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musicfeedsmysoul12 · 6 years ago

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Haven Raised- Chapter 5

Summary: Harry’s life is completely changed when his aunt and uncle are forced to take him to a funeral at a relatives. Now being raised by Primrose Evans, her sister Grace and the citizens of Havenfall, his life is going to be a roller coaster.

On AO3

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 Harry was utterly terrified as he walked onto the platform. He really wanted his mom or aunt. But he was a big kid and his mom said she was proud and…

No panicking. No panicking. Just breathe. Just breathe. He told himself, gripping Spot’s leash tightly. He was happy he'd gotten permission to have the dog with him. He wouldn't be able to stand it otherwise.

“Hello!” A voice said, startling Harry and causing him to almost fall over. Spot barked. “Whoa! Sorry about that.” An older boy moved to stand in front of Harry. “Didn't mean to surprise you. He your guide dog?”

“Companion animal,” Harry said honestly. The boy nodded and offered his hand.

“I'm Cedric Diggory. It's nice to meet you,” the boy said.

“Harry Potter, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He said like his mom usually did when she was in a situation with strangers. The boy looked surprised before he smiled.

“Would you like a hand with your trunk… oh! You got a shrinking one?”

“My mother’s idea. She said it was a better idea then having to haul one around for the next seven years.” Harry told the boy who nodded.

“Fair,” Cedric said. He did help Harry find a nice compartment though- commenting about Hedwig.

“My uncle believed it would be a great idea for me to contact him this way. I moved to America when I was young and while we have a mailbox an owl is quicker for him and me.” Harry told Cedric who nodded his understanding. He left to go find his friends and Harry pulled out a book on magizoology while petting Spot. After a while, the door opened up and a red-haired boy came in.

“Do you mind? Everywhere else is full.” The boy said.

“Not at all,” Harry said. The boy blinked and looked a little nervous but sat down.

“I'm Ron Weasley.” He said cautiously and Harry took a breath.

“I'm Harry Potter. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Ron looked shocked.

“You are?!?” Harry winced, unable to control that. Ron also flinched seeing the wince. “Sorry.”

“It's…” His mom's voice came into his mind, saying never apologize for his feelings. “Alright. I… had an unpleasant experience living with my aunt and uncle before I went to live with my adoptive mother. I'm not a fan of loud noises.” Harry pet Spot a bit more. Ron looked confused but shook his head.

“Where do you grow up then? In the Wizarding World in America?”

“No. My mother is a muggle though she does have contacts with the magical world. I grew up in a small town in Indiana- a State in the US.”

“Wicked,” Ron said. “Do you have any siblings? I've got six of them.”

“That's quite an amount!” Harry said in surprise. “I don't have any siblings really. My mother’s younger sister is only seven years older then I and she's always been more of a sister than an aunt but she is still my aunt. We were raised together.”

“Cool,” Ron said. “I'm the youngest boy. Every single one of my brothers has done something great, meaning if I do something awesome they've already done it.” He looked gloomy as he spoke. Harry could sympathize. Some of JD’s stories or Razi’s comments about their siblings being better than them came to mind.

“My mother’s boss- Razi- has an older sibling he says was always better,” Harry said slowly, remembering the talk Razi gave him when he was upset at not getting the highest grade in the class. “He currently runs the family business and is known as one of the kindest men in town. It doesn't matter what your siblings did- it matters how you do them.”

“... thanks,” Ron said, smiling a little. “Umm… what house do you think you'll be in?”

“I don't know. This is the first item I encountered a House system truthfully.” Harry shrugged.

“They don't have it in America?” Ron asked in surprise. Harry shook his head.

“Not at all.” Harry hummed. “Truthfully I feel Hufflepuff would be the best choice for me. I am hardworking and my mother often taught me that being a hard worker is all it takes to succeed. As well… she's always been a loyal woman. She chose to give up her dreams for me and Grace- her sister- because she didn't want us to be raised by people who didn't care for us.” He shrugged.

“She raised you and her sister?” Ron asked.

“Her parents died when she and Grace where young and their grandmother died when she was given a scholarship to a culinary school- a cooking school,” Harry clarified at Ron’s confused look. “She's worked herself to the bone to be a good parent for me and a good sister for Grace.”

“Wow.” Ron hesitated. “You know, my mum was one of the top five students in her year. She chose to be a stay at home mum with my older brother Bill. And then she kept having us and she could have…”

“You don't realize how much your parents care until it's staring in your face,” Harry said. Ron nodded, a thoughtful look on his face. Spot barked from Harry’s lap and Harry happily pet him.

“How do you have two pets?” Ron asked then, curious and a little jealous though he wouldn't admit it.

“Hedwig was a gift from a friend of my biological parents so I can keep in contact with him. My mother and I have a mailbox set up I can carry with me to send letters and magic proof phones.” Harry explained. “Spot is a companion animal for my anxiety and panic attacks.” Ron winced then.

