"To keep Connor safe. To always protect him. To insure that he lives as untroubled a life as he can, until he has to face Lord Voldemort again. To be his brother and his friend and his guardian. To love him. To never compete with him, never show him up, and never let anyone else know that I'm so close to him. To be ordinary, so that he can be extraordinary."
—Harry Potter's vows in regards to his brother, Connor Potter
The Sacrifices Arc is a Harry Potter Alternate Universe in which Harry's not only a Slytherin, but also a twin. That brother, Connor, wears the mantle of the Boy Who Lived, while Harry acts as his protector and guardian. The series is complete and features seven parts, each roughly paralleling the canon. It's notable for its original storyline, a series of twists and turns, and Alternative Character Interpretation. The fanfiction, written by Lightening on the Wave or Limyaael, can be found here
and here. Download links and other of her online fiction can be found here.
Further information about the author and her fantasy rants can be found here.
The parts are, in order:
- Saving Connor
- No Mouth But Some Serpent's
- Comes Out of Darkness Morn
- Freedom and Not Peace
- Wind That Shakes the Seas and Stars
- A Song In Time of Revolution
- I Am Also Thy Brother
Provides Examples of:
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A to M
- Auror Fiona Mallory. Her father sexually abused her. When she got too old for him, he started going after her younger sister instead. He didn't survive the attempt.
- Action Girl: Ignifer Apollonis, who's method of relaxing is to fight dragons in a freaking volcano.
- Aerith and Bob: Besides canon examples, there are original characters who embody this trope. Contrast Connor, Owen and Marian with names such as Honoria, Medusa, and Ignifer.
- Ascended Extra: A couple of notable examples are Evan Rosier and Regulus Black, who aren't even alive during canon but both play important roles. Others include Millicent Bulstrode, Pansy Parkinson, and their families.
- Evan Rosier, to the point where he's considered crazy even by other Death Eaters.
- Bellatrix Lestrange, in a more classical interpretation of the trope.
- Harry and Draco are another.
- Beta Couple: Many. The most important is Connor/Parvati, but others include Hermione/Zacharias Smith, Millicent Bulstrode/Pierre Delacour, Honoria Pemberley/Ignifer Apollonis, as well as many of the married couples.
- Played with in regards to Snape/Regulus, who never actually get together due to the latter's death. However, it's implied that they would have, and they're used as an interesting parallel to Draco and Harry nonetheless.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Helga Hufflepuff made the stones of Hogwarts eat alive some people who were attacking students.
- One of the defining traits of the Puellaris witches, who's greatest goal in life is to keep their husband and children safe. They are trained to be quiet, and submissive- in public. Threaten her children, and she literally becomes a lioness and bites off your head.
- Big Brother Instinct: Harry is this to Connor, though it is unclear at first who really is younger. Inverted later on. Also Doncan Opalline to his half-sister Calibrid.
- Black Widow: Arabella Zabini married seven husbands, all whom of died. No-one ever managed to prove she was responsible.
- Body Horror: After Voldemort's resurrection, Harry's left hand is cut off by Bellatrix and then healed into a stump.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Snape in the sixth book along with some of the other reformed Death Eaters in the seventh book.
- Brilliant, but Lazy:
- Sort of, with the Weasley twins. For example, at one point they do something to Snape's wand that makes it so that every time he casts a spell, something cute happens, like a pixie, or a pink snake with little hearts on it, or kittens, etc. They accomplish this by making it so that Snape's wand core switches out of his wand every time he casts a spell, replacing it with a different core that casts the cute spell, all without harming his wand.
- Bring My Brown Pants: This is what happens to Connor as Harry finally breaks free of the Phoenix Web thanks to him resisting Connor's attempt at using his Compulsion to mind control Harry.
- Brought Down to Normal: What happens to Lily after she tries to put Harry under a Phoenix Web.
