Space twins ⭐
Tag: au
(mini) dogfather update: digging his heels in
As always, everything dogfather-related is tagged with the dogfather and story updates are tagged with dogfather story post. If you get antsy waiting for the next update, check out my AO3 or the zines and comics on my Gumroad. I’ll have a longer update in the next couple of days, I promise!
THE BOY WHO LIVES!
Eight years ago, it was discovered that Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, only known survivor of the Killing Curse, had vanished. Though the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has remained tight-lipped about the circumstances of his disappearance, it was widely believed that rogue Death Eaters were the likely culprits. The case has gone unsolved, drawing harsh criticism of the Aurors from numerous Ministry officials– until now.
Following a lead from an anonymous source, the Daily Prophet has learned that in fact Harry Potter has been living under an assumed name, among Muggles, and is currently a first-year student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. While no Hogwarts staff could be reached for comment–
The phone rings, and Harry jumps, looking up from the newspaper. Everyone else is nervy, too: Ron looks around wildly for the source of the noise, and Moony and Padfoot are trying to hide the fact that they both went for their wands.
“Hello?” Harry’s mum says. “Oh. No, dear, it’s fine, it’s not too early. Harry’s just here.”
She waves him over, and hands him the phone.
“Harry, have you seen the newspaper this morning?” Hermione asks.
He has– and yes, he’s all right– and no, of course he knows she didn’t tell anyone– and really, it could have been anyone– and hang on, what did Hermione mean about London?
“Well, we can’t go now, can we?” says Hermione.
“Of course we can,” says Harry.
He realizes, suddenly, that the kitchen has gone very quiet.
“Hermione? I’ll call you back,” says Harry.
What follows is not technically a row, because everyone involved is trying very hard not to shout.
“You can’t go wandering London with a target on your back,” Padfoot insists.
“You and Moony will be with us,” Harry says.
“Hate to say it, but Diagon Alley will be a madhouse,” says Ron.
“Then we won’t go to Diagon,” Harry says.
“We ought to wait until things calm down,” says Harry’s mum.
“But then Ron and Hermione won’t be able to come with us,” says Harry. “And that’s not fair.”
“We ought to talk to Dumbledore,” says Remus. “And Molly and Arthur.”
Harry sets his jaw in a way that is breathtakingly familiar to half the adults in the room. “We should ask Ron’s mum and dad if it’s okay. But I don’t care if a bunch of people want to make a fuss about Harry Potter. I’m not doing anything differently.”
“Quite right,” says Harry’s dad.
(Tim and Caro have rarely given their sweet-natured son much cause to really dig his heels in, but they know he’s only stubborn about the things that truly matter.)
(later, Remus says “He could have been Lily, just then,” and Sirius nods.)
So Harry calls Hermione back, and Ron owls his parents, and Sirius re-casts half the house’s wards in a fit of paranoia.
But once they winnow down the itinerary to only the places they’re least likely to meet any wizards, and Ron’s parents owl their rather bewildered approval, and Dumbledore benignly stonewalls the Aurors into submission—
They go to London, just as they should.
in case you missed it last night!
dogfather story post: meanwhile, Remus
As always, everything dogfather-related is tagged with the dogfather and story updates are tagged with dogfather story post. If you’re getting antsy waiting for the next update, check out my AO3 or the zines and comics on my Gumroad.
(also, I am giving up on the bullet points, surprise!)
Over the course of the fall, despite his best intentions, Remus finds himself being kindly, thoughtfully, relentlessly parented.
He had planned to take a flat near Harry’s parents, and keep watch without interfering in their lives. Instead, he’s living in their spare room, and every time he isn’t home for dinner they look disappointed.
He spends a weekend up a ladder, pruning trees with Tim shouting encouragingly at him from the ground. Caro keeps giving him books and asking him thoughtful questions about them. They fuss over him when he come home from the full moon. He can’t quite bring himself to complain.
It’s strange, is all. Remus has been living on his own since he left school; he hasn’t spoken to his father in years. There had been a little while, in the brief golden years after Hogwarts, when he and his friends had lived out of each other’s pockets, when the contents of their various kitchen cupboards had been communal property and they’d slept on each others’ sofas as often as their own beds. It was even odds, back then, whether on any given morning he’d wake up in his own flat with his face mashed into the back of Sirius’s neck, or on the lumpy hide-a-bed at Peter’s, or in James’ spare room to the sound of Lily whistling while she brewed a hangover cure and James made breakfast.