No longer jealous at all.

“I've got Scabbers,” Ron said then, pulling the rat out of his pocket. Spot suddenly lifted his head to stare at the rat for a long moment before putting his head back down. “He was Percy’s rat for a few years but he got an Owl for being Prefect-”

“What is a Prefect?” Harry asked in confusion. Ron blinked at Harry.

“Blimey, you really are not used to this school huh?” With that, Ron launched into a description of the school. Harry listened carefully, nodding to show he understood some comments.

The door opened after a while when the conversation turned to Quidditch- a game that Harry was fairly certain his mother would have a panic attack herself if he played. A witch pushing a trolley was outside the door.

“Anything off the trolley dears?” Ron winced and pulled out a sandwich while Harry pulled some coins out of his pocket. His mom had figured that there would be someone there with food but had still given him a lunch, just so he could buy some treats but not just eat junk food.

“Ron, can you help me pick?” Harry asked him, redhead. “I'll buy you something as well?” Ron blinked and looked uncomfortable but stood up. They bought a small collection of treats- Harry thinking of Dr. Diego’s look if he bought too much. The downside of his mother is friends with a doctor, something he told Ron about.

“Aren't doctors those nutters who cut people up?” Ron asked in confusion.

“No. A doctor is… like a healer.” Harry said, remembering the word in a book. “Dr. Diego is the town doctor and usually handles colds or immunizations or other things. He does do surgery at times- which is cutting someone open but there have been hundreds of years of history to figure these things out.”

“Huh. Cool. And he’s friends with your mum?”

“Yes. He's friends with her boss and often comes to her workplace for a drink and the two talk.” Harry shrugged. “After school, I would go to the bowling alley to do homework and chat with her.”

“Bowling alley? That where she works?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, getting more and more used to Rob and dropping the formal tone. Ron noticed but didn't say anything. “It's like a second home. Razi helped me a lot through the ears and JD’s fun-”

“JD a coworker of your mums?”

“Yeah. They're pretty hilarious.” Harry said. Ron looked confused again and Harry elaborated. “They're nonbinary and always having Sheriff Hunt come in to yell.”

“Sheriff?”

“Hmmm, I think the term I can use is Auror? She's the boss of our town’s division.”

“Wicked. JD causes trouble? And what's nonbinary?” Harry began explaining some of JD’s funnier stories while also explaining what nonbinary was. The two boys had a laugh and ate their packed meals first. “That's American food then?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, munching on his burger his mom had bought for him from Stop and Go and put into his enchanted lunch box. “It's my favorite. Mom takes me out every once in a while to get one. She did learn how to cook Indian food from this woman named Chetas but like… I really wanted a burger before we left.”

“Cool,” Ron said, nodding. The candy was weird to Harry though he really wished he could give JD some of the Every Flavoured Beans for a laugh. They would be so angry it would be funny.

“I'm not a huge pure chocolate person,” Harry said, looking at the chocolate frogs he had gotten Ron.

“Why not?” Ron asked. Harry shrugged.

“Dunno.” The door opened then and Harry’s spine stiffened. Ron noticed it and frowned as a bushy-haired girl came into the compartment.

“Have either of you seen a toad?” She asked in a bossy voice. “A boy named Neville has lost his.” Harry shook his head as did Ron.

“Terribly sorry but no we did not,” Harry said politely. The girl looked at him and frowned.

“Dogs aren't allowed at Hogwarts.” Harry frowned in turn.

“I received special permission to have Spot with me,” Harry said. The girl scowled.

“That's unfair. The rules are there for a reason and you flaunting them is wrong!” She said, huffing. Harry simply stared at her, feeling his heartbeat picking up. “I'll talk to the Headmaster and-”

Harry began breathing raggedly, his lungs compressing and eyes widening. No, no, he can't lose Spot. He can't-

“Harry!” Ron said, standing up as Spot barked and moved to sit in Harry’s lap fully. The girl looked shocked. Ron turned to her, glaring. “Get out. You're being rude and mean and we don't want you in here.” The girl looked hurt as Ron went to Harry, keeping back a bit and feeling lost.

“Uh, Harry ummm… can you breathe, please? Just breathe okay?” Ron said in a nervous tone. The girl left, running off to find someone as Harry hugged Spot, shaking and having a hard time breathing. “Look if you have permission they won't take Spot, promise, alright?” Ron said, guessing what it was given Harry had said the dog was a companion animal and not a pet.

“Hey-” a third year wearing yellow and black robes came in. “Heard the commotion… shit.” The boy said softly. “Panic attack. Harry- it's me, Cedric. You met me this morning. Can you take a deep breath and hold it?” The boy asked soothingly. Ron watched like a hawk as the boy calmed down Harry even when Percy showed up with the girl. Percy held her back and watched carefully.

Once Harry was calm he also looked incredibly embarrassed, hiding his face in Spot’s fur.

