Fanfic / Seasons of Change

Seasons of Change (Archive of Our Own link) by MPRose is a Harry Potter fanfic that attempts to go against a popular trope. It explores what would happen had Harry decided he wanted to reach out to his cousin Dudley to let him in on the Wizarding World. What starts as a small change from canon in his first year results in a series of further small changes that culminate in several bigger changes. Currently, it has three parts.

• Year 1 covers the second half of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
• Year 2 covers the events of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
• Year 3 covers the events of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Tropes

• Abusive Parents: Vernon and Petunia's means of raising Dudley is not that much better than how they treat Harry, from spoiling him so he can't cope well with not getting what he wants, to overfeeding him, to not encouraging him to do well in school even when he shows interest in doing so, etc. They're not preparing him to be an independent adult, but to remain completely dependent on them and their approval so they can vicariously live through him. Dudley has to learn the hard way what happens when he defies that role during Aunt Marge's visit.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • In the climax to Chamber of Secrets, it is Professor McGonagall who slays the Basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor, rather than Harry.
  • During their first and second years, Harry, Ron and Hermione teach themselves a variety of hexes and their counter-spells as part of their own duelling practice. In their third year, they also train themselves to become Animagi with help from Sirius.
  • Ron has a better go of his second year because he has a working wand. He has to replace the one passed down to him from Charlie after it's stolen by Pettigrew, and because he doesn't want his family to know it's been replaced, he has Hermione keep it until they arrive at Hogwarts, which coincidentally means it's not damaged when Ron and Harry crash the Ford Anglia into the Whomping Willow.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • In the beginning of part 2, Harry's summer is expanded slightly as he spends time with Hermione's family before they both go to visit Ron's family at the Burrow.
  • Chapter 4 of part 2 has a scene of Dumbledore introducing the Hogwarts faculty to Lockhart.
  • The trip to Diagon Alley before second year is a bit longer due to Ron needing to purchase a new wand.
  • Part 3 opens with two chapters focusing on things going on outside of Harry's life. In the first chapter, Dumbledore visits Azkaban to investigate the circumstances of Sirius's escape, before he travels to Lupin's house and offers him the Defence Against the Dark Arts job. The second chapter sees Draco Malfoy overhearing his father get dressed down by Wormtail for getting one of Voldemort's Horcruxes destroyed, while Ron gets some POV as his family travels to Egypt to visit Bill after his father wins the Ministry raffle.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • A throwaway line in part 1 appears to imply that Percy is already dating Penelope Clearwater, the prefect in Ravenclaw, during Harry's first year, or at the very least has taken an interest in her.
  • Sirius Black breaks out of Azkaban a year ahead of canon.
  • As a Christmas gift in second year, Sirius gives Harry a foe glass to sniff out Pettigrew. In the book canon, Harry didn't know about foe glasses until he met Barty Crouch Jr. impersonating Moody in Goblet of Fire.
  • Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody and Nymphadora Tonks weren't introduced until Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix, respectively. Here, they're both introduced after Chamber of Secrets. Tonks makes her introduction as an Auror trainee under Moody's tutelage who looks into Lockhart's fraudulent activities after the Basilisk situation is wrapped up, and Moody appears with her when Dumbledore encounters them while visiting Lupin to offer him the Defense Against the Dark Arts post. Tonks subsequently begins her romance with Lupin two years earlier than in canon (they didn't start dating until Order of the Phoenix).
  • Stan Shunpike and the Knight Bus make an early appearance as the Trio (and Sirius in dog form) take it to Diagon Alley while procuring ingredients for their batch of Polyjuice Potion.
  • Sirius buys Pigwidgeon a year earlier than in canon, but for the same reasons as in canon (to compensate Ron for losing Scabbers).
• Adaptational Intelligence:
  • In Philosopher's Stone, the Trio talk things through and put two and two together that Quirrell is the likely culprit who was jinxing Harry's broom and is after the Stone well before they ever try to seek it out.
  • Dudley should get one here too, for pointing out in one of his letters that Snape's behavior is like a red herring in a murder mystery, which is what directs the trio's attention towards Quirrell.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Dudley develops into this, spurred by his correspondence with Harry and the many ripples from there.
  • Arguably Harry too, whose initial act of kindness towards Dudley prompted by Hermione develops into a much more genuine connection.