- Cast Full of Gay: Played with, there are a lot of straight characters but other than Harry and Draco, there's Ignifer Apollonis, Honoria Pemberley, Tylbat Starrise, John Smythe-Blyton among others.
- Children Are Innocent: played with. Lily doesn't exactly believe Harry himself is evil, just his magic which comes from Voldemort. Still, she never gave her son the choice to be good or evil.
- The Chosen Many: There are dozens of Lord and Lady-level wizards and witches across the world, both Dark and Light. However Voldemort is the most powerful of them all.
- Cincinnatus: The Cincinnatus Ritual is a spell that allows the sitting Minister of Magic to control all magic used within the Ministry. The ritual evens drops the Trope Namer when it's being cast
- Courtroom Episode: A rather heartbreaking version with Dumbledore's and the Potter's trials for child abuse.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Thomas Rhangara, one of Harry's allies and a philospoher who declared Dark because he thought it made more sense than Light magic, and Honoria Pemberly, another of Harry's allies.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Draco, for Harry. He gets better at managing the possessiveness, later. Also, Michael Rosier-Henlin for Draco.
- Creepy Twins: Sylvan and Oaken Yaxley, to the point where only one of them can exist at a time; the other one stays in an alternate dimension. They can swap in and out of reality. They manage this by taking the blood of unwilling sacrifices.
- Creepy Child: The wild Dark is described as "a spoiled child" often enough. As for the creepiness, it is literally a mix between sentient Black Magic and Living Shadow.
- Harry himself can come across as a little unsettling, simply because of the way he was raised.
- Curse Escape Clause: Subverted with the Unassailable Curses, which are a category of dark spells that can only be broken through the usage of a willing sacrifice so even Imperiusing an innocent to sacrifice their lives would fail to break the curse.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Dark Magic is magic which subverts someone's free will, but doesn't have to be evil. In fact, many of the good guys are Dark wizards who aren't psychopathic killers and thus don't want to follow Voldemort.
- Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Played with. There are former Death Eaters on Harry's side as well as Voldemort's.
- Light Is Not Good: Dumbledore exemplifies this as a wizard devoted to the Light... who nevertheless uses questionable means to accomplish his ends.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Comes Out of Darkness Morn.Snape: We have come to prove to you that your ridiculous suspicions are ridiculous.
- Differently Powered Individual: Played with. All wizards and witches have natural barriers that blocks off the deeper parts of their magical cores and can manifest as a series of limitations (not be able to become an Animagi even with years of study, not able to cast Unforgivables, or be able to fly on a broom et al). Lords and Ladies are wizards and witches that don't have such natural barriers, and are capable of fully harnessing their magic. It turns out Harry is a Lord-level wizard.
- Darker and Edgier: While the canon Harry Potter gets darker as it goes, this series starts there and grows increasingly more tragic as it goes on.
- Death by Adaptation: Some characters. Namely, Sirius dies much earlier, Percy is killed by Indigena Yaxley, the list goes on...
- Dirty Coward: subverted with Igor Karkaroff, he was only pretending in order to fool Voldemort's enemies into a false sense of security.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Inverted: Harry has suffered extreme mental and physical abuse, most of which carried itself into his psyche years after he finally broke the web that had held his magic and free will hostage for the better part of his childhood, thus causing him to never lead the normal life that Connor did despite the fact that Connor wasn't even the one who was supposed to save the world, all in the name of the Greater Good. Despite the fact that lesser instances of child abuse warrant the death penalty, Harry pleads with anyone who'll listen that what Lily, James, and Dumbledore did wasn't that bad. He even succeeds in convincing the Wizangamot to only put his parents into Tullianum for life. Indigena Yaxley fixes that soon enough.
- Distant Finale: The Epilogue, in form of a letter.
- Doorstopper: All of the books after the third are long, with Wind That Shakes the Sea and Stars having over 750,000 words, according to Fanfiction.net's word counter. The combined length of this entire series is about four times the length of the Harry Potter books.
