Gaming With Dragons

and other sideblog sorts of things for mzminola

[thefairmaidenoffandom]

the jily wedding is always on my mind

[locatislunaticolupin]

There's this tendency to believe that someone had to have figured out that Remus was a werewolf or that his friends were Animagi "because it's so obvious", and it drives me mad.

When it comes to Remus being a werewolf, I find it quite self-centered, honestly. Nobody pays that close attention to someone else. We, as readers, do it because that's what the narrative focuses on: we're being told something's off. Other Hogwarts students, who were busy with their own lives and concerns, and who didn't have a narrator pointing them in the right direction, considered Remus a sickly person and that's it. There was no reason to pay close enough attention to figure out he gets sick roughly every twenty-nine days. It would actually be quite weird to be that obsessed with someone, or to be that suspicious of a sick person.

Remus was also hidden by the fact that a werewolf being accepted into Hogwarts was something that had never happened before and that was considered an impossibility. It's easy for anyone to miss what's beyond their imagination or understanding of the world. It's quite arrogant to think otherwise. We're all limited.

It's a statement to James's, Sirius's and Peter's curiosity, intelligence and friendship that they cared enough and were creative enough to figure the whole thing out in their second year. It's worth remembering that this is the same group of people that went out of their way to figure out as much as they could about the school and its secrets, and then immortalized that knowledge in the map. Part of their characters, especially during their school years, is that they're curious and have a drive and a willingness to go beyond what's on the surface that's not as common as we'd like to think.

And when it comes to them being Animagi —why oh why would anyone, especially adults, think that a bunch of teenagers managed to become Animagi on their own? That's an incredibly difficult and rare feat: there were only seven registered Animagi in the 20th century. Even if someone suspected they were going to try it, why wouldn't they assume they'd fail? They'd consider it impossible.

I usually see people saying that Remus's transformations becoming easier would have made Pomfrey suspicious but... why? Why would she conclude not only that three teenagers (one of them not known for his smarts and other not known for his patience) became Animagi, but that that's also what's helping Remus? That entire hare-brained scheme was the Marauders's idea: no other person in the entire saga arrives at the same conclusion they did —that werewolves wouldn't attack Animagi and that they'd be helped by having an animal companion during the night. Even when the rest of the Wizarding World finds something to help werewolves, it has nothing to do with the Marauders's thought process. Nobody associated the werewolves's lack of agression towards animals with Animagi. That's a Marauders-only idea, and a brave and creative one.

The Marauders did several impossible things out of bravery and loyalty. They broke rules and what were considered as self-evident laws of magic because of their friendship and daring, because they wanted to help a friend and because they had fun doing it. The entire situation they found themselves in and the one they later created for themselves was beyond the common wizard's imagination. None of it would have been "obvious" or easy to figure out, and I find myself offended whenever a post or a fic tries to imply it is.

[trothplighted]

PS-PoA as a trilogy contained within the broader HP series (as these were the only books that I can say with any confidence were written together and in conversation with one another) is something that really fascinates me now I’ve read through all of them again

Harry starts with awful, shitty guardians who hate him and hate his parents and despise magic -> Harry ends with a guardian who loves and supports him and loved his parents and buys him a present that matches his magical interests

Ron starts feeling overshadowed and underappreciated -> Ron ends having held the key to the mystery, with real friends and a major role in the most interesting events in the school

Hermione starts isolated and alone and socially stilted due to her fixation on rules and proper behavior -> Hermione ends having learned how to break rules and step outside the bounds of good behavior in the name of making the right choices and standing by your friends

The Gryffindor team have a three-book-long arc about winning the Quidditch Cup

Snape is introduced as “irrationally” hating Harry -> Snape’s animosity toward Harry is (seemingly) fully explained

Azkaban is introduced -> Azkaban is explained

Characterization is consistent, with no retcons and no pivots in motivation or personality

Tone is consistent, growing steadily more mature but maintaining the same degree of whimsy and light humor

The school governors are consistently relevant in all three books

All the reveals and plot twists build on exactly what was laid out in prior books - we don’t need to be given new recontextualization of past moments to make a plot point or character choice fit in

idk I’m really thinking about this and I have a lot of thoughts about how well that phase of the story feeds back into itself and satisfies even years later

[trothplighted]

thinking about a few more plot threads that I like

Harry ends PS having to be rescued by outside intervention (his mother’s sacrifice, Dumbledore’s timely arrival) -> Harry saves himself and Sirius from the Dementors with no outside help

Harry has no idea what to do in Diagon Alley (and therefore the wider Wizarding world) -> Harry lives alone in Diagon Alley and manages his expenses and school shopping

These three books place a high value on Muggleborns and Muggle-raised wizards having knowledge that ordinary wizards don’t - Hermione and Snape with the logic puzzle in PS, Hermione solving the mystery of the basilisk, Snape catching bad actors and villains, Lily’s mysterious charm or spell that saved Harry when no one else could, Hermione realizing Lupin is a werewolf because of Snape’s lesson, etc. Later books have Hermione and Snape and Lily simply being academically determined and uniquely magically talented, solving problems or succeeding at complicated tasks because of being a potions prodigy or studying really hard and learning obscure facts, and frankly aren’t nearly as good at explaining why anti-Muggleborn prejudice is wrong (because wizarding society is elevated so highly and Joanne doesn’t like Muggle-adjacent protagonists)

