or-worse--expelled

[or-worse--expelled]

What if Lucius had died in the first war?

There seems to be a general consensus that Draco got most of his poor traits from his father and most of his good traits from his mother. So I wonder, what would have happened had Lucius been killed in the prior to 1981 and Draco had been raised solely by Narcissa?

Narcissa is fiercely loyal, especially towards her family, especially towards her son. She would (and does!) protect him at all costs as we see in both HBP and DH. So imagine how she would have reacted had she not had the (sometimes conflicting) loyalty to her husband or at least no reason to follow his idol.

Because had Lucius died in the first war, killed in action in a raid or something, the Dark Lord would have most likely brushed his sacrifice off saying something like he was not strong enough. After her husband’s death and that disrespect, Narcissa would most definitely have turned on the Dark Lord. Even if she still hated muggleborns, even if she still believed in pureblood supremacy, you can bet that she would be against the Dark Lord. When Bellatrix’s ideals were a threat to Draco’s life, Narcissa threatened her right back and hexed her for being in the way. If she would turn on family, just think what she would do to the man who took her husband away from her.

She would have gone straight to the Order of the Phoenix, plying her way with all the information she had learned from Lucius, all the tidbits she had overheard while eavesdropping in her own home. Imagine Sirius’ shock when he walks into the Order meeting and finds he ex-cousin (re-cousin?) sitting primly on Dumbledore’s right hand bouncing baby Draco on her knee, the Black mask of indifference firmly set on her face. That meeting runs long. Narcissa has more information about the Death Eaters organization than the Dark Lord ever intended anyone to have, especially an unMarked woman. Safe houses, hierarchies, inner circle members, spies, double agents, dark creatures who have been bullied or enticed into fighting, corrupted Ministry employees, intended targets, she tells them everything. But only after acquiring the vow of every single person in the room that they will protect her and Draco. She forces Dumbledore to make an Unbreakable Vow.

She had skillfully rid the Manor of the Dark Lord–an apparently weak woman, openly mourning her husband is poor company–but she still knows well enough to act meek when Death Eaters come by the Manor. They continue to drop hints at tea, make pointed insinuations at dinners and introduce her to the ‘particular friends’ at the occasional ball she deigns to attend. Through this, she maintains the Order’s dependence on her, feeding them each bit of information she gets; new targets (the Potters go into hiding), new members (Wormtail is outed before he has opportunity to do harm), relocated safe houses (after the the Hogsmeade location raid student recruitment for the Death Eaters dropped dramatically).

Regulus comes to the Manor one afternoon on the pretense of a family dinner and tells her that he knows she is the one feeding the Order information. She has her wand digging into his throat before he can say “Bludger”. Instead of threatening her, he begs her to take him with her; he has crucial information about how to defeat the Dark Lord. At the next meeting, Sirius walks in and chokes on air when he sees his brother sitting on Narcissa’s right playing peek-a-boo with Draco.

Draco and Harry are not enemies at Hogwarts. They meet as toddlers at Sirius’ post war celebration. Narcissa allows the friendship because while Lily might be a muggleborn, she was also instrumental in the Dark Lord’s death and besides, James is a pureblood, even if his line has always been rather liberal. Harry isn’t scared off when the Sorting Hat tells him that he would do well in Slytherin because even though Ron said, “there’s not a witch or wizard that went bad that wasn’t in Slytherin,” Harry knows that Reg and Cissy (”Regulus and Narcissa, Harry, please. I don’t care what Sirius says, he’s an idiot!”) were in Slytherin House and they’re both heros. Draco isn’t surrounded by poisonous frienemies or bulking lackeys because his longtime friend Harry is there with him and when some of the other Slytherins prove less than kind, Harry and Draco leave them in the dirt (quite literally, maybe Uncle Moony shouldn’t have taught them that spell so young) and find worthy friends from other houses. The Dark Lord doesn’t return, most everyone lives and all because Narcissa does revenge better than anyone.

