The Harry Potter Fanfiction Thread

Well, the only things we know about American wizards is that they have a school in Salem, they tend to prefer Quodpot, and that American Chasers use basketball tricks which tend to utterly baffle most other teams. Plus, the ethnocentrism most bad writers display in fanfic and all that.

Which is amazingly inappropriate. Salem was famous for witch trials that were obviously not about actual witches; the "crimes" the girls were accused of seemed to amount to standing up for themselves and talking back to The Man.

@IANCE: Have you ever seen another country being wanked if I may ask?

You've been mislead; the girls were making shit up to avoid getting busted for talking to a black woman and accusing anyone who doubted their story. Also one of them accused the wife of a farmer she had the hots for just to get in his pants.

edited 17th Apr '14 7:29:20 AM by maxwellelvis

Actually, that last part was Miller's invention.

I heard the hypothesis that the girls' hysteria was caused by a fungus in the bread...

On the subject of Wizarding America, everyone who hasn't done it yet must read the Alexandra Quick series . It's probably the most reasonably culturally-different-from-britain-without-being-too-stereotypical portrayal.

@Saint Deltora

France, a couple times.

Sometimes, other countries like Bulgaria, or whatever country the author thinks Durmstrang is in, gets wanked. Sometimes it's Russia.

But definitely, the worst of the lot is the USA. Hell, if you bring up but don't wank the USA or, Goku forbid, you have them as equals or worse than Britain, you'll get flamed. I recall once reading a story where the author pointed out that just because the muggle side was all about freedom and liberty and all that didn't mean that the magical side would be, and that guy was flamed like crazy because how dare he portray the USA as anything but Eden!

Quick, someone write a Harry Potter story where basically every single American wizard with any sort of skill is a dark wizard actively working to sabotage the formation of any sort of local wizarding government that could potentially keep them in check.

The flames would be delicious.

Hell, I wouldn't go for outright bashing, but I am kind of tempted to write a story where they are, if not irrelevant, at least making their problem worse with their 'good intentions' but misguided ideas, lampshading both sides of Eagleland.

What would be interesting is if the US magical community broke whatever ties it had with the Muggles back around the Revolution, since the magicals retained loyalty to England. This is plausible, since the magical community seems to consistently be some 50-100 years behind the Muggle one in terms of social evolution, and so the democratic/universalist sentiments which popularized the Revolution wouldn't have the same chance to take hold. If that were the case, it would likely 1. cause the aristocratic tendencies of the American wizards to freeze even harder, in reaction, and 2. break their legal connection to the Muggle authorities, requiring them to more zealously guard their existence—e.g., maneuvers like the Ministry pulled in book 3 to leverage Muggle communications and law enforcement in pursuit of Sirius Black wouldn't be possible. (Most likely, whatever such connections the wizards did have would be to the British crown governors anyway; all that would be required would be to neglect to form new ones with the American government.) Neither lead to wizarding America being in anything like the relative international position that muggle America is.

In the Alexandra Quick series, there is no "wizarding USA", but an American Wizarding Confederation, consisting of these Territories. They are divided into cultural groups such as Old Colonials, New Colonials, Radicalists (revolutionary Wizard Hippies), Majokai (Japanese immigrants), Ozarkers, etc, that all hate each others' guts. The whole thing is led by the Governor-General who is a dictator. It wasn't *always* dictatorship, but after Voldemort's first british takeover the leadership got paranoid and started persecute everyone in a sort of "Dark Scare", then after a Radicalist assassination attempt on the Governor General, it escalated into a full-blown "War on the Dark Arts" (meaning "War on Everyone Who is Not Me", of course).

edited 18th Apr '14 2:02:39 AM by Ever9

That sounds fascinating.

