The Rigel Black Chronicles / Tropes P to Z

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P-R

• Painful Persona: To cover up the differences between herself and the real Arcturus Black, Harry lets her friends and even Professor Snape believe that she's putting on a show for Sirius all the time she's at home, pretending to be a happy-go-lucky prankster like the Marauders (which is Archie's real personality) when she's actually an obsessive Potions nerd. The reality is that her life is a much more serious lie than that, pretending to be her pureblooded cousin all year so that she can attend Hogwarts (which would get her sent to Azkaban if found out), then spending the summer pretending to have been at school in America. She chose it and she still thinks it's worthwhile, but it does put a lot of emotional strain on her, to the point where her greatest fear as shown by a Boggart is the idea that she and everyone around her will forget who she really is.
• Palm Bloodletting: Not wanting Rigel's wand associated with her real identity, Harry instead identifies herself to the goblins by holding out her hand and having one slice it with a spear to take a blood sample.
• Paranoia Gambit: Harry uses this as her opening salvo of revenge for Valentine's Day. It's particularly effective since she uses a gift of untainted fudge and candy as the hook, after having previously used tainted sweets to prank them.
• Plausible Deniability:
  • Harry comes up with the idea of arranging correspondence schooling, a rented (empty) apartment, and a part-time job for herself, giving the idea that she's been living entirely independently throughout the year, so that if Archie's presence in America is discovered, it might still be possible to hide that Harry Potter has illegally been at Hogwarts — and just as importantly, protect their families from being accused of collusion. It pays off when "Rigel" is exposed as a half-blood; Harry is able to reach the apartment in time to be discovered there, as if she'd been living there for years.
  • When Leo asks Harry to tip off the fire department in light of the vampire covens engaging in a war of extermination, she doesn't tell her father the specifics, she just suggests that maybe the fire-dousing team might want to be more "on alert" than "on call" that night.
    Harry: I haven't done anything. I am a concerned citizen making an anonymous tip that at some point tonight an enormous fire might break out south of Diagon Alley and if someone wanted to put his fire brigade on alert it might be of benefit to the community that he protects and serves. Maybe.
  • Dumbledore deliberately refrains from asking any questions about the inconsistencies in Rigel's character and story, since he could see that Rigel was at Hogwarts for the right reasons, and Dumbledore is firmly opposed to the blood status restrictions. Which later allows him to honestly state that he didn't know.
• Playing Sick: George offers to get Rigel out of the Triwizard Tournament by painting fake spattergroit pox all over her and having her sent home from school. She replies that she could probably do better with the right potion to mimic the swelling, and reversing healing techniques to give herself pustules. She's not going to do it, though; there's too much at stake.
• Plot Allergy: A magical coma is unfortunate enough, but then it turns out that a student is allergic to an ingredient in the potions used to keep coma patients alive and stable, prompting drastic measures.
• Plunder: As Rigel is officially responsible for the death of the basilisk, she's entitled to claim its corpse and the many valuable potion ingredients therein. She's initially reluctant and wants to just hand it over to Professor Dumbledore, but when it's pointed out that that could get politically complicated, she accepts. At her request, though, a lot of it is donated or sold cheaply to charitable causes.
• Point of Divergence:
  • Theoretically the divergence point for the whole story is Tom Riddle setting out to achieve his goals through different means. He stepped back after creating the Diary and killing Myrtle Warren, deciding not to give up part of his soul to turn the Diary into a Horcrux. Instead he felt remorse for her death, reintegrating his soul, and went into politics.
  • Many characters who died in canon (or were crippled, like the Longbottoms) are alive and well, including Harry's parents and Riddle himself, and a number of them have additional children as a result (eg Sirius' son Archie).
  • Riddle isn't trying to bring himself back to life, he's trying to politically discredit Dumbledore in order to further his own legislative agenda.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • When they first meet, Draco attempts to get "Rigel's" attention by repeatedly casting glances at him from across the room. It's possible that an actual pure-blood, particularly one who thought the Malfoys were important, would have recognised his hint to come and introduce oneself. However, Harry is just creeped out by the staring and tries to ignore Draco as a result.
  • Due to using Gillyweed, Harry isn't able to hear anything in the Black Lake, and doesn't realise that the Aurors surrounding the hostage that she is to rescue are there to help. Which results in her attacking them to get past. Alastor Moody is impressed that she succeeds.
• Pose of Silence: In "The Ambiguous Artifice", Fred and George, being their usual melodramatic selves, adopt a conspiratorial tone when they reveal why their mother doesn't want them in her kitchen—they once blew up her favorite cauldron as a prank.
• Power Incontinence:
  • From the beginning, Harry feels like her magic has a mind of its own, but after she turns thirteen and her magical core matures, it becomes completely unmanageable. She resorts to jewelry enchanted to suppress most of her power, but that has serious side effects.
  • After lashing out with her wild magic and knocking out Lee Jordan, Harry finds that it's not yet satisfied, but she can't just stop it once it has momentum. To avoid killing anyone, she focuses it on the task of untying her ropes. When she turns her attention back to the ropes later, she finds them not just unravelled into single fibres, but un-transfigured back into hemp stalks.
  • Draco develops an emotion sense that he can't turn off, as a result of Harry's Potentialis Potion, and spends months regularly taking magic-suppressing potions just to cope with the flood of input. He does eventually grow accustomed to it and finds it useful, but crowds are still quite unpleasant.
• Power Limiter: Items can be enchanted to suppress magical power for those who have trouble controlling it, but experts agree that it isn't healthy to stunt one's own magic that way.