• Adaptational Villainy: Being outed almost two years earlier than in canon, Peter Pettigrew becomes an accomplice in Voldemort's plot to reopen the Chamber of Secrets, making sure that the diary stays in Lockhart's hands.
• Adults Are Useless: Much averted here, as Harry here is more willing to trust teachers.
  • The Trio get the idea that they need to warn a teacher when Quirrell is moving to steal the Stone. This ends up being Snape and Dumbledore.
  • When Pettigrew begins infiltrating Hogwarts in aiding and abetting Voldemort's plans, Harry, Ron and Hermione are hesitant to inform any of their professors about him because they don't want to jeopardize Sirius.
  • When Harry, Ron and Hermione are attacked by the possessed Ginny, their first thought is to tell a teacher, so they end up telling Snape and Dumbledore.
  • In the Chamber of Secrets confrontation, the trio go to McGonagall and Snape instead of Lockhart when they need someone to accompany them into the Chamber as they know better than to trust Lockhart. McGonagall and Snape do make the mistake of bringing Lockhart along thinking that this will keep him out of the way, nearly endangering themselves as he's now possessed.
  • Discussed at one point. After Hermione's Polyjuice accident, McGonagall is pissed that Harry and his friends were doing something dangerous like impersonate students to investigate the petrifications. Dumbledore reminds her that there's a reason why the students feel the need to take matters into their own hands.
  "Yes, Minerva, it is indeed our responsibility to protect our students, but when we fail at our duties, we cannot fault our students for looking after themselves and after their friends and siblings. All we can do is listen and help and try to do better the next time, not make their lives more difficult."
• Bait-and-Switch: When Harry hears the basilisk before the Quidditch match with Hufflepuff, Hermione decides to dash off to the library. It seems like she's going to be petrified like in the actual continuity...but she only makes it a few steps before realizing it's likely going to appear in Harry's foe-glass. Once they see the basilisk appear, Hermione is ready to once again run off to the library, but Harry convinces her they should find a teacher and she can grab her copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. They're about to leave when it seems like the coast is clear, only to see the basilisk appear on the Marauder's Map as "Slytherin's Monster". Seeing Hagrid is still in the library, they rush to warn him, and even send Nearly Headless Nick ahead of them, but are too late to stop him from getting petrified.
• Berserk Button:
  • Harry and Ron unintentionally push one of Filch's buttons by bringing up Sirius's name in his presence.
  • When Draco Malfoy runs into Dudley, he starts insulting and namecalling him. This earns him a well-deserved punch in the face from Dudley.
  • When Harry mentions in one of his letters to Sirius that they're reading Wanderings with Werewolves in Lockhart's class, Sirius's reply is largely "a gigantic rant on the topic of werewolves." Part 3 reveals that Harry accidentally pressed one of Sirius's buttons, as Sirius had been a big advocate for werewolf rights after he and James found out that Remus Lupin was one.
• Blatant Lies:
  • When Pettigrew is initially exposed, he tries to bluff his way out by keeping up the lie that Sirius betrayed Harry's parents, but the trio don't buy it because why else would Pettigrew fake his death and then hide out as the Weasleys' pet rat, and Sirius appeared to Harry in the Mirror of Erised, something that wouldn't have happened if he was guilty.
  • When Ginny first notices Ron's new wand, Harry lies that "Actually, Snuffles, er, ran away with [the old one]," figuring since no one knows Sirius is alive, and it'll be less awkward to not tell Percy that the pet rat he adopted and later gave to Ron was actually the Death Eater who betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Despite Fred and George being largely dismissed as pranksters, they are very resourceful wizards. Among the ways they prank the school in Harry's second year is that they bypass the security measures designed to keep boys out of the girls' dorms by locking the Gryffindor girls into their rooms.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Dudley has one after Aunt Marge's visit in part 3, when his parents are accusing Harry of having bewitched him.
• Canary in a Coal Mine: When Harry and Professors McGonagall, Snape and Lockhart descend into the Chamber of Secrets, McGonagall conjures a caged rooster, knowing that its calls are deadly to the Basilisk. The first thing Lockhart does upon revealing he's been possessed is to vanish the rooster.