(Remus knew, at the time, that there had been a quiet conspiracy amongst his friends to look after him. He always seemed to have more groceries on hand than he could remember paying for, and they kept giving him unwanted sweaters and robes, supposedly gifted from from their least favorite relatives, that fit him suspiciously well.)
But he learned, in the two awful years when Sirius was in Azkaban, to look after himself, and Remus has never liked to be coddled. After Sirius came back, he was the one who needed looking after, for a long time, and that suited Remus better than the other way around.
So: it’s strange. He’s an adult. He gets on very well without anyone but Sirius to care for him, on the rare occasions he really needs it. But Harry’s parents miss Harry, and Sirius, dreadfully, and having someone to care for seems to help.
And he owes them, anyway.
They’ve raised James and Lily’s son. They love Harry as much as James and Lily did, and kept him safe while Remus and Sirius looked for him. They don’t seem to hold a grudge about the year and change that Sirius pretended to be their dog. No, they treat Sirius like family, and Remus too. And he’s just about sure they know what he and Sirius are to each other, without forcing anyone to have a hideously awkward conversation about it.
Having said that, they’re not by any means perfect.
Caro rarely outright disapproves of anything, but by the third or fourth time she asks if he’s really sure about that, dear, Remus generally just gives in. When Remus is working on anything non-magical, Tim has a habit of hovering nearby and offering not-actually-helpful advice until he makes Remus snappish. If he comes downstairs one more time to find the Muggle newspaper lying open on the table, with the employment section face-up and listings helpfully circled, he might be forced to Incendio the stupid thing right there in the kitchen.
So it’s with some relief that Remus decamps to Hogwarts for Harry’s first Quidditch game. He even takes the packed lunch from Harry’s dad.
He and Sirius had agreed to watch from a distance with Hagrid, but they agree it’s just not the same after about three minutes of play. So Sirius turns into Padfoot and they go up into the stands together, finding seats with the rest of the Gryffindor first years.
Ron Weasley frowns at him, trying to work out why Remus looks familiar.
“Hello again,” Remus says. “I think we met at Hagrid’s a few weeks ago? I’m an old friend of Harry’s godfather.”
The girl sitting next to him looks up sharply at that, and then sharper still at Padfoot. Hagrid introduces her as Hermione Granger.
“Ah, then I suppose we have a mutual friend,” says Remus.
Because Padfoot is considerably more soppy than Sirius ever is in human form, Padfoot wags his tail at Hermione, and puts his head on Remus’ knee.
“So you, er, know Padfoot too, then?” Ron asks.
“Oh yes,” says Remus. “Even longer than I’ve known Harry.”
But the game distracts the children from what might otherwise have been a long list of questions. It distracts Remus too, for that matter. He hasn’t been to a Quidditch game in years, and for a little while he’s simply having too nice a time to think of anything else. The thermos Tim packed even turns out to be heavily spiked with whisky.
But then Harry’s broom makes a spirited attempt to throw him off it.
Remus leaps to his feet. Beside him Padfoot does the same, about to change shape, but there are too many people here. Even for Harry, it’s not worth it, not when Remus can do something instead.
Remus grabs Padfoot by the scruff and hisses “Not here!” before starting up a litany of every countercurse he knows. He’s vaguely aware of his surroundings. The children whisper urgently to each other. Hermione goes hurtling down the stands, knocking people over in her wake. But Remus doesn’t pay attention to much of anything else until Harry gets his broom back under control, and then, quite unexpectedly, produces the Snitch.
Harry and his friends are herded off to the safety of Hagrid’s, with Padfoot playing sheepdog, but Remus doesn’t follow. “I’ll be along,” he tells Padfoot, and goes to find Severus Snape.
I had an idea aged ago for an AU where Sirius scooped baby Harry up out of the wrecked house and just booked it across Eurasia, the Arctic Circle, and then traveled around North America for a decade before Remus finds them and gives Harry the Hogwarts letter.
but I also…well, I want that AU where Remus never shows up (or he ran with them) and the plot of the main series has to happen without Harry. The Marauders didn’t know about the Prophecy! They just knew Voldie was weirdly interested in the Potters. They don’t know there’s a soul-bit stuck in Harry’s head! Sirius knows Peter betrayed them, but doesn’t know who else might be a traitor. There’s every reason to run and no reason to come back. Harry gets homeschooled or attends a wizarding school in North or South America or Australia under an assumed name. When he starts getting headaches and visions, they consult an expert on cursed scars and deal with the whole “sort of but not really a horcrux” issue, because we don’t have anything in canon saying we can’t deal with it outside of unresisted-death-spell-to-the-face, even if canon doesn’t say we can deal with it nicely either.
