The Harry Potter Fanfiction Thread

Well, I sort of needed him to be one because there's an important scene later in the story where he flies an airplane.

edited 5th Sep '17 11:50:10 AM by ElSquibbonator

Falls under The Plot Demanded This Index. Still, a Dudley this competent is an O.C. Stand-in. Try and justify all the necessary Character Development. Because my expectations for normal Dudley in Boot is that he'd end up like Private Pyle.

Well, be that as it may Dudley was pretty much the only choice I had for a character to use in that role. Theoretically I could have used an OC, but I didn't want to because I thought it would be awkward explaining how they knew about the Harry and Wizarding world in general. It just seemed more efficient, of lack of a better word, to use a character who already knew about it. I'm well aware that this is an unusual portrayal for Dudley, and I'm trying to keep him as in-character as possible.

As I said, good luck.

But if you want to use an OC, look into the Muggleborn students, like Dean Thomas and Anthony Goldstein. Give them a relative. Voilà.

edited 5th Sep '17 12:10:20 PM by TheHandle

I might consider that; you make some good points.

However, there was another reason I wanted to include Dudley in my fanfic. See, J. K. Rowling originally planned for him to have a magical child, but nixed the idea because she decided that "no magic could survive contact with Uncle Vernon's DNA". I had always felt that would have been a great way to bring the Dursley's arc full circle, and in the actual books they come off as major Karma Houdinis. I wanted to give Dudley's relation to Harry after the two parted ways a little bit more depth than that.

The ending I had planned, which involved a Heroic Sacrifice on Dudley's part, also wouldn't have had the same impact if it had been an OC. For it to work, I needed someone Harry had known for a long time, whose death would come as a true shock.

edited 5th Sep '17 12:29:04 PM by ElSquibbonator

Question. How powerful and influential the Potters were in canon?

Because I'm kinda skeptical about this "ancient and noble house" crap. Stinks like wish fulfillment.

edited 10th Sep '17 4:00:10 PM by amitakartok

Well, I'm pretty sure it was written in the first book that the vault his parents left for him had, basically, shitloads of money in it.

That said, I don't know how much of that is them actually being filthy rich, or just an impression caused by Harry's perspective (raised in a presumably middle-class muggle family household, personally always got the short end of the stick compared to his Spoiled Rotten cousin, and that was his first exposure to the Wizard's economic system).

It also, in my mind, seemed to get brought up less and less as the series went on. Now, there might actually be some kind of special lineage thing going on if there's actually a genuine link to the Peverells (re: the invisibility cloak), but I never really had the impression that the Potters were all that huge of a deal until after that fateful night in Godric's Hollow.

At most, mostly thinking back to that glimpse of the Gringotts vault in the first book, I would estimate that the Potter name could maybe be mentioned in the same breath as the Blacks or the Malfoys..... but regardless of how true any of that is, there probably is a lot of fanfic wish-fulfillment going on.

edited 10th Sep '17 4:21:58 PM by EvaUnit01

If I recall information that was on Pottermore and then repeated here correctly, the Potters are a pretty old family, and fairly prosperous due to the invention of several useful potions (Skele-Gro, for one). However, consorting with Muggles kept them from being part of the group of families known as "The Sacred Twenty-Eight", which I believe included the likes of the Blacks and Malfoys. So while the Potters do go pretty far back and have a fair amount of money to their name (enough that James could live off his inheritance and devote himself full time to the Order, at least), they were probably never a "Noble and Most Ancient House".

Holy shit, I was right?! o.0

Seems like it.

It's just extremely WSOD-breaking to me to suddenly reveal that Harry has a hereditary Wizengamot seat and a family lawyer.

Yeah, I'd say those are trashfic tropes.

And let's not forget the part where Dumbledore is the regent of said seat and has been voting in Harry's name for years. Because of course Dumbledore was evil all along.

The funny thing about that is that canon Harry would be totally okay with canon Dumbledore doing that, if he weren't already the most influential wizard on it.

Yeah, the only reason Harry's strategy for using sudden political power might not be "ask Dumbledore for advice" is because Hermione's closer.

Question. Do muggleborns have the option of refusing their Hogwarts letter?

Nope. They're conscripted into the indoctrination program that will make them despise their earlier, pre-magic life.

I meant seriously, not sarcastically.

I'd imagine that a refusal would prompt a visit from a teacher - or perhaps a Ministry official - to explain the dangers of untrained - or even suppressed - magic.

"But what if I want to keep using pens and calculators and the postal service?"

"...Avada Kedavra."

Alright, there's no need to be glib.

And if the child explicitly states that they don't want to use magic at all, let alone untrained?

I don't know what they would do, but there's every indication that letting them suppress their magic would be very, very bad.

What indication?

Well, I think there was some stuff in Fantastic Beasts about this (I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know all the details), but there was also what happened to Dumbledore's sister.

Yeah, if memory serves, if a child represses their magic, they turn into this destructive beat thing that I can't remember the name of. It's really bad.