#poetryandbloods-blog

[hollowed-theory-hall]

How do you think Tom would have been raised by Riddle?

And do you think Harry's personality would be very different if he had been raised by his parents? or by Sirius?

Hello,

I'll start with the second question and then go for the first. My answers for each are gonna be more of a general overview of how I see their difference and not anything too detailed since this post is long enough as it is.

The short answer is yes and no, Harry (and Tom, for that matter) were very affected by the way they grew up and it influenced the way they behaved, their choices, and their personalities in various ways, but certain aspects of their character would likely remain. I think, in Harry's case whether he was raised by James and Lily or Sirius after James and Lily died would be somewhat different but a lot of his nature still holds.

If James & Lily lived

A Harry who grew up with James and Lily as parents would likely have Sirius around, basically 24/7 as well. Like, I don't see James getting married really separating the duo of James & Sirius. Lily was also clearly close enough to Sirius that they had their own friendship by the time the Potters were in hiding.

I think this Harry would be just as compassionate, and likely still mature for his age. I think, had James and Lily lived, they would've probably had more kids, making Harry the eldest child. Eldest children tend to be the most mature, responsible children and the most helpful to the parents (not always, but on average).

That being said, Harry would be more confident in everything. He'd probably be more arrogant than his canon counterpart. This Harry would still be between Slytherin and Gryffindor in his sorting (closer to Slytherin than canon Harry, actually). This Harry, with his alive war hero parents, and being the eldest child would likely strive to live up to James and Lily and the various achievements in magic/government they had post-war. So, actually, a Harry raised by James and Lily has just as much if not more of a chance of ending up in Slytherin since he'd be more prideful and ambitious and just as clever as canon Harry. (Though, he'd likely still ask the hat to be in Gryffindor, for reasons similar to those in canon).

This Harry would have likely grown up with Neville and perhaps Ron and Luna from childhood, so he'd have arrived at Hogwarts knowing much more about magic and the wizarding world and surrounded by friends.

(How James and Lily survive also kinda matters for this entire what-if scenario. As in, did they kill Voldemort somehow? Did Voldemort just decide not to kill them so as to not waste powerful wizards and then Harry is still the Boy Who Lived who defeated the Dark Lord? somehow? Because that'll make James & Lily and the reaction of magical society different to Harry and would affect how he grew up somewhat)

If Sirius didn't go to Azkaban

If we assumed Sirius, somehow, didn't go to Azkaban. Say he got a trial and was acquitted, bribed his way out, succeded in killing Peter and proving his innocence, or something like this that'll allow him to be Harry's guardian and not on the run from the ministry, how would he have raised Harry?

I first want to say I'm not a Wolfstar shipper, so I don't really see it going in that direction, especially not early on. No shade to Wolfstar shippers, ship what you ship, just not my taste. I actually don't see Remus being overly involved early on. I mean, his and Sirius' friendship is very fractured by this point, both thinking the other was a traitor and they lost the glue that held them together — James. They'd probably mend their friendship later on, but, it'll need to be Sirius who pushes for it because Remus who's left to his own devices would stay away.

So I think Sirius would go to Andromeda for help with baby Harry since she relatively recently had her own daughter. So, this Harry would grow around with Aunt Dromeda and Uncle Ted and Nymphadora as an older sister/cousin character.

This Harry would still be as compassionate and mature for his age as Harrry usually is. His compassion is such a big part of him, that I don't think it could be completely curved off regardless of how he's raised. Harry would be helping Sirius with his grief as much as Sirius is raising Harry. Sirius after James dies would probably wish he'd followed him and then regret the thought immediately because he has to be there for Harry. Harry just being there would probably help Sirius a lot.

But this Harry is probably the most impulsive and least mature of the three Harrys discussed in this post as he'd take after Sirius as his rule model in basically everything. And you can bet the stories of the epic misadventures of the Mauraders (according to Sirius) would be his bedtime stories for years before going to Hogwarts.

And Harry would still be the Boy Who Lived, except now he'd know it earlier and have to deal with a wizarding world that knows. He'd still be more aware of the wizarding world and maybe already friends with Ron and Neville or perhaps other kids by the time he arrives at Hogwarts. If Harry is raised by Sirius post-war, there is also a none zero chance Narcissa would reach out to Sirius and Harry would meet Draco before Hogwarts. I think, they'd still be kinda annoyed with each other as kids, but the dynamic would be different.

