#dragonpox

[savannah-5555]

“Just leave. Please.”

Prompt 26 of @magic-girl-in-a-muggle-world's @jilytoberfest prompts

Rated T for adult themes; TW: alluding to parental death; grief

“Just leave. Please.”

So she did. But only to grab some food. A change of clothes. An extra blanket. The stuffie on his bed. 

Lily returned to the Heads office fully supplied and with a helping hand to find James unmoved from his position on the couch, face buried in his hands, glasses discarded.

“Come on, Prongs,” Sirius coaxed he assisted James out of his school robes, replacing them with a freshly laundered pair of pajamas. 

“Drink this,” Lily placed a straw to his lips, knowing he was not stomaching much at the moment aside from water, “There you go,” she murmured gently, turning to cast a cushioning charm on the rug in front of the fireplace. 

“I don’t want you-”

“We’re not leaving you,” Lily’s tone was soft, her conviction firm. Sirius helps usher James in between him and the headgirl on, a makeshift bed already prepared by Lily who ensures they are all properly tucked in. 

Because there is nothing you can say, when the person you love most loses the two he loves most. So they stayed and simply held James, unable to stop the bleeding as a fresh slice of anguish cut his heart up into pieces. And shared in his grief to prevent the burden of having to suffer alone.

Quote from David Kessler:

"Each person’s grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed. That doesn’t mean needing someone to try to lessen it or reframe it for them. The need is for someone to be fully present to the magnitude of their loss without trying to point out the silver lining."

[aro-in-danyl]

What led to the Death Eaters?

War Crimes, Vigilantes, and Dragonpox, oh my!

I just had the craziest HP au idea so bare with me. 

Tom went AWOL for a decade or two where we have no clue what happened to him or what the fuck he did beyond finding Ravenclaw’s diadem. 

What we do know is that before his absence the Purebloods were very comfortable in their power...but then Nobby Leach became the Minister of Magic I will find some way to squeeze him into everyone of my TMR stories mark my words somehow and suddenly the Purebloods were ready to throw down upon TMR’s return. 

I personally headcanon that some sort of Muggleborn rights movement occured in this time frame that led to Leach’s ascent but I honestly don’t think that would be enough to result in such a drastic change. 

There’s also no way Tom wouldn’t have wanted to get in on some of that chaos if he knew it would help him later. 

Before I get into where the vigilante part comes in I should also probably share my other au idea for the Grindelwald-WW2 overlap. I think that some of the Purebloods took advantage of the chaos that arose from the bombings, the fighting, and the imprisonment going on in the Muggle World to hide their own war crimes. What kind of war crimes? Well that depends on how angsty you want it to get. 

Could this happen in canon? Probably not given how ignorant most Purebloods are to the Muggle World but it is an idea to play around with that they’re not all as ignorant as they pretend to be. Arthur Weasley just can not be the most informed Pureblood on Muggle matters because I would have no fic ideas otherwise. 

Anyway, they could use WW2 as a cover to do away with Muggles, Squibs, and Muggleborns in a manner that would go unnoticed. These raids also serve as a precursor to the Death Eater’s later strategies of attacking head on with violence rather than subtly in the courtroom. It makes much more sense for them to go this route later if they had recent evidence it had worked for them before. Purebloods are all about tradition and playing it safe; why would they take risks on an unknown? 

Tom Riddle is the perfect victim for Purebloods during WW2: he’s in London during The Blitz, he’s an orphan, a presumed Muggleborn, and he’s in Slytherin despite all of this. The Purebloods take offense to this. The audacity of this kid to want a place to belong, shocker. People in actual history have killed or done worse for less than this. 

Obviously, their attempts didn’t work otherwise Harry Potter would be very different. Tom survived with an extra dose of trauma and knows the Purebloods are actively unaliving (or worse) random children and getting away with it. And now he has to go back to Hogwarts and pretend like his housemates didn’t ask their parents to do the same to him. But he’s fine. Everything’s fine. 

This is where Vigilante Tom comes in. Once the war was over and the Purebloods no longer had a cover to hide their criminal activities they had to get subtle. I mean they could stop but they’ve gotten away with it so far, what could go wrong? 

Tom. Tom and all of the Muggleborns they failed to get rid of. And they are here to make it everyone’s problem. 

While the Muggleborns and Leach vibe check the Wizarding World, Tom throws down in the background dismantling the Pureblood crime syndicate. 