America (the continent) being huge and full of immigrants, it would be hilarious to have a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Pagan) society that retains pseudo-feudal traits and very close ties to Britain, and that takes no stock of the frontier between USA and Canada, regarding it all as part of the Commonwealth. It would also be interesting if the Magical Native American and Magical Afrodescendents and Asian Onmyoudo users and so on and so forth formed different organizations and used different types of magic and dealt differently with Muggles. And to have Western wizards delve into magic different than the Wand-And-Spell type; Hermetic Magic, Vancian Magic, Ritual Magic, Sympathetic Magic, and so on and so forth. It would be like History Strongest Disciple Kenichi, except with Magic instead of Martial arts.

Speaking of the Crown, what's its role in the view of wizards? What does it mean to them? Is the royal family secretly magical? Or was the Ministry of Magic founded by Merlin in Spam A LotCamelot? Is its status as a Ministry an Artifact Title, or did the awareness of it reach the different, later dynasties, such as the Tudors and the Windsors?

The Crown is never actually mentioned in canon, I think. Fics have played with it, usually in the form of having it in on the secret and often with at least one member secretly magical. I can think of a couple of fics which do that, but not their titles, and am too lazy to do thirty seconds of Googling. (One is the sequel to 'Honor a Hufflepuff', the other the sequel to 'The Queen who Fell to Earth'.)

Wizarding history is never really fleshed out. Some is mentioned in the expansion book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, at least to the degree that it's mentioned there was a Wizards' Council which predated the Ministry. This was prior to the Statute of Secrecy, if I recall correctly, which was passed in 1692 or thereabouts. Given that date, it's quite likely that prior relationships which the Jacobite line might have had with magic didn't carry over through William to the Hanoverian line; you could run with that and say that the Crown hasn't had a relationship with British wizardry since the Glorious Revolution. (For extra amusement value, say that the relationship continued in the houses which carried the Jacobite succession. Nowadays that would put it in Liechtenstein, of the most random places.) The effect on the Wizarding world of all the chaos surrounding the British throne in the 17th century could be an interesting topic.

I've always gone with the 'nominally subordinate to the queen, but not really due to the crown not actually knowing about the Wizarding World'. I've seen it done a few times in that the Queen is actually backed up by 'the realm', as in Magic being semi-sentient and picking certain people to be rulers and backing them up if they want to do something in the magic world.

Well, in Alexandra Quick it's a common theme that the school system is rather strict about only WASP magic being proper magic and the rest all dark arts or comparable. Part of the reason for the confederacy is that in their own Territories the minorities are allowed to practice their own forms of magic to certain extents. (and the protagonist herself also occasionally uses a doggerel-based spell form that she first intuitively experimented with as a child, and that the school considers a bad habit and inferior to graeco-latin spells).

edited 18th Apr '14 2:03:38 AM by Ever9

Fisher King?

I was just reading Lion Unity. Good on me to have eaten a piece of bone that slashed my throat to the point I'm having trouble swallowing liquids (but strangely, not solids), since now I don't have to work. Anyway, point is, I was reading Lion Unity, because the premise seemed kind of interesting.

I mean, it's basically 'What if the Gryffindors weren't braindead morons?', in which the whole 'your house will be sort of like your family' thing is taken a tad more seriously and the Gryffindors actually make an effort to cooperate.

Until the second year starts and the guys discover the diary is a horcrux, at which point there is the most startling form of Dumbledore Incompetence I've ever seen.

Not only does Dumbledore completely and utterly ignore one of his prefects telling him of an emergency, but he doesn't even let Percy talk, instead rambling about inane data like the characteristics of phoenixes, and telling Percy to solve the problems on his own. Dumbledore refuses to make time to listen to a student when there's nothing else pressing on him for time (as he can, clearly, spare the time he spent rambling about phoenixes to listen to Percy). Dumbledore.

And then, it's made even worse by Percy, when Dumbledore asks him if he can solve the problem on his own, not just going: "Stop rambling old wanker, IT'S THE BLOODY DARK LORD IN A BOOK POSSESSING MY SISTER, YOU SCUM SUCKING FRUIT BASKET!"