• Cartesian Karma: Even though he was possessed by the diary, Lockhart is sentenced to Azkaban after the Chamber of Secrets incident, since he did summon the Basilisk to petrify Hagrid and him being an adult means there's much less leniency than there was in canon towards Ginny. The fact that Sirius exposed Lockhart as a fraud also contributed.
• Changing The Uncomfortable Subject:
  • When Sirius is giving advice to Harry as to how Dudley shouldn't pretend he's friends with Harry around Aunt Marge, he does so by bringing up how he and Regulus were like this as kids. The topic of Regulus and the things he did is uncomfortable enough for Sirius to force a subject change.
  • Ron has to do this the first night the trio help Snape brew Lupin's Wolfsbane before Snape has a chance to bring up the Marauders' treatment of him to their faces.
• Character Development: Dudley is the biggest one. By the end of Part 1, he's already a lot more open and mature, as well as capable of showing real courage.
  • Harry, too, is a little more open as a result of his correspondence with Dudley.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Hermione's Christmas present for Harry in their first year is the book Curses and Counter-Curses. The information they glean from it leads Harry to realize there was someone casting a counter-curse to counteract whoever was jinxing his broom. In their second year, they use the book to learn the counter-curse to break through the diary's possession of Ginny.
  • The foe-glass Sirius gets for Harry ends up identifying Lockhart as the newest person to be possessed by Voldemort.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • One of the earliest clues as to how the story is going to deviate is in the first part, when Harry looks in the Mirror of Erised. He sees his parents, like in the book. But then he sees Dudley, his grandparents on both sides of his family...and Sirius Black.
  • Sirius mentions early on being friends with a werewolf when he attended Hogwarts, and mentions Lupin's nickname Moony in a letter to Harry, although Lupin doesn't make his introduction until the third year.
• Conservation of Detail: Plot points that are relatively unchanged from the books are typically summarized and glossed over, unless it's necessary to establish an element where canon is about to deviate significantly (e.g. the Dementors searching the Hogwarts Express is depicted in detail because instead of being told from Harry's POV, it is being told from Lupin's POV as Harry, Ron and Hermione's conversation is causing him to question Sirius's guilt and Pettigrew's innocence).
• Contrived Coincidence: As in canon, Sirius finds out by complete coincidence that Peter Pettigrew is living as Ron's pet rat. In the books, it was because he saw Scabbers in a photograph of the Weasleys in a newspaper that Fudge happened to have on him during a visit to Azkaban. Here, it's because Harry just happened to bring Dog!Sirius to the Burrow, and Ron just happened to try to introduce Scabbers!Pettigrew to him.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In part 3, Ron calls Snape's bluff when Snape gives him a detention that he realizes is an attempt to get him to notice Lupin isn't in the hospital wing. As a result, what happens instead is that Snape decides to press Ron, Harry and Hermione into assisting him with brewing the Wolfsbane.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Very much so with Snape as the stories progress.
• Distressed Dude: Sirius puts himself at great risk to approach Aragog's acromantula colony trying to get information on the first time the Chamber of Secrets opened. Harry, Ron and Hermione have to rescue him in Mr. Weasley's enchanted car.
• Do Wrong, Right: When Harry, Ron and Hermione confess to Dumbledore that they've been in touch with Sirius, Dumbledore admonishes them for not being secretive enough.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Harry's nickname for Sirius ends up being "Snuffles".
• Everyone Has Standards: When Ron curses Draco for calling Hermione a "mudblood" during Quidditch practice, Snape makes clear he doesn't approve of students from his own House using such derogatory language (especially when his old feelings for Harry's mother, herself a muggleborn, are factored in). He still has to punish Ron, so he docks Gryffindor house points for Ron using a wand on the Quidditch pitch.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: While actually an antihero, Snape has a hard time getting around Harry's ability to both befriend his childhood bully and forgive Dudley, since he's not been able to get over towards the grudge he's harbored against James and Sirius (on top of Lily ending up with James instead of him).
• Faking the Dead: Sirius makes his escape from Azkaban by faking his death and sneaking out of Azkaban, taking advantage of the fact that he's an unregistered Animagus and the Dementors can't tell the difference. He manages to keep his "death" a secret from everyone except the main trio for almost a year, his presence only becoming known after McGonagall witnesses him trying to fight Pettigrew during the confrontation in the Chamber of Secrets.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Vernon and Petunia refuse to accept that Dudley could've befriended Harry willingly, thinking the only way that that could've happened is Harry bewitched him. It doesn't help Harry that Dudley's efforts to deny being bewitched mean having to admit how much Harry's told him about magic.
