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The Lie I've Lived, an Alternate Universe Fic by jbern that picks up right at the end of Prisoner Of Azkaban. By blasting a couple of hundred Dementors away, something inside Harry breaks loose — all of James Potter's memories. From here we get an expanded Triwizard Tournament, one of the best takes on The Sorting Hat, and Harry, or HJ to fans, kicking ass and taking names. A sequel is supposedly in the works, but his first Fan Fic, Turn Me Loose, and his original novel are taking precedence.


This Fan Fic provides examples of:

  • All of the Other Reindeer: Harry gets this from most of the older Gryffindors at the start of the story, mainly stemming from his sudden change in personality and his treatment of Katie and Ginny. Though they quickly change their tune once he starts doing well in the Triwizard Tournament.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Agrippa Manos, who manages to escape from an assassination attempt with his life, but not his arm. Luckily Harry was on hand to help, or the damage might have been permanent.
  • And Your Little Dog, Too!: In order to humiliate Fleur, Victor Krum pretends to have killed Monsieur Pronghorn and mounted its head as a trophy.
  • Ascended Extra: Several characters receive this treatment, the most prominent being the Sorting Hat and Oliver Wood.
  • Bathing Beauty: Fleur.
  • Bait-and-Switch Comment: Harry uses this to great effect while getting his date to the Yule Ball. Everyone thinks he's going to ask Fleur...only for him to ask Amiee instead.
  • Bestiality Is Depraved: Rita Skeeter is quick to accuse Fleur of this after finding out about her meetings with Mr. Pronghorn.
  • Beta Couple: For Harry and Fleur we have Penelope Clearwater and Oliver Wood, as well as Cedric and Cho. Back in the Marauder era, Frank and Alice Longbottom were this for James and Lily.
  • Big Brother Instinct: All the Weasley boys have this for Ginny, as Harry finds out the hard way.
  • Big Damn Kiss: Chapter 20.
  • Blood Magic: Harry uses his blood to temporarily seal Durmstrang's geist away.
    • Harry's blood on an object weakens Voldemort's ability to use magic on it.
  • Break the Haughty: Harry manages to do this with both Draco and Victor.
  • Bring My Brown Pants: This happens to Draco after he receives the Mark of the Cur.
  • The Casanova: The Marauders, especially James and Sirius, and Bill Weasley.
  • Cerebus Ret Con: Several things in the Harry Potter universe are given much darker backstories. For example, Rowena Ravenclaw was revealed to have placed the Sword of Gryffindor in the Sorting Hat in a desperate attempt to prevent Godric from using it against Salazar. Unfortunately, Godric simply decided to hunt him down without the sword, a decision which got him killed.
    • A person has to kill in order to have the right to receive the Dark Mark. This makes certain recipients a lot less sympathetic. (Yes, we're looking at you, Snape.)
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Harry.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: During the Quidditch World Cup, Harry gets subjected to the Cruciatus Curse after he tries to rain on the Death Eater parade. Luckily, the Hat manages to distract the caster long enough for him to retaliate.
  • Combat Medic: Harry has shades of this.
  • Crucified Hero Shot: When Dumbledore's body is recovered.
  • Cutting the Knot: Harry's method for getting through the Puzzle Room. There is a lot of Stuff Blowing Up.
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Dykstra Shuffle, which involves switching body parts with someone else. Harry does this with a badly burned left lung.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Harry, oh so much.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Fleur. Before then Harry and the Hat would often refer to her as a frigid/ice bitch.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Igor Karkaroff, who kills Dumbledore from behind before being killed by Harry.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: James falls into this in the weeks after his parents died. In the present, the memories of this event provide Harry with ample ways to get past an age line.
  • Driven to Suicide: Some years in the past, the Sorting Hat informed a student that his father was the reigning Dark Lord of the time. This information proved too much for the poor boy, as he took his own life a few days later.
  • Duel to the Death: Harry demands one with Draco after finding out that he was responsible for sabotaging his duel with Fleur. Luckily for Draco, he's talked out of it.
  • Dungeon Bypass: Harry uses Fawkes' fire traveling ability to attack Death Eaters in their homes.
  • Gender Equals Breed: Occurs when pureblood Veela have children with Muggles. The children are always Veela.
  • Fainting: The shock of realizing that he possesses James's memories causes Harry to pass out.
  • Finger in the Mail: During the ball at the French embassy, Voldemort sends Harry the gruesome gift of Piers Polkiss's severed head.
  • Forbidden Fruit: Harry labels Fleur as this the moment he sets eyes on her.
  • Forced Transformation: During their second duel, Harry turns Jerkass Victor Krum into a literal ass.