“Panic attack?” Percy asked. Cedric nodded. “Alright- Ron, give him a bit of space yes? He’ll be alright. We’ll inform the teachers just in case but he's okay now.”

“What about his dog!” The girl demanded. Ron turned to give her a nasty look.

“Shove off!” He told her. She looked incredibly offended as Percy frowned.

“Please be polite Ron, and I assume it's a companion animal. He's here for health reasons and thus he was given special permission to have him.” The girl scowled.

“He could have-”

“He said he had special permission and you made him sick!” Ron told her, glaring at her. She looked upset as a boy came up to them.

“Umm Hermione? Have you found my toad?”

“Missing your pet? Here, I'll teach you a quick charm-” Cedric said, standing up and ushering the group out, leaving Ron and Harry alone. Percy went with them, obviously realizing they needed to leave the compartment.

Ron stood there, glaring at the door while Harry took shallow breaths.

This girl had caused a kid who looked like he had a bit of a hard time in life to have a panic attack- whatever that was- all because of her stupid want to be right from what Ron could tell. Whatever house she was in, he didn't want to be near. Even if it meant following Harry to Slytherin, that girl was annoying and rude!

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Harry and Ron had just changed into their uniform after the battle when the door opened again, Harry tensing and Ron moving in front of Harry slightly. Harry was thankful to Ron for that, feeling a bit calmer now that his friend was with him.

“I heard Harry Potter was in this compartment,” said the blonde. He looked annoyed for some reason as he spoke. Harry swallowed.

“That quite depends on who is asking,” he said, mimicking his mother’s tone when she was trying to be polite but cold to people. The boy scowled but tried to hide it.

“Draco Malfoy.” Harry immediately remembered his mom and her talks about the Malfoy family. She had said to be careful but not to think the worst of the son. That was rude and cruel.

“I see,” Harry said in as neutral a tone as possible. Ron snorted himself. His dad had hated the Malfoy patriarch ever since he had cut funding to their office. Luckily with the truth about the whole seat not being there's coming out, they got more money coming in now- meaning he and his siblings all had new wands now which was great.

It was nice to remember that moment of happiness on his dad’s face.

“Think my name is funny to do you?” Malfoy sneered at Ron who scowled at him. “Red hair, muggle clothing? You're either a mudblood or a Weasley.” Ron snarled at that. You did not say that word! That was disgusting!

Harry frowned though. That sounded like an awful word and this kid was using it?

“I can help you Potter,” Malfoy said. “Show you that some Wizarding families are better than others?” He offered his hand. Harry ignored it.

“I believe I am more than able to find the right sort for myself. Now please leave. Spot is hungry and I'd rather not pull him off you.” The dog growled and Draco looked nervous before snarling at Harry wordlessly, leaving the compartment with a bang.

“That was brilliant,” Ron told Harry. Spot barked happily and the two boys traded smiles. It was the start of a great friendship.

The train soon arrived at school and the boys left, Spot having to be left behind while the boys were gone, but Harry felt safe with Ron honestly. He had already stuck up for him! It was a nice feeling. Sure some of his friends back home were cool but… they wouldn't have done this.

The guy calling all the first years over was huge! Harry was a little nervous about him but he smiled at everyone and just gave off this cheerful vibe as he got them all to come over to a bunch of boats.

“No more than four to a boat!” The giant man called. Harry and Ron, as well as two girls who looked like twins, got into the boat. They waited patiently as everyone was seated and then off they went.

The first sight of the castle made Harry’s breathe hitch, eyes wide as he stared at the amazing place. He heard Ron gasp as well, staring at the sight.

There were no words to describe it, other than amazing.

At one point in their journey, Harry suddenly felt like he was back in the safety of the bowling alley, having a cup of hot chocolate and chatting with Razi, but it faded rather fast. That was weird. Maybe it was a ward to help them feel protected in a certain place? He had always felt the most protected at the bowling alley.

Once they got to the castle, they were introduced to a woman that the big man called Professor McGonagall. Harry sort of remembered her from when she visited with Dumbledore. She looked as impressive as she did before.

She was giving some speech he didn’t pay much attention to, instead, he was looking around and trying to see if the girl was around. He’d prefer to avoid her, definitely.

They had to wait for a little while in the room, while Ron was wondering about the sorting.

“It can’t hurt. Can you imagine parents letting their kids be hurt?” Harry asked Ron softly when he mentioned his brother saying it hurt.

“Nah, guess you’re right mate… you doing alright?”

“Yeah.” Harry agreed quietly. “Just hope this ends sooner than not.” A handful of ghosts came through the walls then, all chatting about something.

“Oh!” New students said one of them, acting incredibly surprised… and remarkably like JD when they were acting innocent. Harry’s eyes narrowed as he watched the rest of the interaction.

“That looks staged,” he told Ron as McGonagall came back in. Ron blinked and then looked thoughtful.