  • Lily has worn a power-suppressing bracelet ever since she accidentally gave baby Harriet green eyes like her own. She takes it off when she goes to fight Death Eaters and protect the Weasleys at the Quidditch World Cup.
  • Harry commissions a ring after her thirteenth birthday, when her magical core matures and becomes too great for her to properly control. However, Severus Snape strenuously objects to limiting her potential, as does Tom Riddle. Eventually Peter Pettigrew destroys the ring, and she has to come to terms with her unleashed magic.
• The Power of Friendship: Invoked by "Rigel" when standing up to Riddle's attempt to control her by threatening Harry.
• The Power of Trust: Slytherin Quidditch tryouts for the Beaters involve hitting Bludgers through hoops attached to brooms flown by the Seeker hopefuls. Harry and Draco put on quite an effective showing together, but she feels very humbled by how steadfastly Draco remains still and on-target while she's smacking a large iron ball at him — and very guilty, too, because she knows just how much she's lying to him, and yet he has such trust in her.
• Power Parasite:
  • Peter Pettigrew tries to use the Dominion Jewel to steal Harry's magic, but it's too wild, continuing to defend her and attack him without her conscious direction, even while she's asleep.
  • Voldemort tries to misuse a ritual intended to pass on Pureblood family gifts, to steal all of Harry's magic since possessing her failed. Too bad she's not a Pureblood.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Theodore Nott is well known in Harry's circle of friends for being paranoid, and makes no apology for it. It does help him to notice and quickly adapt to situations like Riddle paying attention to "Rigel" at Draco's birthday party, or "Rigel" being exposed as a half-blood.
  • Harry collects and labels hair samples from herself and the people around her whenever she can. Not only does that help her to brew Draco's Potentialis Potion as a surprise, it becomes critically important when she needs to brew a fresh batch of Modified Polyjuice Potion with the same appearance used in the original one.
    Rigel: This is why Theo is right and paranoia pays.
  • Dom admits to Harry that he initially thought she was too paranoid, but with Draco sensing emotions continually she probably has the right amount of fear.
  • When a Triwizard task requires blood to pass, Harry uses a sample of Archie's blood instead of her own, in case it's used to identify her. It turns out that Barty Crouch Jr misappropriated it for Voldemort's incarnation ritual, and the fact that the blood doesn't match her own is enough to stop the ritual from stealing Harry's magic.
• The Prophecy:
  • Averted. Harry has no scar and there is no prophecy.
  • A Centaur makes a minor prophecy about the Dominion Jewel. Harry puzzles out some of its meaning, but isn't sure what to make of it or what to do about it.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Used when Harry breaks out of Voldemort's cage.
  With a groan, the wards rippled and strained, but they. Gave. Way.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes:
  • Arcturus and Harry have practised a facial expression that she refers to as The Look, designed to evoke the instinctive reactions associated with babies and puppies, and which she uses without compunction to get her way. Her first few victims are left dazed for several minutes.
  • She later gets some actual training from Leo's cousin, including more mature sultry/winsome/helpless faces.
  • Dom turns it around on her, after looking through some of her memories and discovering The Look.
    It was like trying to say no to a kitten that had already been kicked.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: Magical power coefficients for alchemy are measured using a color scale, with black as the minimum (and thus strongest) of 1.0. However, Dumbledore's coefficient is 0.97. Apparently it took a lot of trial and error to calculate.
  Dumbledore: My first six months, all my arrays exploded. Nicolas was quite displeased with the destruction I wreaked on his workshop.
• Required Secondary Powers: Professor Snape insists that before learning to free-brew, it is essential to first develop a keen ability to sense when a magical reaction is about to destabilise and respond quickly. Otherwise, as soon as an experiment goes badly, the brewer is likely to be maimed or killed in a magical explosion. Harry spends weeks practising before she ever tries putting ingredients into a cauldron without a recipe.
  Snape: Potioneers who do not learn this before attempting to free brew die. Horribly.
• The Reveal: A standard lesson for the fourth years is an ancestry-revealing potion, which exposes Daphne Greengrass' half-blood status. Even she didn't know about it.^note She isn't a major character, but it becomes a talking point in the school; if blood status could be entirely invisible even to herself until the test, how important can it really be?
• Revenge Myopia: Lee Jordan attempted to cripple Harry for petty and misguided reasons, and she fought back. Then, when Voldemort brings him along to the ritual meant to drain "Rigel's" magic, Lee states that he wants to watch it happen.
  Lee Jordan: I asked to be here. I want to look into your eyes when the magic drains out of you.
• A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma: Several of "Rigel's" friends, notably Draco and Snape, are baffled by the quirks and contradictions they see. Interestingly enough, though, it's in Harry's true identity that Snape thinks this phrase about her.
  The last time Severus Snape had seen Harriet Potter, the stubborn girl had been an enigma wrapped in a mystery, covered again in a glaringly obvious white sheet.
• Riddling Sphinx:
  • Harry and Hermione face one together in the first Triwizard Task; Harry lets Hermione answer for both of them, knowing that she's better at word games.
  • Harry later has to face one alone in the final task, and finds it more difficult.
• Rigged Contest: The Triwizard Tournament isn't really a fair and impartial test of skill.
  • It isn't properly advertised internationally.
  • Several contestants are hand-picked by the SOW party.
  • At least one muggle-born contestant was deliberately planted to be overly ruthless and obnoxious, but skilled, allowing him to generate lots of bad press. And he never actually produced documentation to prove his muggle-born status; he turns out to be a Parselmouth descended from an old line.
  • The Tasks, rules, and scoring metrics are designed to cater to "Rigel's" strengths.
    Krum: Strange tournament ven I come back second and place fourth, no?