Harry is completely at the Dursleys’ mercy when he performs wandless accidental magic -> Harry blows up Aunt Marge, asserts his right to not be abused and degraded, and goes back home knowing he can’t be hurt in the same way and will demand respect

[trothplighted]

Tonks/Emmeline Vance?? Can you elaborate more on that ship?

this is one of those things that I am personally ten thousand percent obsessed with because it lines up very neatly with the canon, to the point that it actively makes more sense than the explanations proposed in the text, but is completely counter to Joanne’s intended reading.

when we first see Tonks in HBP, she’s reserved and quieter and a lot more physically marked by sadness. Harry notes her more conventional-looking brown hair immediately:

“Harry looked around and saw that Mrs. Weasley was not alone, despite the lateness of the hour. A young witch with a pale, heart-shaped face and mousy brown hair was sitting at the table clutching a large mug between her hands… Harry thought she looked drawn, even ill, and there was something forced in her smile. Certainly her appearance was less colorful than usual without her customary shade of bubble-gum-pink hair.”

He at first assumes that she’s devastated by the loss of Sirius, assuming that her Patronus changed into a dog to match his. We later find out that it’s a wolf, because for some reason dear darling Dora has become desperate to grab onto the first available man she can find who’s single and even vaguely available.

I’m going to give Joanne some astonishingly rare credit here. On reread, Tonk’s interest in Remus becomes starkly obvious. We first see her having come to Molly for “tea and sympathy”, but refusing to elaborate to anyone else. Molly then becomes hostile toward Remus when the subject of Tonks is raised (Harry makes a comment in the narration that it’s like she blames him for being stuck with Fleur as a daughter-in-law, but of course in hindsight we’re meant to see it as her being angry at him for the whole romance situation) and Remus is startled but obviously aware of more than he’s letting on when Harry asks about Tonks’s Patronus changing. This is a fairly well-built well-telegraphed offscreen relationship, and is probably Joanne’s best-written romance except for Albus and Gellert.

But there’s one caveat: it makes absolutely no sense at all.

Why would Tonks want a relationship with Remus? (the question of why Remus wants to marry a GNC shapeshifter who’s biologically related to Sirius after having lived with him for A While and done a lot of queercoded things with him is… really easy to answer, actually.)

Yes, obviously, there are any number of ways to write that story - if you go “Person A and Person B end up together” you open the door to endless fan speculation that makes the romance better retroactively because everyone gets to individually pick what they like best as their personal canon. That’s part of what makes Jily such an enduring ship. We get to fill in the details. And yes, sometimes in real life people fall for unexpected partners, they find soulmates who are totally not their type, they stumble into love they weren’t expecting, but this is a fictional narrative, and “Dora just wanted to fuck that old man real bad” is not a solid foundation upon which to build a marriage or a satisfying explanation for readers.

So, if we’re going to assume that the canon events matter and impact the timelines of the various characters, we need to start from the beginning and ask what happened.

Remus and Tonks are first seen together post-Sirius in the last chapter of OotP, where they and Moody turn up in Muggle-adjacent clothes to chat with the Dursleys about how Harry is being treated:

“There was Mad-Eye Moody, looking quite as sinister with his bowler hat pulled low over his magical eye as he would have done without it, his gnarled hands clutching a long staff, his body wrapped in a voluminous traveling cloak. Tonks stood just behind him, her bright bubble-gum-pink hair gleaming in the sunlight filtering through the dirty glass station ceiling, wearing heavily patched jeans and a bright purple T-shirt bearing the legend THE WEIRD SISTERS. Next to Tonks was Lupin, his face pale, his hair graying, a long and threadbare overcoat covering a shabby jumper and trousers.”

Sirius has already died, but whatever has set Tonks off hasn’t happened yet, because she’s just as nonconformist as ever and doesn’t seem to be unusually down or troubled. Harry sees her again before the start of term, and that’s when she’s had her transformation. We’re obviously meant to believe that Tonks has confessed her love to Remus and he’s turned her down, and to an extent I don’t doubt that’s what’s happened (I do think that they had some kind of conversation at least before Harry sees Remus again at Christmas at the very latest) but I’m not satisfied with that as an answer.

Now, I will admit to engaging in some motivated reasoning here. Part of shedding Joanne’s interpretations of her series means picking apart what she actually depicts vs what she intends to depict, and questioning whether her intended interpretations actually work. If you’re highly motivated to fill in the gaps and make Remadora a fully fleshed out relationship, I certainly can’t stop you, but unlike Jily and Ted/Andromeda and Lucius/Narcissa and other “we know nothing about these characters except that they ended up together” relationships we actually see the inner workings here and they don’t really satisfy me. There’s also the fact that it feels very much like Joanne introduced Remadora specifically to quash fan interpretations of Remus as gay (and it certainly had that effect in the fandom even if she didn’t directly intend it!) so I’m disinclined to really give it the best odds for success. But I can be honest, and say frankly that Remus and Tonks do get significantly more setup in HBP than a lot of my fellow Wolfstar fans would like to admit or acknowledge.