But that’s a side thing. That’s not the plot. The plot is, what the hell is happening back at Hogwarts with no Harry Potter? Does anyone stop Quirrell? What goes down with the Chamber of Secrets? With no Sirius escaping from Azkaban, does Scabbers even bother leaving Hogwarts? Whose blood is used in the resurrection ritual, if anyone’s? How’s the Tri-Wizard Tournament? Does Draco have a different classmate for a nemesis? Was Hermione still crying in the loo the night Quirrell let a troll into the school? What happens with Norbert? Is Dumbledore using the invisibility cloak himself or storing it guiltily in case the Potter child ever shows up again? Does he give it to someone else to use? Who helps Hagrid with Norbert and Grawp? If Remus went with Sirius and Harry, who’s the DAtDA teacher in 3rd year instead of him? Which of these poor children does Dumbledore decide to groom as horcrux-hunters? Is he going after the horcruxes himself? Desperately looking for Harry? He canonically told Harry to not “put too much store in the Prophecy” and not feel trapped by destiny, insisted that Harry would try to stop Voldemort without ever hearing it, but Dumbledore’s own actions didn’t really seem to support that. Voldie cared about the Prophecy, but if he doesn’t face down Harry over the Philosopher’s Stone, does he care as much about killing the kid? Would he even bother looking for Harry, when Dumbledore is right there and has such a longer history of thwarting him?
There are so many ways this could go!
That sounds amazing. There are SO many ways this could go.
This could be fun, yeah.
First year, assuming Dumbledore still brought the Philosopher’s Stone to Hogwarts, I think you’d wind up with Neville, Ron, and Hermoine solving things… but differently. Neville figures out the plant, Ron catches the key (because, absent Harry, he’s going to be a wannabe seeker, and he’s also likely to have more broom skill than either Hermoine or Neville). Ron gets smashed in chess, Hermoine figures out the potions… and she goes through, because she’s a fearless badass, and Neville knows she can do the charmwork better, if it comes down to it. Since Hermoine doesn’t have a deus ex machina to save her, I figure she comes up with something different… though I like the idea that she figures out how to get the stone, then just frickin’ runs, because she’s not crazy and Ghost!Voldemort can’t read her mind as easily.
Second year, I’d give the crowning moment of awesome to Ron. His wand still disables Lockhart, but he retrieves the Sword of Griffindor from the Sorting Hat and slays the Basilisk (since it’s up to him to save his sister).
Third year gets tricky, because it’s driven by Sirius escaping, which doesn’t happen in this one, but I think the crowning moment of awesome should be Ginny’s this year. Buckbeak, though, would still happen, and Hagrid getting confined. Conquering fear and darkness, after the horror of her first year, Ginny’s the one to save Buckbeak AND master the Patronus charm. Peter Pettigrew gets unmasked because of the Marauder’s Map (when RON notes that he’s always being followed by someone named “Peter”, and he and Hermoine and Ginny look it up)
Fourth year, we’re going to drop Neville in the Triwizard cup. Why? Because the forces behind Voldemort are looking at what they know of the prophecy, and the Potter kid OBVIOUSLY died, so it’s got to be Neville who will bring about the rise of the Dark Lord. Neville fails the first trial (Hagrid gives him some hints, but he’s not the flyer Harry is and doesn’t manage to get his egg), owns at the second (especially since he’ll accept some advice from Hermoine), and then goes into the maze (with relative ease… Really, a Hedge Maze to thwart Neville Longbottom?)
By Order of the Phoenix, we’re going to come back to Hermoine leading the pack. She fought hard against Umbridge, and without a lightning-scarred lightning rod, she’s going to take the brunt of the damage… she’s livid about what that woman is doing to their education. When they go to the ministry of magic, you get the head fake that tells us Neville is the Chosen One, because he’s the only living person who meets the prophecy, because no one knows about Harry.
Half-blood Prince? Fykin’ EVERYONE. Instead of Dumbledore taking one special person on a bunch of trips, he takes them on different trips for different strengths. Luna, Neville, Hermoine, Ron, and Ginny all help destroy or find different Horcruxes… and we’re going to wrap up all but one of the Horcruxes during this book.