• Right Behind Me: Sirius is dismissing chemistry as boring and soulless, attracting only the most repressed and critical people. "Rather like potion-mak-" and then he sees Harry's reflection.
  Sirius: Harry! We were just talking about you—no, I mean, we were talking about…um…
• Royal Inbreeding:
  • The idea of keeping bloodlines "pure" (ie all-magical) was already present in canon, but it's greatly increased by the divergence; without a war, many more families have survived, and with only purebloods permitted at Hogwarts, it's become culturally normal for the majority of people in Britain to be pureblood. The inbreeding is creating a looming fertility/population crisis, however, with overly pure children at risk of being born with a magical defect that quickly exhausts and kills them. Most students at Hogwarts have lost siblings or are close to someone who has.
    Adrian Pucey: Purebloods and lesser bloods simply don't belong together. I mean, do you breed roses with wildflowers?
    Hermione: What does that have to do with anything?
    Pucey: A garden must be weeded for the plants that belong to grow healthy and tall. Let the weeds grow in the wild if they must, but they ought not be brought in to infect the garden.
    Rigel: A lot of extremely useful plants grow in the wild, you know. At first sight they don't appear as valuable as common herbs and florae, but in fact the wild ones are much hardier, more likely to cure diseases, and by crossbreeding garden plants with wild ones more variety is achieved, and therefore greater usefulness is gleaned from plants as a whole.
  • The canonical term "blood traitor" is elaborated on, indicating that it's a family technically defined as pureblood (four magical grandparents) but with a habit of regularly bringing in fresh blood by marrying muggle-borns. (It's no coincidence that the Weasleys have seven healthy children while hyper-pure families can often only manage one.)
• Rugged Scar: Marek is momentarily disappointed when Harry heals his shoulder so neatly that it won't scar. With the number of times he's failed to beat Leo, he might as well get something impressive out of it, after all.
• Running Gag: On multiple occasions, disparate groups of people will try to come up with an alliterative name for a phenomenon, each attempting to outdo the others. Bonus points because the book names follow the same pattern.
  Draco: It's no wonder they call us the Sneaky Snakes.
  Pansy: Wasn't it the Slimy Snakes?
  Rigel: The Surreptitious Snakes, for certain.
  Draco: The Sly Snakes.
  Pansy: The Scheming Snakes.
  Rigel: The Stealthy Snakes.
  Draco: The Secretive Snakes.
  Pansy: The Shifty Snakes.
  Rigel: The...Shady Snakes? I should have said Suspicious Snakes.
  Draco: Too late, your lame answer shall live forever in infamy.

S-T

• Sabotage to Discredit: Harry's attempt to brew Jourdain's Amalgamation for her Guild internship runs into trouble when another student "helpfully" hands her an ingredient that turns out to be the wrong one, then takes all of the real ingredient when her back is turned. She compensates for the swap and completes the potion anyway, receiving praise from the supervisor for her adaptability.
• Sarcastic Confession: When Draco is surprised by Harry making a joke about the life debts owed to her, she tells him that, "I'm an imposter. I've hidden the real Rigel Black in a closet and taken over his life."
• Secret-Keeper: James sees evidence letting him know that Professor Snape is an unregistered snake animagus, but he's too grateful to throw the book at him for it.
• Secret Secret-Keeper:
  • Subverted by Hermione, who confronts her friend "Harry" (actually Archie) to tell him that she's known for months that he's a girl. He's both amused by her mistake and dismayed that she's found out that much about their deception, but doesn't tell her the truth.
  • Downplayed for Dumbledore, who suspected that Rigel was not who he appeared to be, but neither possessed nor wanted proof, since he could plainly see that Rigel's reasons for being at Hogwarts were good, and Dumbledore thoroughly disagrees with the exclusion of non-pureblood students.
    Rigel: You never pressed. You weren't…concerned?
• Secret Stab Wound:
  • Harry tries to prevent anyone, even her close friends, from discovering that she has a broken wrist, primarily because she doesn't want to risk Madam Pomfrey noticing that she's a girl. She even goes through Quidditch practice, as a Beater, without telling Draco why she's doing everything one-handed.
  • Leo, after his tournament match, doesn't let the stab wound to his abdomen show, nor the even more serious wound to his back, as he needs to put on a strong appearance to his subjects. He does, however, let Harry provide surreptitious first aid.
• See the Invisible: To properly demonstrate Shaped Imbuing to Professor Snape, Harry has him set up a runic ward that will visibly illuminate magic within it, so he can watch her work. (Her actual motivation for using that method, however, instead of just having him monitor the magic in her core, is because he's too familiar with "Rigel's" core, and she doesn't want him noticing that they're the same.)
• Seen It All: Subverted when Professor Snape approaches his office door, thinking that he's prepared for whatever comes, that he's "been there, done that" no matter what life is going to throw at him. He still isn't ready for thirty crates containing over a thousand doses of Sweat Inducer, all brewed by one student in two weeks.
• Shield Bash: Harry's "Bubble of Doom" dueling technique involves casting a Fortis shield around herself and charging at her opponent. Using it in both the Alley free-dueling tournament, and the Triwizard Tournament, puts her in an awkward spot, though, when people recognise it.
• Shoot the Messenger: Lucius Malfoy relies on this being inverted when "Rigel" asks him to deliver a message to Tom Riddle; Riddle doesn't, as a rule, harm messengers.