But there’s more than one way to interpret that setup.

We have a timeline - between May and August of 1998, something happened to make Tonks extremely interested in Remus and also horribly grief-stricken and deeply upset. If we interpret a Patronus as “the thing you imagine will protect you”, Tonks’s wolf becomes intriguing - what, exactly, is Remus protecting her from?

A possible answer is found in HBP.

“‘And then there was Emmeline Vance, maybe you didn’t hear about that one — ’

‘Oh yes I did!’ said the Prime Minister. ‘It happened just around the corner from here, as a matter of fact.’”

(HBP, The Other Minister)

“‘The Dark Lord is satisfied with the information I have passed him on the Order. It led, as perhaps you have guessed, to the recent capture and murder of Emmeline Vance…’”

(HBP, Spinner’s End)

Emmeline is a bit of a nothing character. She’s old enough to have been in the first Order of the Phoenix, and appears briefly in book 5 as part of the advance guard alongside Tonks. We know very little about her, and even less about any hypothetical relationships she might have had. But for me, she’s sort of the key to the whole puzzle.

In my own Watsonian interpretation of HP and my own headcanons/personal canon, Tonks was seriously dating her right up until her death. Their relationship was secret both because Emmeline is significantly older than her (I tend to think Tonks is into that, if her enthusiasm for Remus is anything to go by) and because as I’ve stated before it’s actually quite dangerous to be a lesbian in the Wizarding World - significantly more dangerous than it is for us here and now, in fact. If anybody knew about it, it was probably Moody, because he was working with Tonks and mentoring her, but they kept it quiet right up until her murder. Once she was dead and the war was properly on, Tonks found herself staring down dozens of horrible possible futures.

What is Remus protecting her from? Heteronormativity. Pressure to marry. Being a young halfblood woman who would be counted as a Black bastard if Voldemort and the Death Eaters won, and being targeted by them for all manner of unsavory things. Her own grief for her partner. The expectation to have a lot of heterosexual sex or to be attracted to and desirous of men. Her fears for a future where she’s a vulnerable freedom fighter. Her whole world’s been upended, and she wants to set it right.

So marrying him is the obvious choice. He even liked her favorite cousin.

But she never forgot Emmeline. Not for the rest of her life.

[trothplighted]

adding a few things:

in my headcanons Emmeline is actually older than the four Marauders; she and her sister Aurelia were yearmates with the Prewett twins (so they’re solidly Grown Adults by the mid-70s, I am once again reminding everyone of my all time favorite fic to feature Fabian and teenage Sirius) so she’s quite into her MILF era when Tonks meets her around age fifteen

they met in a dyke bar that no longer exists. the Muleteer is forever but dyke bars never last.

they aren’t quite a butch/femme couple but Tonks is definitely the more masc of the two of them and the most likely to crossdress for Gender Presentation Reasons

look I will fully admit this is about the fact that I am a Wolfstar ride-or-die and also that Nymphadora Tonks deserves better than to be a dead mom and the wife to a man who cannot appreciate her.

[trothplighted]

the thing about Voldemort Wins AUs is that while I see the appeal of what is essentially a BDSM society AU (like, guys, I really get it) I think that the most interesting part of them hypothetically is Hermione finally going full mask-off “not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn” and going off to Nurmengard for a killer training montage before coming back to England and killing that snakey fuck

[trothplighted]

admittedly this is somewhat dependent upon when Voldemort wins but if he’s triumphant after Albus’s death I know that girl is going to find the only guy who’s got half a chance of stopping him and when she gets the offer of “let me train you” she is saying yes

[trothplighted]

the thing about Hermione is that she has already arrived at “for the greater good” as a reasonable justification for doing things that violate the autonomy or rights of others. She’s the one who thinks of using Polyjuice to interrogate Draco, and has to talk the boys into it, because she decides (correctly) that nobody is coming to save Muggleborns except Muggleborns themselves and since she’s smart she’d better flex her academic muscles and get on that. This is where I think she and Lily Potter have the most in common, but it doesn’t last. Hermione grows away from solidarity with Muggleborns as a class relatively quickly post-CoS and into a kind of benevolently patronizing “activism” that has good bones but is largely informed by her being the only person in her life who cares about oppression at all, which leads to her feeling superior and reveling in social consciousness as a way to boost her own ego. She gets so used to being the brightest witch of her age, the smartest in the room, that she starts relying on that when her self-esteem takes a few hits.

By GoF she’s gleeful about keeping a political opponent imprisoned in pretty inhumane conditions. By OotP she’s escalated to permanent physical damage as punishment for turning informant, and she doesn’t see a thing wrong with it, and she’s charismatic and persuasive enough to convince others it’s fine too. She is, at this point, sixteen years old, which is the same age Gellert Grindelwald was when he and Albus had their fateful summer love affair. She’s eighteen when she wipes her parents’ memories and sends them off to Australia.

