Fanfic / The Idea Of Consequences

The Idea of Consequences is a Harry Potter fanfic co-written by ColdLuigi and The_Plauge_Dragon on Archive of Our Own.

Things change after the Polyjuice incident. Things just spiral from there...What do you think would happen when some idiot introduced people who casually reshape reality to monster girls?

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This fic displays the following example of:

• A-Cup Angst: Ironically, since she herself is explicitly stated to have gone from a modest B-cup to a double D as part of her Cat Girl transformation, Hermione is still rather jealous and annoyed that Bella and Ari both have bigger breasts than her, even though neither of them are technically mammals.
• Adaptation Deviation: Apart from the addition of Cute Monster Girls to the setting, the fic changes up quite a few details from canon.
  • Students begin Hogwarts at 14, not 11. This is mentioned to be a recent development after the war against Voldemort. Snape speculates that it's to give the pureblood students more of a head start.
  • The basilisk (named Bella and capable of turning into a Cute Monster Girl) is actually supposed to be a protector of Hogwarts and its students, but was enslaved and abused by Tom Riddle. All the attacks were unwilling on her part.
  • Rather than make Harry the last of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, here he hosts a soul fragment that embodies the innocent child Tom Riddle once was before he became Voldemort.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Snape and Harry are on much less antagonistic terms with each other ever since Dumbledore helped Snape get over his grudge towards James Potter.
  • In canon, Ron and Hermione are married in the epilogue and have kids of their own. Here, Hermione instead has feelings for Harry since Ariana takes her place as Ron’s love interest.
  • Minor one with Hagrid and Aragog. In canon, Aragog certainly viewed Hagrid as a friend and caretaker, but in this fic, she repeatedly and specifically calls him her father.
  • The basilisk was never hinted to be any more than a monster under Slytherin's control, and had nothing to do with any of the other Founders. Here, Bella the basilisk was the adopted daughter of all four Founders, and thought of them as her parents.
  • Tom Riddle and Moaning Myrtle were actually friends when she was alive. While he was using Bella to terrorize the school, he hadn't wanted to kill Myrtle and was furious at Bella for going after the "wrong person." Dumbledore later admits that the fact that Myrtle was the victim had made him wonder if Tom really was the one behind the attacks, since he knew Myrtle was the one person Tom genuinely cared for.
  • Ginny and Luna are a lot closer here than in canon; their canon counterparts were certainly friends but didn't seem to be especially close until the events of the fifth book. Here, they're very close already in their first year at Hogwarts, and if the relationship tag is to be believed they either are or are going to be come more than just friends.
• Adaptation Species Change:
  • Hermione is a Cat Girl since the effects of her botched Polyjuice Potion didn’t wear off completely.
  • Luna Lovegood is a member of the Fae instead of a normal, if somewhat eccentric, human witch.
  • Daphne gets turned into a werewolf after a werewolf hiding out in Knockturn Alley bites her.
• Adaptational Heroism: The basilisk in canon was an Ax-Crazy Attack Animal bound to Voldemort’s will. In this story, Bella was tasked by Salazar Slytherin to protect the students of the school when the Founders were no longer around. She sincerely wanted to do it too, but was first put to sleep for nine hundred years, only to be awakened and Forced into Evil by Voldemort’s dark magic before Harry broke Voldemort’s spell over her.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Snape is a Stern Teacher who does not tolerate prejudice towards muggle-born wizards in any shape or form, especially when it concerns Lily Potter. Much of that stems from a conversation he had with Dumbledore that led to him reevaluating how he conducted himself.
  • Canon!Aragog didn’t really care about what went on in Hogwarts unless it involved Hagrid in some capacity and nearly had his children eat Ron and Harry. TIOC!Aragog is happy to let Ron and Harry leave her domain unharmed in exchange for setting up a Perfectly Arranged Marriage between Ron and her 127th daughter Ariana.