• Shooting At Your Own Projectiles: Leo is proficient at wandlessly using Summoning and Banishing charms on thrown knives — his own or others. It lets him add much more speed (and thus power) to a throw, or make a missed throw turn around and hit his opponent in the back, or surprise someone who tries to Summon a dropped knife back to their hand and finds it arriving much faster than they expected. Harry, who is also experienced in wandless magic, is intrigued and quickly adopts his style.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Ambiguous Artifice chapter 5 has a shout-out to the author:
    It was a funny bit of magic that allowed them to walk through the fish tank. It wasn't as instantaneous as the barrier that protected Platform 9 ¾, so there was a confused moment when all they could see was murky blue matter before they emerged on the other side.
    • Similarly, when Rigel first successfully brews an Allergy Relief Potion, using her new knowledge of conscious magic imbuing, it's described as, "the most beautiful, wonderful, murky-lavender-coloured potion she'd ever seen".
    • A properly brewed Liberespirare potion is described as "Murky-blue with a hint of violet."
  • Archie introduces himself to another student as, "Potter. Harry Potter." The other student, being from a magical background, doesn't get the reference, though, and Archie finds himself wishing for Hermione's presence, since he's sure she would recognize it.^note This was added during the move to Archive of Our Own.
• Significant Name Shift: Lily and Severus encounter each other when she's just had her second daughter and he's brought "Rigel" to the hospital. With their painful history, she awkwardly tells him that, "It's good to see you, Severus," but he keeps his face expressionless and addresses her in return as "Mrs Potter" instead of "Lily", which makes her flinch.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Animal shapeshifters, including part-shifters, instinctively form lifelong romantic partnerships as early as age eight. Blaise Zabini, who is known to have inherited full strength shifter traits, is fascinated by Hannah Abbott as a result. Hannah's own feelings, and the degree of her inheritance, are unclear, though she is very aware of his.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Professor Snape's original apprenticeship with Master Liu was complicated by the fact that Master Liu either couldn't or wouldn't speak any English. And would always break any translation charms that Snape tried to use. And when Snape tried to learn Mandarin, it turned out that Master Liu actually spoke an obscure and not mutually comprehensible dialect.
  Snape: I believe he took explanations to be superfluous to learning. He taught by example, and if I wasn't quick enough to learn the first time, I cleaned up my ruined cauldron and he showed me again. I hated him at first. I didn't understand what he was teaching me until I returned home.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Harry loves her family very much, but being a child of one Marauder and pretending to be the child of another definitely causes her problems at times.
  • Madam Pince bans her from the Hogwarts library, because Sirius Black once set fire to some aisles of priceless Divination books. Harry goes to the library in disguise for over a year before Professor Snape finally learns about it and gets her access restored.
  • Defied or downplayed through gritted teeth and great willpower by Professor Snape. He struggles at first to balance his desire to look after all his Slytherin students with his loathing of Sirius Black. Harry sees a glimpse of what he's dealing with when she has a positive meeting with him, finding that he's impressed by her talent and passion for Potions and wants to help her develop it, but then she makes the mistake of offering to pay for some materials she accidentally damaged, and he explodes at the idea of taking Sirius Black's money before recollecting himself and apologising. Even after he reaches a state of equilibrium regarding Rigel and Sirius, he still speaks the name "Potter" with venom.
• Skewed Priorities: Despite a life-threatening Triwizard task looming, Harry is more concerned about her Potions lessons.
  Snape: If you die in this task it won't matter if I teach you to freebrew.
  Rigel: If I die without learning to freebrew I shall haunt you without mercy.
• Skeleton Key: Sirius gives Draco a knife that can open any lock (which in canon was given to Harry). Draco uses it to break through Harry's locking charm and confront her in the dormitory when she has been exposed as a half-blood and is preparing to flee.
• Slime, Snails, and Mutant Tails: Theo considers Harry having to wash basilisk brains out from under her fingernails to be "Gross. And kind of cool."
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Bellatrix Lestrange's son is not pleased to see Sirius and "Rigel" attend the New Year's gala, but Harry is a match for him.
  Caelum: Well met at last, Cousin. I greatly admire your uncle, Regulus, and your father…well, I suppose it really isn't your fault.
  Rigel: It says much of your generosity that you are able to let go the sins of the father in the case of the son, Lestrange. I can only attempt to afford you the same courtesy.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: It's not really surprising that Caelum Lestrange turned out this way from being raised by psychotic sadist Bellatrix Lestrange. He considers himself to be doing a public service by puncturing unwarranted optimism wherever he goes, and finds Harry's cheerful outlook to be nauseating — but he can't just walk away from her revolutionary new imbuing technique, and she's willing to teach him. Plus, he's rather short on friends who really understand potion brewing. He stays caustic, but also stays in touch.
• Spared by the Adaptation: With no actual war against Voldemort, James and Lily Potter and all the Marauders are alive and well. Until Peter falls prey to the Dominion Jewel. Many other characters are alive and/or unharmed, too, both Light (eg Frank and Alice Longbottom) and Dark (Rosier and Rookwood).
• Spit Take: Harry manages to provoke this reaction from the Dominion Jewel, of all people, when she tells him that the prize for the Triwizard Tournament is the Rod of Zuriel.
• Squick: In-Universe; Harry sees Professor Snape and Professor Quirrell less than a millimetre apart on the Marauder's Map, and for a moment she's grossed out by the possibility of them having an "adult moment", before she dismisses the thought and goes to invisibly observe their confrontation.
• Stepping Out for a Quick Cup of Coffee: When Madam Pomfrey suggests prematurely purging the Draught of Delirium, Fleur frowns and asks if that's actually allowed.
  The Mediwitch raised her eyebrows and looked pointedly around the tent. She conjured a bucket and set it on the floor beside the girl before moving to the entrance to 'check the weather.'
• Stern Teacher: An interlude from a staff meeting shows the various professors bantering about whether Professor Snape is too harsh on his students; he insists that his teaching style is reasonable and proportionate to the subject.