  • After Lupin graduated from Hogwarts, he took up a job as an apprentice in the study of dark creatures for a friend of his father's. His master was quick to turn on him after the werewolves sided with Voldemort and their side lost. While his master never outright told him to leave, he refused to submit Lupin's journeyman's work to the guild and started giving him increasingly dangerous assignments until Lupin quit on his own accord. Afterwards, he worked as a supplier of difficult to procure magical beings and plants for shopkeepers in Knockturn Alley as it was the only sort of employment he could get where his employers would not be able to figure out he was a werewolf, and only because he was not around for long enough. And then he lost that when Dolores Umbridge got Fudge to pass her anti-werewolf legislation through the Ministry, making him obligated to disclose his condition for any sort of employment.
• Foil:
  • Dudley is depicted as one to Draco Malfoy. Snape's favoritism for the Slytherin students over the other Hogwarts houses is not that different from Petunia and Vernon's favoritism of Dudley over Harry. And much like Draco's pureblood supremacy views came from his parents' affiliation with the Death Eaters, Dudley inherited a lot of his prejudices towards the wizarding world from his parents. Except, Dudley – with Harry's help initially – chooses to break free of his parents' faults, but Draco doesn't.
  • Sirius sees the Dursleys' parental favoritism for Dudley over Harry as similar to his own parents' favoritism for Regulus over him, due to him being from them (Harry because he has magic, Sirius because he denounced his family's affinity for the Dark Arts and was sorted into Gryffindor instead of Slytherin like the rest of them). Once Lupin gets the whole story from Flitwick and Hagrid, he starts to view it the same way too.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Dolores Umbridge's anti-werewolf legislation, which made it difficult for Lupin to find steady employment, gets mentioned in the Daily Prophet after Ron's birthday in his second year. We see it mentioned again when Dumbledore visits Lupin to offer him the Defence Against the Dark Arts job.
  • Since most readers are expected to have read the books before reading this fic, it's not a surprise to the reader that "Snuffles", the friendly black dog that Harry and Dudley befriend during the summer after Harry's first year, is Sirius in his Animagus form. But he drops many hints at his true nature beforehand, like when he brings Dudley a phone book for Harry to contact Hermione with^note a nod to how in Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius in his dog form was able to get Hermione's cat Crookshanks to bring him Neville's list of Gryffindor dorm passwords. Or a time where Snuffles seems to have a human laugh in response to Dudley reminiscing about some of Harry's earlier instances of accidental magic.
  • There are multiple hints that Lockhart is possessed before the reveal in the Chamber.
    • There is the fact that he's the first teacher to show up after Harry, Hermione and Ron fight the possessed Ginny.
    • Later, he appears in Harry's foe-glass.
    • He's described as looking "drawn and peaky" after Sirius has spent several weeks uncovering people who can discredit his tall tales.
    • When McGonagall does an emergency rolecall after the Heir of Slytherin's second message is found, Lockhart is one of the last to appear in the Great Hall, looking unusually disheveled and distracted, almost as if he had been busy getting rid of the evidence after using the blood from Hagrid's roosters to write the message.
  • In the Chamber of Secrets confrontation, Riddle brings up Snape's double-agent status as a spy for Dumbledore.
• Formerly Fat: Dudley begins eating more healthily after he starts going to Smeltings. He keeps it up in his second year, secretly feeding some of his mother's sandwiches to Sirius.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: When Dumbledore does his investigation of Sirius's escape, it's clear he has a low opinion of Azkaban's guards, both the human guards and the Dementors, seeing as Sirius was able to use his dog form to avoid detection by the Dementors, and the human guards weren't much better by not verifying that he was indeed dead.
• I'm Standing Right Here: Early in Part 2, while Harry and Dudley are playing with Snuffles, Harry confides to Dudley how he feels responsible for Sirius's "death", "not that he didn't deserve to hear what I had to tell him. He did. He probably deserved to die, with all he's done-". Snuffles, who actually is Sirius in his Animagus form, lets out "a pitiful whine".
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • In an instance where someone being Innocently Insensitive actually turns out to have a positive effect, Hermione would not have been so pushy about Harry getting his relatives Christmas presents if she'd known how bad things were between them.