This Harry would be more confident, but not as arrogant as if he was raised by James and Lily, I think. I think this Harry would have a whole different set of insecurities, but they would exist. And I see this Harry as the most Gryffindor of them. He'd still have his sass (maybe even more so) and cunning, but he'd be more brash and impulsive than Harry raised by the Dursleys or his parents would be.

If Tom Riddle was raised by his father

This Tom would likely hate wizards more than regular Tom does. After all, he'd grown on his father's stories of being bewitched and of his mother being an evil witch. Then, he'd probably spend his childhood trying to conceal his magic to the best of his ability only for a huge rift to grow between him and his father once the Hogwarts letter arrived.

I also don't expect Tom Sr to be a loving father for a kid he didn't want from a woman who raped him. Especially if said child had magic. If he still married the other woman he was with (Cecilia), I doubt she'd like Tom either. So Tom still has a pretty unloving and neglectful childhood but at least he gets regular meals.

This Tom would likely still get sorted into Slytherin and still be just as hateful towards wizards and muggles and himself. He's still curious about every facet of magic he could find and would want to perfect it.

The main difference is that I don't think this Tom would be overly focused on immortality. He'd be safe from the Blitz, he wouldn't see as much death, and would barely experience the war compared to at Wool's.

This Tom might be willing to settle for a job as an unspeakable at the ministry and not become a Dark Lord. But he also might hate muggles and wizards more than regular Tom and he'd still be after magical experimentation like the mad scientist he is. So, Tom being raised by the Riddles would likely not save the Wizarding World from him becoming a Dark Lord. Hell, he might become immortal just to prove that he can instead of some fixation on immortality like in canon.

This Tom would probably be just as desperate for a real human connection since there's a good chance he wouldn't get it from the Riddles.

Basically, Tom doesn't change much and has a miserable childhood that leads to him becoming an only slightly more functional adult than normal.

[droo216]

I’ve been a quiet follower of your blog for years and have always enjoyed your creations, writings, and opinions. I don’t have words that I think will comfort you but I am sending all my faith, trust, and pixie dust your way. SENDING LOVE FROM BRAZIL!!!!!

I'll take all of the faith, trust, and pixie dust I can get. Thank you, Brazil!

[saintsenara]

🖤, 🤍 and 💀, please!

thank you very much for the asks, anons plus @poetryandbloods-blog!

which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think?

i mean, given the level of reading comprehension in this fandom, pretty much all of them... with snape and dumbledore at the top of the pile.

but i'm going to go for a female character, for fun and profit, and say... petunia dursley.

petunia is - like vernon - primarily a children's literature archetype - the wicked stepmother/aunt/guardian who is constantly trying to assert authority over the child-hero, with very little success. she has to be pretty one-note - shrill and cruel and demonstrably non-maternal [and performatively womanly because she's innately unfeminine] - because it's what the narrative conventions which govern her demand.

but, nonetheless, when we look at her without the restrictions of these genre conventions, there's a lot about petunia which can be used to contextualise her actions in the series with rather more nuance than they're often afforded.

when petunia is - at most - twenty-four, she has no parents, her sister is dead, she's at home all day with one toddler [and she appears to have no other social support when it comes to caring for dudley], and she's just had another toddler dumped upon her in incredibly traumatic circumstances.

vernon appears to be considerably older than her - him complaining in the very first chapter of philosopher's stone about how "young people" dress doesn't make sense if he's in his twenties as well, and i tend to imagine that he's at least fifteen [if not twenty] years older than his wife, meaning that, since they apparently married before lily and james, petunia was twenty-two at most when they tied the knot and vernon was anywhere between thirty-seven and forty-two. vernon is also from a higher social class than she is - and so much about her canon behaviour can be explained by recognising how nervous she is about not disappointing him by revealing to their neighbours that her class-performance is a pretence, rather than something she was born into.

this isn't to deny her agency in her decisions - she is, of course, also confined in a prison which is directly of her own making [the bland domesticity of her perfect little house, all of which is an artifice constructed so she doesn’t have to admit how deeply she once longed to be magic] - and nor is it to deny that her treatment of harry is wrong.

but it's important to note that nothing is completely black-and-white. petunia's cruelty is intertwined with an obvious loneliness - which is only compounded by the twin societal monsters of class and gender conventions.

and she makes a great subject for a nuanced character study, and i'd love to see more!

which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

hagrid, who is a death eater.

if you had to choose one major character to die, who would you pick?

answered here.

what is a popular [serious] theory you disagree with?

