#stealing harryverse

[mintrabbit]

Doodled some Harry Potter character portraits based on the Stealing Harry AU by @copperbadge. (I only finished reading this recently, and I can’t believe I didn’t read this years ago.)

[aeternumregina]

Do you have any slytherin!harry ficrecs besides the Fantastic Elves and Where to Find Them series (I've just finished reading it and I'm fucking obsessed, btw)? I haven't been able to find any that sound particularly good besides Leo Inter Serpentes and Hit The Ground Running (which is excellent, and I recommend that you read it if you haven't already), and I definitely trust your judgement.

How good is The Library of Elvish Lore?? I recommend that series to anyone who asks and I want evansentranced to write more! (Which makes me a massive hypocrite, I know!) The same author has another Slytherin!Harry series, Magical Relations. I don’t like it as much as much the elf series, but as that’s one of my all-time favourite fics, not liking it as much does not mean MR isn’t good! It features Dudley as a wizard, and Vernon turns out to be mostly actually decent. 

I quite liked the Stealing Harryverse series by copperbadge, but it was abandoned some time in Harry’s third year. The author did post their notes for how they would’ve finished up the series. It also starts when Harry’s quite young (eight, from memory). I’m not a huge fan of the way Narcissa’s portrayed though - nothing will ever make me believe that she could be anything approaching abusive to Draco. 

I’ve thought about reading Hit The Ground Running so many times and I’m always put off somehow due to dark!Harry. I might give it a go once I finish writing Leo Inter Serpentes (yes, that’s a shameless self-plug), but I’m trying to avoid Slytherin!Harry fics so that I don’t accidentally influence my own writing.

[waywardbookshelf]

A Review on the Stealing Harryverse by copperbadge

I decided to make a seperate post for this review, as somehow I found myself writing paragraphs about this verse.

I am so very glad this story exists, even if it’s permanently a WIP. Normally, I would stray clear of something that will never be finished but considering that the author tells how the rest of the story would basically go, I decided to give it a shot. It’s a wonderful read, and I love it dearly. If I had money, I would pay to have it finished because it simply is filled with so many opportunities and after reading the notes about how the author would have continued it, I feel a mighty need. I can live with basically knowing what happens, but not being able to read it fully fleshed out is a bit of a disappoint (but I fully understand the author’s reasoning). Still, I am grateful that what’s written exists.

It features Slytherin!Harry who is best friends with Hufflepuff!Draco. They’re also friends with Ravenclaw!Padma and Gryffindor!Neville, making their group very diverse and breaking down the House prejudices with ease. Hermione and Ron are present of course, but they’re not Harry’s best friends. Instead, the personalities of Harry, Ron, and Hermione are sort of sorted out between Draco, Padma, Neville, and Harry, with individual quirks thrown in. Of course, none of this happens til you’re over 100,000 words into the actual story. The first 100,000 words take place before Hogwarts and are just as good and amazing as the rest of the story, of course.

I am a fan of Draco Malfoy, and I have been as long as I can remember. Of course, I did have a bit of an obsession with movie!Draco due to Tom Felton when I was younger, but I soon snapped out of it. I hold no illusions that Draco was just misunderstood in Canon. After all, the only reason we read so much into Draco in the movies is because of Tom Felton’s amazing acting. In the books, I think the general consensus is that he’s a horrible little boy. This verse explored Draco if he wasn’t brought up with all his horrid conditioning and ideals. In this, he wasn’t raised in a great environment, but he was allowed to grow and develop on his own. Because of this, he has none of that pureblood prejudice. Also, as a Hufflepuff, Draco gets a totally different experience and it’s a delight to read. He has a lot of hope, despite everything, and it’s evident in this quote:

"Do you suppose if I gave mum some vitamins she’d be more sane?" Draco asked, a trace of hope in his voice.

Out of context, it actually is quite depressing. But when I was reading the scene, it brought a smile to my face because the boys were being dumb in the way only young boys can be. This whole story had some golden moments where I laughed out loud and I smiled so wide my cheeks hurt. it brought me the upmost joy.

As a writer, this verse was so interesting and something I greatly desired. Slytherin!Harry, of course, is practically a writer’s dream (but I hold firm that the idea wouldn’t be so appealing if we didn’t already have Gryffindor!Harry). But it also has a Harry who is raised from age 8 up by people who love and care for him. He has a great support system with Remus and Sirius and the rest of his family. I am a huge fan of Remus x Sirius together in the romantic sense, for several reasons. They’re living in a time, especially in this verse, where people who are gay are looked down upon. If they were in school, in their teens, this would probably be a bigger issue, and it’s hinted at in here. But it was a great opportunity to show how Remus x Sirius would deal with homophobia and the like as adults who simply love each other and their son. In The End Of The Story the author comments that Harry  will eventually realize he’s gay (sorry kind of a spoiler but it’s not actually written out so) and I do share the author’s POV on the pros and cons of Harry being gay for this particular verse, since he was raised by gay parents, and there’s that stupid idea that some people have that if you’re gay then you’re going to make your children gay or there’s a bigger possibility that your children will turn out to be gay. It’s ridiculous. I also am not a fan of the everyone-is-gay!trope because in the real world it’s unrealistic. Still, even from the beginning, I had a feeling that Harry would end up gay, and so it felt natural and right.

I myself am tempted to write an AU where Harry is raised by Remus and Sirius because I think it’s such a great opportunity. I want Harry to be properly cared for and loved early in his life. I have always wondered how much differently he would turn out if that had happened, and this verse gave me an interpretation of how it might go.

I also have to comment on this Severus Snape. He’s still the Severus from canon, but he’s also… different. Quite honestly, I really liked him. In canon, he can be annoying and a bit tiresome but I never experienced those feelings while reading this. I enjoy his story and arc as much as the rest of the story. His relationship with Nymphadora Tonks also, strangely, works perfectly, and the author weaves his story seemlessly into Harry’s life.

Overall, this story is fascinating, original, and still somehow manages to follow and include events from canon. This author is truly a great writer, and I’ve read a few of their other works, but this whole story is absolutely magnificent. I also immensely enjoyed getting an inside view into the author’s thoughts and reasons behind some of the things in this series. There are more things I could say here about this verse, but I think I’ve covered some of the main things that stood out to me. I highly recommend this series to everyone, especially those looking for something a little bit different and excellent.