Spell incantations like this: Tu converteris porcum tuum devorabitur nepotes sintque ista mures devorabitur mures struthionum

Wingadium Leviosa is about as long as it ought to get, IMHO.

 

Old Magic can involve hour long ritualistic chanting, but it's not something you do in a duel. It's something you do to make your enemy's far away fields fallow for decades.

 

Yes, those are quite ridiculous and should not be used unless you are writing a complex ritual or a crossover between HP and a D&D -based series like Forgotten Realms. Because most D&D -spells have ridiculously long chants and also often require additional ingredients other than just a wand, not to mention the fact that certain D&D type magician have to relearn each spell after they have cast it.

There are plenty of online translators out there that should be able to translate one to three words from English or what ever language you are using into Latin. When in doubt it's easier to just translate what the spell actually is, such as a conjured fire arrow and use that as the incantation. They might not be completely like the incantations that Rowling came up, but it's better than completely resorting to pig latin...

One of my pet peeves is the lack of diversity in Curse Breaking stories. It seems that almost all of them either concentrate on Egypt or South America. But there are other mythical kingdoms and treasures that could be used as the inspiration, such as Mesopotamia, Midas' treasure and King Solomon's mines. I mean the last one alone gave me some half-formed ideas about a HP/Prince of Persia -crossover.

 

TBH, I haven't seen a 'heir of the founders plus Merlin' fic in quite a while. I don't think it's quite as popular now as it used to be (which is a good thing).

 

I'm not sure whether or not to thank you guys for convincing me to read The Golden Age - it was sick and disgusting and well-written. The idiotic characterizations of the first half of the story bugged me, but the last third was very well done.

Pet peeves? Insta-love, I guess. This is a common failing of most Harry/Daphne stories (outside of otherwise crappy writing) and a lot of H/Tonks stories as well. It pretty much ruined Summer of Change for me.

Along similar lines, circumstances "forcing" characters to engage in relationships bugs me as well, though not as much - only when it's really obviously done, like Darth Marrs has a tendency to do. Beyond his shitty soul-bond fic, Defense for Two is mediocre at best. The setup is bad, the characterizations are empty, it's all tell and no show. Lockhart: YOU ARE PARTNERS! YOU WILL LOVE EACH OTHER!

Bleh.

 

I see Darth Marrs as the counter part to the so called Harmony writers, mostly older married men, writing really corny contrived ship!fics which are beyond painful to read. I fully agree with you that Darth Marrs's major problem besides his ship focus is lifeless detached characterizing. People in his story just feel like scenery.

 

You know I never noticed, but you're right; he does seem to be like the H/G version of those shitty H/Hr soul-bond fic writers. Seel'vor springs to mind.

 

Petpeeve: Writers confusing vanishing with banishing. It's annoying to see Snape banish a potion when that would just cause it to spill everywhere.

 

Harry was abused. and he whines moans and bitches 3 times per chapter.

Considering children who was abused actually feel responsible for that they don't talk. So no Harry was abused fics. People don't know how to write an abuse fic.

Though it could be because I am actually taking classes on it on college right now and knowing better might be my problem.

 

paganaidd writes not terrible abuse fics, but they tend to have Snape as an important character. I'd hesitate to put any of them in almost recommended for various reasons, but if you want to read a "realistic" portrayal of it then go ahead.

 

One of the pet peeves I have with fan fiction which I'm fairly certain hasn't been mentioned so far is when author's talk of a Hogwart's tuition fee. Like when an author feels the need to make Harry be betrayed by everyone and decides that the Weasley's reason for this is that they need his cash to pay for tuition.

I'm pretty certain that, being the only magical school in Britain, being run by Albus Dumbledore, and the fact that all fucking public schooling in Britain is free would give author's the idea that Hogwart's is a school which is open to all and free to attend.

I know it's possibly one of the most minor details ever but for some reason it really grates on me. I'm pretty sure it would have been mentioned in the books if it cost money to attend.

 

Rant against the betrayal trope if you like, but there's no indication that the muggle British govt feeds any revenue to the magical world, that would pay for such universal education. Sure, in RL Britain it is that way now, but education is not an inalienable right. We treat it such, but that's only been the case for a short period of time in British history.

In fact, aside from food and gold, knowledge is one of the few commodities in the wizarding world.

 

Heh. Considering that I wrote the "bad setup" for that story, your criticism is duly noted. He's not exactly gone where I would have with it (if they got together, it'd have been less forced), but then I ceded authorial control when I let him run with it. I do think it'll turn out better than his soul bond story, but I agree that plot contrivances forcing kids together for the sake of making a pairing (or pairing + Luna sauce) happen aren't so cool.

