Clarification: A Second Chance at Life

 

That's a bit of an understatement.

 

I'm feeling masochistic, linkage please.

 

Mate, you've read it before. I was making a joke about Flairgold's fic.

Anyways, here you go: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2488754/1/

 

I know I've read it, but I don't remember it. And I'm to lazy to go find it, thanks though.

 

I don't know about you guys, but I actually liked ASCAL...

 

It wasn't generally bad writing, and it was fun for a while, but that doesn't mean it isn't a dictionary definition of Potter Law 23. Seriously, she needn't have called it a Harry Potter fanfiction.

She could have called it a Dresden Files fic and it would have made no difference. She so completely revamped every aspect of the Harry Potter world that it is no longer even slightly similar to what it once was.

 

All rules have exceptions, except this one.

 

did someone make a fic about this yet?

 

Consider it done:


“What is this, Potter?” the sibilant beast hisses, his red, slitted eyes glinting to a tiny rectangle no larger than a postage stamp in Harry’s hand.

“It’s a Magical Trunk, Tom. I picked it up on one of my shopping trips to Diagon Alley.”

“Shopping? A magical trunk?” He steps back, the faintest hint of trepidation showing on his reptilian face.

“Not a magical trunk, you idiot, a Magical Trunk. Capitalized, as in God, the Chudley Cannons, and Soul Bonds, though with the Cannons it's probably debatable.”

With a flourish, Voldemort draws a yew wand, spitting, “No matter, Potter. Your blood shall still flow and the music of your screams shall soothe my stubby ears!”

Rolling his eyes at his nemesis's bad lines, Harry ducks a Killing Curse and flicks his own phoenix-core wand to banish the tiny chest toward his enemy. Just before it reaches the Dark Lord, he whispers an incantation and the trunk expands to full size, slamming into the older wizard with a crunch of bone and snapped ligaments. Harry swishes and flicks his wand yet again, lifting the trunk high above Tom’s prone body. He cancels the spell and the trunk, expanded to several times its normal size, crashes down upon Voldemort, crushing him beneath with a muffled crunch.

Repeating and canceling the Wingardium Leviosa spell several times, Harry reduces the Dark Lord to a bloody smear.

With a tap, the trunk returns to normal size. Harry opens it and transfigures a spare Chocolate Frog (scoring an Agrippina card in the process--woot!) into a Wet-Dry vacuum cleaner, which he uses to collect Tom’s liquified body. Tossing the vacuum cleaner bag into the trunk, he activates the shrinking spell and in a few seconds, it shrinks to a point and is no more.

Magical Trunk: the power he knows not.

 

I LOL'ed, hard.

 

that was brilliant...and more than I had hoped for, thanks.

 

Unless, of course, everyone writes about Sirius still being alive. We all know the power of belief can perform miracles, or is that the power of denial? Maybe Harry secretly broke into the MoM again, and replaced the Veil with a revolving door.

Excellent list. I snorted, several times. I then tried to convince myself that I hadn't written any of them.

 

NEW LAW

Not EVERY Fucking Character was in the same year as Harry's Parents in School!
​

For Clarification: A List of Characters Who would Not be Considered Yearmates (or even peers) of The Marauders {1971 - 1978}.

Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black - Lucius would have been out by 72, with Narcissa leaving in 73. As sixth/seventh years, neither of them would have paid the least attention to snot-nosed 12/13 year-olds like Lily, James, and their friends.

Narcissa wasn't Lily's secret friend (or lover, or tutor, or anything) and Lucius did not consider himself James's rival, the cold, blond flip-side to James's boisterous, brunette coin. Also, since Snape was a smelly, greasy, impoverished little half-blood with a blood traitor mother and a drunken muggle father, Lucius wouldn't have crossed the hall to piss on Snape if the wretch were on fire.

Bellatrix Black - She left Hogwarts in 1969 (1970 at the latest). Bellatrix never knew Lily, she wasn't one of James Potter's flings, and she was not lurking in the dungeon hallways, waiting to seduce an alienated Severus into joining the death eaters with her mysterious, dark allure.

By the time James started school, in all likelihood, she was busy trying to decide between growling in frustration or pretending to be interested while Rodolphus banged her like a broken gate (when what she really wanted was Voldemort's noseless, maggot-pale, snake-eyed babies).

Arthur Weasley - Would have graduated even before Bellatrix (a thankful recipient of the Albus Dumbledore Tuition Fund for Poor but Nubile Boys, which saw to it that his schooling was paid for, his belly was full of protein, and that he thought of his loyalty to Dumbledore every time he tried to take a shit without using a numbing charm).

Molly Prewett - Same as above, except without the scholarship and the fact that, for some reason, her name is on a bicycle-shaped award in the trophy room.

Gideon & Fabian Prewett - In all probability, they're older than their sister, Molly, so they'd have graduated before her. Even if they're younger by a year or so, they'd still graduate right before or after the Marauders began school.

Weasley Children (Any of Them) - Bill was born the year before James and Company started school. He was probably still sucking on Molly's distended teats alongside Charlie when Lily was making her first visits to Hogsmeade as a third year.

James and Lily were fertilizing the flowers in Godric's Hollow before Bill's mange-ridden head ever played host to the Sorting Hat. Bill was the oldest Weasley child, I hope you can handle the rest of the math from there.