  • Harry, Ron and Hermione make the mistake of bringing up Tom Riddle's name in conversation around Hagrid, not understanding how sore a subject he is since Riddle "accused" Hagrid of opening the Chamber of Secrets, and got him expelled for raising an Acromantula.
• I Was Never Here: When Snape catches the Trio brewing Polyjuice in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, he subjects them to Veritaserum interrogation. At the end of which, he dismisses them saying, "The potion is about to wear off. You may go now. I will... not... stop you. However, should you get in trouble with another teacher, I will deny having given you anything resembling permission. In fact, I will deny any knowledge of your activities." Ultimately, because Hermione accidentally ends up becoming half-feline, he has to divulge to McGonagall that he let them carry on with their plan.
• Kick the Dog: It was one thing in the book for Fudge to send Hagrid to Azkaban without trial. Here, when Hagrid gets petrified, Fudge is still intent on having him tried for the attacks after he regains consciousness, even though the fact that he became a victim should be proof enough of his innocence.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Nonfatal variant. The Basilisk attacks and petrifies Ginny as she's trying to write Tom Riddle's name.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Averted by Lockhart, who doesn't accidentally wipe his own memory due to being possessed by the diary, but does end up getting sent to Azkaban due to Sirius exposing his previous use of Memory charms to steal credit for other witches and wizards' deeds.
• Late to the Realization: Upon meeting Remus Lupin, it takes Harry a bit of time to realize, quite belatedly, that he's the "Moony" that Sirius has mentioned throughout the last year.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • When Sirius was questioned under Veritaserum, the Aurors who interrogated him used carefully worded questions to extract a false confession out of him which was what got him incarcerated. As he points out, the trio found out through their own Veritaserum interrogation from Snape that "a truthful answer is quite enough. You don't have to tell the whole truth – or the truest thing." And some of the questions they used were not ones related to whether Sirius was a Death Eater, but his loyalties to his family. (This was when the Auror office answered to Barty Crouch, Sr., who was known for despising all things to do with the dark arts)
  • When Moody and Tonks go to interview Lupin, they and Dumbledore are fairly certain that Lupin knows about Sirius and Peter being unregistered Animagi. Since the Marauders took an Unbreakable Vow to protect Lupin's secret, Lupin can't confirm outright that he knew, but Dumbledore is able to use some carefully worded questions to skirt around the vow.
• Master of Disguise: Sirius can do human Transfiguration in addition to his Animagus form, allowing him to impersonate Uncle Vernon when Harry wants to visit Smeltings to pay Dudley a visit. It also allows him to expose Lockhart's fraudulent activities without anyone realizing who he really is.
• Muggles Do It Better: Dudley takes up boxing while at Smeltings. As Harry's second year goes on and he, Ron and Hermione practice their dueling spells, Harry realizes that boxing has a lot in common with dueling, and begins to incorporate some of its moves.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Dog!Sirius provides Dudley with a phonebook so that Harry can contact Hermione's parents, inverting a moment in Prisoner of Azkaban where Sirius uses Crookshanks to obtain Neville's list of Gryffindor common room passwords.
  • Harry and Dudley's choice of nickname for Dog!Sirius is "Snuffles", a name that Ron uses when talking about Sirius in Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix.
  • Certain elements of characters' backstories that Rowling expanded upon through Pottermore are brought up throughout the story.
    • At one point in their first year, Harry, Ron and Hermione visit the Hogwarts trophy room and happen to find out that Professor McGonagall was a Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
    • After Quirrelmort's attempt to kill Harry, Dumbledore brings up that Quirrell was a Ravenclaw student.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Lockhart isn't good at anything other than Memory Charms, which makes it easy for no one to notice he's been possessed.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • At the Burrow, Ron innocently tries to introduce Scabbers to Snuffles. There's a big moment of this as Pettigrew and Sirius recognize each other's Animagus forms.
  • Later in part 2, Harry, Ron and Hermione are about to head out of the dorms for the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff when they see the Basilisk appear on the Marauder's Map as "Slytherin's Monster", then see Hagrid is in the library according to the map, and he's likely going to become its next victim. They make a mad dash to warn Nearly Headless Nick, figuring he'll be able to get a warning to Hagrid in time. They're able to prevent Hagrid from being killed by the Basilisk's glare, but he still ends up getting petrified along with Nearly Headless Nick.