So yeah, if Voldemort won, and Harry was incapacitated, and her friends were all in danger, this girl isn’t turning to Pansy or Draco or Lucius or Snape for help, she’s making a Portkey and escaping to Europe and Apparating across the continent until she finds the soulmate of “the only one he ever feared” and she won’t let up until he teaches her everything he knows.

[dirty-dirty-muggle]

Yes! Honestly this is one of the most interesting parts of Hermione's personality and I hate that so many people make her out to be a goody two shoes that blindly follows rules, or think that she wouldn't be able to do what needed to get done to win.

She likes rules, she thinks rules are important, but she's got a strict moral code, and if the rules feel unjust to her or she thinks they're being abused, she will break them without second thought. Fuck with her friends, the "good guys", or people she thinks need protection? She will make you pay (or trap you in a jar, or maim you, or give you to a herd of centaurs, or light you on fire, or steal your identity, or hex you, or slap you in the face, or find out your worst secrets so she can blackmail you, or whatever she feels is just). Generally, I think she draws the line before murder, unforgivable curses, and anything she views as "dark magic" e.g., sectum sempra (because in her head those things are bad and she believes in doing good), but in the situation where, say, Harry's being tortured or imprisoned by Voldemort, or Harry and Ron and the Order are dead and she's the only one left, the gloves would come off and she would do what she believed was necessary to win. Also I think her black-and-white thinking around dark magic could be shifted by a mentor she really respected.

Sure, she's not the best at thinking on her feet, but given time to train and plan? She's a force. Again, given the right mentor, I think she could reduce her tendency to panic in some situations significantly.

As far as comparisons, I think she has a lot in common with Dumbledore when it comes to her relationship with "the greater good." She's extremely good at putting her own emotions aside to do whatever she thinks needs to get done. Erasing herself from her parents' memories is proof of that. It crushes her, but she does it anyway. Like, if she had known Harry was a horcrux, she would have tried absolutely everything in her power to keep Harry alive, but if at the end of the day she believed her best friend dying was the only way for them to win the war, I think she would let him go. She'd be distraught over it, feel guilty, and grieve deeply after, but she would do it.

All that to say, I would read the heck out a Voldemort wins AU where Hermione goes off and trains, becomes "the only witch he ever feared", and then comes back to murder him and save the British wizarding world (but I'm obviously also super into the dark BDSM fics).

[justsmth2]

they deserve a happy ending

(AU where Sirius survived at OotP)

[trothplighted]

What do you think about the whole "electricity doesn't work in proximity to magic" phenomenon? Is that truly just explained by the aura of magic being incompatible or something? How does the wireless radio work then?

The wireless radio is the bane of my existence. No, really.

Electricity not working in proximity to magic makes complete sense in every other case. Analog photography doesn't require electricity - it doesn't even require film, you can do it on glass plates. Phonographs can be run manually, if you crank the handle. Recording on vinyl or shellac can be done without electricity if the spells are set up right - you just need something to translate the soundwaves created by the musicians into an inverted master press for the record, and that can be replicated with no need for alternating current. The Weasleys' flying car and Sirius's flying motorcycle are mechanical, not electric, and if you strip out all the electric components or deactivate them you've got a serviceable, magic-friendly piece of machinery.

But radio.

Radio works by transmitting via the electromagnetic spectrum.

Radio as we know it does not work without a device that can receive radio waves, which are electromagnetic waves, and it uses electricity in its receivers to turn those received waves back into sound that listeners can hear.

Doylistically, out of universe, this is almost certainly a mistake on Rowling's part. I just don't think she really understood that radio was The Same Thing. In-universe, though, based on how wizarding wireless operates (it's got its own frequencies that Muggles can't find, it's also capable of screening out certain magical listeners if Potterwatch is anything to go by), I think it's more likely that whatever they're doing isn't radio. It's probably some form of enchantment on broadcasting and receiving equipment that allows it to access some form of direct communication or direct transfer of sound, operating on a similar principle to the Floo network.

[trothplighted]

@vauxhallroadnewsagents considering radios are less than 100 years old by the time the books are set it’s entirely possible that the whole wizarding world is kept in supply by One Guy who figured it out when he was a teenager and hopes to teach somebody else before he dies. this is in fact the most likely outcome. all radios are manufactured by the same company run by the same guy who’s been doing it since like 1910. headcanon accepted actually.

[slashmarks]

Out of curiosity, how would your Sirius interacting with/getting custody of a younger Harry? Most of your stories/ideas involve Harry as a teenager, but I'm curious if there would be a dynamic shift of any kind if Harry's a bit younger when Sirius comes into his life.

This both is and isn't a direct answer to your question, but one major difference is that in my timeline (and in JKR's as well), the last Blacks die in the early nineties, in the years before Sirius escapes Azkaban. If Sirius had been cleared before that, he wouldn't inherit Grimmauld Place or the family bank vaults as the sole remaining male family member. Any scenario where Sirius is out of Azkaban, cleared or not, but there are other Blacks alive changes a lot. Even the canon plot depends on Sirius's inheritance: the Firebolt Sirius buys Harry impulsively in PoA is one example, but a much bigger one is Grimmauld Place itself and Kreacher.