  "Now, Severus," Albus paused in his rocking for a moment to summon one of the warm, knitted blankets Hagrid was always making and then leaving in the cupboard, "We know how much you value a controlled work-environment—"
  "Potions is an exceedingly dangerous and in the presence of adolescents unpredictable art."
  "—and none of us would ever dream of telling you how to run your classroom—"
  "I highly doubt that any of you soft-hearted molly-coddlers would have the stomach to prevent the number of near-maimings I deal with every day."
  "—but was it really necessary to tell your class of third-year Ravenclaws that you would personally make sure they failed their OWLs in two years if they didn't produce a satisfactory Weakening Solution by the end of the period?" Albus gazed mildly at the ceiling, "I'm told Madam Pomfrey ran completely out of Calming Draughts that afternoon, as you had apparently sent several Hufflepuffs into hysterics earlier that morning by insinuating that you would test their antidotes by poisoning them all."
  "As I am the one who provides Poppy with those Calming Draughts, and therefore the one who will have to replace them all, I see no reason for anyone else to complain," Severus refilled his teacup unconcernedly, "Besides, every single one of those brats produced satisfactory results, so at the very least my methods are effective."
• Super-Scream: A Wailing Charm is one of the few attack modes that has an effect on an adolescent dragon. The backlash bursts Harry's own eardrums, though.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Harry gets a lot of mileage out of letting people come up with their own plausible yet incorrect explanations for Rigel's many oddities, such as Draco thinking that her hair-trigger response to danger is the result of her (fictitious) hypersensitive skin, instead of realizing that her whole life at school is a deception that leaves her on edge, having to scrutinize her every word and action. She's actually a bit disturbed by how well it works.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Rigel unexpectedly bumps into Matheus Sousa in an apothecary, she asks what brings him there, and he responds that it's nothing to do with the fifth Triwizard task. (It's intentional; Pansy later tells her that he was waiting for five minutes to bump into her and pass on the clue.)
• Sweet on Polly Oliver:
  • Played with for Arcturus, who doesn't actually conceal his gender at the American Institute of Magic, since he's under less scrutiny than at Hogwarts; he just calls himself "Harry" and claims there was a transcription error. The trouble is that Hermione does some investigation and finds out that Harriet Potter was definitely born female. Rather than reveal the switch and endanger the real Harry, Arcturus claims to identify as male — which satisfies Hermione's curiosity, but leaves her quite confused about her feelings for him.
  • Played straight with Draco Malfoy being attracted to "Rigel" — although the existence of specialised fertility potions means that same-sex attraction has gained a lot of acceptance anyway.
• Sword and Gun: Free-duelling allows any combination of weapons, but the standard combination is a wand in one hand and a knife in the other. When training Harry, Leo emphasises that the wand is her primary weapon, since she's physically weaker but magically stronger than most opponents. The knife is just to hold them off if they close the distance.
• Symbiotic Possession: The Dominion Jewel strengthens its wielder but requires them to embrace dominion. Under its influence, Peter Pettigrew becomes a psychopath consumed with greed, and is devoured by the Jewel when he fails. However, the Jewel decides that Harry, who only wants self-mastery, is a more worthy bearer, and so it's genuinely — if sometimes obnoxiously — helpful to her.
• Sympathetic Magic: Riddle intends to use one of Rigel's hairs to allow the Rod of Zuriel to infiltrate Rigel's mind regardless of Occlumency.
• Tactical Withdrawal: When Lily's ire is turned away from the Prewett brothers, they're quick to execute an "attack in the opposite direction" and leave the conversation.
• Take That!: There are a few aimed at canon.
  • When Harry goes to see Hagrid and find out what he knows about the local wildlife, she is hesitant about investigating the petrifications, but reassures herself that, "She wasn't going to go gallivanting through the woods chasing crazy and possibly dangerous leads without supervision. Really, it wasn't a big deal."
  • When she tells Professor Snape about her deduction that the monster petrifying students is a basilisk, he commends her on coming to him. She can't understand why he thinks there would be any doubt.
    Honestly, what else was she supposed to have done? Keep it to herself?
  • Before the first Triwizard Task, she asks Minister Fudge how the spectators will watch the event, or if it will be unmonitored, which makes him laugh.
    Fudge: Why, imagine! A spectator sport where no one could see what was happening.
• Tampering with Food and Drink:
  • Harry is narrowly saved from a drink spiked with a powerful acid, when someone knocks the goblet over. It still splashes and burns her arm, but that's easily fixed.
  • She later saves Tiberius Ogden from a drink laced with nightshade concealed in Nimue's Breath.
  • Before the final match of the freeduelling tournament, Leo's fake rum is drugged to make him actually intoxicated. Harry is only able to partially counteract it with a Sobering Potion before he has to fight.
  • Less drastically, Harry gives the Weasley Twins a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans that causes them to ooze pink goo from their pores.
• Tempting Fate: Discussed many times.
  • Sirius claims that Blacks are above fate, but Harry believes that naming Arcturus after a star (two stars, actually) was begging for fate to get involved.
  • When the Diary-possessed Ginny declares that it doesn't matter how long she keeps talking, no one will come to the rescue, Harry is bemused.
    Rigel wasn't sure if the universe was testing her or not. It seemed too much like an ironic taunt from Fate. Surely no one in the world was so arrogant, so ridiculously confident, as to spit in the face of Fate so blatantly. It wasn't asking to eat your own words. It was handing the universe the ingredients and then giving Fate a recipe for your own disaster.
  • At the end of second year, Ginny expresses hope that next year will be better, because "It can't really be worse, can it?" Rigel is cautious enough to be worried about challenging fate like that. For Ginny, things actually are better, but Harry goes through the most horrific experience of her life to date, at the hands of Peter Pettigrew.