The Purebloods find this terrifying. They’re being attacked on two fronts: the public and the private. The Muggleborns attack their credibility and power, but Tom straight up attacks whoever he finds and kills without mercy. Suddenly, their power no longer makes them untouchable. The Muggleborns don’t know about Tom but the Purebloods don’t know that they don’t know. They also don’t know if the Muggleborns do know. 

To be safe, the Purebloods keep the situation with Tom underwraps. They control the newspapers so nothing is printed that even vaguely mentions him. Neither do the Purebloods mention him aloud. He’s the You-Know-Who to anyone who knows am I right? HA. Okay I’ll shut up now.  

But what they can not hide is the frankly concerning number of Pureblood deaths.  Luckily they have a solution ready to go.

Haven’t you heard? Dragonpox is terrible this time of year. 

Yes I know there’s technically a cure for it in canon, this is an au, let me dream. The phrase becomes code for ‘oh yeah they were absolutely unalived by You-Know-Who.’  (Except they didn’t know who otherwise they never would’ve joined his cult)

So the Purebloods are spooked on both fronts when Nobby Leach becomes Minister for Magic and Tom continues to dismantle their criminal underground. They are desperate, scared, furious, vengeful, and ready to rumble. But how are they going to-oh hey that You-Know-Who guy is gone yay! And so is Nobby Leach. I guess we can chill now-

And then before they can simmer down, some guy shows up who knows exactly what to say to get them fired up again. 

And no Pureblood connected the dots until years later when Voldemort visited Abraxas Malfoy on his deathbed and spilled the beans. Too bad he never got to tell anyone! Dragonpox is terrible this time of year afterall.  

[cassiopeia-black]

I’ve been running the numbers on the students and Hogwarts and the magical population of Britain based on what JKR had said.

So she said that the usual number of students Hogwarts takes is 1000, and there’s references in the books to students being homeschooled as well as Pottermore content about there being more magical schools than the named ones - just that those are the ones that are oldest and therefore have the largest reliable student capacity year on year.

So let’s assume that Hogwarts teaches two thirds of the students in Magical Britain. Enough to still have the majority based on there being multiple smaller schools and groups, but enough people in that situation that Hogwarts House rivalry doesn’t transition enough from school to work for it to be something widely discriminated against - we’re not told which houses most of the adult characters are from unless they’re close friends and family members or teachers. Nymphadora Tonks’ house is never mentioned in the books initially for example. In the UK we are told not to talk about what sports teams we support in job interviews, particularly footbal teams, because you never know if you’re interviewer might have a strong opinion about the subject themselves, so it’s possible that this is a similar situation in the Wizarding World.

All the same that makes approx. 1500 students at school age every seven years.

This does not add up to JKR’s estimation of 3000 witches and wizards in Magical Britain. I think she’s missing a zero.

The oldest Minister for Magic is 147 when it is suggested that he retires from his position. The fact that no one suggests this before then implies that it’s pretty common for witches and wizards to be older than this and maintain their faculties. So the Life Expectancy of wizards must be higher than this. However we’re not given much indication at all that elderly relatives are looked after by their children or grandchildren, nor is there evidence of nursing homes in the wizarding world. So it can’t be much longer than this benchmark, I’m going to guess at 160 as an easy figure though it could well be higher.

1500 students at school age, averages at 214 - 215 students per year. In other words, the estimated birthrate in the Wizarding World (not taking into account war, disease, etc) is 215 children per year.

If they all live to 160, that puts the wizarding population at 34,400.

This won’t be the population in the canon timeline of the story of course, as there wasn’t just the war with Voldemort but Grindelwald wan’t long before that. Also, we know that many of the elderly were killed due to Dragon Pox as that’s what is said to have killed the elder Potters and some of the elder members of the Black and Weasley families.

Then there’s Harry’s class size. We have forty names, but JKR has said there were twice as many as that, so 80. If Hogwarts is still taking in two thirds of students then that’s only 120 children born that year compared to 215. It’s a war year so this makes sense.

But it’s also possible that parents were deciding to homeschool their children enmass, perhaps they disagreed with Dumbledore hiring Snape to teach? Or maybe they no longer wanted to take chances with such frequent rotation of DADA teachers after Voldemort’s war left the younger generation vulnerable?

If we say that the difference in basline birthrate (215) and the minimum birthrate in Harry’s year (120) is proportional to the difference between the baseline population (34400) and the minimum the population can be in the canon timeline.

Then with 120 being about 56% of 215, the minimum population of Wizarding Britain could be shown as 56% of 34400.

Or, 19,264.

