Patron
by Starfox5 (who is also the author of Harry Potter and the Lady Thief, Divided and Entwined and The Dark Lord Never Died) is a Harry Potter Fanfic in which the Wizarding World is an even more Crapsack World than in canon, though without going full dystopia.
Unmarked spoilers below.
This Work Has Examples Of The Following Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Averted with the Dursleys. While their relationship with Harry was frosty, mostly because of nasty pranks played by James and Sirius, and the fact the wizarding world is filled with Smug Supers that will employ Laser-Guided Amnesia to anyone threatening The Masquerade, they are still on good terms. For instance, Harry is relieved that the Dursleys are still safe even after he moved in with Sirius.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Thanks to a different ritual, which required Human Sacrifice, Voldemort's body is not a snake-like being with red eyes but instead has an athletic body and shiny black hair.
- Also strangely enough, Dolores Umbridge.
- Adaptational Badass: Hagrid was never expelled from Hogwarts in this fic, thus he still carries his wand.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Quirrell is described as a demanding teacher, and he was seemingly only possessed by Voldemort during the Christmas holidays and not since the beginning of First Year. However, subverted with Quirrelmort who fails to even find the entrance to the Philosopher's Stone's chamber and has to resort to holding Harry hostage.
- Hagrid was able to deduce that Slytherin's Monster was a Basilisk but he was petrified before he could tell anyone.
- Adaptation Species Change: Due to Fantastic Caste System in place, the blood status of a few characters is changed.
- Harry would have been a false muggleborn if the Wizengamot had not passed a law declaring him to be James Potter's son, thus making him a pureblood;
- Ted Tonks here is a half-blood whose marriage to pureblooded witch Andromeda Black is only legal because of his daughter's Voluntary Shapeshifting.
- Adaptational Villainy: Draco Malfoy is more involved with the Death Eaters and participated in the attack on the Quidditch World Cup. He's also a lot more bloodthristy than shown in canon, and had already committed murder before the fanfic started.
- Adaptational Wimp: The Flame-Freezing Charm. In canon, it was powerful enough to stop witch burnings by freezing all the flames of a stake simultaneously, even to the point where a Too Kinky to Torture witch let herself be burned numerous times. Here the same spell has to hit each flame individually.
- Alternate Universe:
- Muggleborns are third class citizens and there seem to be "true muggleborns" (born to their Muggle Foster Parents) and "fake muggleborns" who are their children;
- Also it seems that the magical defenses of the Philosopher's Stone were enhanced and access to it far more restricted, as Quirrelmort failed to find the entrance to the Stone's chamber.
- The Ministry sends Aurors to patrol Hogwarts during the second year. The final confrontation with the Basilisk in the Chamber does not occur, instead it happens in the middle of the hallway and the basilisk dies by falling off the stairs.
- Sirius decides to contact Remus instead of trying to sneak into Hogwarts, which results in his exoneration, becoming the Head of the Black family and building a working relationship with his godson Harry.
- The Dementor attack against Harry during the summer vacations results in a political scandal though Umbridge is not implicated.
- The Triwizard Tournament was never discontinued in this reality, so Durmstrang hosted it during Harry's first year and Beauxbatons will host it in 1997.
- Ambiguously Gay: Luna Lovegood, who constantly flirts with Hermione. Of course, considering who it is, it might be unintentional.
- Anti-Magic: Lily's sacrificial protection shields Harry from any magic cast by Voldemort and spellcasters with the Dark Mark, but it doesn't protect him from other spellcasters.
- Asshole Victim: Draco is killed by Dumbledore.
- Big Damn Heroes: In Chapter 40, Hagrid saves Pansy Parkinson as she's about to be killed by a Death Eater.
- Big "NO!": Umbridge does this when she's saved by one of Voldemort's werewolves, meaning she now has a Life Debt to a creature she hates.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Voldemort is horrified by the appalling conditions that Azkaban prisioners are kept in.
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Hogwarts has a reputation for this amongst other wizarding schools, with rumors including chastity enchantments and mandatory orgies amongst the upper years. The fact the 6th year is known as the Year of Exploration amongst students doesn't help.
- Fantastic Caste System: The wizarding world treats muggleborns and their children as third-class citizens. For instance Harry would have been declared a muggleborn if the Wizengamot had not passed a law declaring him to be James Potter's son.
- As a consequence of this, Hermione has learned the hard way to not show off her magical talents as she does in canon.
- Fluffy Tamer: Hagrid and Miss Jenny — Lockhart's daring assistant — love their creatures fierce. Their crossbreeding hobby gives nightmares to everyone around.
- The Gadfly: Sirius Black and Susan Bones. They love to make inappropriate, often sexual jokes that make people squirm.
- Good Is Not Soft: Albus Dumbledore, who is affable and deeply cares for his students but that doesn't stop him from killing Draco Malfoy and his mother in order to weaken Voldemort.
- Godly Sidestep: Hermione does wonder if gods actually exist, as the afterlife is pretty much a confirmed fact thanks to the evidence provided note but she actually avoids researching because religion is a delicate business.
- Happily Married: Played with for James Potter and Lily Evans. While they were a married couple, their marriage was a muggle one that was not legally recognized in the wizarding world.