  • Salazar Slytherin was implied to be a pureblood supremacist in canon and built the Chamber of Secrets as part of his plan to make Hogwarts 100% pureblood. Here, he’s all but ashamed at what his house has become and implores Harry to save the few Slytherins who don't follow the toxic pureblood supremacist ideology pervading the house that bears his name.
  • Surprisingly, Tom Riddle is a minor case. In canon, he was a sociopath and a Creepy Child even before he started Hogwarts; here, at least according to Dumbledore, he originally just wanted to be loved and accepted. Unfortunately, his many character flaws led him to make a number of bad choices, causing him to turn into a much nastier person, and by the time he made his first Horcrux, he was every bit the monster his canon counterpart was.
  • Actually, while characters like Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson are as nasty as ever, and the Dursleys might be slightly worse, a lot of the characters here are notably nicer and more compassionate here then they were in canon. Ron's Innocently Insensitive moments are fewer and farther in between; Moaning Myrtle is concerned over Hermione's transformation rather than gleeful like in canon; and Fred and George are more likely to be supportive of Ron than to tease and torment him like their canon selves did.
• Adaptational Sexuality:
  • Aragog in this continuity is lesbian since she still marries Mosag like her male canon counterpart did.
  • Ginny still crushes on Harry, but seems to be headed towards a a relationship with Luna Lovegood rather than pursuing him.
  • Hermione in canon never showed any signs of being anything but 100% heterosexual, but here she's possibly bi.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: It's subtle, but Luna's hair is described as strawberry blonde rather than the dirty blonde as in canon. It's probably a result of her being a Fae in this universe.
• Age Lift: Due to the Ministry of Magic changing the age of admission for Hogwarts to 14 in the wake of Voldemort’s defeat, all of the Hogwarts students are a few years older than canon. Harry, Ron and Hermione are 15 when they start their second year, though Ron and Hermione turn 16 over the course of the school year.
• Amazon Chaser: In a flashback, Godric Gryffindor is revealed to have been one.
  Godric: Hey, I'm a simple man with simple tastes. If a woman can beat me in a fight, then she's my type.
• Apologetic Attacker: Bella the Basilisk, when Tom Riddle forces her to attack Harry in the Chamber of Secrets, is very upset at the situation and tells Harry that she's sorry about the whole thing.
• Berserk Button:
  • Ron hates prejudice, especially prejudice against non-humans. He didn't like prejudice in canon either, of course, but here he absolutely loathes bigotry of any sort, and will go on profanity-laden rants about the "bastards in power." He even hates memory charms when used on Muggles, calling it "Mind Rape."
  • One of the first hints of Snape's Adaptational Nice Guy status is that he shares this Berserk Button with Ron. His immediate reaction when finding out Hermione has become a catgirl is to demand that Dumbledore sees to it that she isn't expelled. His biggest Berserk Button is, not surprisingly, the "Mudblood" slur —- to the point when Draco uses it during breakfast, Snape not only refuses to intervene when the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs start throwing food at Draco, but even throws a couple of eggs at Draco himself.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • Marriage for Acromantulas are more alliance-forming than unions of love, which is why Ariana is somewhat confused that humans often marry out of love after Ron tells her about that.
  • In Luna's one scene so far, we get a taste of how the Fae have a very different sense of morality from humans; she thoroughly freaks out Arthur and Molly by alternating between hugging Ginny and telling her how glad she is that she's safe, and threatening to curse her spirit to "wander the endless netherworld for a thousand thousand years." She's utterly confused about the Weasleys' reactions to this.
• Break the Haughty: Snape receives the humbling of a lifetime thanks to Dumbledore baring his deepest, darkest secrets to Snape in a conversation both men had about letting go of past regrets, which leads to him becoming a nicer person.
• Breast Expansion: For some reason, Hermione's catgirl transformation also gives her much bigger breasts. When he first sees her post-transformation, Harry notices her big boobs almost before he notices her pointy ears and tail.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Downplayed; while Harry may be a bit dense about Bella’s affections towards him, he isn’t dumb enough to not notice that she’s in love with him.
• Cool Old Guy: Dumbledore is nothing but supportive towards his students and allies and is always on the lookout for anything that can threaten those he cares about.