 

I see where you're coming from there because free schooling in Britain is obviously relatively recent when compared to the kind of era that the wizarding world seems to be stuck in. But being the only magical school in Britain I really don't think that they could possibly charge a fee and then risk losing out on some the chance of educating some of the wizarding talent in Britain because their families aren't rich enough?

Plus the fact that the Ministry was able to hold any sway over Hogwarts in OoTP would suggest that it's a public school. Although it's never explicitly mentioned as such. Also it wouldn't be too unrealistic to assume that wizard's pay taxes like their muggle counterparts, which would fund Hogwarts.

I've always thought of Hogwarts as a free school. Maybe just because I've been brought up in the UK where education in public schools IS free. And I guess since Hogwarts is based in Scotland I assumed it would be free to attend too.

 

I dunno about free. Let's examine canon and WoG.

(1) The Weasleys are strapped, and all their kids go to Hogwarts. The only time we explicitly see an adult Weasley address the money issue is when Molly takes all their meager savings out of the bank for books and hand-me-down robes. Can't recall which book this was in.

(2) JKR said in an interview waayyy back that not all magical kids in Britain go to Hogwarts. Now that *could* be taken as some go to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons, as Malfoy says his father would have preferred, but I personally took it to mean that not all magical kids actually attend a magical school. Again, I don't have a link to the transcript or anything, but I do remember reading it at one time.

(3) Harry tells Hagrid back in PS that he hasn't any money for school, and that the Dursleys won't pay for it. Hagrid tells him not to worry, that his parents left him an inheritance in Gringott's. Now again, coming from Hagrid that could mean that Harry will have pocket money and be able to buy his books, etc. but I took it to mean he'll be able to pay for school itself, not just the supplies they're after at the time.

(4) Tom Riddle tells D'dore that he hasn't any money for school (creepy parallel), and D'dore hands over a bag of money so that Tom can get his school supplies. There's no mention of paying for school itself, but D'dore mentions there's a fund at Hogwarts to pay for special cases, IIRC.

What does all this mean? Fuck if I know, except that unless I've left out a specific, explicit statement, it isn't openly stated whether Hogwarts charges tuition or not. My guess is that it does charge to attend, one reason being: if not, why the fuck wouldn't every magical kid (at least in Britain) attend the premier school in Europe?

 

I'm pretty sure that given in OotP the ministry actually had to fight for control of the school, it's not a ministry funded institution. If they were paying for it to run you can be damn sure that Fudge would have thrown Dumbledore out asap, not bothering with all the retarded educational decrees.

 

That's from CoS and the only reason why, despite being poor, they had trouble with money for the school things that year was the ridiculous amount of Lockhart-books, which were stated to be quite expensive. Possibly several times more expensive than standard schoolbooks. And the Weasleys had to buy them for Percy, Freg and George, Ron as well as Ginny, had Harry not given her the books that Lockhart gave him and then bought his own copies.

No matter what the year a student was, that year everyone had to buy 7 or 8 books for DaDA instead of the usual one or two books per year. It's not a surprise that that would cost much more than the usual yearly cost.

And there is the possibility of homeschooling since it's not officially stated that such a thing is banned. But I doubt there are many parents skilled enough to teach all the subjects safely or wealthy enough to hire competent tutors.

And as it was pointed out for me before we don't know the exact amount of magical schools, 3 schools for Europe simply doesn't seem enough but on the other hand we don't know how many magical families and potential muggleborn lines were destroyed during the magical wars against Grindelwald and Voldemort as well as the muggle wars of WWII, Vietnam etc

I would assume that the fund system is only available for those who are completely broke and/or orphaned and thus have no one else to turn to.

Agreed, if it was completely free I see no real reason why people wouldn't attend to school, except for two; We really have no idea how many potential muggleborns turn down their invitation to the school. After all if a parent says that the child is not going to go, I think most of the time the wizarding world might back off and would probably obliviate them of the offer completely and there might be some way for dealing with accidental magic as well for those cases.

The other example comes from HBP. We all saw how insane Morfin Gaunt was and there were hints that he was like that from birth. Considering his mental state and the hate of that family against muggles and muggleborn I have some serious doubts about that person really being allowed near other wizarding children, be they pureblood or not, for their safety.

If Morfin had gone to Hogwarts, I think with his violent tendencies he would have been expelled on his first year or he would have ended up in Azkaban. Since Morfin would have been a student before Dumbledore ever became a headmaster and Dippet, his predecessor had no problems expelling Hagrid after Myrtly died, I have no doubts that Morfin would have done something to get himself either expelled or arrested.

