" Yeah, Molly's sentimental that way.
I assume it was the "agent in place" from the previous chapter that sniped Cho? I wonder what he's up to...
The discussion of different styles of Occlumency was interesting. I did something similar in my own fic, but my interpretation was that the difference was skill level rather than method, with simple blocking the most elementary form of Occlumency, while a much greater level of ability is required to successfully deceive a Legilimens while appearing to be completely open and honest, as Snape does with Lord Voldemort.
Harry and friends giving Snape a standing ovation was hilarious -- not only did Snape deserve it for putting Lockhart in his place, it would just have to confuse the hell out of him and the Slytherins.
Deflecting Draco's curses onto his cronies was a nice touch -- sometime the best offense is a good defense. Throwing Snape's cruel comment to Hermione back at him was awesome, too.
You do McGonagall's acerbic voice very, very well.
I liked Dumbledore shutting the door with a wave of his hand. In general, I don't buy wandless magic in fanon -- all canon evidence points to it being impossible, with a few very special exceptions like Apparition, flight, and potions, I think that little detail wasn't so much "wandless magic" me as the [i]castle's[/i] magic obeying the will of its Headmaster.
Having Dumbledore reveal the prophecy to his friends while one or two of them might still be vulnerable to Legilimency doesn't seem like such a good idea -- surely it would be better, especially in this AU where Snape is noticeably worse than in canon, if the Potions Master never learned more of the prophecy than the fragment he originally overheard. However, it is good to see him taking steps toward building an alliance with the Headmaster instead of being at odds with him, and strengthening his relationship with McGonagall as well. The latter, I think, could be considered part of Harry's "family of choice" (c.f. [url=http://www.vachss.com]Andrew Vachss[/url]) in canon; recall that the thing that drove him into the kind of white-hot rage it took to cast a really effective Cruciatus was Amycus Carrow spitting in McGonagall's face.
Good thought, getting Hermione started on researching methods of cheating death this early in the timeline. Now he just needs to find some plausible way to expose the diary. It was that, after all, that revealed the truth to Dumbledore before -- he recognized it for what it was, and surmised, based on the way Voldemort used it as a weapon, that it was one of several Horcruxes.
I like the early start to the DA. Wonder if any Slytherins will want to join?
Perceptive!Luna is a little bit scary... I don't think Neville has a chance. Not that he seems to mind.
I don't think Harry really needed to be so alarmed about waking up to find Ginny snuggled up to him; given that they're fully dressed, it's really not all that compromising a position. Luna sitting on Neville's lap is probably more suggestive, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if Ginny "forgot" her cloak on purpose to have an excuse to snuggle with Harry, though.
Something going on there at the end... on to the next chapter to see what it is. Maybe the Dementors will be searching the train this trip instead of on the way to Hogwarts next year; Sirius has, at least supposedly, escaped already, after all.
mantis posted a comment on Tuesday 14th April 2009 7:05pm
"But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t try." LOL! He ought to encourage the twins to get in some practice on Lockhart while he's available... after all, unlike Snape he's not a Legilimens, and he's too incompetent to retaliate even if he ever caught on.
"gormless glory hound" -- occasionally, very occasionally, I run across a turn of phrase in a fic that I suspect would make JKR herself wish she'd thought of it first. That succinct yet complete description of Lockhart is one of them.
I wonder if Molly will send Lockhart a howler? That would be amusing... daily howlers until he gives up and resigns his post would be even better, of course.
Wouldn't it have been simpler to cut down the Christmas tree with a Diffindo, rope it with Incarcerous, and move back to the burrow using Mobiliarbus instead of doing all that by muscle power? (Heck, the fact that British Wizards celebrate Christmas might just be the reason there's such a spell as "Mobiliarbus" at all -- how often does one really need to move a tree? Unless of course Hermione just used her knowledge of magic theory and Latin roots to invent that incantation on the spur of the moment.) Granted that Arthur's fascinated with the way Muggles do things, I still think he'd use magic for a simple but arduous task like that.
I'm beginning to suspect that the "agent in place" is Percy; I really, really hope I'm wrong. Ministry prat Percy was bad enough, an outright evil Percy would absolutely devastate Molly.
The way Harry keeps poking at the Malfoys and the way they're reacting, I'm starting to think that a full-scale war could erupt before Voldemort returns (if he does at all). If Voldemort does come back into the midst of an ongoing war, I don't think he'll be too happy with Lucius, especially if his side is losing.
Great way to bring Sirius back into the story! I figured Padfoot would come looking for Harry. Now to find out what prompted him to break out when he did, and whether he was the one searching the baggage car. If he somehow found out about Scabbers, but not that he'd been caught, it makes sense he might hunt him in Ron's luggage...
mantis posted a comment on Saturday 9th May 2009 7:58pm