“Huh. I suppose it was. Weird.” Ron shook his head but followed McGonagall without much more thought. Harry just thought it made sense for it to happen like that. Introduce the kids to ghosts early so they didn’t freak out later.

There was a hat on a stool in front of everyone in the huge hall they entered. Harry felt nervous, staring at it before it suddenly began to sing.

As it sang, Harry just stared, feeling shocked and confused. That was… that was weird. What?

“We just have to try on a hat?! I’m going to kill the twins- they went on about wrestling a troll!” Ron grumbled.

“That hat just sang,” Harry said, blinking. He shook his head. “Magic, right. At least it sounded better than JD’s death metal.”

“What?” Ron asked.

“A type of music,” Harry told Ron. The two watched as people went up to the hat and said hat would shout out names. Some took awhile, and others were fast.

The girl who had accidentally triggered a panic attack was named Hermione Granger apparently, and she went into Gryffindor which was the House of the Brave. Ron looked horrified and Harry just hoped he got into Hufflepuff as he wanted.

Malfoy went into Slytherin, something he also decided he wanted to avoid.

When his term came, everyone was whispering in awe and shock as he walked up to the stool, trying to ignore everyone as he sat down, focusing on Ron who was looking at him and mouthing encouraging things.

When the hat was dropped on his head, it blocked everything. Wow he was small

“Well, well, well. What an interesting mind…” mused the hat on his head. Harry took a quick breath in surprise and gripped the seat of his stool. “Such a strong mind, such talent… oh, what interesting people you know young Mr. Potter… now where to put you…” Harry’s mind turned to Hufflepuff, the loyalty his mother showed to him and Grace, the fact she worked so hard for him and Grace to be happy. He thought of Sheriff Hunt and her strengths, her hard work. Of the people in Havenfall and how strong they were, their loyalty to one another, even if they didn’t like each other. Like the time JD’s brother rolled into town and they turned him away. Even Luce.

“Well, seems I know the answer.” The hat said. “Better be… HUFFLEPUFF!” Harry let out a sigh of relief even as what felt like shock gripped the hall. McGonagall removed the Hat, but her face was shocked Harry noticed, the boy standing up and ignoring the shocked looks.

And then Ron began clapping. And soon a yellow and black table burst into cheers and shouts. Harry sat down at the table with a grin, next to a boy named Ernie who shook his hand happily. Harry grinned and waited for Ron’s sorting, feeling very nervous.

Ron himself felt nervous, sitting underneath the hat. He didn’t know what he wanted. He knew what Harry had said about loyalty, about doing something different… and…

“Well if you’re sure… better be… HUFFLEPUFF.”

Meanwhile in Havenfall…

Prim propped her head on her hand, staring at the wall of the bar. She was already missing her kid terribly. Barely eight hours ago she’d dropped him off- though everyone thought it was yesterday- and all she wanted to do was see him again.

“Hey, why the long face?” Asked one of the men at the bar. She gave a half smile.

“Hello, Stan. I’m just… a little tired. A little sad. My kid’s gone off to school now and I’m feeling old.” She joked. The man laughed.

“Eh, you can say your old when you're my age. Your kid will be fine, yeah? He got into some special boarding school I heard?”

“Yes, he is.” Prim agreed. Very special.

“Well then, he’ll be fine! He’ll have a bunch of stories to tell and fun new things to try. And you can have some fun, huh?” He teased and Prim laughed.

“Thanks, Stan. Want your usual drink?”

“I’d love it, thank you.” The old man smiled at her and she grinned back. Diego who was sitting near Stan gave him a look.

“Mr. Lee, need I remind you that you are not to drink too much?”

“Bah, let me have fun. When you get to my age you take what you can get.” Prim giggled at the two, smiling to herself.

Harry would be just fine.

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I would like to dedicate the small part at the end to Stan Lee, may his legend live on.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I do want to address the part with Hermione, Now, before anyone says anything- Hermione is the beginning is an annoying and bossy little girl. I like Hermione!! She's an awesome character and a sweet kid. I really do like her!! I just also know that neither Ron or Harry would like her in the beginning. I needed a solid reasoning for this dislike when I put the boys into Hufflepuff and the idea of her accidentally triggering a panic attack came to mind. So here we are!! Don't worry- she'll be best friends with Ron/Harry soon!!

Small plot point:

Why no Goyle or Crabbe? The Malfoy family lost a lot of clout with their bull with the seat. Meaning the boys don't want to be near Draco, too dangerous for their standing in the house.

#haven raised #harry potter #havenfall is for lovers

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darpok · 6 years ago

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Blog Post: On Fan Fiction and Other Storytelling Traditions

When I was twelve or thirteen years old, and even our family finally had DSL internet, I discovered the joys of fan fiction. In case you haven’t been living under the same rock as I have, allow me to explain. “Fan fiction” refers to stories written by enthusiasts of a particular book, TV show, or other creative work. While most “fics” – as my friends and I would call them – take place within the particular universe of the original story, others take known characters and put them in an entirely new setting. (That’s how 50 Shades of Grey was born.) There’s also fan fiction that doesn’t deliberately draw on any work but revolves around real, famous people in imagined situations. (See Graham Norton and Daniel Radcliffe discuss this type on the former’s show.)

