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.
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).
A while back, I made a post about the Cursed Child (spoilers), pointing out that any donation towards Delphi on Voldemort’s part would have come from his second body. See, the original Tom Riddle Jr. body was destroyed (like it blew up and there wasn’t anything left?), and we only know Voldemort’s second body to be made out of a) handwavey magic, b) his muggle father’s bones, c) Peter Pettigrew’s hand, and d) Harry Potter’s blood.
Now, this means two things. The first thing is the original point I made about Delphi (Voldemort’s kid from the Cursed Child), that you could write a really funny ficlet in which Delphi is a) Tom Riddle Senior’s biological daughter and actually Voldemort’s half-sister, b) Peter Pettigrew’s biological daughter, or c) Harry Potter’s biological daughter.
The ficlet I went with is AU of the Cursed Child where they catch Delphi and, for some handwavey reason or another, they do a blood test to confirm her parentage. Cue some poor junior Auror getting the results and having to sidle up to his boss, like, “Uh… Senior Auror Potter, sir? Um, this says that the kid’s parents are, uh, Bellatrix Lestrange and, um, you. I’m, um, not kidding, so… in advance: Please don’t fire me, sir, job-wise or literally.”
The second thing, which I realized only recently, is that… there’s no element from the Gaunts anymore. Nothing from Merope Gaunt or any other Gaunt is in Voldemort’s second body, as far as we know from the ritual. So…
For all the importance Voldemort placed on blood, in his second body, he wasn’t even a biological descendant of Salazar Slytherin anymore. He might not even be a biological descendant of Salazar Slytherin anymore.
You would not believe the cackling sound that I made when I realized this possibility. Between all his bullshit, Voldemort might have lost the wizard part of his heritage. He might technically no longer be the “heir of Slytherin”. It’s so ironic, I love it. He’d be so upset.
This also backs my headcanon that Parseltongue can be transferred via souls as well as inherited from parent-to-child, so the lengthy time that Harry and Ginny spent in contact with Tom Riddle’s soul could have “taught” them Parseltongue, even when they were no longer possessed by Voldemort in any form. Handwavey magic says it’s perfectly possible. I just really love the idea of a Potter and a Weasley keeping the “noble gift of Salazar Slytherin”, and the Gaunts rolling in their graves accordingly.
After all, if Parseltongue was a purely “blood of Salazar Slytherin” thing, then Voldemort should have lost the ability when he lost his first body. After all, he didn’t have a body anymore. Can you imagine how pissed Voldemort would have been if he’d lost Parseltongue when he lost his body?
I now propose a crack AU where that happened, so all of Voldemort’s interactions with Nagini is just him faking it. Voldemort can’t actually talk to snakes anymore, it’s straight-up just him faking it, and Nagini’s only still around because (in this AU) she (or her mother) knew him before he lost his body and Parseltongue. It’s like those humans trying to speak cat posts.
the second book would also have gone a lot differently if diary Tom hadn’t been able to use Parseltongue
It SO WOULD.
Like, there are two ways to go with the Horcruxes, as I see it, in this AU where Voldemort loses the ability to speak Parseltongue because it’s a “blood of Salazar Slytherin” thing and he up-and-lost his body like an idiot.
The first way is that the Horcruxes actually can still use Parseltongue. See, we still don’t know how Horcruxes are made, but I’m a fan of the “a lot of blood was involved somehow (and maybe cannibalism)” method.
A quick aside into the “the ritual for making Horcruxes involves cannibalism” theory. (Warning for references to and discussion of cannibalism. Go to the * below to skip.) I’m pretty sure that the only thing we know about the ritual is that it’s deeply twisted and sickening (cannibalism is definitely that). Also, there’s the whole “Death Eaters” title for his followers. Also, I could totally see Voldemort being down for a “return to magic at its most evil and disgusting”.
This theory is backed up a bit by my headcanons on Myrtle’s death (which was the murder used to make Tom Riddle’s Diary into a Horcrux). After all, a girl being dead without a single scratch on her (looking into the eyes of a basilisk) suggests death by the Killing Curse rather than an Acromantula. But if there had been chunks of flesh missing from Myrtle’s body, which looked like an animal (disguised to be an Acromantula) had killed her and then began eating her… Well, now, that makes sense. (The school doesn’t look any closer because they’re bigoted; who would suspect prefect Tom Riddle, who would definitely never eat a person to make anything like a Horcrux, over half-giant Rubeus Hagrid who was keeping an Acromantula as a pet?)
* End of references to and discussion of cannibalism *
Anyway, back to the Horcruxes and their Parseltongue abilities… Did the Horcruxes bleed at all when they were destroyed? I have vague memories of a black substance coming from the Diary, but you can point towards the basilisk venom for that. You could totally argue that the Horcruxes would keep their Parseltongue abilities, due to possibly being made with the “blood of Salazar Slytherin” in the unknown ritual for making them.