It's just a moment so stupid and out of character that it throws me out of the fic entirely.

And the worst part is, all the reviews are going "Oh, Dumbledore's such an unhelpful prick! Oh, he's an idiot! Oh, he's so dumb!"... No wonder he gets bashed so often. The fanbase seems to have no idea how Dumbledore's character works.

He'd never be this unhelpful or this retarded! If he was told a student was in inminent DANGER, he'd move heaven and earth to help them, because that's the kind of guy Dumbledore is! Much more so if it involved Voldemort, which the students would have used as the spearhead in the petition for help. This is the guy that was so goddamned scary that people are afraid of speaking his name. The Quidditch Team, Percy and Ron would most likely fly straight into the panic zone if they learned a goddamn fragment of Voldemort's soul was trying to possess Ginny! And they know what it is. Katie, Percy and Hermione found a mention of what horcruxes are, though not what their name is or how to make them, obviously.

edited 18th Apr '14 10:19:30 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

Well, yes. Interestingly, in Methods, Dumbledore looks like an unhelpful prick, but if you step out of the main character's biased perspective (and people like Malfoy and Quirrell who have a single-minded obsession with painting him black), you see that he's nothing of the sort, though he does make well-intentioned mistakes, and severe ones at that... which is of course perfectly in-character for him.

In other news, I gave A Switched Chance a chance.

... No pun intended...

Harry is a selfish prick.

Here's the setup: Harry and Hermione send their souls back in time, taking over each other's body. And Harry, instead of telling the Grangers that their daughter is in his situation, which he wouldn't wish on Malfoy in canon, he instead pretends to catch the flu and spends the time relaxing with Hermione's parents. While his 'best friend' is surviving Dudley's eleventh birthday.

It might have been interest if it was intentional.

Why is it that I always come across Harry Potter fics that try to make him seem as a selfless hero, but instead unintentionally make him out to be a selfish prick?

edited 18th Apr '14 11:33:17 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

Thoughtlessness. Stupidity is the root of all evil. (And yes, some very smart characters apply their intelligence for evil, but that also is usually stupid).

What's funny is, Harry is basically enjoying Hermione's life while Hermione is suffering his. Harry is all like "Welp, she's probably not having fun... better watch Star Wars and have Hermione's dad read The Hobbit for me to get my mind off it!" while Hermione is all like "I can't believe I never noticed his relatives were such giant jerks! I must be a bad friend!".

And when they do meet up (in Diagon Alley, when Hagrid takes Hermione there), Harry (even if unintentionally) makes Hermione feel worse because he's actually a 'better' daughter for Hermione's parents (Harry is very friendly to Hermione without being, well, bossy and a know-it-all that drives people away).

So, yeah, this guy? Very shitty friend. He should've just outright told the Grangers what the f*ck was going on, proven his claims (he can and does use magic he shouldn't be able to use) and then told Dumbledore of the Horcruxes and where to find them to end the war early.

But no, of course not, we wouldn't have a plot if the characters were intelligent. Idiot Plot. I'm gonna read something else.

Read Alexandra Quick.

Or if it's too unrelated to Harry Potter (Entirely US setting, and entirely OC cast and plot), then at least the author's Original Flavour next-generation story, Hogwarts Houses Divided.

Alright, your repetition has convinced me. (Partly because it sounds interesting. Mostly because I'm ridiculously quick to follow orders/suggestions.)

Which series would you recommend reading first?

Only Alexandra Quick is a series (of four novels, planned to go for seven), Hogwarts Houses Divided is a standalone first-year novel for Teddy Lupin's generation. (with no cliffhangers or planned sequels)

The latter was written first, so it has a somewhat cruder writing quality. Personally I didn't care as much for it. Really, only mentioned it in case it's more relatable to most HP fans than some OC girls OC adventures in an OC school.

edited 19th Apr '14 3:47:41 PM by Ever9