[or-worse--expelled]

my problem with the ‘harry becomes lord of 2/¾/5 ancient noble houses’ trope is so unbelievably petty because its that fic writers don’t take it to the potential extreme. like, okay, you wanna make harry the bossest of bitches i get that, i understand, i have that urge too from time to time, but c’mon, be a little more creative about it please

so how about a fic where harry goes to gringotts after the fighting is all over to try to make peace with the goblin nation because this boy does not need more problems and after much hostility and some groveling and promises of future payments for damages caused a plucky goblin lass comes and shuffles harry into her tiny cube office to discuss the nature of his financial situation

(this is a grave insult among goblins. getting handled by a female, first of all, because they are supposedly less capable bankers, hello misogyny among other species, and because they consider anyone who needs help with his money to be lower than cave scum. harry doesn’t know about his. and if he did, he wouldn’t care because he does, desperately, need help)

and plucky goblin lass (who we will call PGL for short) brings out this MASSIVE tome of parchment and slams it down on her desk. a cloud of dust rises. harry sneezes and gets a terrible feeling. some of the parchment is mildewing. the stack is taller than his hand is wide. this can only end badly

PGL tells him that he’ll need to read the entire book to fully comprehend the new scope of his property and harry kind of weakly says “what??”

and it turns out that heyo, when the death eaters swore to follow voldemort with all their lives and souls and magic in their little racist hearts they actually swore a modified liege lord oath which also has the coincidental side effect of ceding all titles (and property connected to said titles) held to the lord in question too. haha how funny who knew

and that’s an ongoing thing. so voldemort was the de facto head of two dozen magical houses at the beginning of the war and he just picked up more as he gained more followers and he probably could have just voted himself and his crew into every position of the government and run the country like that if he cared to do it but voldemort was not about dat political life. he wanted change and he wanted it now. he wanted to MAKE AMERICA MAGICAL BRITAIN GREAT AGAIN. so he started a civil war and just never informed his loyal death eaters of that little fact because they didn’t need to know.

and you might think that gringotts vaults are tied into bloodlines but they’re really not. the malfoy family vault belongs to whoever is the current head of the malfoy family. normally, that’s a malfoy and his malfoy spawn becomes the next head and so it passes through the family, accumulating inherited wealth. it was a working system until voldemort got involved and exploited the ever-living hell out of it.

now this all becomes harry’s problem because it turns out that Right of Conquest is an actual thing. what was voldemort’s is now his and voldemort has has the time to accumulate A Metric Fuck Ton of stuff.

also connected to titles are votes in the wizengamot. and whoo boy, this is where harry’s problem becomes really really really problematic. because the noble families squabble over those votes like children, hoarding them and passing them down, occasionally trading them for advantageous marriages and such, but mostly jealously guarding them like the politcal gold they are. it’s such a bitterly tight-fisted market that any one family has ~maybe~ three or  four votes.

and now harry bloody potter has a hundred of the things and a completely unintentional stranglehold on the government. whoops

and then hermione would shotput harry straight into the wizengamot against his protests and things would become so hilarious i just

some jerkass attempts to increase his own salary for doing basically nothing

“how about no,” harry and his hundred votes say.

somebody attempts to tighten restrictions on where magical creatures like vampires and werewolves can work

“how about no.” harry crosses his arms. “actually, how about we repeal those bullshit laws already in place that make it almost impossible for werewolves to get a job right now, hmmmm? and how about we put something in place to catch abusive owners of house elves? and make sure they get paid? and vacation days? and healthcare? actually how about we get healthcare for EVERYBODY HOW ABOUT T H A T?”

ten generations of purebloods cry out in horror. look upon him ye mighty and despair.

the years after voldemort’s defeat don’t go down in history as The Golden Era. in fact, thanks to harry bloody potter (and some incessant nudging by hermione granger), they go down as The Decade of Frankly Astonishing Strides Toward Equality *cough* enforced by a semi-plutocracy.

(all thanks to a third tier plot never really explored by a would-be dictator YOU’RE ALL WELCOME)

[or-worse--expelled]

yknow the more jk rowlings world falls apart in america (race relations, international history, population, etc) the more i like to think that america just straight up doesnt have the statute of secrecy. european countries are falling over themselves hiding magic but come to georgia and theres a drunk redneck wizard wingardium leviosa-ing the shit out of a tractor to the delight of his drunk redneck muggle buddies in a walmart parking lot.

wizard on muggle violence is prevented by virtue of there being like a 50/50 chance that muggle is packing heat. muggle on wizard violence is prevented by knowing that wizard can give you boils spelling LIL BITCH on your forehead if you try to start something.

america is the weird redheaded stepchild of the magic world.

[or-worse--expelled]

Harry, Hermione, and Ron are killed early in their search for Horcruxes. Voldemort orders a full invasion of Hogwarts to find the remaining ones. In a panic, Hogwarts is evacuated. One student slept through the evacuation order: 4th year American transfer student Kevin McCallister.