Nagini is the only Horcrux made by Voldemort after he lost his body, and Nagini already speaks Parseltongue because she’s a snake. Harry would then be… not a proper Horcrux… but something adjacent to a Horcrux. Which, I think, he actually is in canon anyway, as there was no ritual performed and the entire affair was an accident. Harry’s a “horcrux” because there’s not a better term for the unique and unprecedented status he holds.
So, in this AU where Voldemort loses his Parseltongue abilities due to no longer having the “blood of Salazar Slytherin”, neither Voldemort nor Harry can speak Parseltongue.
Can you imagine how angry Voldemort would be if his Horcruxes still had Parseltongue but he didn’t? He’s be so upset; it would be so funny. Breaking News: Local idiot Dark Lord sulks in envy for the rest of forever.
The second direction you can go with for the Horcruxes is the one you’re bringing up. The assumption with the first direction is that Horcruxes are made with blood, but since we don’t know how Horcruxes are made, that assumption could be wrong. In this direction, the Horcruxes also don’t possess the “blood of Salazar Slytherin” and therefore don’t have Parseltongue either.
Which is also super funny. Like, Tom Riddle initially made that Diary Horcrux so he could return to the school and release the basilisk again, right? Imagine an AU where Diary Tom possesses Ginny Weasley (which took months) and then goes to the Chamber of Secrets.
Ah, thinks Diary Tom smugly to himself, now the Enemies of the Heir will learn to beware once more. I shall release the basilisk! Mwahaha!
Except… it doesn’t work. Diary Tom tries to use Parseltongue and… it’s not working. Because he doesn’t have a body. And Ginny certainly doesn’t have the “blood of Salazar Slytherin” as a Weasley.
Diary Tom possessing Ginny Weasley just… stands in Moaning Myrtle’s haunted bathroom… completely stumped. Shit.
Cue Diary Tom trying a wild sequence of events trying to break into the Chamber of Secrets to no avail. Because that’s what you get when you put pieces of your soul into bloodless books, Tom, you arrogant dummy.
I don’t ship Drarry but with that being said, I will accept no other Drarry prompt than them stubbornly competing to outdo the other for the sheer drama.
It starts off when they’re still enemies in the Goblet of Fire. Draco makes a taunt about who Harry’s going to ask to the Yule Ball and how they must be from the worst of the worst lot and Harry rolls his eyes and says, “Well, fitting you say that, Malfoy, because I was going to ask you.” A perfect zing, Harry. 10/10.
But now the ball’s in Draco’s court and obviously he’s not going to pass up on the chance to humiliate the scarhead so he takes the most logical route of humiliation and calls out his bluff: “Fine, Potter, I reckon we’re going.”
But do you think Harry James Potter is just going to back down? That stubborn teenager is going to stare Draco down and say, “Reckon we are.”
Ron’s confused and Hermione’s confused and literally the entire castle is confused but Harry’s satisfied because he called out a bluffer’s counterbluff with a bluff of his own. And they just keep it up.
“I suppose you don’t even know how to dance, Potter?”
The furious teenager who spent years having to watch soapbox dramas with Mrs. Figg just glares at him in his stupid dress robes. “I know some things.”
“Prove it.”
“Fine.”
It’s like that for days until Draco makes the ultimate power move by inviting Harry to the Malfoy’s Annual New Years Eve Ball, taking out a Daily Prophet ad no less, because oh, oh, he’s got Potter now. He’ll never accept and he’ll be humiliated in front of the entire wizarding world. And do you think Harry’s just going to go down without a fight? God, no, he’s going to win whatever the hell this is because he’s Harry Potter, Draco better be worried, oh boy.
They’re still going at it six months later.
“Err—Malfoy?” Crabbe says. “Potter just sent you a dozen roses?”
“That son of a bitch! Send a box of chocolates. That’ll show him.”
“Um, Draco—?”
“I WILL NOT BE OUTDONE, PARKINSON!”
i couldn’t resist 😛
Yep. This is it. This is the only Drarry headcanon I’ll accept from this point on.
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
to Draco’s surprise and displeasure, MacIntyre is at dinner that evening, looking offensively cheerful.
Draco assumed he’d at least get detention, though expulsion was probably too much to hope for. but apparently neither one is in the offing. it only goes to show, he thinks, how outrageously lenient the school is towards the Muggleborn, just like his father always says.
and MacIntyre isn’t really Muggleborn, if he’s telling the truth. he shouldn’t even have ignorance as an excuse.
well, he won’t stand for it. if MacIntyre won’t show the slightest bit of proper wizarding feeling, then he, Draco Malfoy, will have to hold the line for Standards, and Traditions, and so on.