• There Can Be Only One: The seventeen-year-old Tom Riddle from the Diary decides that his original self has lost direction and gone soft, bringing them into conflict when the Diary wants to take direct and violent action against muggle-borns.
• Thieves' Guild: Not everyone on the Lower Alleys is a thief, of course, but their code of honor is officially the "thief's Code" and their leader the King of Thieves. Overall, it's less about committing crime or protecting a particular business, more about providing a government system to those who don't trust the Ministry of Magic to do the job.
• 13th Birthday Milestone: Wizards' and witches' magical cores mature on their 13th birthday, generally enlarging and stabilising, and potentially manifesting any bloodline gifts.
  • Harry, however, already had more magic than she really needed. She spends her birthday in burning agony from the excess magic, soothed only when she borrows her mother's suppression bracelet, and later finds that she now has so much magic that she literally can't use it without overloading and destroying any spells or potions she tries.
  • Draco's actual birthday is more normal, but at the party a short time later, since his core is now matured, Harry gives him a Potentialis Potion to reveal any magical gifts he may have. The potion was apparently made too strong due to the quirks of Harry's magic, and it doesn't just reveal gifts, it actually unlocks an empathic gift that was dormant until then. Which is useful, but also can't be turned off and is driving Draco mad with the constant flow of information about other people's feelings.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Master Thompson informs Harry that his specialty is "noningestibles", potions meant to work on the environment rather than people. She joins the dots and realises that he studies battle potions.
• Throwing the Fight:
  • Defied when Harry is forced to face Draco at Professor Lockhart's dueling club. She intends to let him win immediately so that she can fake an injury and do something more productive with her time, but Draco guesses her plan and forces her to make a half-hearted effort by threatening to arrange extra Quidditch practice if she does that.
  • Downplayed when Harry makes a deal with Fleur Delacour. Harry offers valuable information about an upcoming Task, in exchange for a promise that if the outcome is a toss-up between them, Fleur will let Rigel win — but otherwise Fleur doesn't have to hold back. Fleur makes good on it when they're both trapped by vines within sight of the Cup, casting a spell to cut Harry loose.
    Fleur: A pox on zis tournament. Tell me what you want for ze information. I am not dying for zis.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Harry's baby sister always recognises her, even when she's being Rigel.
  Addy: Hawee.
  Rigel: No, Addy, it's Archie. Ar-chie.
  Addy: Hawee!
• Too Kinky to Torture: When Harry threatens revenge on both the Weasley Twins for Valentine's Day, "maybe not even at the same time," they're intrigued.
  Fred: I don't think anyone's ever threatened to prank us separately, George.
  George: Could be fun.
• Too Much Information: Archie would really rather not think about the anti-sweating charms that allow Harry to comfortably wear boots in summer.
• Tournament Arc: The Lower Alleys hold an illegal free-dueling tournament, with prizes for the winners that are hefty by Alley standards, though not much for wealthy families like Harry's. Leo cajoles her into participating anyway, though, to get a clearer idea of how her training has come along. She wins her first couple of bouts, but is narrowly defeated by a werewolf. Leo is the favorite to win the whole thing; technically it's not a challenge for his crown, but if he didn't win then a challenge would likely follow.
• Tracking Device:
  • The Marauders start selling "Teacher Trackers", which are simple homing beacons meant to be stuck to someone's clothing. Draco uses one to investigate why "Rigel" keeps mysteriously disappearing for a minute or two, but he is confused by the results, which show multiple trackers at once due to Harry's use of a Time Turner.
  • Tom Riddle wants to be able to sense Rigel's presence, but Harry instinctively suppresses the usual magical aura, making her hard to sense. So he manufactures an opportunity to weave a small portion of his own magic into Harry's. Fortunately, Dom helps Harry to filter out the contamination — then dumps it on the Voldemort-construct.
• Training from Hell: Flint's Quidditch practices are not for the faint of heart. However, at tryouts, the team members deliberately talk them up in order to weed out the less-than-fully-committed hopefuls (who are also competition, incidentally). Still, the practices are genuinely challenging enough that Draco, after a year of them, is able to smoothly navigate his way through the Death Course qualifying round for the privilege of trying out.
  Draco: Well, Flint likes to keep us on his toes. One time he made us practice with deafening spells over our ears, so we had to hone our situational awareness with sight only, and once he cast Hampering Charms on our brooms to make them move slower, but then charmed the bludgers a little bit faster, so that we'd learn to react faster to make up for the lack of mobility. Most of us ended up in the Hospital Wing, but it was an enriching experience.
  Rigel: So Weather Charms are common, too?
  Draco: Oh, yeah. We've practiced in all sorts of conditions. You'd think the icy rain and snow would be the worst, but sometimes we practice in fog so thick you can't see the end of your broomstick, much less a bludger coming straight at you. Then there are the days Flint cranks up the localized heating charms in the stadium to desert levels, and won't let us rehydrate until we get to 100 points. The worst, though, was definitely the plague of locusts.
• Trauma Button: Harry has difficulty returning to the Forbidden Forest after spending two weeks buried alive and slowly starving underneath it.
• Twin Switch: Harry and Arcturus aren't actually twins, but they're close enough to pull it off at school where no one previously knew them — and they do all they can to maximize the resemblance, in order to make it easier to swap back and forth over summer, including cutting both their hair short, stealing Polyjuice potion for their initial departure, brewing a long-term variant on Polyjuice potion with blended DNA to help each one better match the other's appearance, and even concealing Metamorphmagus abilities.