- Double-Meaning Title: The title of the series makes sense at first, but as time goes on seems to become irrelevant...until you reach the end of the series.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Subverted. In the case of Evan Rosier and Henrietta Bulstrode. If anything, her taunting of him years later is what screws him up even more.
- Driven to Suicide: Rufus Scrimgeour witnessed a suicide after the First War. It was Alba Starrise, who hanged herself with a banner while he went to fetch her some tea, causing her brother Augustus to carry a grudge against him for not preventing her death, unknowing of what actually happened.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: anyone who dies to destroy a Horcrux. Especially Connor, oh so much.
- Emotion Suppression: Lily trains Harry to do this to himself, causing many a disaster. He gets better later on, though.
- Everything Except Most Things: In Freedom And Not Peace.Not you, too, said Harry, switching to silent speech as a Hufflepuff first-year came up the stairs and slipped over to a barn owl on a perch. She kept giving him awed glances. Harry stared out the window and did his best to look like an ordinary tormented hero until she was gone. Everybody wants to punish my mother, for some reason.
Some reason. This is lots of reasons. How dare she say—
"I don't want to hear it again," Harry whispered. "Please, Regulus, don't make me live through it. She's been punished. It's enough. Everybody else has agreed to leave it alone." Well, except for Scrimgeour. And Lucius. And Narcissa. And Hawthorn. And Adalrico. But everybody else has.
- Eye Scream: Harry to the Dark Lady Monika after he defeats Voldemort and absorbs his power; he laughs and one of her eyes bursts.
- The Many snakes are a very poisonous breed of snake whose venom can kill a man in seconds. It can also cause someone to become irreparably blinded if it's spat in the eyes, as Harry effectively demonstrated with Voldemort.
- Face–Heel Turn: Michael Rosier-Henlin. Supposedly Snape; it turns out that Voldemort was possessing him and made him do so.
- At the end of A Song In Time Of Revolution, Adalrico, Hawthorn, and Lucius have been forcibly turned to Voldemort's side by way of their Dark Marks.
- Fantastic Racism: Werewolves face some pretty heavy prejudice for their curse, and as the books progress, laws begin to come into effect that stop werewolves from having paying jobs and custody of children.
- House Elves. Turns out they've been enslaved by humans to be their servants.
- Flat "What": There are quite a number of them scattered throughout the stories, mostly in response to something Harry says or reveals.Harry (pointing to a potion he's brewing): That's the first stage of a cure for lycanthropy, I think.Hawthorn Parkinson, staring: What.
- Foreshadowing - Draco asks Harry at one point what his decision will be should for example, Voldemort hold a dozen children hostage and offer releasing them at the price of Harry's surrender. Guess what happens in the sixth book, no prize for guessing it right.
- Gratuitous Latin: The Apollonis family teaches their children to speak Latin from an early age. Additionally, at Connor's gravesite, Harry says "Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale," which translates to "And now forever, brother, hail and farewell."
- Neville also counts, since Harry went to him specifically to find out how exactly to counteract Indigena Yaxley's vicious hybrids in battle.
- He's Just Hiding: As in canon, Regulus Black.
- Heel–Face Brainwashing: How Lily and Dumbledore seem to view their brainwashing of Harry. To everyone else, it's a case of Light Is Not Good.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Arguably one of the main tropes in the series, both played straight and subverted on several occasions. Additionally, the entire seventh book is built on this trope.
- Holy Hand Grenade: The Justice Box, an artifact capable of dishing punishment to wrong-doers or people who try to use it for wicked ends. Harry uses it to punish Lily when she tries to brainwash him again and turns her into a Muggle, taking away her powers.
- Honor Before Reason: Several characters throughout the series, with possibly the best example being Indigena Yaxley.
- I'm a Humanitarian: In a flashback, Evan Rosier is seen eating a child's heel.