And we all know Dumbledore, unlike other headmasters let too many things slide. For example the situation of Snape almost being attacked by Lupin during a fullmoon. It seems that for Dumbledore the premeditated attempt of a first degree murder was only worth a few detentions. Of course there was the fact that the werewolf he allowed to the school did not stay in his designated holding cell and was runnign around during the full moon putting other students in serious danger. If anyone else had been the headmaster all of the Marauders would have been expelled after the Snape-incident with Sirius potentially ending up in Azkaban (And he would have deserved it as he knew exactly what he was trying to do) and Lupin might have been killed for being a dangerous "dark creature" (Though Remus would have been a victim as well and Sirius would have been responsible for two deaths).

On one hand I am glad that they were not expelled as that would mean no Harry and no story, but on the other hand there are some things that should not be forgiven and an attempted murder is one of them, no matter how much of a bastard the guy you tried to kill is.

As for Bellatrix; I doubt she was insane during her schooltime. Sure she was a pureblood fanatic but I think she only cracked during her time in Azkaban.

 

I think it's really difficult to judge these things without knowing the full story. We only know what happened, we don't truly know what caused Sirius to do it. We don't know the climate at the school, we only know that around that time there was a war outside the school and a lot people died. That this wouldn't have an impact on the inside is extremely unlikely. And Sirius surely knew who the DE families were through his family.

Well, somebody who tortured people into madness doesn't need Azkaban to get more "cracked".

 

We know a few things as to why Sirius did what he did. James and Sirius were the ringleaders of their group as was stated before. James was hinted to be interested about Lily early on and both James and Sirius at least heavily disliked anything related to Slytherins (Sirius because of his family and James probably because Lily was friends with a Slytherin, Snape). While Snape had a serious dislike towards certain things and people such as Petunia, he may have actually tried to not get in the way of the Marauders. Hell we saw in Snape's memory that at least that time it was the Marauders who attacked first without provocation and Snape only defended himself.

Sirius states that Snape was constantly looking for any information that could get the Marauders into trouble and it was in his opinion, that that was enough of a reason to kill him. Granted Sirius was at least partially doing it to protect Remus, but it may have just been out of spite towards a person, who was from the house he hated above all as well as to protect his own ass. After all not only were James, Sirius and Peter illegal animagi, which might actually be a rather serious crime (maybe even enough for some time in Azkaban, at least that was hinted when it was revealed that Rita Skeeter was one), but they also allowed a werewolf to run around instead of being locked up during fullmoons like he was supposed to. That is in my opinion a rather serious offence when you are in a school with a couple of hundred children, many of them being too young to actually know how to defend themselves against a were.

But if I was constantly being targeted a group of bullies I'd do my best to get rid off them, especially if the teachers seemed to be unable or unwilling to reign the bastards in.

As for the whole school situation and the war, that is not really an excuse. Attempted murder is a crime and should not be brushed off, even if you try to stop people from joining up with Voldemort. Sure Dumbledore managed to keep the Marauders away from Voldemort, but he failed Severus and possibly many others as well.

I think it was that incident with Lupin, that was the last straw for Snape. I mean Lily was pretty much a bitch towards Snape, just because he lost his temper after being humiliated in front a large amount of students as well as his crush. She wouldn't even let him apologize later on. I mean if Lily Evans was so smart and kind as she was said to have been, then maybe she would have realized, that when tempers run high people usually say things they don't mean. But to have the headmaster and supposed "Leader of the Light" brush off the fact that someone tried to kill you, if it was me, well I definitely wouldn't want to work with such a bastard after that, nor would I ever really trust him after that.

As for torturing someone all the way to insanity; all that takes is for someone to be really cruel, that does not make the criminal in question insane. Bellatrix was considered an intelligent prodigy during her time in school, sure she was a pureblood/Voldemort fanatic and all that, but she wasn't really considered insane at that point. It was heavily hinted that she had gone seriously round the bend during her time in Azkaban, which made her even more likely to kill and maim others.

 

That's all speculation. We only know Snape's memory which shows his interpretation of one scene which we don't even know if that was true or not. In the year afterwards Dumbledore showed Harry a manipulated memory so they are possible.

Another thing we also heard from Remus or Sirius I think that Snape knew more about Dark Arts than people leaving Hogwarts. If that's true then people would have seeing him using them I suppose. We can now speculate on what Snape and his Slytherin friends did he tried to please/impress. We just don't know the full story here which lead to the escalation.

We also don't know if Snape truly loved Lily, if it was a strong platonic friendship like Harry/Hermione perhaps or if it was just some really twisted obsession and the only reason he works against Voldemort is out of pride/spite because he ruined his obsession's target. I'm of the later opinion because that fits his profile more imho.

P.S. Snape's part in DH was a disgrace and didn't do the buildup any justice.