U-Z

• Unfinished Business: Subverted when Harry suggests to Moaning Myrtle that perhaps her murderer can finally be identified and she can have peace. Myrtle rolls her eyes and informs Harry that she's not hanging around due to anything like that.
  Myrtle: I mean, sheesh, could you be any more clichéd?
• Unishment: Defied, with difficulty, by Professor Snape, who has to put more than the usual amount of thought into punishing Harry for any misbehavior.
  Rigel: Who is my detention with on Friday?
  Snape: Me. We might as well make use of the time, and I have a vague suspicion that you wouldn't respond to normal disciplinary actions even if I were to set you to clean cauldrons all night.
  Rigel: I like cleaning cauldrons.
  
  Snape: What am I to do with you, Mr Black?
  Rigel: You could give me extra potions homework over the break.
  Snape: I believe punishments are meant to be unpleasant, Mr Black.
  Rigel: You could give me an essay on...bubotuber pus.
  Snape: You write so many essays, Mr Black. Perhaps a practical lesson on that subject instead?
• Use Your Head: Lee Jordan comes too close, not realising that Harry's bonds are no longer tightly tied, and Harry slams her forehead into his, before kneeing him in the crotch and cutting herself fully loose.
• Vampiric Draining: Peter fails to gain the Dominion Jewel's approval, and it drains all the life from him as punishment, leaving him as a shrivelled and mummified corpse. Harry doesn't even recognise him; his skin is hanging loose, his muscles are hollowed out, all moisture is gone, and in general he looks like he was "starved slowly to death over months."
• Villain Has a Point: Harry is shaken after she realises what Riddle is really after, namely, pushing purebloods to intermarry with half-bloods in order to prevent the toxic effects of excessive inbreeding.
  What if he's right and wrong?
• Was It All a Lie?: Harry tries to persuade Draco that their whole friendship was a lie, because she doesn't want Draco to miss "Rigel" or look for "him".
  Draco: No, Rigel. We'll figure something out—
  Harry: Don't you get it? That's not even my name.
• Wax On, Wax Off: Professor Snape prepares Rigel to learn free-brewing, using — a deck of Exploding Snap cards. The intent is that she will learn to sense when a magical reaction is about to explode, which is vital in surving the inevitable brewing failures.
  What did a kid's game have to do with potions?
• Weaponized Teleportation: An important element of Harry's mental defences is the ability to switch mindscape layers, concealing her true mind from others. When Voldemort invades her mind, it turns out that it can also be used offensively, to bruise and disorient an intruder.
  "Agh!" The enemy construct slammed into a wall and reared back, finding itself suddenly in a crumbling tomb. It took a step back and—
  Fell off the top of the mountain. Before it could re-orient itself, it slammed into the side of a pyramid and—
  Bam, into one of the tunnels beneath the mountain and—
  Splash, into the Nile. It came up wet and spluttering and found itself buried to the neck in the burning sand.
• Weeding Out Imperfections: Adrian Pucey tries to make an argument for the separation of pureblood witches and wizards from others, by comparing them to plants. "Let the weeds grow in the wild if they must, but they ought not be brought in to infect the garden." However, Rigel and Hermione turn it around on him by pointing out that that's not how gardening works; cross-breeding tame and wild plants is actually a very useful exercise that can produce better and hardier offspring, and every plant in the garden is descended from something that was originally wild.
  Rigel: You think a lot of gardens. In truth, most garden flowers are fairly useless, though, aren't they? Pretty, but poisonous to eat and utterly without redeeming qualities that excuse their delicate constitutions and the extra care required to tend them. Then there are those 'garden plants' that, if grown unchecked, can strangle the garden entirely despite 'belonging' there. No, Pucey, I don't think this is what you're trying to say at all. 
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Caelum Lestrange is passionate about brewing and very talented at it, but his parents have always been dismissive and derisive of his interest, treating it as an embarrassment to the family that their heir needs to grow out of. This has led to him becoming bitter, cynical, and also driven to prove himself in a way that they can't overlook or disregard. Unfortunately, that causes him to latch onto his father's invitation to invent a resurrection potion, which is used to incarnate the Voldemort construct.
  He couldn't finish the thought aloud, but Harry already understood. He wanted his parents to be proud of him, to admire him for doing what no one else could.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Tom Riddle — mixed with a considerable amount of genuinely bad intentions. His restrictions on half-blood marriage, which will ban half-bloods from marrying muggle-born wizards but reward them for marrying purebloods, are meant to introduce fresh blood into the pureblood lines and thus prevent a lethal magical disorder caused by inbreeding. But at the same time, they're meant to isolate first-generation wizards and witches from magical society and prevent them from inheriting wealth or influence.
  Rigel: Tell me you aren't trying to preserve your twisted party ideals and stop the rate of population decline.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Harry is not happy about the first Triwizard task including centaurs and a werewolf alongside the acromantulas and trolls and manticores.
• Wicked Cultured: Without the violence and insanity of canon, Tom Riddle is a man of high society, clever wordplay, and intricate schemes — though with plenty of ruthlessness attached, such as afflicting the entirety of Hogwarts' first and second years with magical comas in order to politically discredit Dumbledore. Harry first meets him at the Malfoys' garden party, where he fits right in.
• Wild Magic:
  • Harry often feels that her magic is partially sentient, and works best by asking it to do things rather than simply trying to control it. This is especially apparent when her unleashed magic rampages around Pettigrew's prison and attempts to kill him.
  • Research has established that first-generation magic is wilder and closer to nature than pure-blood magic, typically harder to control (but also fresh and healthy, not inbred and stale).