- Hypocrite: Lily and Dumbledore are this, though it only becomes more obvious with time. Specifically, they cast a supposedly Light spell on Harry that forcefully binds his magic and abhor the Dark, despite free will being one of the most important principles of Light.
- Harry can also count, especially towards house elves. He respects the free will of his allied purebloods more than those of the house elves and will only break the web holding them in slavery if purebloods agree to it.
- I Can Change My Beloved: Harry towards Draco when other people points he's a self-centered, spoiled and bigoted asshole.
- If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Draco gets one from Camellia a werewolf member of Harry's pack.
- I Have No Son!: Lucius disowns Draco when he choses to join Harry in rebellion against Ministry after Hawthorn is arrested. Over time he comes to regret this decision.
- It's All My Fault: Harry has several moments of this, most of the time when it isn't even his fault. James has one, too.
- Killed Off for Real: anyone who dies won't come back. The only time this isn't played straight is with the canon example of Regulus Black, who apparently didn't die in the first place.
- Lawful Stupid: Averted in-universe with Scrimgeour: while he despises Dark magic and "Lords mucking around in his ministry," it's acknowledged by Harry around the second time he shows up that he is by no means an idiot. Which makes Juniper's reign even more painful to witness in contrast.
- Light Is Good: The Light families in general. Arguably Harry himself whose ideals are closer to Light than Dark. The Light itself is much more decent and understandable than the wild Dark. "The Dark does not care what its Lords do in its name. I [...] do."
- Literary Allusion Title:
- The titles of most of the books are taken from Swinburne poems.
- Many chapter titles reference everything from The Bible to Greek myth.
- Loophole Abuse: The Cincinnatus Ritual says that you need a third of the number of the Wizengamot (nineteen people) for it to be cast, not a third of the Wizengamot. Rufus Scrimgeour exploits this in the sixth book.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: At one point Harry takes a Dark curse featuring this. Unlike some other incarnations of the trope, the perfect world in the curse doesn't turn into a nightmare, but it also takes an outside influence with knowledge of the Dark Arts (in this case, Lucius Malfoy) to convince him to break the dream world.
- Love Triangle: Draco is aware of Michael's interest in him, and often intentionally leads him on. Of course, Harry is not pleased when he finds out.
- Lured into a Trap: Harry and his allies, oh-so-many times.
- Magic Music: Siren song comes loaded with compulsion, which Voldemort uses to his advantage near the end of the fifth book.
- There's also Arabella Zabini, a Songstress who possesses the ability to create and dispel illusions and compulsions with her voice. She is even able to counteract the siren's song at one point to keep anybody from drowning themselves.
- Mama Bear:
- Puellaris witches will turn into lionesses to defend their children.
- Laura Gloryflower is a Puellaris whose husband died. In order to continue living - as the trade-off for Puellaris witches' power in the home sphere is that they give up all hope of understanding things outside the home - she convinced herself to treat all the people of the world as her children. She is now head of her blood family - an old, powerful Light pureblood line.
- Minerva McGonagall as in canon in regards to her students, described as a lioness and often backed by the Hogwarts Founders.
- Manipulative Bastard: Narcissa has spent years of efforts and maneuvering to ensure that Draco could break free from the family and love chains holding him back. Her efforts come to fruit when Draco declares for the Dark.
- Meaningful Name: Henrietta Bulstrode teaches Transfiguration under the name "Professor Belluspersona"; Belluspersona means "beautiful disguise".
- Owen and Michael Rosier-Henlin's younger sister's name is picked specifically for this.
- The Men in Black: The Unspeakables of the Department of Mystery to some extent. They possess rare magical artifacts capable of containing Lord-level wizards, amongst other things.
- Mercy Kill: Done in the sixth book towards children held under a Life-Web by Voldemort
- Mind Control: Lord and Lady-level wizards and witches naturally possess this ability which is why they're often surrounded with Mooks.