Sirius might or might not be independently financially stable without that recent inheritance. We know he inherited "some gold" from his uncle Alphard, enough to buy somewhere to live at seventeen, but it's not necessarily clear how much of the inheritance he used - it very plausibly might have taken up most of the money. It's also possible that his personal wealth could have been seized by the Ministry, vs. the Black family holdings (pureblood family money, we know per the Lestrange vault and Grimmauld Place, tends to be very well-protected). So in a scenario where Sirius is out but not cleared, he may not have access to his personal bank account, the less-heavily-enchanted house the Ministry would have an easier time staking out or confiscating, or both. If he's cleared, he probably at least has the house.

Either way, though, he would socially be in a similar position to late in the war: a pureblood young man (he may be thirty, but people routinely live into their 110s/120s in this society, so we can assume that most people don't inherit from parents until old age and I'd guess people in Sirius's age range are probably still considered 'youth') who's well known as a blood traitor, with some minor personal financial resources but no political influence whatsoever. There's no reason for the Ministry to be particularly apologetic about what happened to him here. The Ministry locks people up without trials all the time. (Hagrid, Stan Shunpike.)

On the one hand, this means he has a lot more time and focus for Harry than in brilliant difficulty. Something that's come up a lot in that storyline is that Sirius controlling the Black family wealth means responsibility to the people depending on that wealth, and to management of the source of that wealth. (Money comes from places! This is, ngl, probably the thing that drives me the craziest about the canon worldbuilding. No great wealth without a great crime, etc.) Some of the family members who depend on him there would still contact him in this scenario (Andromeda, Druella) but others wouldn't (Narcissa), he wouldn't have the same need for close personal guidance from people more experienced with running family holdings, etc. Basically, he wouldn't be sitting on top of the fortified house, resources, and collective responsibilities that make a feudal household. It would just be Sirius and Harry (and probably Remus eventually), and there would very likely be more of the single-minded focus Sirius has on Harry in canon in GoF, which is a decidedly mixed bag for everyone.

There's also the issue that a lot of the conflict Harry faces is essentially political: Fudge, Umbridge, Scrimgeour, Dumbledore all take advantage of his lack of an adult guardian, but it's not clear to me that a less politically powerful guardian could have done much to interfere in the totalitarian Wizarding world. Sirius in this scenario doesn't have the power to have a word with the Board of Governors about Snape's teaching or teach his ward illegal magic to ward off Legilimency at Hogwarts, or access to the Black library and portrait collection, or the political capital to plausibly threaten to bring charges against Dumbledore.

And finally, there's always the chance that whichever Black relatives are alive and controlling the fortune are going to poke their nose in, particularly if they want an heir back. We don't really know why, but we do know for sure that none of the Black men elected to have children to replace Sirius when he was supposed to be in prison for life. (Honestly, I wouldn't rule out emotional attachment, given his pristinely intact bedroom.) They're very likely to want Sirius to talk to them and consider coming home, and unlikely to peacefully take no for an answer.

...All of which would result in a very different dynamic with Harry on its own, regardless of age.

[catlumos22676]

Encountering this post again, I wonder if such an AU would result in Cousin Dillena reaching out sooner, or Sirius reaching out to her, for mutual support protecting Harry from the interest of more socially powerful people.

[petalsonparchment]

Just imagining Sirius spying on Harry throughout his third year like…

The sun was high in the sky, casting golden light over the rolling hills of the Hogwarts grounds. Sirius stood by the entry of his temporary cave, arms folded across his chest, watching Harry soar through the air on the back of Buckbeak. The hippogriff's powerful wings beat rhythmically, each stroke gliding Harry faster across the lake, Harry’s laughter carrying faintly on the wind.

He laughed like his mother.

Sirius let out a low chuckle, shaking his head in disbelief. "Damn," he muttered under his breath. "Professor Grubbly-Plank never let us fly the hippogriffs. Wouldn’t even let us near them most of the time."

A smirk tugged at his lips as he imagined James' reaction. James, whose competitive streak had one of Sirius’ favorite characteristics. James, who never missed an opportunity to claim the best broom, the highest dive, the fastest lap around the Quidditch pitch. If James had been here to see this...

"Oh, he'd be throwing a fit right about now," Sirius tilted his head as he watched the animal arc back for land. "Harry getting to fly a hippogriff before he ever did? He wouldn’t let that go for weeks.”

The ache of loss that usually lingered just beneath the surface softened into something warmer. James was gone, yes, but here was Harry—alive, thriving, and so breathtakingly himself. He seemed to have his father’s confidence, his mother’s laugh, and something all his own that Sirius couldn’t quite put into words yet.

He transformed back into Padfoot, watching as Buckbeak tilted to one side, Harry adjusting easily, and laughing louder. Padfoot felt a rare kind of peace settle over him, a smile lingering on his face he laid down in the sunbeams pushing through the trees.