• With Due Respect: Harry bullies Professor Snape into accepting half the harvested basilisk parts for research purposes, with phrases like "stubbornly pigheaded" and "owning up to your ability", then sees the look on his face, coughs, and adds, "Sir."
• Wizard Duel: One of the tasks of the Triwizard Tournament is a bracketed duelling tournament, abounding with conjuration, blasting curses, fire, ice, and even swordplay. It's not conducted very fairly; Harry notes systematic biases against the muggle-born contestants, and ends up having to fight more times than anyone else.
• Workaholic:
  • Harry has a natural inclination to overload herself, and the many extra tasks needed to maintain her cover — plus the extra potions study that she's really doing this for — escalate that, but she wouldn't have it any other way. In second year, she and Draco and Pansy take turns following each other around and experiencing each other's schedules, and she's very quickly bored and frustrated by how much free time they have. She actually feels more relaxed in third year, with a Time Turner, because by repeating hours and days several times, she can get every kind of study done and reliably exercise and spend time with her friends and get enough sleep.
    Rigel nodded and agreed, but the look Snape gave her said clearly what they both understood. She would pretend to give her normal second-year classes her priority, but she would get the extra potions work done, or collapse trying. Not that she was terribly worried. Adults always seemed to think things took longer than they did...If anything, Rigel imagined everyone who didn't have her workload must be terribly bored all day. She had plenty of time for her homework, Flint's homework, extra brewing, studying Healing, Occlumency, and now French, her new exercise regimen, and hanging out with her friends.
  • Binny the house elf is happy to tutor Harry in French, because it will interfere with the free time that Dumbledore insists on giving the elves.
• Working Out Their Emotions: Lycanthropy is hard on the body, but especially on the mind; many sufferers break or surrender to the wolf within a few years. Remus keeps extensive gym equipment and maintains a superb level of fitness in order to build self-discipline and help him manage his emotions, keeping a healthy mind in a healthy body. Naturally, when Harry wants to get in shape and learn self-defence, she turns to him.
• Worthy Opponent: Ron and Pansy develop an intense but largely respectful rivalry in the dueling club. Most of the members aren't willing to duel Pansy, but Ron seems to relish the challenge.
• Wrong Bathroom Incident: Harry, who is actually a girl but disguised as her male cousin so she can attend Hogwarts, sneaks into the girls' bathroom, disguised as a different girl, in order to plant an "elf on the shelf" puppet. Unfortunately, she gets caught by Professor Lockhart as she leaves, and he becomes suspicious of what she was doing there, so he makes her accompany him inside to check. Professor Snape then comes across what appears to be a male teacher manhandling a female student into the bathrooms, with Lockhart sputtering that it's Not What It Looks Like...and for extra irony, after sending him off, Snape sees through the wig, recognises "Rigel", and chastises "him" for being there.
  Snape: Go to breakfast, Mr. Black, and if I ever catch you entering a women's bathroom again, with or without a teacher, I will excommunicate you from Slytherin House faster than you can say Salazar.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Professor Snape seems a little taken aback by her earnest (and forceful) praise, Harry suspects that working with professors who are each longstanding experts in their respective fields has caused him to lose sight of just how talented he is.
  Perhaps no one ever did remind Professor Snape just how much his expertise was worth to the Wizarding World. Well. Rigel would have to see about fixing that.
• You Are Grounded!:
  • Harry is Caught Coming Home Late from unexpected hold-ups in the alleys, and confined to the house for a week.
  • Both Archie and Harry are hit with this after the ruse is half-busted, with Archie discovered to have been in America and Harry claiming to have been homeschooling herself. They get to have half an hour outside per day.
• You Have Failed Me: The Dominion Jewel allows its wielder to grow stronger very quickly, but if they are unsuccessful in using that strength to dominate, it will take everything back with interest. After Peter Pettigrew fails to steal Harry's magic, he's sucked dry and left as a desiccated corpse.
• You Owe Me: Besides the life debts that Harry keeps collecting, she herself owes a Vow of Undisclosed Debt to Marcus Flint Jr in exchange for letting her seal away the knowledge of her secret. He calls it in when his mother needs to escape an abusive home situation; Harry hides her in the Lower Alleys until he's graduated and able to look after her himself.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: Harry's leashed and unpredictable magic flares up when she gives rein to her emotions, such as when she's cornered and mad.
  • Lee Jordan survives, but is repeatedly flung into a wall, breaking bones and being knocked out.
  • Peter Pettigrew is all but crushed into the ground, despite his shields.
• Younger Mentor, Older Disciple: After Harry accidentally invents "shaped imbuing", she finds that not many people have the prerequisite skills to learn it. Her first students are Caelum Lestrange, several years older than her, because he's properly motivated to learn such a cutting-edge technique, and Professor Snape, who doesn't permit laziness in himself on such matters (he didn't need very much instruction from Harry, either, since he was unknowingly the one who taught her most of those prerequisite skills).
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame:
  • Harry is less than thrilled to have her actions complimented by the Dominion Jewel.
    Dominion: Oh, and to think I assumed you were a goodie-goodie. You have ambition, girl, and I love it. Subtleties aren't usually my style, but this kind of elaborate scheme is so—so—what's the word? Satisfying? It's electrifying. I'm not even you and yet I feel so alive. I would not have guessed you had it in you, but you have been a very bad girl, Miss Potter.
    Harry: Don't call me that.
  • She's later even more upset by a polite and respectful article by Caelum Lestrange about Shaped Imbuing, crediting her as the inventor and quoting from her tutoring. It's hard to say how much of it is because she believes it's insincere, vs how much is because she doesn't like to hear him talking her up after he collaborated with Voldemort and used her techniques to invent the potion that incarnated Voldemort into a new body.

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