[or-worse--expelled]

When Ron, frustrated with studying for NEWTs and with Hermione’s anxious sixth-year nagging, explains to her what reading is like for him, Hermione’s breath catches. “Ron, you’re dyslexic,” she says, softly, and instantly regrets every snide comment she’s ever made towards his study habits. 

Soon, by asking around, Hermione amasses a list of spells for Ron to try - some stilling the page, some changing the font of books for easy reading, some going after Ron’s temporal lobe directly. 

These help, a little, but not as much as knowing there’s a word for why reading is so hard for him. That it’s normal, that he’s not stupid, and that Hermione suddenly helps instead of criticizes, looks for solutions rather than complains, praises instead of gloats. 

[or-worse--expelled]

Why they never talk about no magic home ec class in Hogwarts.

Clearly they have spells for it.

Molly Weasley has knitting needles going, and while house elves do the cooking at Hogwarts presumably they use some magic there to keep up with the giant work load, and iirc, Molly uses magic to cook. 

So, where the home ec class at. Where the muggleborns with dread in their eyes thinking it’ll be a normal like, cooking class, [Harry all excited thinking he’s gonna ace this class or at least do alright, since he cooked for the Dursley’s], and then the first half the first class is a lesson about how you’ve got to earn the respect of your measuring spoons. Otherwise they’ll argue with you on how much has to go into a recipe. Harry has a kind of tentative conversation with his and they work with him after he realized they were an older set used to students forcing them to work for them. Talks to them gently and asks if they think a little more or little less should go into a recipe, or if they think he should add an ingredient now and then because they’ve made the same thing over, and over. Harry trying to make Molly a sweater in return for the one he got because he doesn’t know what to do with having gotten gifts, and only really managing a rather lengthy and oddly tensioned scarf made from the best yarn he could find out of a catalog he found on the shelf in the classroom. The professor was just delighted he’d decided to keep at knitting and crocheting [he may have… mixed the two] after they’d finished the unit, to make a gift.  

Where’s Hermione having a long drawn out conversation with the home ec professor about how it’s ridiculous to devote magic to knitting when you can do it by hand, and the professor countering about the time saved by simply using enchanted needles or a charm. The conversation takes up the entire period but a teacher actually takes Hermione seriously for once because effective division of effort/time is a very important skill to learn and it’s what they’re there to teach. Wheres Ron answering all the questions like a fucking CHAMP because managing in his family has basically made his ass a pro at everything– budgeting a vault? On it. Spelling how many cauldrons to feed how many people with how much food? On lock like it’s fucking Azkaban. Best herbs and plants to grow for general– he has already finished the worksheet/in-class essay that was on the board and is fucking around with his quill. He gets called on, his string bean ass gonna have the answer while kinda being shocked at himself that he actually does, because– like many poor ass people– we manage resources really damn well when we know what we have. And we very rarely let it get away from us.

Where’s the rich-ass purebloods that know finances and shit because they’re taking over family blood-line affairs when their older and their parents drilled that into their heads, but can’t cook/sew/anything else to save their life till they learn. Where was Oliver Wood trying to make Healthy Food Things for the quidditch team for Extra Energy and just making a mess. The Twins making a totally harmless banana pudding and selling it in their store and NO ONE KNOWING WHAT IT DOES, everyone panicking because they’re SURE they did something.

We were robbed of so much is all i’m saying.

[or-worse--expelled]

hermione: rules are Very Important™

hermione: -sets teacher on fire-

hermione: have you checked the restricted section?

hermione: our only answer is polyjuice potion, brewed extremely illegally in the girls' bathroom. btw we have to steal the ingredients

hermione: we gonna fuCK time up, fuck what the ministry said, let's save a gd hippogriff and an escaped felon

hermione: -knitting hats- don't mind me, just tryna trick all the house elves into going free

hermione: -keeps a HUMAN BEING in a jar-

hermione: hey harry, u should lead us in a secret underground defense group. i'll make a sign up sheet. don't worry, it's hella cursed

hermione: oh, remember that human being animagus i captured? let's blackmail the shit out of her to get her to write an article for us

hermione: -uses confundus on mclaggen-

hermione: -obliviates her FUCKING PARENTS-

hermione: -runs away from school to fight the dark lord-

hermione: anyway, rules are Very Important™

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one of the most important things to me about harry potter is its portrayal of happiness. in the harry potter world, happiness isn’t just a feeling—it’s a weapon. look at how harry and his friends fight: with riddikulus, laughter stymies a creature made of fear; with expecto patronum, the very memory of happiness beats back the grim forces of depression.