- Hidden Elf Village: The Magical Quarter of Port Royal, in Magical Jamaica, survived the 1692 tsunami that sank half of the town and used it as an excuse to implement The Masquerade.
- How We Got Here: The first two chapters are a recounting of the first three years at Hogwarts and the changes it brought in Harry and Hermione's friendship.
- I Owe You My Life: Harry saving Hermione from the troll creates a life debt, which is a magical bond that will force the indebted to seek to repay her debt.
- If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Snape threatens to emasculate Harry if he ever abuses the Patron Oath he has with Hermione.
- Lower-Deck Episode: The small sections dedicated to the Original Character duo of Aurors, Kenneth Fenbrick and his Deadpan Snarker partner Bertha Limmington.
- Malicious Slander: Pansy starts a rumor that Draco has veela ancestry, just to screw with him.
- Magical Accessory: Hermione possesses enchanted robes, which she enchanted on her own, maintaining a stable temperature, resistant to wear and tear, and repelling most fluids. She also wears a torc, which is golden and of Celtic aesthetics and enchanted to warn her when Harry, Hermione's patron, is nearby.
- Magical Library: The Hogwarts library is larger than the one described in canon. Its walls are as tall as those of the Great Hall and floating platforms allow access to the higher shelves, the more recent books can be summoned with a wand and there's a silencing charm on the room that allows normal conversation without causing noise.
- Magic Versus Science: Hermione is determined to find a way to make electronics work in magical areas, especially because wards do not seem to affect electricity around them, only inside the warded region. She has seemingly destroyed countless electronics at Hogwarts while trying to make them work.
- Magic Wand: Voldemort hires a wandmaker who used to work for Grindelwald, named Siegfried Steinberg, to craft wands for his Death Eaters. Steinberg also experiments and creates new wands that increase the power of The Dark Arts but also Cast from Hit Points.
- Maligned Mixed Marriage: Wizards and witches are forbidden from marrying a person from a distinct blood status, except in extraordinary cases of prodigious magical acts such as Harry surviving the Killing Curse or Tonks being a Metamorphmagus.
- Manipulative Bastard: Pansy Parkinson who is seemingly responsible for Draco's blunders over the years and who is using him as part of a revenge plot against Hermione.
- More than Mind Control: No one under the Imperius can cast an Unforgivable Curse because those spells are Psychoactive Powers and the Imperius results in a Psychosomatic Superpower Outage.
- Muggles Do It Better: Played with. Wounds caused by dark spells are resistant to healing magic, but muggle methods can deal with them just fine since they do not use any magic that can be blocked. Hermione and Sirius take advantage of this when Sirius' girlfriend, Valérie, is wounded in battle and have her participate in physiotherapy.
- Mundane Utility / Utility Magic: The wizarding economy runs on this, as the large segments of the population that don't work for the Ministry provide enchantments and charms for all mundane purposes. But there are wizards and witches called Purists who believe magic should only be used for important and life saving tasks and they are often the target of bullying and harassment for it.
- My Suit Is Also Super: Wizards and witches often enchant their clothes, especially those wizards involved in danger-prone activities. Hermione has placed various protection charms on her and Harry's clothes.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Luna, especially towards her girl friends.
- Our Souls Are Different: Souls are not finite, thus splitting them does not cause to diminish or suffer intellectually or magically. It will only result in the souls being Barred from the Afterlife.
- Papa Wolf: Dumbledore is furious when the Death Eaters attack Hogwarts students while in the Express.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Voldemort, as he averts his canon Only I Can Kill Him characterization. He's perfectly willing to let other people try to kill Harry and even decides to let him live because Voldemort doesn't consider Harry to be worth the trouble. He's also not as much of a Bad Boss as he is in canon, such as punishing Death Eaters for the mistakes or failures of others.
- Prom Is for Straight Kids: Played with — the Yule Ball is not exactly "prom" but also subverted. Luna and Hermione go as each other's date for the Yule Ball but they are not a couple.
- Religion is Magic: Subverted, in that magic is the result of a Mage Species but the wizarding world is more religious than shown in canon. For instance, Dumbledore's speech in the Opening Feast includes a praise for pagan gods after Christians turned against the wizarding population in the Early Modern Period.
- Runaway Train: In chapter 39, the Hogwarts Express is magically derailed by Death Eaters as it transports the students to London.
- Soul Jar: The Horcruxes; however, here they're not objects but all the Marked Death Eaters.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Gilderoy Lockhart survives and writes a book about his experiences with the Chamber of Secrets. Ron and Harry get a cut of the profits, and Harry shares his with Hermione.
- Stepford Smiler: Sirius Black.
- Sympathetic Magic: A branch of magic closely related to soul magic, which Hermione studies as a way to deal with Voldemort's collection of Soul Jars.
- Unholy Matrimony: Voldemort is very attached to his Bella, and she worships the soil he treads on. Several scenes between them include a Sexy Discretion Shot.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Metamorphmagi, such as Nymphadora Tonks. In fact, the reason why her parents were allowed to be married is because of Tonks' unique powers as it was perceived that the union of Andromeda and Ted was blessed by magic itself.
- Would Hurt a Child: Barty Crouch Jr sacrifices a wizarding child as part of the ritual to bring Voldemort back.
