Well, camping trip was fun. Shmores. Good times.
So we continue in Rose Potter and the Philosopher's Stone with "Nicolas Flamel." Author didn't bother to change the title.
The first few paragraphs are Rose going on with bullshit about her "Metamorph" abilities. This is annoying for two main reasons. The first is that it's a bullshit superpower that the author decided to give to Rose just 'cause he thought it'd be cool. The second is that the author keeps using the word "Metamorph," when that was never used in the books. Singular is Metamorphmagus, plural is Metamorphmagi. There's no "Metamorph" as a shorthand. Neither is there indications that there are different kinds of Metamorphmagi.
So it continues as canon as people return from their summer holidays.
Oh, wait, no, there's more bullshit.
“What?” I asked.
“You astound me, you know that?” said Hermione turning to her trunk, and rummaging through it for a book.
“Oh, how is that?”
“I mean, think about it, you are walking stark naked around this place, they don’t know it, but you do,” said Hermione, “tomorrow, the school will fill up to capacity again, and you’ll just continue. And you don’t have a care in the world, you’re not ashamed, in fact you enjoy it. You must understand; I was raised very conservatively.”
“You make a good point,” said Hermione with a soft lop-sided smile.
“I only wear that amulet to shield me from what would happen. If I were to reveal my belief, I know it would not be pretty, society does not like to be changed,” I said seriously.
A thoughtful Hermione went to bed that night.
What beliefs? You're just doing this because you weren't comfortable sleeping with clothes on! Fuck, this is pretentious. And when I use the word "pretentious," I think it means something, given that I actually liked fucking Dear Esther.
And so the next scene is largely derived from canon, where they have Quidditch practice and find out that Snape is going to be refereeing. Whatever sense of forboding was in the book is gone with this.
The author probably thought he was doing some sort of neat twist on the mystery. He wasn't. He just made it stupid.
You know, earlier this year Rowling released a crime novel that was apparently pretty good. Because the Harry Potter books were good at mystery plots.
And then there's this.
“Why did you cut your hair?” she asked. I had taken to shorten my hair using my burgeoning Metamorph abilities during Quidditch practice, to stop it from flying about all over the place. Elastics to tie it up always failed with the strain put on it. I grinned.
“A neat little talent I discovered during the holidays.”
As I said this I willed my hair to their usual length and let it change to various colours of the rainbow before letting it resolve to their natural black colour. All three girls gasped but it was Alicia who recognized my talent. As her mother was a beautywitch, she obviously knew through her about any talents that affected appearance.
“Oh my goodness, you’re a Metamorphmagus. I am so jealous.” I nodded with a smug grin and shortened my hair to crew cut again to make them easier to wash. The other two were confused as to what it was, and I let Alicia explain it to them.
“Just, don’t spread it around, people will only find out when they need to,” I said as I washed underneath my arms.
And why the fuck is "Anglina" angry? Did she have some kind of special interest in her hair?
And then... Neville.
If you read the book, you may recall that in this scene Neville came in after being leg-locked by Malfoy, and there was a whole deal where they talked to him about how he needed to stand up for himself. Now, remember how I was talking about how the author was going to ruin Neville?
“Malfoy,” said Neville angrily. “I met him outside the library. He said he’d been looking for someone to practice that on.”
“Go to Professor Mc Gonagall!” urged Hermione of Neville. “Report him!” Neville shook his head defiantly. I could already tell something was very different about Neville after the holidays.
“It will just bring more trouble,” he said.
“You’ve got to stand up to him, Neville!” said Ron. “He’s used to walking all over people, but that’s no reason to lie down in front of him and make it easier.”
“I would have retaliated if I’d had a wand,” said Neville hotly, rounding on Ron, who gulped at this strange oddity in Neville’s behaviour.
“The one I came to school with wasn’t even mine in the first place, was my Dad’s,” said Neville more subdued. Hermione gasped.
“Learning with a wand that’s not your own severely hampers your spells,” said Hermione. Ron’s ears turned pink.
“I know that now, I guess I just...” said Neville and stopped himself, he clearly did not want to speak further on the matter. “Anyway, I’m being taken to be fitted for a wand properly tomorrow by Professor Dumbledore.” The round faced boy turned to me. “Can I speak to you privately, Rose?”
And so Rose goes to talk with Neville. I don't know if I've mentioned another bit of bullshit that keeps coming up - this "Secrecy Ward" that Rose does every time she talks privately with someone. It's really annoying.