The stories that interested me ranged from shorter “one shots” to multi-chapter epics, but most were placed in the Harry Potter universe and nearly all were tales of romance – if you could call it that.

The pairings I read about (and often ‘shipped’ – a verb that comes from the ‘ship’ in ‘relationship’ and means “hoped would bang”) – whether true to canon (i.e. the original books), such as Lily and James Potter, or wildly inventive, such as Hermione and a Tom Riddle to whom she has traveled back in time – usually engaged in the kind of love/hate banter that sends real couples to therapy. The pair would glare at and insult each other (often employing strangely American turns of phrase for a pair of ostensible Brits), their apparent mutual disgust hiding a deeper attraction. For my friends and I, it was riveting stuff.

While I was mainly a Lily/James shipper myself, you can’t talk about Harry Potter fan fiction and not mention Dramione. The fan-invented romance between Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger was a tale of forbidden passion, a defiance of Hogwarts housing norms and the mandates of Potter canon itself. Draco did need to be less of a whiny loser to be a deserving match for Hermione, but this could be arranged without too much trouble. In the fan fiction world, Draco was dark and brooding, and he didn’t bring his dad up in conversation quite as often as in the books. Hermione was clever and empathetic, and although she was rarely depicted with less than Yule Ball-level beauty, her looks were not her main characteristic.

Sometimes fan fiction Draco and Hermione fell for each other while at Hogwarts. In other fics, they met again under changed circumstances years after the fall of Voldemort. Then there were the AU fics in which a brilliant young paralegal named Hermione Granger begins work at the firm where successful lawyer Draco Malfoy practices. You get the idea.

Photoshop creations starring Tom Felton and Emma Watson (no credit belongs to me). The purple one in particular has stayed in my memory for years, and brings on a familiar feeling of excitement at all the great content to peruse in the world. It was the banner for a website that allowed fans to nominate and vote for their favorite Dramione fics.

A particularly sexy iteration of the Draco/Hermione story was called Water by kissherdraco. In it, Draco and Hermione are Head Boy and Girl at Hogwarts. Of course, this means that they must live sequestered in their own dormitory, with its own entrance, common room and adjoining bathroom that ensure they see each other in a state of partial undress when the story demands it.

Water was held by many to be the pinnacle of the genre. It had lust and angst in equal measure, executed with a liberal dose of swear words and aggression. Moreover, Water took the common flaws of the Dramione world’s characters and actually explored them, allowing character to drive plot. In the story, Draco is brooding and cruel as ever, but these traits are linked to vicious abuse at the hands of Lucius. This backstory is not seen as an excuse for Draco’s behavior and he is forced to grow and change as the story progresses (although not quite enough, tbh).

I never finished the story, perhaps because my young brain was alarmed by all the hate-sex, but I revisited it with curiosity for this piece. Here is a relatively benign excerpt from the text, although please skip if you’d rather avoid themes of physical dominance:

“You’re crying,” growled Draco, leaning in and flicking his tongue onto her cheek. He tasted salt.

She struggled then, and he brought his hands to her shoulders to hold her still. “Don’t, Granger,” he warned. “I fucking need this. I can’t fucking…” He trailed off.

He never would have noticed before. Not like he did now, at least. Her lips were wet. They were red and moist and magnificently ripened for him. So full of blood. Hot, heated, sullied blood. He couldn’t take his eyes off them.

Other fics situated romance within a larger plot about the politics of the wizarding world. Prelude to Destiny by AnotherDreamer took place in the Marauder era (i.e. the time of Harry’s parents) and focused on the coming-of-age of Lily Evans and her role in the battle against evil. It begins, “Two cultures and a thousand miles from you, there is a castle on a hill…”

Another fave began life under the title Ancient and Most Noble and is now called Druella Black’s Guide to Womanhood. It is about the diverging lives of the three Black sisters — Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa — in the early years of Voldemort’s power. The sisters confront the crumbling of the their easy closeness as they make different choices in a changing world.

”It’ll be a laugh, you’ll see,” Bellatrix whispered into her ear, her breath sweet and thick from wine. They were curled in the cool grass, tangled in the layers upon layers of lace and satin that were their dress robes; it had taken them an hour to get them on right and just ten minutes to unsettle them. Andromeda’s head was spinning: from the liquor, from the heat, from far too much dancing. “It’ll all be just like this,” Bella was murmuring, her lips brushing against her ear. Stars whirled by overhead, maybe close enough to touch. Close enough to try.

“Always just like this.”

—

Andromeda swore as she stepped off the train. From inside the nicely cool travel car, summer had looked so charming, green and bright and gloriously school-free…

I was most interested in these fics, the ones that revolved around the generations before Harry’s. There was something compelling about the knowledge of forthcoming tragedy for many of the characters…Plucked away from the happy ending of the books, these fics became an exploration of why life is meaningful even in its flawed and finite scope.