Good for you, kid, he thought quietly. Good for you.

[heartoftheserpent]

ok obligatory "is this anything," but.

doing my full cast audiobook based reread of the HP books i think I've perhaps stumbled on something?

in this age of trolling and the internet, it can sometimes be a little strange to see all the things people say to each other that others are willing to physically fight about or even DUEL over, since these days online you can say "I like bread" and get called a scumsucking traitorous nimrod who really needs to crawl up her own ass and die twenty-seven times before bed. but there are a lot of instances where people are so incensed they leap to physical violence or dueling positions in these books, and i feel like I've cracked the code? And that code, by the way, is the Code Duello.

every time I can find that someone physically or magically attacks someone else (with one exception, will point that out) in anger, it's due to one of the following honor insults from the Code Duello:

Accusation of Dishonor (being called a liar, thief, coward)

Challenge to Reputation (being called a bastard, a fool, a villain, etc.)

Insult to a Woman

Spitting/striking

Questioning someone's status as a Gentleman

help me out if I've forgotten any...

Book 1, the first magic duel, Harry tells Malfoy he's not brave without Crabbe & Goyle around (calling him a coward, #1)

Book 1, Hagrid pulling out his wand against Vernon Dursley when Vernon calls Dumbledore a fool (#2)

Book 2, Arthur vs Lucius, Lucius says he thought Arthur's family could sink no lower due to them being with the Grangers (could be both (#3)

Book 2, Ron draws on Draco (and the whole Gryffindor quidditch team essentially does the same) when he calls Hermione a Mudblood (#3)

Book 3, Remus calls Snape a fool (#2)

Book 3, Marge insults Lily and Harry blows her up (#3)

Book 3, Hermione slaps Draco after he calls Hagrid pathetic (#2)

Book 4, Draco goes after Harry with magic after Harry insults Narcissa in the ferret scene (#3)

Book 5, the Weasley twins and Harry go after Draco after he insults both their mothers (#3)

Book 5, Sirius and Snape both pull our their wands to duel after Snape calls Sirius a coward (#1)

Book 6, Snape attacks Harry and does in fact yell DON'T CALL ME COWARD (#1)

Book 7, Harry attacks the Carrows after they spit on McGonagall (#3, #4)

Honestly i only realized all this after thinking about Horatio Hornblower (1998) because I was reading Order of the Phoenix right when Harry and George jump Malfoy and thinking, what kind of Code Duello ass lack of control does Harry have here, he has about as much self-control as this midshipman from the 1800s being asked if his mother makes her living on her back. I am forced to conclude that Pureblood families do in fact abide by some kind of Code Duello about insults to honor, and Harry is sort of...just also like that.

The ONE exception is the Sectumsepra scene, but that's only because Draco attacks when he sees Harry, so it's not in answer to any kind of verbal insult. But like...that's a LOT of examples....am I missing anything?? This is especially striking to me on this reread because Harry even talks about how trash talk from the Slytherins doesn't bother him at all anymore. It really obviously does if they are doing it to his HONOR, though!

Also, Draco, my god, keep your mouth shut, this is NOT ending well for you.

[tedwardremus]

Quick prompt: Sirius and a cat.

Crookshanks? The Potters' cat? IDK. I AM NO GOOD AT PROMPTING, YOU SEE.

The moonlight poured through the gaping hole in the ceiling, illuminating the fallen beams and scattered debris below. Broken timbers cast jagged shadows along the walls, where scorch marks marred the forest-themed wallpaper, baby animals still moving quietly through painted trees Lily had so carefully chosen for the nursery. A room that had once been bright with life and love now lay gutted, hollowed out by death.

Sirius stood at the center of it all while aurors and Ministry officials moved around him, calling to one another, shifting ruined furniture, tracing the residue of magic with their wands. Someone nudged at the still forms of Lily and James.

Sirius pulled Harry closer against his chest.

He was waiting for Dumbledore. He would not leave with some unknown medi-witch. He would not abandon them, would not leave Lily and James here alone, would not fail Harry now. He had to stay standing. He could not shatter into pieces and scatter across the floor like the broken roof at his feet.

Then, cutting through the noise, came a small, insistent meow.

Sirius’s head snapped up. There—an orange tail disappearing into the wardrobe.

Careful not to jostle the baby in his arms, he crossed the room and eased the wardrobe door open.

Inside, nestled in a laundry hamper, sat a fat ginger cat, entirely unharmed.

For a moment, Sirius just stared.

“Look, Harry,” he murmured, voice rough. “We’re not quite alone, are we? Good old Winston’s still with us.”

He crouched awkwardly, one arm still tight around Harry, and scratched behind the cat’s ear.

“You going to help me take care of him, then?” Sirius asked quietly. “Help me look after Harry?”

Winston blinked up at him, wide yellow eyes solemn in the dim light, and gave a soft, answering meow.