(and with any luck, get MacIntyre into the trouble he deserves, in the process.)
once he’s challenged MacIntyre, though, Draco begins to have second thoughts.
after all, it’s not really becoming of a Malfoy to sneak off to brawl with blood traitors in the middle of the night. and yes, MacIntyre promised to leave his dog behind, though he shouldn’t have been allowed to bring the beast at all– blatant favoritism, again!
but can Draco really trust him to keep his word, when he clearly doesn’t know the first thing about how honorable wizards behave?
honestly, more likely than not MacIntyre will get cold feet and stay in bed, or Weasley will talk him out of it.
Draco wouldn’t even put it past them to tell Professor McGonagall, and get him in trouble instead! for all that Gryffindors talk about bravery, they never show it when it really matters. that’s what Father always says.
two can play at that game, Draco decides. and with any luck, MacIntyre will learn what happens when you throw your lot in with blood traitors and Muggles.
Draco sleeps soundly that night, with a perfectly clear conscience. and why shouldn’t he?
2. Padfoot
Harry, of course, very sternly forbids Padfoot to come along with him and Ron to the wizard’s duel.
Padfoot, of course, ignores this.
he hangs back in the shadow of the doorway until Ron and Harry have left the common room, and emerges to find Hermione Granger in the throes of indecision.
she glares at him. “you could have at least tried to stop them,” she says.
stopping Harry when his mind’s really set on something is only slightly easier than stopping James, and rather more difficult than stopping the Hogwarts Express under full steam.
this isn’t something one can easily convey as a dog, though.
so when Granger makes an indignant noise and goes after Ron and Harry, Padfoot just follows.
they pick up another kid on their way to the trophy room, but that’s all right. Padfoot got into significantly worse trouble at Hogwarts than this without anyone getting hurt, and a couple of firsties flinging jinxes at each other won’t be the end of the world.
hell, if they all get detention together they might get along better at the end of it.
and that’s assuming the Malfoy kid even shows up. from what Padfoot remembers of his father, that’s not too likely. not exactly a battlefield general, was the elder Malfoy. much more the sort to lead from the rear. first in line for praise, last in line for blame.
the trophy room’s empty when they arrive.
the kids cool their heels for a little while. Padfoot tries to get at the itch behind his ear, but can’t quite manage it. he trots out from behind his hiding spot amongst the trophy cases, and flops down next to Harry.
“I told you to stay behind,” Harry says, but his heart’s not in it. Padfoot can tell.
Ron, who is a good lad, scoots closer to Harry so he can scratch Padfoot’s ears.
and then they hear Filch in the next room.
the kids all jump like they’ve been set upon by boggarts, poor things. Padfoot can only vaguely remember a time when something like this was actually worth being scared of.
he barks, softly as he can, to get Harry’s attention.
“can you draw him off, Pads?” Harry asks him, and he barks again.
“that dog of yours is a lifesaver,” he hears Longbottom say on his way out.
I’m really not, he thinks to himself, but he’s got enough years and enough distance that it’s more wry than anguished.
but I intend to be, if it comes to it.
it doesn’t, of course. not this time. he leads Filch and Mrs. Norris on a merry chase. once he’s shaken them, he settles down for a nap in one of the secret tunnels. in the morning, he rejoins Harry for breakfast in the Great Hall, eyes bright and tail wagging.
he’s just in time for Harry’s new broom to arrive.
this, Padfoot decides, settling under the table within bacon-tossing range of Seamus Finnegan, is what Hogwarts ought to be. not what it was in his last years here, with the war looming over them all. not a fortress, or a cauldron of alliances and recruitment. but this: nothing worse than mischief, once in a while, with plenty of time to stockpile good memories in between.
Seamus tosses him half a sausage. lovely, thinks Padfoot, and snaps it neatly out of the air.
“I don’t know where to start,” said Sirius. He was staring at the table, at the much-folded scrap of ragged newspaper he had set there. It was half the Prophet’s front page, from a month ago, announcing the disappearance of the Boy Who Lived.
“I still have a few friends in the Aurors,” Remus said. Sirius looked a little better, after a meal, a haircut, clean clothes, and about two hours sitting in the bath while Remus fretted in the next room.
He was still damn near skeletal, and his eyes, when they weren’t fixed on something Remus couldn’t see, were haunted. He hardly spoke, and answered questions in single words when he could.
“No Aurors,” said Sirius. He waved at the paper on the table. “They don’t know anything, or this wouldn’t have run.”
“Still,” said Remus. “If I get a chance, and I can bring it up, I will.”
Slightly belated now, but I decided to draw a little something for September first, as once again the Hogwarts Express is leaving to take Students home to school.
I’m turning the clock back a little on dogfather with this one. This is set about three years before Padfoot follows Harry home, and is meant to be more traditionally story-shaped. It’s provisionally titled “the black dog.”
I’m not sure if I’m going to post any more of it before it’s done, but I have the beginning and I also have no chill so here it is so far:
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.”
blackash26 