  • From Bad to Worse: Harry's Humiliation Conga gets much, much worse in the aftermath of him being entered in the Triwizard Tournament.
  • Full-Name Ultimatum: Fleur tends to call people by their full name if she's pissed off with them.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The key to being successful when dueling with Transfiguration is using C.A.T.S - no, not the animal, but rather the principles of Conjure, Animate, Transfigure and Succeed.
  • Ghost Memory: Harry having James' memories.
  • Great Big Book of Everything: The Potter Anybook.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Harry encourages Michael Conner to ask Ginny out, mentioning that it would "take a problem off his hands." Unfortunately, this little statement makes its way into the ears of the twins, who become very angry as a result.
    • The censure that the older Gryffindors make against Harry after he gets entered into the Triwizard Tournament ends up leaving them with quite a lot of egg on their faces, especially after Dumbledore publicly announces that he was completely innocent in the whole affair.
  • Humiliation Conga: Harry is on the receiving end of a rather nasty one. First, he is pranked by the twins after accidentally standing Katie up. Then, pictures of that prank are posted all around the common room for the viewing pleasure of the rest of the year. After that, he's kicked off the Quidditch team. It only gets worse after he's entered in the Triwizard Tournament, as his entire House views him as a dirty cheater and publicly petition to kick him out of Gryffindor for good. Finally, due to his rather snappy comments to Rita Skeeter, she publishes a scathing article about him in the Daily Prophet.
  • History Repeats: After unlocking James's memories, Harry sarcastically lampshades the fact that his current group of friends are a cheap rehash of the Marauders.
    • This is revisited much more touchingly near the end of the story, when Harry realizes that the dynamic he has with Fleur is practically identical to the one which James and Lily possessed.
  • Honey Trap: Tracey and Millicent try this on Harry. It fails.
  • Hot Springs Episode: Whenever Harry comes upon Fleur's grotto.
  • In Love with the Mark: Tracy Davis's parents first met after her Death Eater father was ordered to kill her Muggle-born mother. Surprise surprise, they wound up falling in love.
  • In the Back: Dumbledore meets his end thanks to a Killing Curse from behind.
  • Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object: Thrice the phrase or something similar is used:
    • Describing Harry's performance in the obstacle course, Rita Skeeter writes, "He was the 'unstoppable force' and let me tell you, there was no 'immovable object' to be found." Given Harry was riding a rock transfigured in a rhinoceros, and the obstacles were designed for far fewer tough things, it's an accurate assessment.
    • Harry's narration of their practice duel describes Madame Maxime as the immovable object, as she's completely invulnerable to minor hexes and jinxes, highly resistant to the big things and capable of defending herself from them, and strong enough that conjured chains barely slow her down and wrestle a gorilla to death.
    • Immediately after the above, we have Dumbledore having a practice duel against Fleur, Sirius and Remus, with Sirius' last attack being described as: "Sirius Black's unleashed fury was like the waves of a storm crashing against the uncaring shoreline before he, too, is trussed up."
  • Jerkass: Viktor Krum.
  • Jerk Jock: Andrew Carlson and Victor Krum. Both get their comeuppance thanks to Harry.
  • KidAnova: Harry. Bonus points for actually bedding some of the women he flirts with.
  • Killed Off for Real: The climatic battle at the end of the story kills off Remus, Dumbledore, Igor Karkaroff and Lucius Malfoy.
  • Lampshaded Double Entendre: The Hat takes great relish in pointing out all the sexual imagery that comes with Katie Bell ordering a banana split, which is dripping with fresh cream. Katie, for her part, probably won't be able to look at one in the same way ever again.
  • Likes Older Men: Most of Fleur's previous partners have been at least half a decade older than her. Harry is mentioned to be the first person she's dated who's younger.
    • Harry tends go for the older women, as having James's memories gives him the mind of an adult.
  • Literal Surveillance Bug: The spyfly.
  • Load-Bearing Boss: Durmstrang's geist serves this role for their ship.
  • Look Behind You: During the fight at the Quidditch World Cup, Hat manages to distract the Death Eater who's torturing Harry this way, which gives Harry and opening to take him out for good.
  • Long-Distance Relationship: Amiee has a (failing) long-distance relationship with a wizard called Stephane. It takes seeing her and Harry at the Yule ball together and her being nearly burnt to a crisp by a dragon for him to visit her and patch things up.
  • Male Gaze: Since the story is narrated by Harry, this is quite common.
  • Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: During the Marauder era, a witch came forward claiming that Sirius had gotten her pregnant. The actual father was Snape, who was using polyjuice to look like Sirius.
