Just thinking about Harry Potter and missed opportunities in canon...
(and writing about some of them here:
The Second Splinter [WIP, 5 chapters, 30,000 word count])
I have so many things to include in this fic, but I'm wondering if there’s anything I’ve overlooked and might like to include....
I already have plans for minor supporting characters like Angelina, Cho, and Alicia....the Creevey brothers, Lee Jordon, Draco Malfoy, new elements of the Death Eater-influenced MoM.... and of course the main cast in the castle.... I really want to explore the networks in place supporting both “sides” of the conflict, as well as parties that are more ambiguous in their allegiances.
(I’m not doing much with the main trio, the main members of the Order, and the Bigger Baddies ....mostly because their possible alternative avenues of action and development have been pretty well covered already. And tbh I’m not particularly inspired by them for some reason aha)
Snape has (probably?) received a lot of attention as well in fandom and it’s not like I need to explore his character in TSS but I like how I’ve planned things for him. He’s definitely someone that makes for a great anti-hero, because he absolutely does despicable things...and he also does do heroic things on occasion...? He’s very skewed in his perspective and actions, which is always fun for me as a writer.
BUT Ginny, Luna, Pansy, Zacharias, Neville, and Blaise are getting the most attention in the story.... UGH I just have somehow fallen so in love with them all.... I feel like they would just have great chemistry together??
Neville is morally ideological and active, you know? And then Smith is morally-inclined but also a bit of a dick??? and Blaise, from what very very little we see of him, appears to act with motivation along self preservation, but maybe there is room for moral-sensitivity if not ever direct action? AND he is bold enough, or confident enough, to admit to Draco Malfoy that a blood-traitor like Ginny is attractive lol (Maybe that was Jo’s weak way of reinforcing to the readers how “desirable” Ginny is -- but i want to take it as a Blaise character development moment instead) So anyway, I see a lot of potential for further development and expansion of his character. (I think the fandom likes to explore Theodore Nott in this direction more often, maybe?? and Blaise seems to be a ‘play-boy’ friend to Malfoy usually.... meh. I have no need for that.)
ANYWAY. I’m also looking forward to Draco’s development. There’s a really, really awesomely fun feature to his character that’s introduced and utilized in HBP but never fully explored in canon and is dropped, I think, entirely by book seven... and I am going to play with that part of his characterization a bit in TSS... He is clearly a driven, clever, capable character in the ‘right’ circumstances and with the right sort of task, you know?
Also - I’ve mentioned this before - but Luna’s crypto appreciation and interactions with Olivander are going to feature. I just feel like that’s a WASTED opportunity. I mean, a wand maker that goes above and beyond to find and research applications of tissue samples from a Crumple Horned Snorkak??? PRICELESS. Also, would Luna be opposed to using previously undiscovered specimens in wand-making? I don’t know. She doesn’t seem the type to necessarily be automatically opposed..... Maybe she would be curious about application of newly discovered magical elements in wand making. Damn, I am!
AND PANSY. Man. I want more depth and complexity to Pansy Parkinson so damn much. Who really wants to write another shallow character who is a stand in for the stereotypical entitled mean girl. Who actually wants to read about that! smh. I mean, shallow and unpleasant people exist in real life, sure, but I don’t see a very engaging function for them in stories beyond temporary roadblocks. I want MORE. I want to know why she feels the need to cling to someone like Malfoy -- and I would like it to go beyond materialistic ends.... I want her to be nasty and morally-depraved but I also want her to be dimensional!! She could be strong, too, you know.... I want a girl who is bad and broken, but breathing. And emphasis on bad. She can be self-centered, clingy, mean spirited, but why, you know?
Ginny. Oh, the love I have for Ginny. She calls Fleur, Phlegm. Which is all things mean and childish and sort of hilarious??? She talks flippantly about her much ignored trauma, she insists on her inclusion in fighting Voldemort, she can’t talk around the boy she’s crushing on but never shuts up around her family. I just like her, okay? She grows up in the boonies with no money and a whole lot of pure-blood family history and legacy and people know her -- but only by reputation of her idealistic and rebellious family and she still has to fight to make something of herself.... I don’t know, but she seems to have a lot of potential to me? With six older brothers, she has STRONG OPINIONS, ok, I am certain of it and I love it.
My favorite thing about Ginny is that she must have tried to destroy the Diary!Horcrux and found that its indestructible by mundane means --it being a horcrux and all-- and so her solution was to throw the thing in the toilet. Where all the other shit collects. HA! Gaddamn, I am totally going to write that scene.....