This seems like a lot, probably because it is. But even if we consider that there could well have been a baby boom following October 31st 1981, thus making the years after Harry having bigger class sizes - and necessitating the hiring of more staff at Hogwarts. Or that the birth rate of Harry’s year should be higher but there are more homeschooled students. There’s still Dragon Pox which wasn’t considered at all in this statistically.

[bertharussellgf]

It’s thinking of how Tina and Queenie possibly lived through a dragonpox epidemic/pandemic when they were kids which killed their parents and are now watching people ignore all the gov’t warnings to distance yourself from people as much as possible to slow the spread so people who get really sick have resources available for use in hospitals and are fuming because your Spring break vacation to Miami or London or Paris isn’t more important than people’s lives, it actually isn’t being blown out of proportion, and it doesn’t matter if you’re magical or not, these things are important hours.

[aleteia-ff]

If you are still taking request, how about some angst with hiccup and Astrid witnessing zephyr death or if that's to dark they think she does but then she comes back to them later. Lol I've been watching to much game of thrones

Why!? Why do you want to read something so heartbreaking!? And why am I delivering?

I don’t know which circle of Hell you’ve come out of, and I don’t know which one I belong in for actually writing it. But I guess we’re in this together now. 

Warning: Feels below the Keep Reading line.

May the Valkyries Welcome Her

They’d only just returned from visiting the dragons for the fourth time. They went once a year; the first time had been when Zephyr had just turned six. She’d been delighted to see them then, and she had been just as happy this time around. Smiling, cheering, spending all day with Toothless or one of the Night Lights, unable to let go of them even when they weren’t in the air. But they never should’ve gone to the Hidden World in the first place.

Hiccup had been in their kitchen, having breakfast while seeing to it that Nuffink didn’t break down the rest of their house. The boy had all of Astrid’s energy, but none of her sense of responsibility – something that would come with time, he hoped.

Astrid’s voice had alerted him. “Hiccup.”

It’d been short, yet urgent, the kind of tone she only used when something was wrong and she didn’t want the kids to notice. Anxious but trying not to be too concerned, he’d walked to his daughter’s room, where Astrid had been getting Zephyr ready for the day.

He’d found his wife looking at him with her big blue eyes, the shock and fear clear in them. Before he’d been able to open his mouth, Zephyr had escaped her mother’s hold, running into him and proudly showing him her arm.

“Daddy, look! I have spots too, just like the dragons!”

Things had gone quickly after that. He’d taken Nuffink to Valka, with the specific instructions that he could not be in contact with his sister or any of the other children on the island. His mother was quite solitary regardless, and Nuffink loved to stay over at his grandma’s, so he’d figured he’d be safe there. In the meantime, Astrid had gotten Zephyr dressed and had called in New Berk’s healers. Who’d confirmed their worst fears.

Dragonpox. The illness had been with them on Berk for as long as dragons had raided them. Dragons were wild animals after all, carrying things with them that Vikings normally weren’t exposed to. It didn’t strike often; even during the raiding years, only those who were already very frail or sickly had been known to contract it. But with dragons coming to Berk and becoming a daily part of their lives, the combination of gradual exposure and immensely improved dragon hygiene had made it so that the disease was nothing more than a distant memory.

They’d forgotten it existed. It’d become a thing of their dragon-fighting past on Berk, and no one had been brought down by it since they’d settled on New Berk either. Until now. And now, he was forced to watch his little girl tremble and writhe underneath the covers as the rash continued to conquer her skin. Which was his fault.

Zephyr didn’t know that. She smiled at him whenever he entered the room, her blue eyes lighting up as they always did when she saw her father. But a little less so every day.  She hadn’t noticed he’d started to wear gloves yet, as there were simply some responsibilities he couldn’t avoid, and he had not wanted to risk spreading her illness any further. He’d done his job, called a village meeting on the first night she’d gotten sick, warned everyone to watch themselves, their children and their elderly. Some had felt he was overreacting – the disease hadn’t claimed any lives on Berk for years, so why would it now? Surely, Zephyr wouldn’t be the first? That’s what he tried to believe as well.

But Astrid was with their daughter at all times. And every time he returned after he’d had to leave for some agonizing emergency, he’d ask her if Zephyr was doing better yet. And every time, she’d shaken her head.

Now, exactly two weeks after Astrid had first spotted the marks on Zephyr’s skin, Hiccup slumped back into their home. His metal foot sounded hollow on the wooden floor, the heavy cloak around his shoulders not quite measuring up the sense of guilt that rested on them. He was startled by the two women coming down the stairs, who almost froze in place at the sight of their chief.