• Cute Monster Girl: Hermione, Ariana, and Bella are quite easy on the eyes in spite of (or because of) their … unique features.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Just about no one can stand the Valentine’s Day celebration that Lockhart came up with, with the dwarf who sends Harry his valentine telling Harry that he just wants to complete his delivery so he can go home and a muggleborn student calling the glitter used for the festivities "craft herpes".
  • According to Dumbledore, the soul shard containing the last of Tom Riddle’s humanity separated itself from Voldemort the night he attempted to kill Harry at Godric’s Hollow because it couldn’t bear to live within the monster Tom Riddle had become.
  • Adventurer!Lockhart goes ballistic when he finds out his canon self was a fraud and tears up everything the original had in a rage.
• Evil Counterpart: Dumbledore informs Harry that just as he embodies the positive application of Slytherin’s qualities of leadership, initiative, cunning, and ambition (Guile Hero, Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!), Voldemort represents the negative application of said qualities (Manipulative Bastard, The Unfettered).
• Fantastic Racism: To an even greater degree than in canon. In addition to their disdain towards Muggles, the wizarding world does not treat non-humans well, to the point where it's only Dumbledore's intervention that keeps Hermione from automatically being expelled from Hogwarts once she's turned herself into a catgirl. Ron darkly tells her that if the Ministry has its way, she wouldn't only be expelled, but likely either killed or enslaved to live out her days as some twisted pureblood's Sex Slave, while her family's memories of her are erased. Luckily, Dumbledore does intervene and Hermione is allowed to stay at Hogwarts, though Madam Pomfrey tells her she "does not wish to know how" Dumbledore managed to convince the Board of Governors.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Bella, having lived during the medieval era Hogwarts was founded in, needs some time to acclimate herself to the modern world, of which Ron and Harry are happy to help.
• Gender Flip:
  • Aragog in canon was male. This version of Aragog is female and a Cute Monster Girl to boot.
  • The basilisk’s gender is never clearly stated in canon, often being referred to as an “it”. Bella here is unambiguously female.
• Foreshadowing: Dumbledore tells Harry that in all his years as a teacher and Headmaster, he's only ever seen a student without a single drop of good in them once, and that student wasn't Tom Riddle. Harry, of course, imagines a Dark Lord ten times worse than Voldemort, but when Dumbledore reveals that said student was a woman who is currently working for the Ministry, it does seem to be a confirmation that Umbridge is going to show up in future chapters.
• Happily Adopted:
  • Harry being taken in by the Weasleys does wonders for his mental and emotional health, especially since they genuinely care about his well-being and see him as an honorary family member.
  • Bella was essentially adopted by Salazar Slytherin and raised by all four Founders of Hogwarts, whom she viewed as her parents.
• I Have No Son!: Daphne’s father disowns her from the family after her status as a werewolf is revealed with her first transformation.
• Mama Bear: Molly Weasley is very protective towards her family and is stated to have made Voldemort himself beg for mercy when he decided to attack her home with his Death Eaters.
• Marshmallow Hell: Harry finds himself squished between Bella's breasts when she hugs him in topless lamia form. Being fifteen, he enjoys it a little more than he thinks he should.
• Morality Pet: Moaning Myrtle seems to have been this for Tom Riddle when she was alive. It was her death (which he hadn't intended) and probably the fact that he decided to use that death to make his first Horcrux, that fully crushed the last bit of goodness inside him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Dumbledore is devastated when he finds out that the Dursleys abused Harry and falls into a Heroic BSoD as a result of his mistake. It takes Snape telling Dumbledore to get ahold of himself to snap out of it. When he goes to investigate the Dursley house at Little Whinging, he is flat-out horrified that the abuse Harry had to endure was great enough that it nearly caused him to develop an Obscurus that would have utterly obliterated the neighborhood had it fully manifested... though this time his reaction is Tranquil Fury at the Dursleys.