I look back on my fan fiction experiences as belonging to a beautiful time when the internet was less like Janet from The Good Place* (if Janet were selling everything she knew about us to profit-hungry corporations and belligerent, militarized governments), and more like a library you went to when you felt like checking out a book. Nobody knew what I ate and where I went every minute of the day, because I didn’t put that stuff online, nor did I (to my knowledge) carry a tracking device with me when I went downstairs to play with my friends. At 5 pm, our moms would have to call each friend’s landline to reach us and remind us to stop home for our daily glass of milk or what-have-you.

*Janet is a humanoid presence in the afterlife who holds all knowledge in the universe and can create objects out of the void.

Fan fiction was a commerce-free creative space – devoid of ad revenue and the quick accumulation of likes. Since there was neither money nor social capital to be gained, everyone who participated did so out of pure interest. One did have the hope of raking in reviews from other community members, but these were about more than validation; reviews allowed people to have conversations about a shared passion and often included constructive criticism along with praise. There was little need for bitterness – if a fic was well-written, everybody won, since it meant they got to read it.

Below are some examples from the reviews section of Prelude to Destiny. It’s certainly no Twitter.

Written by rach on chapter #13. (March 28th 2009, 5am) Hey,

So I’ve read your whole story before, and now I’m reading it again, because I saw it spotlighted on the site. And this chapter is amazing. I love the end…I’ve never (well, before I read this the first time) compared Lily to Mrs Crouch. But it’s so true. They both gave their lives for their sons and…this chapter is phenomenal. Just thought I’d let you know

Rach

Written by Smith on chapter #26. (April 29th 2008, 11am)

…If I am to find any fault in the story, then I should say that Remus was rather dull. Not that it was completely out of character, but I imagine him being funnier and also good Lily’s friend. Their friendship is mentioned by Lupin in the third film and, I should think, in the book as well, though I don’t have a copy right now and thus can’t provide a quote. Pity, that. [Given my extensive knowledge of canon, I can tell you that the reviewer is mistaken on this last point.]

Thank you very much for writing this story. Reading it was an enjoyable experience that I might repeat in the future. You’re brilliant, to put it short.

Author Response: Thanks for the review!Yeah, Remus was a bit dull. Actually, I didn’t intend for Lily to be friends with any of the marauders besides James. I just wanted them out of the way. But I know what you mean. After Sirius entered the story, Remus was even duller in comparison. Plus, I wanted to make Peter seem like he fit in, and Remus just fell by the wayside, you know?I’m enjoying writing Gertrude again after taking over a story from my friend who used my characters. Anyway, thanks again!Miranda

For me, too, fandom was a more than a casual hobby. Since I was only allowed an hour of internet use a day, I would spend the time copying and pasting chapter after chapter of fan fiction onto Microsoft Word, allowing me to read all I wanted later. (As you might imagine, Water was not stored on the family computer.) I remember scouring for new fics on fanfiction.net and clicking through page after page of fan art on deviantart.com (both of which retain their early-2000s layouts, unlike Mugglenet or JK Rowling’s official site), very differently from how I scroll through Instagram today. I admired works of fandom the way one appreciates springtime’s first flower, or the décor of a friend’s bedroom – I admired the stamp of individuality they bore and that inspired me to create something myself, to express my joys and sorrows, to be a part of the world.

RIP old websites

When I did put Harry Potter-inspired art out there, somewhere around age fourteen, it was of course in the form of fan fiction, writing being my weapon of choice. I wrote two one-shot pieces, one funny and the other sad — or such were my intentions, though perhaps the results were inverted. While some friends wrote longer stories, I never felt talented or inspired enough to commit, which is a typical self-doubting move of the kind I am trying to leave behind. (I now plan to write no matter how untalented and uninspired I may be.)

One piece was about a character of my own invention, a Slytherin guy with the requisite pure-blood, Dark magic-loving family, and a perky, ponytailed Huffelpuff girl on whom he develops an obsessive crush. It was intended to be a BBC-inspired mockery of the character, taking all the gloomy sexiness of the Dramione universe and making it ridiculous. It was also a thorough exploration of really wanting to make out with somebody sitting in the same classroom as you, not that I’d know anything about that myself.

The other short story was a sincere ode to the books and an exploration of some of their core questions on death and loss. It followed Harry in an imagined scene that takes place (SPOILER ALERT lol) after Dumbledore’s death in the Half-Blood Prince. Harry is climbing the steps to the Owlery with a package in his hand, thinking over his relationship with Dumbledore. As I wrote, I found that I absolutely had to include excerpts from a fairly unexpected source, a chapter in the first and most overlooked of the Harry Potter books. The chapter is “The Mirror of Erised,” whose titular object reveals to the onlooker their deepest desire.