• Out-of-Character Alert: The first hint the trio has of Ginny being possessed is when she sees through the Disillusionment Charm that Ron has placed on his new wand to keep his siblings from noticing it's brand new, and this is accompanied by Harry's scar suddenly hurting as a result of him being around another of Voldemort's Horcruxes.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • When McGonagall is being informed by Madam Pomfrey about Hermione's Polyjuice accident, she immediately picks up from Snape's reaction that he knows exactly what Hermione, Harry and Ron were up to and didn't bother to tell her, their Head of House.
  • The heated argument that ensues when Vernon and Petunia accuse Harry of bewitching Dudley culminates in Dudley being reduced to tears. It's apparently the first time in a long time that he's ever cried for real as opposed to the Crocodile Tears he's used to doing to get things he wants.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • We get to see how things go much better for Harry when he's willing to talk to his teachers and ask for their help in solving his problems.
  • Much like in the books, Sirius resents that Harry is being kept in the dark about things important to his life. So at the end of Part II, decides to cut to the chase and tell Harry the prophecy that marked him as a target for Voldemort.
  • In third year, when Harry and Hermione get a Time Turner for their electives, they choose to tell Ron about it right away, preventing a rift that happened in the book (where Hermione didn't tell either of them about it until the end of the year when she and Harry needed to use it to save Buckbeak from execution, and then save Sirius from being Kissed by the Dementors).
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Professor McGonagall spends part II growing back into one. When told by the trio that Moaning Myrtle was the student who died the first time the Chamber of Secrets was opened, she hears them out. And while she's initially intent on going down into the Chamber with just Snape and Lockhart for backup, she agrees to let Harry join them after Snape points out that they don't know whether they'll need a Parselmouth (what Harry can do) to get themselves out.
• Secret-Keeper: Harry and Hermione agree to help Ron hide from his family that he bought a new wand. They do this by having Harry pay for it at Ollivander's, and then Hermione holds onto it until they're at Hogwarts. Then they put it under a Disillusionment Charm to change its appearance.
• Secret Secret-Keeper:
  • Harry, Ron and Hermione are the only wizards aware for the entirety of their second year that Sirius Black is alive and well. The rest of the world only finds out when he's seen by Professor McGonagall during the Chamber of Secrets confrontation, and Dumbledore has to mention this when writing to the Auror office.
  • Harry, Ron and Hermione figure out that Lupin is a werewolf as Sirius mentions Wolfsbane during his private Animagus lessons. During the scene where Harry talks to Lupin in his office, during which Snape delivers Lupin his dose of Wolfsbane, Harry has to bite his lip to keep from saying to Lupin how much he actually knows because Lupin is still struggling to process the revelations about his former friends. This is lampshaded by Snape when the trio have to help him brew the next batch of Wolfsbane.
  "So. You three are willing to put in all this work to help Lupin with his condition. But he doesn't even know you're aware of his lycantrophy."
  "It's his choice to tell us or not to tell us," said Hermione. Her voice was quiet, but firm. A clear opposition, containing a not-so-subtle criticism of Snape's attempt to get Harry's class to figure out Lupin's condition.
• Skewed Priorities: Harry thinks it messed up that the Ministry are so focused on recapturing Sirius when Pettigrew was the one who assisted Voldemort in the basilisk attacks.
• Something Only They Would Say:
  • When the Daily Prophet publishes news of Umbridge's anti-werewolf legislation, they have a section for people to write letters to the editor regarding their position on the matter. Harry, Ron and Hermione read one particular letter with some particularly scathing comments, and realize it's from Sirius because he makes many of the same arguments that Sirius made in one of his letters to Harry. It's later revealed that Lupin saw through Sirius's attempts to be anonymous for the same reason.
  • When Sirius first brings up that the Marauder's Map would be helpful, Harry and Ron instantly realize that it's in Fred and George's hands because the twins once mentioned to them that the word 'marauders' was a secret weapon against Snape.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • In the resolution to Philosopher's Stone, the Trio have Neville seek out Snape while they pursue Quirrell past the various puzzles guarding the Stone. Just as Voldemort is commanding Quirrell to kill Harry, Dumbledore and Snape arrive and throw a series of spells at him that incapacitate him, forcing Voldemort to leave Quirrell's body. Quirrell is thus still alive, but Snape mentions that he'll be in a coma for a while due to the effects of being a host for Voldemort, and when he wakes up, he'll likely be going to Azkaban or committed to Saint Mungo's.