the weaponization of positivity stretches beyond that. fred and george weasley’s inventions, meant for laughter, turn into arms against umbridge’s regime. and after their departure from hogwarts, their joke shop becomes not only the single bright spot in diagon alley (literally & figuratively) but a hub of defensive magic. the whole weasleys’ wizard wheezes narrative serves as maybe the clearest example in the series that happiness can act as both shield and sword.

there is something deeply empowering in a depiction of happiness as something so tangible and usable. as a profoundly depressed person, i often feel myself scrounging for happy memories and clutching them close; i find myself grasping for laughter in the dark. the physicalization of expecto patronum is not a quantum leap from reality. the boggart’s laughter as combat fuel, the weasleys’ levity as not just a choice but a difficult and defiant one—it’s all familiar.

the series has its share of darkness, but it revels most in the light. it lets us believe that the act of joy is not small, trivial, or inconsequential. happiness is something not just to be lived—it is to be wielded, on your own behalf and the behalves of the people around you, to battle against the world’s heavier elements. harry potter teaches us this.

[or-worse--expelled]

Imagine twelve year old Harry not even knowing how awful his childhood with Dursleys had been until he gets to the Burrow.

Imagine him seeing Percy asleep with a book on his lap, and being baffled that a kid might feel comfortable enough in his own home to be so vulnerable in the living room. 

Imagine Molly coming up to the attic to say goodnight to Ron and Harry, and Harry glancing at Ron when he hears her footsteps, trying to figure out what they had done wrong that day.

Imagine him asking George who does all the house chores, and thinking it’s a joke when George answers, “we all do.” 

Imagine Ginny pestering Arthur with questions over the Daily Prophet, and Harry trying to shoot her warning looks to stop it! but then Mr. Weasley looks up and patiently answers every single one. 

Imagine Bill popping in for a visit one evening and Harry being floored when Bill stops to chat with him. 

Imagine Fred chasing after Harry in the yard, playfighting, but Harry actually begins to run for real fear of being hurt. 

Imagine Molly burning something on the stove my accident and tossing it, imagine Harry mentioning to Ron, offhandedly, “she could’ve given that one to me, it’s what I eat at home when I mess up dinner” and not knowing why Ron is horrified.

Imagine Harry seeing what a normal, functioning family looks like, and realizing the absence of love in his own life. 

[or-worse--expelled]

I just had the coolest dream

Lily Potter kept having dreams of the dark lord standing over Harry’s crib and casting the killing curse.

James kept telling her it was just a dream, though he had the protection wards on the house strengthened. After all, they had a secret keeper, the dark lord didn’t know where they were.

Lily though. Lily grew up muggle.

So when the dark lord came for them that night, he lifted his wand, and Lily lifted the SIG Sauer she’d bought  from a pawn shop and empties the clip into Voldemort’s chest.

Not even a wizard could survive that, but just to be sure, she reloads the clip with shaking hands and empties that one into his head.

James is dead, but Harry is still alive, and so is she and now she knows Peter Pettigrew is a lying little weasel who gave them up to the Dark Lord.

And then I woke up.

[or-worse--expelled]

“He’s just a boy” Narcissa says to Severus Snape

[or-worse--expelled]

Headcanon that an outraged 6-year-old Charlie Weasley writes to an elderly Newt Scamander wanting to know why Gringotts keeps a dragon locked up underground and begging him to fix it. Newt writes back saying that sadly he’s been fighting that fight for years and no one ever wants to listen to him because the powerful families whose money is being kept safe by the dragon always shut him down, and that Charlie is the first person he’s heard of who’s as angry as he is about it. Charlie decides that day to dedicate his life to finding out everything he can about dragons so that one day he can free the poor Gringotts dragon. After the war, when they hear that Harry, Ron and Hermione freed the dragon, they celebrate and immediately begin petitioning to have it made illegal to imprison dragons so that nothing like that ever happens again. It’s only when Hermione becomes Minister that it’s finally signed into law.

[or-worse--expelled]

has anyone ever before been so comprehensively torn to shreds in their life tho

[or-worse--expelled]

Draco and Harry with their scars and tattoos (and looking all pumped and shit ‘cause it’s typical upthehillart)

Heavily inspired by @sadfishkid, also @coldcigarettes and some other random posts on tattoos that are drifting somewhere within the ocean of internet x)

[or-worse--expelled]

tbh the most unrealistic thing in harry potter is when mrs weasley in the first book asks “now what’s the platform number?”

like this woman has been going to that school for seven years and then dropped kids off on the same place for nearly ten like why on earth would she forget the platform number

[or-worse--expelled]

January…

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