- Mood Whiplash: Chapter 66 of book 7 begins with Regulus's funeral, goes through some dramatic moments, and ends with a passionate interlude between Harry and Draco. True, it doesn't go from tragedy to comedy, but the latter half of the chapter lacks the gravitas of the first half.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: Indigena Yaxley to Lord Voldemort; she follows him out of honour but hates the fact that she has to kill people who she respects.
- Book three: Starborn (Narcissa Malfoy)
- Book four: Evan Rosier
- Book five: The Serpent (Mortimer Belville)
- Book six: The Liberator (Indigena Yaxley)
N to Z
- Name One:
- No Mouth But Some Serpent's:
James: Remus. There are so many things that you don't understand, so many things that have to come true.
Remus: Name one.
James: You know about the prophecy.- Freedom And Not Peace:
Harry: But most of the tasks I have are ones that only I can do. Either because of strength of magic, or because they're serving people who will only trust me.
Millicent: Name one.
Harry: My duties as vates, for instance. Most of the magical creatures won't see or converse with anyone but me. - Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Hawthorn Parkinson was called the Red Death during her days as a Death Eater. Make that of what you will.
- Noodle Incident: Rufus Scrimgeour had one that involved a powerful illusionist, two cats, and green goo which is now the reason why the healers at St. Mungo's will only treat him for purely physical wounds.
- Nothing Personal: Belville claims this after betraying The Alliance.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: In a rare positive example, Rufus Scrimgeour.Severus Snape: By all means, approach the Ministry. I think you will find most requests concerning Harry have a way of vanishing into a maze of forms in triplicate.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Notably, they function in the form of a beehive, with a large queen, male drones that fight and rape as they please, and sterile female workers.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Werewolves packs have their branch of magic, which allows them to cast stronger spells. Werewolf Alphas, unlike wolf alphas, cannot be challenged because they have compulsion over their packmates. It's also possible to turn a non-werewolf into an Alpha. Harry becomes the Alpha of Loki's pack without turning into a werewolf.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Hawthorn outlives not only her husband, but Pansy as well.
- Playing with Fire: Harry in from the fifth book and up, though he only uses it occasionally due to it coming from Fawkes' Heroic Sacrifice against the Wild Dark. Also, Adalrico and Millicent Bulstrode.
- Polar Opposite Twins: Harry and Connor, in the early books: Connor is 'innocent,' spoiled, Light, and Gryffindor, while Harry is 'tainted' at least to Lily and Dumbledore, suicidally selfless, Dark again, to Lily and Dumbledore, though he also appears as such to most Light families - he's really a mix of the two, and Slytherin. But really, that just touches the tip of the iceberg, and they become more sympathetic to each other as they get older.
- Pretentious Latin Motto - a number of pureblood families have Latin mottos. These include the Bulstrodes (Duramus - we endure), and the Yaxleys (Vita desinit, decus permanit - life is fleeting, glory remains).
- Psychometry: Luna Lovegood possess a variation of this power, allowing her to communicate with objects rather than having visions.
- Pyrrhic Victory: although Harry survives, many people he loves, such as Regulus, Narcissa and Connor, do not make it.
- Van Helsing Hate Crimes: In A Song in Time of Revolution, moral panic regarding werewolves results in the creation of the Department of Control and Suppression of Deadly Beasts, increasinly oppressive legislation against werewolves culminating in the legalization of werewolf hunting season. This, along with the arrest of Hawthorn pushes Harry into a full blown rebellion against the Ministry. Minister Rufus Scrimgeour uses this chaos to use a Loophole Abuse in the Ministry to temporally become a dictator.
- Relationship Reveal: Pulled in-universe, when Harry reveals to a crowd of people that he and Draco are going through a joining ritual. (Of course, the reader and Harry's allies already know this.)
- Revenge: Another theme throughout the series. Revenge in the wizarding world tends to tie in with honour. For example, an outsider may not take revenge on the victim's family without his/her consent while family members do not need this.
- Sacrificial Lion: Sylarana, at the end of the second book, which is the first truly important death.