All it took was a questioning look from him for them to shake their heads. There was nothing more they could do. He couldn’t blame them. They’d tried all they could to help, using Gothi’s old notes to the best of their ability. But with their old healer’s passing, a lot of dragon-related healing knowledge had faded as well.

No, the only person he could really blame was himself. For forcing a reunion with Toothless and the others. For refusing to stop chasing his lifelong dream of dragons and Vikings living together in peace. For wishing his children came to know that part of his life too. And now he was paying the ultimate price. With all he could do being praying to the gods not to take his little girl from him.

He walked up the stairs of their home, his every step heavy and loaded. The door to Zephyr’s bedroom was open and he found Astrid inside, sitting on a stool at the side of their daughter’s bed. Astrid looked exhausted, her cheeks hollow, her eyes red and swollen as she did her best to wipe her tears away. He crouched down next to her, letting her lean her against his shoulder as her own shuddered.

“We never should have taken them,” she told him, her voice so hoarse he almost couldn’t hear her. “Gods, Hiccup, why did we go?”

There was nothing he could say that would justify their decision. There were no words that could be said, no reason that could be given that would erase what they’d done. What they were now responsible for. No dragon that could cure this kind of pain. Watching the 10-year old girl he’d loved from the first moment he’d seen her, lying there, shaking in her bed as she fought against a fever that refused to release her from its hold.

All he could do was take off his gloves, wrapping his arm around Astrid’s shoulder as he reached out towards Zephyr with his other, taking the hand that laid on top of the covers in his. The sheer heat of her skin almost made him flinch, but he carefully enveloped her little fingers in his nevertheless.

Every now and then, she writhed, squeezing her eyes shut even more as her lips trembled. Her skin was flushed, the colour of the rash and blisters that’d covered her almost matching that of her reddish brown hair. He’d never seen her look this small, or this vulnerable. She was losing the battle inside of her. Which her father should’ve protected her from in the first place.

They sat there for what seemed like eternity. He tried to keep himself together as best as he could as Astrid continued to sob, the past two weeks which she’d solely spent taking care of her daughter taking its toll. Eventually however, he watched Zephyr’s tired eyelids open, a little touch of bright blue still left in them.

“Daddy?”

The weakness in her voice broke his heart as he watched her struggle to produce the words. He swallowed his own tears away before he spoke. “Yes, Zeffie?”

Zephyr shivered, her face wrinkling as she did. “I’m cold.”

He gave her the most reassuring smile he could as he unwrapped his cloak from his shoulders, reaching out to give it to her. But she latched onto the fabric of his tunic rather than that of his cloak, the look in her eyes pleading. “Daddy.”

He quickly wiped his eyes with his other sleeve before he got up, removing his prosthetic before he climbed into his daughter’s bed as he’d so often done. He held his arms open for Astrid to crawl into as he pulled Zephyr into his lap, wrapping his cloak and her blankets around her as her little hands buried themselves in his tunic as well as they still could.

Sitting there, leaning against the headboard with the two most important women in his life in his arms, he softly brushed Zephyr’s sticky bangs out of her face. “Is this better?”

She nodded against his chest, the heat from her little body almost warming his heart, which was growing colder and aching more by the minute. Zephyr stayed silent for a bit, until another question crossed her lips. “Where’s Nuff?”

Astrid answered before he could, softly rubbing Zephyr’s back. “He’s with grandma.”

“He’s not sick too, right?”

“No,” Astrid reassured her, her voice thick with tears. “Your brother’s fine.”

“G-good,” Zephyr nodded, shivering as she did.

She stopped talking for a while after that, curling up against Hiccup’s chest, shivers still wrecking her. When he was sure she was about to fade into sleep, she spoke up again.

“I’m scared.”

Zephyr’s eyes were closed as the words left her mouth, her voice as small as he’d ever heard it. Astrid looked up at him, biting her lower lip as tears started to flow down her face once more. He could only barely contain his own as he stroked Zephyr’s face, trying to put her at ease.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” he told her. “It’ll pass. How about I tell you a story?”

Her head moved against his chest, the motions weak but her agreement clear.

“Any particular one you’d like?”

“About dragons.”

Dragons. Of course, he thought as a dagger slowly made its way into his heart. “But I’ve already told you so many!” he said, trying to fake a laugh. “Let me try to think of a new one.”

He searched his mind, trying to find a story he hadn’t told her yet. Eventually, he did. “Did I ever tell you about Vanaheim?”

Zephyr’s blue eyes opened slightly as she shook her head, too weak to form words.