“Professor Dumbledore. Can I ask you something?”

“Obviously, you’ve just done so,” Dumbledore smiled. “You may ask me one more thing, however.”

“What do you see when you look in the mirror?”

“I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.” Harry stared. “One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”

It was only when he was back in bed that it struck Harry that Dumbledore might not have been quite truthful.

In my story, Harry gazes out at the Forbidden Forest for a little while, wondering who Dumbledore had been behind the mask of calm wisdom and pondering the burden of those left alive and grieving. Harry then ties the package he’s been holding to Hedwig’s arm and sends her off, chuckling a little through tears. In the last line it is revealed that – OMG – he has just sent off a pair of thick, woolen SOCKS. To DUMBLEDORE. Even though Dumbledore is DEAD. Isn’t that profound?

Two years later, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, and to my complete surprise, it delved deep into some of the questions about Dumbledore that had tumbled out of me, stream-of-consciousness-like, in the story I wrote. The text even includes part of the above excerpt from “The Mirror of Erised”. At the outset of Deathly Hallows, Harry learns that Dumbledore’s childhood was a difficult one, the true details of which remain murky and contested by his admirers and critics. Harry regrets never having asked Dumbledore about his past, but recalls that, after all, the one personal question he had asked Dumbledore was not answered honestly…

While writing my story, I had imagined Harry’s pain and longing to know Dumbledore better. Because fan fiction allowed me to externalize my interpretation of the text, the questions in my mind took on concrete form. Their answers, when the next book presented them, became all the more striking and emotionally impactful. It was as though I had written a letter to the series of books that had shaped me and received, in a way, a gentle but meaningful response.

In 2004, JK Rowling released a statement about the phenomenon of fan fiction. She was flattered by fans’ desire to write about her characters, and her only caveats were that fan fiction should remain suitable for children (unfortunately that ship had already sailed, and Water was truly the least of it), as well as a non-commercial activity so that fans’ creative pursuits would remain unexploited. Other authors have not been as accepting, and have asked for fan fiction based on their work to be removed from popular websites. After all, in our current world, a story is classified as property. A sentence, a verse, a character’s name, can belong to someone the same way as the furniture in their house and the dollar figure in their bank account.

In the long history of storytelling, however, ownership is a relatively recent idea. Bear with me while I make an analogy – in pre-industrial Britain, every town had a commons, an area of land where anyone could gather firewood, take their cattle to graze, or hunt and fish to supplement a year of poor harvest. Storytelling has historically functioned as a kind of commons of ideas, one that anyone could pull from when the time came to tell a tale. Want to warn your kid against going near a well? Tell them about the hungry demon that lives in it. Were you hired to entertain a crowd at a wedding? Maybe you dust off an old poem about a prince and princess who meet one evening in the forest but spend years apart, not knowing each others’ true identity until it turns out they were betrothed all along.

Nobody invented well-dwelling monsters or estranged lovers for the first time – they simply existed in a shared cultural space, available when needed (or when it was particularly enjoyable to use them), ready to be shaped into something new and old at the same time. Even today, no one questions the use of familiar tropes in books and movies; we know that all storytelling involves a certain amount of borrowing and repetition, and we deem this acceptable as long as the storyteller has put an adequately original spin on the themes they utilize. The legal line is drawn once you get to the particulars – character names, or sentences and dialogue. These must be brand spanking new if you want to avoid a lawsuit and getting dropped by your publishers. (Does anyone else remember How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life?)

But for thousands of years, people told and re-told stories of beloved and familiar characters, not just unnamed archetypes – characters like Odysseus and Arjuna, Gilgamesh and King Arthur. The Sanskrit Mahabharata (Maha-BHA-rata) an epicly long, genre-defying story from South Asia, especially challenges the idea of a single, canonical text (much like other ancient story traditions from the subcontinent). It was told so many times by so many people that modern-day folks are not always able to agree on what the Mahabharata even is. The story is like a vast ocean — recognizable to all, but appears different depending on where you happen to be standing.

In the 20th century, some scholars collected Mahabharata manuscripts from all over the subcontinent, extracted the most commonly occurring parts to form a text, and detailed the many variations of each verse in footnotes that turned out longer than the text itself. No one can quite agree whether to treat this resulting (multi-volume) “Critical Edition” as the essential Sanskrit Mahabharata tradition, or as some kind of strange, post-colonial Mahabharata scrapbook. All this so that whenever somebody wrote an essay about the story, there was a single text, pieced together as it was, to use as a point of reference. (My Bachelor’s thesis was one of the lesser works of this scholarly genre.)

The plot of the Mahabharata goes like this: The five Pandava brothers, namely the prone-to-gambling leader Yudhishthira, morally-conflicted archer Arjuna, lovable beefcake Bhima, and something-to-do-with-horses twins Nakula and Sachdeva, along with their badass wife Draupadi, are exiled from their kingdom and forced into a year of disguise after a rigged dice game that Yudhishthira loses, and in which Draupadi is stripped and humiliated before a hall full of men. Eventually the Pandavas regain what they lost through a bloody war that leaves both sides devastated and questioning the point of all this conflict. The End.