"black family madness".

while many mental illnesses - and the personality traits which can be contributing factors to them - run in families, and while i'm interested in the idea that sirius' depression when he's trapped in grimmauld place mirrors walburga's own after he leaves home in a way which can be thought of as inherited, i really dislike the idea that there's some sort of inherent madness running through the black family like a generational curse.

this fanon attributes anything bad done by a member of the family - especially a female one - to madness. which is obviously an inaccurate and stigmatising approach to mental illness - but which i also think is also a very dull way of examining the cyclical, generational thread of prejudice and restriction which runs through the blacks in canon.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

What do you think happened with James and Lily's stuff? Still in the house about some Spells? were they looted? I just find it strange that Harry is sent to his aunt's house with nothing but an old blanket, that he never got anything back from his parents/grandparents other than old photographs sent by never-named friends. The house is still there as we see in book 7, it's not like it has disappeared into the ether.

It really saddens me, but I think their stuff just got abandoned in their cottage for the most part. Maybe James has a few things left in his parents' house (I assume there is another Potter Manor out there somewhere). Maybe James and Lily placed some valuables in their vaults at Gringotts, but I think most of it remained untouched.

On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981, Lily and James Potter lost their lives. Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever to have survived the Killing Curse. This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore apart their family.

(DH)

Is what's written on the sign outside and Hermione remarks the house looks unsafe to enter into.

He could see it; the Fidelius Charm must have died with James and Lily. The hedge had grown wild in the sixteen years since Hagrid had taken Harry from the rubble that lay scattered amongst the waist-high grass. Most of the cottage was still standing, though entirely covered in dark ivy and snow, but the right side of the top floor had been blown apart; that, Harry was sure, was where the curse had backfired. [...] “You’re not going to go inside? It looks unsafe, it might—oh, Harry, look!”

(DH)

This, kind of implies to me, that if Harry did enter, he would've found some of his parents' belongings. Photos and clothes and shoes. Probably his toy broom from when he was a baby. I think they didn't keep anything too precious in the cottage, but all these everyday things are probably still there in the rubble.

I think it fits the theme of that entire chapter they're visiting Godric's Hollow. I mean, the house was said to be left as it was as a monument. Everywhere around them is cold — frozen. I believe the house was left as it was as a statement, something frozen in time, and an image sending Harry almost 17 years back to a life he can't remember but wishes he could've known.

Because of this frozen-in-time element of this chapter, the ruinous state of the snow-covered house, the snow-covered graves, idk, it just feels like their stuff is there. Frozen like everything else in Godric's Hollow.

[saintsenara]

flood, landslide, eclipse?

thank you very much for the ask, anon - which i'm going to combine with this one from @poetryandbloods-blog:

thank you for celebrating the start of autumn [still no rain here!] with the weather ask game.

🌙 eclipse: what's the most common / reoccurring theme of your wips? and 🪨 landslide: which wip has the most worldbuilding?

answered here and here.

💦 flood: how many wips do you have?

yes.

🌪 tornado: who is your most impulsive character and why?

across every single thing - even those, like scylla and charybdis, in which he barely appears - the answer is harry james potter.

the reason is because he has adhd believes himself to have very good gut instincts, to always be correct in the judgements he forms on people, and to always be acting for a correct and righteous cause.

which means in one year in every ten he's fucking up a murder investigation by failing to following basic standards of evidence collection, because following them is slowing him down when he knows who's to blame. [he's also banging lord voldemort.]

in the war of the roses he's giving sirius the silent treatment for not dying.

in subluxation he's being credibly suspected of having killed dumbledore, and is also giving all the lovely death eaters running the ministry - and their ginger-haired collaborators - much, much more paperwork to do by breaking in, decking dolores umbridge, and stealing something augustus "department of mysteries" rookwood knows very well wasn't just a piece of tacky jewellery...

in scylla and charybdis he's constantly resisting the adult snape's attempts to keep him alive [although i would certainly describe that as snape's own damn fault...]

and in the cheeky bit of riddledore i have upcoming...? he's getting lord voldemort spared the death penalty by being easily outfoxed by a well-paid barrister. which is going to cause dumbledore a lot of trouble...

🔥 wildfire: who is your most emotional character and why?

across everything, lord voldemort. aka tom marvolo riddle, tom sorvolo riddle, tom narivoloz riddle, tom evildo reger, tom rojvol raddle, tod morvosc rodlel, tom elvis jedusor, trevor delgome, tom musvox ruddle, and - on occasion - romeo g. detlev jr.

why? well, growing up in an orphanage has quite a lot to do with it...