- Self-Immolation - How Charles Rosier-Henlin kills the Death Eaters threatening his family.
- Self-Sacrifice Scheme: Subverted, both times. Peter planned to die for the Horcrux wand, but Regulus beats him to the punch. Later, Harry planned to die for the final Horcrux, but Connor kills himself before he gets the chance.
- Shipper on Deck: Quite a few characters ship Draco/Harry before anything actually happens between them.
- Silk Hiding Steel: The very definition of the Puellaris witches.
- Slash Fic: the main pairing (in later books) is Draco/Harry.
- Sliding Scale of Libertarianism and Authoritarianism: Harry is hard libertarian, being very respectful of other people's free will even when it is detrimental to him (such as unwillingness to use Legimency on Death Eaters without their consent). Voldemort and Dumbledore are hard authoritarian.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Basically almost everyone who died in the original books. Of course, with everyone who dies instead, you might wish they did die like in canon.
- Spoiled Brat: Draco, at times.
- There Are No Therapists: Subverted. Seers are magical therapists who help those in need of healing. They play a major role in the sixth book when Harry finally goes to the Sanctuary for healing.
- The Stoic: Both Harry and Snape have elements of this, although they both defrost a little (Harry more than Snape).
- Not So Stoic: Oh boy, Snape has a massive one when Regulus dies, which results in Indigena Yaxley's gruesome death.
- The Voiceless: Dragonsbane Parkinson, for most of the year except on Halloween and Walpurgis Night, due to being a Necromancer.
- Tag Team Twins: the Yaxley brothers swap in and out of this reality.
- "Take That!" Kiss: Peridot Yaxley, a sex witch, to her sister Indigena in order to humiliate her. It works.
- Technicolour Fire: Adalrico Bulstrode and his eldest daughter both use black flames.
- Theme Naming: Some Pureblood families and werewolf packs have this. The Parkinsons and Loki's werewolf pack have Floral Theme Naming, while the Yaxleys have Rock Theme Naming. The Starrises appear to take their names from characters in Shakespeare's works, as well.
- Theme Twin Naming: Oaken and Sylvan Yaxley.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Scrimgeour requires tea to function well; that said, he's the only (British) character who does, or is seen drinking it regularly.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Multiple Animagi. As well as the ones mentioned in canon, Harry can turn into a lynx, Draco can turn into a white fox, and Connor can turn into a boar.
- Honoria is a gull animagus.
- Was It All a Lie?: This is the reaction of the Wizarding World to the Grand Unified Theory of Every Kind of Magic which says that blood has nothing to do with magical power and that magic is a sapient force and factors like weather and rape can determine whether a child is magical or not.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Dumbledore, Lily, Falco Parkinson.
- Wham Episode: The "Triple-Edged Blade" chapters at the end of A Song In Time Of Revolution radically change the story's landscape.
- Wham Line: At the end of the fourth book. Snape filed a police report on Harry's behalf for child abuse. Harry doesn't like that.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Subverted; Harry tends to do this to himself, even when those around him point out that his actions were necessary and sometimes the only decent course of action he had
- Wild Card: Rosier, so, so much. Also the Stone, for whom we never really get any kind of coherent motive beyond "because it suited me."
- Wild Magic: Confined magic can develop a personality, and the Light and the Dark are both sentient.
- Willing Channeler: The Smiths can be this for their ancestors. Namely, Zacharius Smith for Helga Hufflepuff.
- Woman Scorned: Narsissa, first when Lucius disinherited Draco after he joined Harry's rebellion against the Ministry and later after Lucius failed to resist Voldemort's Spell of Hatred when other targets such as Peter and Snape successfully resisted it.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Lily in the third book. She tried to make it seem as if she were sorry for all she did to Harry, crying and all that, but was just trying to re-cast the magical binding spell on him again.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Regulus is romantically interested in Snape, so he's going to finally get his happy ending, right? Oh so wrong.