Andromeda Black - Being the middle child, she would have started Hogwarts after Bellatrix, but finished before Narcissa. This means that it is highly unlikely she even saw her cousin, Sirius, sorted before she was gone and married to Ted (who is NOT a fuckin' muggle).

Nymphadora Tonks - Harry had been sleeping in a cupboard for over two years by the time she was sorted into Hufflepuff and she finished school the year before Harry started.

On the Other Hand... It is somewhat likely that the school years of Frank Longbottom and his future wife, Alice, overlapped to some significant degree with those of Lily and James.

The Lestrange brothers (Mario and Luigi) may have attended Hogwarts in the 70s.

Regulus Black would have shared most of his years in school with his older brother, Sirius.

Some of the other named death eaters may have attended at the same time as the Marauders.
​

No, not that one. Not that one, either.
​

Much of this information is unneeded if you simply don't write 'Marauder Era' stories, which would be for the best, since 99.99999% of them are full of fail anyway.

 

On the nature of 'dark arts', and their acessability to the population at large.

It has already been cemented in Potter law that Knockturn Alley is not a cesspit of the most foul and evil of wizards, but a slightly dodgy section of Wizarding London, most likely filled with ugly prostitutes, and a few less-than-reputable establishments. While certainly those practicing dark arts do exist there, they are not so open that a teenage wizard could suddenly come into possession of the secrets of the wizarding world, nor could one acquire ancient grimoires simply by throwing around a few crucios. What is there, is hidden very, very well.

However, there are a few other points that ought to be established.

Restricted Section of Hogwarts: Admittedly Hogwarts isn't stellar in its reputation for good judgement, but I know that at my school library, we didn't have any books that gave step by step instructions to building your own explosives, or how to violently murder your enemies. Just as how Reducto isn't a magical shotgun, the Restricted Section of Hogwarts contains material that would be inappropriate for younger students to browse at will, but that's about it. It does not contain anything that could lead to the destruction of society. (On a side note, we did have a massive section dedicated to Nazi Germany.)

Manors, every one of them: Malfoy Sr. after a day of bribing government officials and generally pulling strings in the wizarding world, does not go to his study, pour himself a glass of his favorite apertif, and enjoy an evening reading 1001 dark curses.

While such manors and their respective libraries may give Harry an incredible insight into classical wizard literature over the ages, and perhaps an ironclad knowledge into the innerworkings of pureblood society, they are not a source of great tomes of black magic. While the spells must be written down somewhere, that place is not the library of a pureblood family. In fact, given the historical control of these few families, it would make sense that all these books are banned and confiscated by the ministry, where they are held at an undisclosed location. That way, the muggleborns would be both ignorant of their existance and failing that, their location, whereas should the need arise, those 'in the know' could come up with a justified reason for studying the texts.

Hermione: Hermione does not know dark magic. Even if a situation suddenly arises where Harry really really really needs a dark spell, Hermione won't just suddenly be able to provide him with it... even if she did read the footnotes in that class they had three years ago.

 

I lol'd.

Agreed.

 

I don't think it's much of a stretch to consider the possibility of the Malfoys having dark magic related books in the hidden area under the drawing room floor, however I do agree that they're probably not sitting there in plain site in the library.

I think a reasonable location for banned books would be the department of mysteries, as they obviously do magical research of some kind, and it's likely that said research delves into the more forbidden areas of magic.

 

I always heard and I thought JKR said or that it's canon that Snape followed Lucius Malfoy around trying to fit in. They're definitely not the same age but I thought Snape as a lower year associated with Lucius as a 7th year. At least to some degree. The Marauder-Snape rivalry didn't really surface until the later years after Malfoy was already gone. Mostly over Snape's love for Lily and Snape trying to catch the now animagus Marauders at get them in trouble

I think it's in PoA when Remus was describing their growing up days. Talking about how Snape stuck his nose in where it didn't belong and tried to cause trouble.

I could be wrong however. Any evidence that states that Malfoy was much older? As in he was a 7th year to the Marauders 1st?

 

I'm sure that one can learn of dark arts in any of the dark pureblood households, in theory, but there most certainly isn't a Dark Magik in 10 Easy Steps just lying around. A work on ancient Egypt for instance might refer to a number of curses, and thus letting the reader know they exist, and how one might go about aquiring more information - knowledge being the crucial first step, and one that muggleborns don't necessarily have access too.

Also, what exactly would be the point of these all acess tomes - from the pureblood point of view? Why would Malfoy ever sit draco down, and tell him to study 'dark' magic from a textbook. It's not something you'd want a kid learning without supervision, no matter your intent, and it's stupid to have it just written down so blatantly, when you're going to need to teach the kid one-on-one anyway. Not to mention, a written copy is one copy more that could make its way to the mudbloods.

So yeah - books about general concepts in the manors, great. Books indicate a number of dark curses/rituals/convenient-one-sided-harem-bondage-spells...what have you. However, the actual incantations are either
1) already known by the head of house or another ally, who then passes that information along without pesky written records or
2) in a ministry controlled archive, covered in red tape and quite possibly its best kept secret.

Sesc: One-time-only, family heirloomesque collections of spells... I'll concede that is a possability. However, such a book is under the greatest of protections. As such, Harry never has access to any of these, including the Black's possible variant, as no doubt precautions were taken to insure that a banished descendant could not pass along the secrets of the house to one who by blood, is at best, a halfblood cousin x removed from the direct line.