  • Hermione, Penelope and Justin are spared petrification by the Basilisk as a result of Harry, Ron and Hermione breaking the diary's influence over Ginny early in the year. However, Ginny and Hagrid get petrified in their places. The basilisk attack on Ginny takes Hermione's place in terms of where Ginny saw its reflection (in the reflection of a window), while Hagrid's petrification takes on elements of the attacks on Justin (only being saved by Nearly Headless Nick) and Hermione (being attacked outside the library while everyone was headed out to the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff).
• Spotting the Thread: When Ron talks out of turn during the DADA class where Snape is substituting for Lupin, Snape gives him a detention of cleaning out the bedpans in the hospital wing without magic. Ron realizes Snape wants him to notice that Lupin's not there and confirm what Snape knows, and calls his bluff.
• Stations of the Canon: Chamber of Secrets plays out mostly the same as in canon, but with some elements of Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire. While certain elements of Prisoner of Azkaban stay the same (such as Harry fainting twice in the presence of Dementors, Harry learning the Patronus spell from Lupin, Sirius gifting Harry with a Firebolt), year 3 plays out very differently as Harry and co. know already that Sirius is innocent. Prisoner of Azkaban even starts to incorporate elements from Half-Blood Prince, as Sirius finds out about his brother's efforts to discover Voldemort's Horcruxes.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Dudley significantly mellows out towards Harry, as a result of Harry sending him gifts from the Wizarding World.
• This Is Gonna Suck: In part 1, Harry lets slip that Fred and George's birthday of April 1st is celebrated by Muggles as April Fools Day. Hermione goes on to explain what that means. By the time the twins leave them, Harry and Hermione are visibly cringing at the realization that Fred and George are probably going to be up to no good subjecting the school to pranks.
• Too Much Information: This becomes a source of conflict for the Trio for their second year, as when they need to inform a teacher about a development that they gleaned thanks to information from Sirius, they have to tiptoe around mentioning where they're learning these things. Moreso in third year, when Lupin begins teaching, since Lupin was James and Sirius's best friend.
• Tongue-Tied: It's revealed that the Marauders and Lupin swore an Unbreakable Vow to keep their Animagus abilities a secret after they mastered their skills.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: The trio slip into this sort of attitude with Snape starting in their second year. Snape is very uncomfortable that Harry is trying to win his approval seeing how much he hates Harry for reminding him of Lily and how James stole her from him.
  Severus did not answer as they parted ways. He headed back to his chambers, unsettled. There was something very odd going on with Potter and his friends, that much he knew. All the strange events since the beginning of the year had centred around them. It was a shame that he had not been allowed to interrogate them properly after the attack on Filch's cat. Albus had insisted on letting them go after a measly few questions, half of which they had not answered truthfully, Severus was convinced.
  There had been another reason why he was dissatisfied with his questioning of the Troublesome Trio, as he thought of them, much as he hated to admit it even to himself. He could have been harsher, he should have demanded that they be punished until they talked – Potter would crack soon enough if he was taken off the quidditch team, he was sure. However, he had not been able to even make the demand (though Albus would probably have vetoed it anyway).
  Why? Because Potter and his friends had looked at him with hopeful eyes. Stuck in Lockhart's office, with Minerva, Albus, Filch and himself, their eyes had strayed to him as soon as Filch had demanded they be questioned. And that was not all. Ever since sparing Weasley for cursing Draco, they had developed this – very disturbing – lack of hatred for him. It was unnatural how – almost – well-behaved they were in his class.
  No, letting Weasley get away with cursing Draco had not been one of his better ideas. And all for a rather sentimental reason – the situation had really nothing in common with the one it had reminded him of. But in that moment… Well, he had paid for that bit of foolishness. Lucius had not been impressed, of course, and it had taken all of Severus' persuasive skills to convince the elder Malfoys that he could not have acted differently. He still was not convinced that Lucius believed him.
• We Need a Distraction: At one point, when Snape wants information out of the trio, he encourages them to make a scene by confronting Draco when he begins insulting Hermione, so he has a visible excuse to take them aside.