  • The Matchmaker: Harry, who convinces Neville to take Hannah as his Yule Ball date. Before that, he was (unintentionally) responsible for Penelope and Oliver's first meeting.
  • The Medic: Harry becomes quite the accomplished healer over the course of the story.
  • Mighty Glacier: The Hat's golem body in a nutshell. Take the final battle as an example: it manages to kill Lucius Malfoy in one hit, but is so slow in getting there that by the time it does arrive Harry has taken out most of the opposition already.
  • Mile-High Club: Fleur and Harry's first intimate moment happens fifty feet in the air on a broomstick.
  • Mobile-Suit Human: The golem that the Hat uses to get around.
  • Naked First Impression: Penelope first meets Oliver after he stumbles through the Floo wearing nothing but a Modesty Towel.
  • Off with His Head!: How Harry kills Igor Karkaroff.
  • Older Than They Look: Harry. Though he's fourteen in body, thanks to inheriting James's memories he has the mind of a twenty-something.
  • One Degree of Separation: Harry has absolutely no idea that the Bloody Baron's real name is actually Lord Baron William Potter...until the Hat graciously decides to enlighten him.
  • Outdoor Bath Peeping: Whenever Harry (as Monsieur Pronghorn) meets Fleur in the grotto.
  • Painting the Medium: Because the story is told as HJ's thoughts, the Hat can interject at any time, usually at points where you forget that you're reading someone's thoughts.
  • Parental Marriage Veto: Fleur's parents are not happy that their daughter is dating the one guy who's guaranteed to get her involved in the upcoming war.
  • Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Harry and Lucius Malfoy engage in a rather tense round of this during the former's trial.
  • The Peeping Tom: Harry, when spying on Fleur bathing in his Monsieur Pronghorn disguise. Though, in his own words, "It's not being a peeping Tom if she invites me back."
  • Pet the Dog: Even in during his most jerkass stage, Harry still finds time to do good things for Neville.
  • Psycho Supporter: Dobby serves as one for Harry.
  • Rage Against the Mentor: Harry tears Dumbledore a new one after he realizes that the lack of surveillance on the Goblet of Fire is what allowed someone to enter him in the Tournament.
  • Rage Breaking Point: Initially, Harry was content with passive-aggressively putting up with the Dursleys' behavior until he could find a loophole to the Blood Wards. This changes when he discovers that they sold the land on which Godric's Hollow stood to land developers, after which he drops the "passive" part completely.
    • While Harry does a good job of keeping his cool in the wake of his shock entry into the Triwizard Tournament, he completely blows his top after overhearing Fleur's "little boy" comment.
  • Scars are Forever: Draco gets inflicted with The Mark of the Cur after he gets caught interfering with Harry's duel.
  • Secret-Keeper: Currently only Oliver, Sirius, Fleur and Hermione know the truth about HJ.
  • Shipper on Deck: Amiee supports the Harry/Fleur pairing, even giving Harry her consent to court Fleur during the Yule Ball.
  • Shout-Out: "Yeah, just call me 'Ambassador Potter', expert at foreign diplomacy and purveyor of international goodwill." A shoutout to his other work, Bungle in the Jungle.
  • Side Bet: Usually between Harry and Fleur, but the others jump in sometimes.
  • Spin the Bottle: Harry is forced to play a game of this during Katie's party. With an enchanted bottle, of course. By the end of the game, you'd be hard-pressed to name a player that he didn't annoy in some way.
  • Teen Genius: All the tournament champions are this in one way or another.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Happens whenever HJ has to deal with Remus. He absolutely despises the man, but as the event that caused this hate (namely, Remus having an affair with Lily) is something that only James is supposed to know, he is forced to be civil to him in order to keep his secret about James's memories under wraps.
  • That Came Out Wrong: Harry walks into his dorm, only to find Neville polishing his wand. Now get your minds out of the gutter, he meant that in the most literal terms possible.
    • Later on, Madame Pomfrey calls Harry a "limp wrist" while criticizing his potion brewing skills.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: The Weasley twins. Though most of their behavior can be justified by the fact that they were taking revenge for: (A) Harry screwing around with their girlfriends during the game of Spin the Bottle, (B) Harry seemingly leading Ginny on and then dumping her, and (C) Harry pushing their respective berserk buttons, regarding them not being wealthy and not being in the same league as the Marauders.
    • Harry himself gets quite harsh and snappy while he's coming to terms with the fact that he has James's memories.
  • Trickster Mentor: The Sorting Hat.
  • Woman Scorned: Both Ginny and Katie make life very difficult for Harry after they believe that he's been playing them.


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