“Nice ward,” blinked Neville.
“Thanks, so what can I do for you Nev?” I asked with a warm smile, it made him blush.
“I just want to thank you, for everything, you have done. Professor Mc Gonagall said it was you who noticed my problems for what it was and told her of it,” said Neville emphatically.
“Well-l, yes I did, but I just pointed out the symptoms I don’t know exactly what was your problem,” I said, flushing a bit and stammering from the praise.
“I owe you a wizard’s debt I can never repay, Rose,” said Neville shaking his head, “it’s the least I can do to tell you the story, but please don’t spread it any further.”
“You have my solemn word,” I said sincerely looking into his eyes.
“A what?” I asked confused.
“It’s a wizard who specialized in the modification of memories, especially Muggles who witness magic. Anyway, this wizard made an incompetent mistake and thought I would be traumatised by the event of watching my parents being tortured into insanity, I was hardly two years old,” growled Neville. I slapped my hand to my forehead, shaking my head at that. There was no way a two year old would remember something like that. “And the effin idiot erases my memory of the event. The effect of it especially on a baby caused…well…Professor Dumbledore called it a…well, he said it was like a damn had been created for my magic, which would normally have flowed out of me.”
“So that’s why you only showed magical aptitude so late,” I mused.
“Exactly, it also caused me to struggle feeling certain emotions, like anger, confidence, and a few others,” said Neville. “But this Christmas, after a few tests at St.Mungo’s; Professor Dumbledore and the Head of the Obliviator Corps removed the block.”
“How?” I asked interestedly.
“By inducing me and forcing me to overcome the modification done to me, myself,” said Neville shuddering; “only, the methods they used were rather extreme, and it had to be, because the spell that erased my memory was so old.” I nodded then thought of something that made me smile.
“Well, Nev,” I smiled, “I hope I see you on par with me soon in classes.” Neville blushed. “And I think that next year when you can own a broomstick at school, you must try for the reserve Beater position.” Neville blinked and his mouth dropped open in shock.
“Who would have thought?” asked Ron incredulously.
“Oh honestly, you can’t think it was natural that Neville was so clumsy and talent less?” argued Hermione. Ron just shrugged.
This is annoying. Because who needs things like actual character development 'n' shit when you can just snap your fingers and nope he's all better now. Tried-'n'-true storytelling. Pffft. That's just stupid.
So canon procedes as they figure out who Flamel is, yadda yadda the Philosopher's Stone. The author adds these two paragraphs as their own scene.
Neville was also quickly integrated into our little group of friends. We did homework together in the common room; he played chess and lost to Ron constantly, as I did. We also quickly brought him up to speed on the Philosopher’s Stone; he seemed shocked that something like that could exist. I also decided to tell my three friends of my Metamorphmagus abilities that had sprung up over the Christmas period. After initially being shocked, they were rather angry I had kept it from them, but I told them I was still training it and it had only recently become reliable. After that they pestered me constantly to change things about my appearance to demonstrate, I obliged. I was still far from getting cosmetic changes down flawlessly, and I thought it would be at least May before I could move onto changing my musculature.
And so the next scene is the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff. And I noticed something very odd. The entire actual match is only three paragraphs long. So I decided to check the book for the same scene, and I realized why the Quidditch match seemed so short. The answer I found was this: because the Quidditch match was not the main focus of that scene in the book. The main focus was on Neville with him standing up to Malfoy and his cronies. Y'know, because earlier in the chapter Ron and Hermione told him he should stand up to Malfoy? Y'know, a fucking character arc?
Well, the author axed the prose that actually showed that happening so that it'd just focus on Rose playing the Quidditch match, even though that was mostly a background event in the actual book.
So she wins the match and
and goes to follow Snape into the Forbidden Forest, where she sees him threatening Quirrell. She does not at all think this is suspicious, because she read ahead in the book.
So she returns, Ron is all happy about them winning and how he and Neville had a scrap with Malfoy and his friends that we never saw. She relays what she saw with Snape in the Forbidden Forest and of course Hermione is easily convinced by Rose's whole "oh he's totally not suspicious at all" thing, but Ron still has doubts because he didn't read ahead in the book.
Also, I read something from the author's fanfiction.net profile from earlier in this year. A Deep Space Nine fanfic where a self-insert Trekkie gets into a car crash and inexplicably finds himself in the Star Trek Universe. And here I was thinking that only happened on Fimfiction.
Comments