• Non-Mammalian Mammaries: Seems to be the norm for non-mammalian Cute Monster Girls, at least for Bella and Ari. Sespite being a snake and a spider, respectively, they both have rather large breasts in human and half-human form — though it might simply be an effect of their shapeshifting. Hermione briefly reflects on this, even directly naming the trope:
  Evidently, magical creatures had non-mammalian mammaries for some reason.
• Papa Wolf: Salazar Slytherin does not take kindly to anyone treating his adopted daughter Bella badly, and is at first rather angry at Harry for accidentally bonding her to him... though being a ghost, there's not a lot he can actually do. Godric Gryffindor is more understanding, but does give Harry a brief fatherly If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her... speech.
• Rip Van Winkle: Bella was put to sleep by the four Founders, at first because they didn't want her to see them die, but then Parseltongue became outlawed and so there was nobody who could wake her up. So she slept for 900 years until Tom Riddle came along.
• Shout-Out: At one point, when Ron reads about Charms, he comes across a couple of references to a couple of spells called "Pantiloopogus poopigus" and "Arcanum sonitus ticking".
• Take That!: A lot of digs are made at several popular fanon tropes, and even against certain aspects of canon. Ron and the other Weasleys are particularly likely to deliver these.
  • Ron, as previously mentioned, absolutely loathes the practice of Obliviating Muggles, calling it "Mind Rape." All in all, both he and his family seem notably more anti-establishment than they were in canon, and oppenly oppose the wizarding world's casual mistreatment of both Muggles and non-humans.
  • A lot of fanfics have the Weasleys trying to get their hands on Harry's fortune, but here Molly is revolted by the very idea of taking advantage of an abused orphan’s trust just to get rich.
  • Molly in canon is said to have wished she had a house-elf to help with the house work, but here she dismisses the idea because she's already so skilled with household charms, saying that people only want house-elves if they want to own a slave, or are too lazy and incompetent to learn household charms for themselves.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • Once Bella is freed of the curse Tom Riddle place on her, she immediately decides to take on her former enslaver as payback for all the abuse Riddle heaped onto her.
  • Dobby is very eager to test out a few curses he learned on Lucius Malfoy after the Malfoy patriarch accidentally frees the house-elf from servitude and could have even done so had Lucius not left immediately after.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Dumbledore rakes the Dursleys over the coals for abusing Harry in spite of him entrusting them, as Lily Potter's only living relatives by virtue of Petunia being Lily's sister, to raise Harry safely.
  Dumbledore: Petunia.
  Petunia: Do I know you?
  Vernon: Why are you in my house!?
  Dumbledore: I am Albus Dumbledore. I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts, and I must say that I’m INCREDIBLY dissa- no, furious, at how you treated Harry.
  Vernon: We treat the freak however we like! We’ve wasted lots of money to keep this roof over his ungrateful head-
  Dumbledore: Ungrateful? UNGRATEFUL?!
  Petunia: Yes, ungrateful! You dumped him on my doorstep! You left him here! It’s your fault that we had to spend extra money that could’ve-
  Dumbledore: You’re blaming me? For what you did?! You obviously have enough money! You have a new car, for the love of God! Imported, as well! I took a walk around your house, and I know where you were keeping him! A cupboard under the stairs?! What is WRONG with you people?!
  Vernon: Wrong with us?! WRONG WITH US?! You FREAKS dumped that brat on our doorstep, expecting us to spend our money to feed that waste of space! And you come here, and DARE to accuse US of-
  Dumbledore: Legilimens! (scries Vernon's mind) I have discovered the point where my rage, so hard to ignite, burns so brightly that I am back to being calm. Tell me, were you aware of the wards your sister placed around your house herself? Or how many times they saved your lives? Those were very nasty wards. In fact, they couldn’t be picked up, not even by Lord Voldemort. But when a witch or wizard came to do you harm, they disintegrated into nothingness, leaving only a wet mark on your house. They failed when she died, creating the most powerful protection she could on her son. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. These wards would remain in place until Harry was of age, which, at the time, was 17. They would protect not only him, but you as well. He had to be around you for some time each year to keep them in effect. It is the ultimate protection… and you nearly killed yourselves with it.