Deathly Hallows? Oh, shit, we don’t know where most of this stuff is. There’s a missing Horcrux, there’s a missing Hallow, and THAT’s where we bring in Harry. Instead of hiding out in the British backcountry, they wind up having to deal with Harry Potter, who none of them know, and is a different person than the abused hero they’d run with. Raised by his Dads (whether or not they’re together is an exercise left to the reader), he’s got magical skill (they taught him Occulmency, which is easier when you don’t hate them), but no chemistry with any of them. He butts heads with Hermoine, especially, and with Ginny, while quietly dismissing Luna and Neville. Harry wields the Invisibility cloak, but the Ressurection stone falls to Luna (she has the strongest story link to a dead person), and Ginny winds up with the Elder Wand (because we’ve established that she’s a DADT badass as early as book 3).
i got my copy of the korrasami zine (hosted by @catstealers-zines) in the mail today!! this is my piece for it – im pretty much a sucker for hogwarts AUs!! hope you enjoy the piece even if you disagree with my house choices
all right. so. this is a Harry Potter AU, in rambly and abbreviated form.
- this is a version of events where, on the morning of November 1st, 1981, the police are called to a house in Surrey.
- when they arrive, a large man with a red face and a moustache is waiting for them, brandishing a baby.
- to be more accurate: he is brandishing a basket. the basket contains a baby.
- he tells the police that his wife found the basket on their doorstep that morning. “Gave her the shock of her life,” he says, with a chuckle that does not seem the least bit sincere.
- the police officers have a lot of questions about this, but the man does not have any useful answers. his wife, he tells them, is not in any shape to be interviewed. “she’s been poorly,” he says, “and we’ve got a baby of our own to worry about, keeping us up at all hours.”
- the baby in the basket seems to be about a year old. he is cheerful, seems healthy aside from a cut on his forehead, with a crooked sticking plaster on it. he has startlingly green eyes.
- there is no identifying information in the basket, except for a torn scrap of paper with ‘his name is Harry’ on it in a delicate hand.
- there it nothing else to be done, it seems. the officers take baby Harry, and leave.
- one of them comes back a few days later for a follow-up interview with the woman who found the baby. she seems a little fragile, and her own baby, in the next room, keeps up a constant shrieking tantrum the whole time the officer is there. “I’m sorry,” the woman says, with a brittle smile. “this has all been a bit much. I recently lost my sister, you see.”
Title: Lessons Never Learned
Also on AO3
Warnings: Dudes. Do not read this if you love Jedi Apprentice Qui-Gon. It’s not explicitly mean, not like Catch the Lightening, but it’s not nice.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
The Force is subtle. The Force is calm. The Force is the quiet background hum of a Jedi’s life.
So when the Force practically screams LEFT at a young knight who’s never had a particularly strong connection to premonition before, he listens, turning left instead of right.
That’s the long way around, looping around the harbor district, and he almost second guesses himself and turns around – time is of the essence, dripping through his fingers like water as he races to stop the attack on the Prime Minister. But he is a Jedi. The Force is his life, and he can’t ignore that shout, grating against his senses, demanding to be heard.
au where Anakin is Mace Windu’s padawan
Anakin bit his lip, afraid to ask, but needing to know. “Master? Why didn’t you want me to be a Jedi?”
Mace gave the boy, his student for nearly a year, a measured look. “I was afraid.”
“Of me?” Anakin’s voice trembled despite his best efforts. Master Windu wasn’t afraid of anything. “What’s wrong with me?”
Mace shook his head. “You reminded me of someone I didn’t want to remember.”
Anakin looked at the floor, his shoulders tight with anger, fear, shame, and his determination not to show them. “A Sith,” he guessed.
Mace placed a hand on his wayward padawan’s shoulder. “Myself,” he explained. “Before I learned to trust the Force.”
Anakin raised wide eyes to his master’s, flashing with a hundred questions, but he could articulate none. Mace pat his shoulder, once, and let go.
“You will be a Jedi. I promise.”
Fanart for @Stupidoomdoodles Mirai Vegeta AU…(name pls😭)You know her stuff… Bulma died instead of Vegeta in Android Saga and ohmygosh….this Szenario is killing me so I want to draw a lil tribute picture for her. ❤️More to follow so for sure since my heart can’t stand this heartbreaking but genius plot 💕
this is literally the COOLEST FRIGGIN FANART EVER THANK YOU SO MUCH REDVIOLETT ;___;
this AU is currently destroying me and everyone else over on twitter. the pain is neverending pls join us
blackash26 