Does my summary reflect my biases a little bit? For somebody else, the Pandavas might be perfect heroes, Draupadi a whiny ungrateful shrew who won’t stop yelling at them. To me, she is the moral backbone of the Pandavas, unafraid to call for what she feels is right even as everyone around her takes the coward’s way out of trouble.

Interpretations of Draupadi from various traditions

But it’s not just me who has a take on the story: the Mahabharata itself reflects a range of interacting and conflicting views, which might indicate that people from various backgrounds heard it and were able, in some way, to influence it. For example, although the text generally upholds hierarchies of caste and gender, it also pulls at the listener’s heartstrings with stories of characters who must confront these oppressive norms.

There’s Amba, who is stolen from her future-husband at her wedding and rejected by him when she manages to return; she later chooses to be re-born as a man in order to kill her kidnapper in battle. There’s Ekalavya, the talented archer from a forest tribe who trains with the Pandavas in youth and asks to prove his devotion to his archery guru any way he can; the guru, who favors the upper-caste prince Arjuna, asks Ekalavya to cut off his right thumb. There’s Kunti, who finds herself pregnant after an illicit affair with a god and places her baby, Karna, in a river; Karna is adopted by a lower-caste charioteer couple and goes on to fight against Kunti’s legitimate sons in the great battle that destroys the universe. And there’s Satyavati, whose husband/baby daddy pretends not to recognize her in front of his kingly court but gets completely schooled on how not to be an asshole.

“You know very well [who I am], your majesty; why do you say that you don’t, lying like a common man? Your heart knows the truth, and knows your lie. A man who does something wrong thinks, ‘No one knows me,’ but the gods know. If you do not do what I ask, your head will burst into a hundred pieces.” She discoursed at length on the reasons why a man should honor his wife, quoting the dharma texts.

(from The Ring of Truth: And Other Myths of Sex and Jewelry by Wendy Doniger)

Perhaps, among the traveling bards and indulgent grandmas who told the Mahabharata over centuries, there were some who identified or empathized with the pain of oppression and through whom otherwise-marginalized voices could ring out into the millennia.

The many Mahabharatas, along with the many conversations inside the Mahabharata, illustrate how the human imagination is prolific and messy, not content with merely absorbing information but impelled to remake, to take inspiration, to create, create, create. Isn’t that what happens when we read? We see the world we are reading about in our own way. We make up something in our own head as we go along, and that’s where the entertainment lies. The book itself is but a wonderful tool.

Perhaps if I had a right-wing patron who paid me to tell stories, I would tell the Mahabharata a little differently from how I do here, focusing on how the Pandavas were self-made men or how the ethnic minorities they killed were thieving encroachers. Or if I were telling the story to children, I might leave out anything particularly frightening. In the telling of a story, the will and whims of the teller have influence, as do those of the listener (or reader) and the financial benefactor (or publishing house).

What remains inevitable, however, is that rarely is a story told the same way twice. Even in our post-printing press, post-internet world, where stories are replicated identically again and again, we continue to dissect, analyze, and change them, whether it be through everyday conversations, online forums, or the prestige lens of a critic’s review. (A perfect example is the adaptation of works from one medium into another, be it from literature to film or from film to theater.) Sometimes the authors themselves continue to tweak and interpret their work – Virginia Wolf was known to make changes to her books prior to reprinting, and we all know that JK Rowling can’t leave the Potter universe well enough alone (love you Jo!).

For me, fan fiction is a grand storytelling and textual tradition not entirely unlike the Mahabharata. Fan fiction not only illustrates the malleable, generative nature of stories, it also provides a rare space, in our capitalist global economy, for storytelling to be that malleable, generative thing it has always been. It allows for democratic engagement in the storytelling traditions of our time, free from the boxes of profit and ownership. It lets us expand the possibilities of our collective imagination. Importantly, it allows voices from the margins into the story, where our canonical texts routinely fail us.

I’m also thankful to fan fiction for being a rare space, outside overpriced college English classes, where literary discussion can thrive. When I say discussion, I don’t mean mere binary criticism – like book reviews, or the Goodreads star rating-aggregates that help determine book sales. I mean questions about how a text makes you feel, what it reflects or critiques about our world, the things that literary characters, beloved and abhorred, may teach us about our shared humanity and flawed choices. And yes, some of these conversations involve Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy as co-Heads of Hogwarts, using the same bathroom.

Are you a reader or writer of fan fiction? Have you you dabbled in fan art? Or do you engage in a non-online form of fandom, like a book club? Please share!

Thanks for reading.

#fan fiction #writing #storytelling #early internet #dramione #mugglenet #mahabharata #harry potter #feminism #romance #indian history #draupadi #longform #long post

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