  Petunia: K-killed?
  Dumbledore: Indeed. You see, when a magical child is forced to suppress their magic due to abuse, their magic becomes… violent. Uncontrollable. And it desires to keep its host safe from their tormentors… permanently. It gains form, a creature called an Obscurus. They take the shape of dark fog. Tell me, had you ever seen that?
  Dudley: Th’ freak had black mist on his feet the night he escaped.
  Dumbledore: Then you had less than 24 hours to live. Were his liberators an hour later, the damage would’ve been irreversible. You were hitting a nuclear warhead with a mallet for over a decade, and the timer had finally activated. With the power young Harry has at his disposal, I would be shocked if Little Whinging was left standing after the first outburst. Obscurials can live for weeks, months, or even years after their first manifestation. My sister lived for over a decade before she died, so I know personally how dangerous an Obscurial is. Young Harry will never be returning to this hell. He will live life without you, and you three will live whatever time you have left without him.
  Vernon: Are you threatening us?
  Dumbledore: I am saying that not all the witches and wizards who wished to see you dead are gone, and they’ll know the second these wards fail. They will fail by the first of July. And they will come. You will suffer, unlike whatever you have suffered before. And when they tire of torturing you, they will kill you. It will look like a gas leak to muggle authorities. I am half tempted to use that spell myself, but I think it would be more… deserving for you to know that you’re living on borrowed time, and that time is running out. Good day. (leaves the Dursley house) May God have mercy on you, Dursleys, because I don’t have any for abusers.
• Token Good Teammate: Daphne Greengrass is one of the few Slytherins that don’t follow the virulent pureblood-supremacist beliefs pervading their house, only pretending to do so in order to avoid being singled out by the other Slytherins.
• Tranquil Fury: Dumbledore hits this state after he finds out just how badly the Dursleys treated Harry. He even points it out to them in his scathing rant towards their actions.
  Dumbledore: I have discovered the point where my rage, so hard to ignite, burns so brightly that I am back to being calm.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Dumbledore states that Tom Riddle was once someone who, despite his flaws, just wanted to be loved by other people before he became the feared Dark wizard known as Voldemort.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin are revealed as this when their ghosts show up. They bicker almost Like an Old Married Couple, with Godric loving to tease and annoy Salazar, who responds in kind. It's even revealed that the big statue of Salazar in the Chamber of Secrets was put there by Godric, and he made it ugly on purpose as a joke. Despite all this, they're clearly very close, even to the point where Bella views them both as her fathers.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: In their earlier scenes, neither Ari nor Bella wear anything to cover their breasts when in their respective drider and lamia forms. In Ari's case it's because she never wore clothes out in the forest and has very little in the sense of body modesty; and while Bella was raised by humans and sees why she's expected to cover up, her original clothes have long since rotted away and Tom Riddle never cared enough to get her new ones.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Molly Weasley is not happy to learn that Dumbledore had left Harry to live with abusive relatives and even sends Dumbledore a Howler warning him not to send Harry back to the Dursleys if he values his life.
• Winds of Destiny, Change!: When Lockhart tries to use Ron’s damaged wand to wipe his memories, it appeals to the personification of magic itself to change Gilderoy Lockhart from a simpering fraud into a person who actually pulled off the deeds he supposedly did in his books.
• Womanchild: Bella is physically mature enough to be called a woman, but thanks to having essentially been in a magical coma for most of her life, she often acts as if she's younger. Ari is somewhat more mature, but she still whines like a little girl when the garden gnomes at the Burrow won't let her catch and eat them.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • Bella is not amused to learn that Wand Lore has been reclassified as a seventh-year course during the years she was asleep, among many other things.
  • Played more for laughs, but Godric Gryffindor, unimpressed with Harry's swordfighting techniques, doesn't take well to the news that that Hogwarts no longer teaches swordfighting.
  Godric: I loved swordfighting class, dammit! Why did they get rid of it?
  Salazar: I believe it was because of the astronomical death rate.
  Godric: Bloody spoilsports.