[heartoftheserpent]

Hogwarts 1960-1990

Ok having just reread Half-Blood Prince for the audiobook I'm struck with a few things we know about the ways Hogwarts has changed over the past 20-30 years, based on information we have from the books, and honestly, I'm fascinated by the implications.

Goblet of Fire - Apollyon Pringle Whipping Arthur Weasley

So we know that Pringle was the caretaker when Arthur and Molly were at Hogwarts, and the corporal punishment was so severe that it was leaving permanent scarring for things like "being out of bed at 4am to take a walk with your girlfriend." So, this seems like everything in the past was more strict, except..

2. Half-Blood Prince - Slughorn Reports Filch

This is really interesting to me! Slughorn has not been at school for at least a decade, and he's worried that Filch isn't worried about the right things.

3. Order of the Phoenix - Snape's Worst Memory

One thing worth mentioning that I don't see brought up often in discourse about SWM is that no one, at any point, goes or threatens to go for a teacher. I can't think of another altercation of that level in the main storyline where a teacher isn't sent for or arrives partway through. Usually, whenever hexes start flying, it's broken up and everyone sent to the hospital wing very quickly. Speaking of which...

4. Order of the Phoenix - Snape's Worst Memory - 2

Snape, James, and Sirius use spells against each other that in Harry's time would have him in detention for several months. While James and Sirius were in fact often in detention, none of this is treated as being for Intense Crimes like Harry and Draco throwing Crucio and Sectumsepra at each other.

5. Half-Blood Prince - "Petty Crimes"

James and Sirius indeed are often recorded as being in detention for "petty crimes" like hexing fellow students, and McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid, etc. treat this fondly in their reminiscences as precursors to the Weasley Twins. It could be memory making them fonder, but I further think that Hogwarts was just generally rougher in those days. And my final point to that effect...

6. Half-Blood Prince - Ginny and the Bat Bogey Hex

I really can't imagine a current teacher congratulating a student on hexing another student and rewarding them about it.

7. Goblet of Fire - Draco as Ferret

Yes, it's obviously Barty in disguise, and yes, he's pretending to be Mad, but it's not like both Barty and Moody didn't go to Hogwarts. Tbh I think it makes the most sense that Transfiguration As A Punishment is something that would have been done decades ago, that Moody would possibly remember.

Okay, conclusion: This all really reminds me of how a lot of Brits I knew in college would reminisce fondly about how when they were young, all the cops were unarmed and it was a good Saturday night to go out and get so rowdy with their friends that they got into fights with cops, whereas these days that's not really DONE. I'm not sure whether the school governors had MORE control, LESS control, were MORE involved, were LESS involved, but it feels like back then, Hogwarts was a much rougher place, and students were expected to be able to take care of themselves, and not rely on teachers to take care of them. Corporal punishment was common, hexes were casual, littering was unimportant.

Tbh, it reminds me of the old boarding school narratives about how the boys were expected to fight, expected to lie about fighting, and expected to take their punishment without complaint, because it toughens you up for the real world.

[heartoftheserpent]

OH OH OH reblogging this from myself to add -

8. Chamber of Secrets - Albus sends Tom back to bed

This could be seen as preferential treatment to a Prefect, or knowing he has a good reason, but when we go up against Arthur being strung up and whipped for being out of bed, or even Harry getting detention for being caught out of bed in his first year, it seems very indulgent.

9. Half-Blood Prince - They'll All Be In Trouble

in general, being Out Of Bed seems to be much less of an issue in the 40s ("run along") than in the 60s (whipping) or the 90s (detention). Idk what to think about that.

[dufferpuffer]

This is a WONDERFUL collection omg thankyou

It reminds me, a little, of how cruel McGonagall can be in her punishments - and how lenient, when she feels like it.

She is happy to take enough points from first years that they face real social stigma for half the year, just for sneaking out of bed and maybe tricking another boy. She was also yanking Draco by the ear. Even without the scary Forbidden Forest detention - that is harsh.

Then the next year - she teary-eyed lets Ron and Harry walk without escort to 'go see Hermione'... despite there being strict rules put in place because the Chambers were open again. Very much like Albus letting Tom 'hurry off to bed' even though its 'best not to roam the corridors these days. Not since...'

Filch also loves 'the good old days' of hurting students. Fascination with torture - or actual distaste in recent policy change...? hm...

But something seems different since the early 1960s when Arthur was at school, at the very least. Kids aint getting whipped/hexed now. Even in the 1970s, when evidently teacher reaction to bullying was still very lax - Sirius and James were getting detentions, not hurt.

I wonder if Albus Dumbledore becoming headmaster between 1966 and 1970 (probably the later end of that) had anything to do with it.

tl;dr link page:

"It seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts. Other parents weren't likely to want their children exposed to me. But then Dumbledore became Headmaster, and he was sympathetic." (Remus, PoA ch18)

Remus was bitten in 1965. Until Dumbledore became headmaster his parents deemed it impossible for him to go to Hogwarts.

If you take Pottermore into account - fair enough if no - it seems Remus was nearer Hogwarts age when Dumbledore broke into their house, gave him crumpets and said he wanted Remus to attend.