“Well, then I’ll tell it. In the life of every dragon, there comes a point at which they can no longer stay with the rest of their pack, because they are getting old and fragile. So they take one last flight, all the way to the island of Vanaheim. It’s a sacred place, meant for dragons alone. But your mommy and I once had the honour of guiding a dragon there,” he lied.

“To die?”

“No, on the contrary,” he laughed, partly to suppress the tears that were becoming harder to hold back as he watched Astrid silently weep from the corner of his eyes. “It’s a place for all sick and tired dragons to go to, and there, they can live forever. Like they’re young again. They’re never in pain, never hungry and never ill. There’s no one to hurt them there, and they’d never hurt each other. They just live there, all dragon species together, without a sense of worry on their minds. For all eternity.”

“I want to go there,” Zephyr managed, trying to look up at him but failing to keep her eyes open.

“Then we’ll go,” he told her, pulling her closer against his chest. “Once you’re better, we’ll go find Toothless and Stormfly and mommy and I will take you there. And Nuffink too. We’ll go to Vanaheim, with just the four of us. No chiefing for your mom and dad. A long holiday, during which you will able to see more dragons than you’ve ever seen on the edge of the Hidden World. Cuddle them, play with them, fly on their backs. Anything you want.”

The kind of foolish fantasies that’d landed her on her deathbed in the first place. But she didn’t know that. And he wasn’t going to tell her. “Would you like that?”

“Yes,” a soft voice told him.

“Then we’ll go,” he repeated, rocking her in his arms as he felt her shudder against him once more.

“Tell me more.”

And so he did. He made up all kind of stories about the version of Vanaheim he’d created for her. As she’d never get to see the real island. He used what little he’d seen in the Hidden World, and what he’d experienced on all his adventures throughout his years with Toothless. He thought about all the things he’d wished for in his life with dragons and described them to his daughter. All the long-lost dreams that’d never come true. But which filled her with wonder nevertheless.

It wasn’t until Zephyr eventually fell back asleep that he allowed himself to cry, tears streaming down his face as he tried to keep his body as steady as possible, so he wouldn’t disturb her. One of Astrid’s arms was around his neck while her other was in their daughter’s hair, softly stroking it as Zephyr’s chest heaved. Slowly, the time between her inhales seemed to increase, every muscle movement starting to cost more effort. Until her breathing stopped altogether.

“Zephyr?”

They’d known it was coming. But still, nothing could compare to the freefall his soul took right then, as he couldn’t do anything but shake the little girl’s body in his arms, somehow, somewhere expecting her to open her inquisitive blue eyes again. But she didn’t. No matter how hard he tried, or how often he called her name, she didn’t wake.

Astrid cried out, the sheer agony in the sound of her voice tearing him to shreds. He pulled Zephyr closer to him, looking for anything, any sign of life at all. But he found nothing. The fever she’d tried to fight off so desperately started to subside, her body growing cold. Too cold.

She was gone. His little girl. One of the three people he was supposed to protect above anything else. Dead. And it was his fault.

There was nothing he could do then but hold her frail shape to his chest as his shoulders shook, an indescribable pain and anguish flooding his entire existence, making him hope he’d drown in it so he’d have to feel it no more. Although he deserved to.

All that was left for him to do was to pray that the Valkyries would welcome her among them, taking her to Valhalla. Where he hoped, prayed, wished his father would take care of her. After he’d failed them both. Through his ‘love for dragons’, through his ‘good intentions’. Both of them, dead by his hands.

And this would be the last time. In that moment, he swore to himself that no one on New Berk would ever see a dragon again. 

[underfirerp-blog]

Fleamont Potter.

That is all.

[thewitchinghourkwcw-blog]

Visit Original Link

Season 10. Episode 7. We talk about health and disease and how it would be affected by magic as seen in Harry Potter. Topics include: lycanthropy treatment and stigma, the physical stressors of being around too much magic, the metaphorical significance of different organs/body parts as used in potions and spells, and more. 

Spattergroit- The Parselmouths Hide Your Face- Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons We Save Ron's Life, Part 8- Harry and the Potters The Making of  Puking Pastill- Gred and Forge Become and Animal-2 Animagi and a Werewolf Werewolf Love- Tonks and the Aurors Professor Lupin is a Wolf- The 8th Horcrux More Than Just a Werewolf- RiddleTM The Mandrake's Carol- Roonil Wazlib Polyjuice Potion- Hawthorn and Holly

[juricon]

my father just dedicated a horrible joke to you. we walked past a shop called 'little lamb' and he was like 'ask Mary if she owns that.'

Liv (dragonpox) via text