[heartoftheserpent]

Slughorn and Lily's relationship is everything to me tbh

it's that very specific kind of closeness that a Gifted Kid and Favorite Teacher have, the almost parasocial thing (especially when you live at the school) of knowing there's someone that you want to indulge, someone you want to show off for, someone you want to impress, and all of that goes both ways

there's SOMETHING about the fact that he's the only person who talks about Lily as her own person, not about how she was with James, not about how fuckable she was, not about how beautiful she was, not about her sacrifice. but about how she was funny, and sassy, and clever, and inventive. about how missed she is, how loved she was on her own terms, for who she was, not because she was supposed to be filling a hole in a man's heart or a place at a man's side.

he's the only character we ever really see wrestle with the concept of WANTING to Be Good, not just to make a person like him, but because it's hard to be brave, it's frightening to stand up for what's right. he wants to be better than he is. Harry doesn't get the memory, truly, by telling him to do it for Lily. he gets it by saying, "you'll get to undo any damage you may have done that day by being brave now." he WANTS to be brave, but he doesn't think he is. it isn't just that he's willing to do it For Her, it's that the thought of her inspires him to want to be better on his own terms.

he's one of the only teachers (i would say Remus is the other one) who hits the Good Teacher Trifecta - he loves his subject, he's good at teaching, and he seems to genuinely like his students as people. yes, he plays favorites, and yes, he has his weaknesses. he's fallible, he's weak, he's pleasure-seeking, he's greedy, he's gluttonous. and he wants, underneath and through it all, to be better. he's dramatic, he's charismatic, he's charming, he's acknowledged by everyone from Lucius Malfoy to Albus Dumbledore as a great wizard, and he's one of the only people who truly gets to overcome his own weakness, going from letting Young Tom Riddle sweet-talk him into forbidden information to DUELING him in the Great Hall.

i love him. i wish he'd gotten to train Lily as his successor.

[harrypotter-black]

Do you ever think about how Molly treated Hermione vs. how Sirius treated Hermione during gof when Rita was on her Hermione-smear campaign?

Molly, who has known Hermione since 2nd year (or possibly first year if Ron wrote her letters), believes Rita and treats her, a 14/15 year old girl like shit. It's not even a 'you can't treat people like this' type protective speech, the behaviour she shows is closer to bullying and very passive aggressive. It's immature. Molly is suppose to be a grown woman. She thinks Hermione is hurting/corrupting Harry and her response is to send Hermione comically small chocolate Easter eggs? Not to write to Harry and find out the truth?

And then you have Sirius, who has known about Hermione less than a year and only met her once and he doesn't even flinch at the sight of Rita's smear campaign - and we know that he was reading it because he was collecting every magazine and newspaper he could from Hogsmead as Padfoot. He doesn't react to it at all - no, instead he judges Hermione by 1. how she helped Harry rescue him the year before 2. how she stuck with Harry in gof when Ron didn't and 3. she ability to get a sense of people's personalities/character ("measure of him").

and people on this site still want to praise Molly like she's a good mother/person and bash Sirius's godparenting skills. and say that Molly was right in ootp and Sirius was wrong- despite the narrative (and Dumbledore) siding with Sirius. I think at the very least a decent parent should not be bullying their children's friends that are half or less their age.

[mooonyagedaydream]

"remus fell first" "sirius fell first" BZZT . WRONG . they tripped at the same time & bonked their heads together so hard that they mistook love at first sight for having a concussion .

[rat-de-bibliotheque08]

I just realized something: besides the fact that Sirius, unlike Molly Weasley, continued to treat Hermione well despite all those articles claiming she had broken Harry’s heart, Sirius, knowing about Harry and Ron’s falling-out, about Ron not believing that his godson hadn’t put his own name into the Goblet, didn’t show a single drop of resentment toward Ron.

Maybe he understood that kids are kids: they fight today, make up tomorrow, and it’s their business. Maybe he and James had their own disagreements when they were young. Either way, it’s great. He didn’t change his positive attitude toward Ron, was always friendly to him (and Ron, in turn, defended Padfoot from Hermione’s criticism in Order of the Phoenix), and simply listened to Harry and sympathized with him.

P.S. I’m sharing my emotions on my account. If you disagree with this post or have nothing kind to say, please just scroll past and don’t start a discussion. Thank you.

[catlumos22676]

Prisoner of Azkaban, chapter twenty:

"I'm also -- I don't know if anyone told -- I'm your godfather." "Yeah, I knew that," said Harry. "Well . . . your parents appointed me your guardian," said Black stiffly. "If anything happened to them . . ."

Went and dug the book out from the back of the shelf to confirm this bit of dialogue. I keep seeing people point out that "godfather" is not a legal custodial category, which is true, but "parental appointed guardian" is.

Sirius Black is Harry's godfather and his appointed guardian. He is both. The books don't go into the nitty gritty legal details (did they file paperwork in both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds, or just one of them?) but Sirius very much was supposed to be Harry's legal guardian in the event of James & Lily being dead / otherwise unable to function as parents.