Fanfic / Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles

Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles is an attempt at rewriting the Harry Potter books from an American evangelical Christian standpoint. It was written in 2014 by Grace Ann, also known by her username, "proudhousewife".

In this version of the story, Harry, an orphan, is raised by his non-Christian aunt and uncle, or rather the babysitters they hired to look after him while they both worked, until one day when he is found by a Christian missionary named Hagrid. After Harry prays the Sinner's Prayer and rejects Evolutionism and birthdays, he is whisked off to Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles to learn how to be a Christian.

At Hogwarts, the students are divided up into four Sorting Hats, each of which believes differently about the Bible. The greatest threat to Hogwarts is Voldemort, who has been plotting with Congress to destroy freedom of religion.

Due to the very over-the-top writing, it has been long suspected to be a parody. The last chapter may be read as confirmation of this, but is open to interpretation.

The author claims to have ended the fanfic after fourteen chapters because her husband felt her writing was "not good for their family", and has never confirmed the suspicions on the story being a parody.

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This story contains examples of:

• Adaptational Attractiveness: The notoriously greasy Severus Snape is now the "ruggedly handsome Mr. Snape". With chest hair. There are too many passages about his chest hair.
• Affably Evil: The Big Bad of the story, Voldemort, is treated nothing like his canon counterpart. Instead, he's basically a lobbyist who is pushing for the separation of Church and State, and the only reason it's evil is because the main characters are stating that somehow he will make it legal to feed Christians to lions. We never actually see what bill it is that Voldemort is trying to pass through Congress, but he's hardly an evil warlock hellbent on condemnation of the muggle world and instead more of a hardcore atheist who is perfectly fine interacting with the United States Government. And when Voldermort finally does reveal himself, he's not even evil. He's basically just an atheist and the characters shout angrily at him while refusing any of his explanations where he outright states he isn't doing what they insist he is. It becomes clear after some time that none of them will listen to reason, and he simply walks back to his car. Quite the far cry from canon Voldemort, who would level a parking lot of people just because he was annoyed with an underling.
• And That's Terrible: Draco's views on women, which cause both Harry and the author to start ranting about what a horrible person he is whenever they are brought up.
• Artistic License – Geography: The story outright sets itself both at Privet Drive and Hogwarts castle, both of which are located in Britain (Hogwarts in Scotland and Privet Drive in England), however they make constant reference to the US Constitution, Congress, Freedom of Religion, and southern hospitality. The characters keep making a big deal out of Voldermort trying to pass a bill through Congress that would basically outlaw Christianity, but none of that would affect Harry or the school in any way given they don't even live in that country. This would be the equivalent of a fanfiction about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them being concerned about Brexit despite the film being placed in New York, USA.
• Artistic License – Religion: Even many Christians have criticized certain aspects of the story's portrayal of Christian doctrine and the faith's character, the scope of prayer and miracles, etc. Many Catholics have furthermore stated that it misrepresents their faith (allegorized as Slytherin) such as the author conflating an icon (an object that otherwise holds religious value by what it represents, such as a statue of Jesus Christ or a necklace bearing a Cross, but has no religious value on its own) with an idol (an object that, in itself, is holy and worshipped and may even be considered a body for a godly entity).
• As the Good Book Says...: In a variation, characters actually cite Biblical verses in their dialogue, often by just citing the passage number and not the actual passage.
  "You tried to corrupt me; but it did not work. But I forgive you, Aunt Petunia; because of Luke 23:34."
• Author Appeal: proudhousewife is quite fixated on the chest hair of many male characters, "Mr. Snape" in particular.
• Author Avatar: Voldemort, if going by the Troll Fic interpretation.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Emphasized by the narration regarding Hermione.
  A woman taking pride in her appearance is honoring the Lord; because after all, it is the Lord who gave her a pretty face and nice hair. Taking care of that is important! Harry got the feeling that Hermione was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.
• Broken Aesop: One of the messages the author desperately tries to hammer in during the author's notes is that sorcery and witchcraft are bad, and that's why she's rewriting the story. That said, the prayers that make food appear and perform actions around the school are much more akin to magic rather than religious faith, and God is treated as a magic wand who conjures whatever they need by just praying for it. People who dislike the moral will point out how they're just using sorcery with a religious coat of paint over it, and those who like the moral will be able to testify that praying does not magically fill a table with cooked bacon.
• Carpet of Virility: Hagrid and Snape are both mentioned as having copious amounts of chest hair.
• Chickification: Minerva and Hermione become victims of this. Minerva goes from strict but kind teacher to Dumbledore's placid blonde Housewife and Hermione is Harry's Satellite Love Interest, whose main attributes aside from that are loving pink and her constant offers to cook and clean.
• Creator's Culture Carryover: A strange case that hews closer to the original trope name “We All Live in America”. The government in the setting is explicitly Congress, as opposed to the Parliament that the British government actually is.
• Easy Evangelism:
  • Harry instantly converts Draco from a Ravenclaw Hat to a Gryffindor Hat by out-praying him.
  • Harry himself, too. Within two minutes of meeting Hagrid, he's devoted his entire life to Christianity despite never even having heard of God or Jesus beforehand.
• Enemy Mine: Dumbledore explains that there aren't enough Gryffindor Hats to defeat Voldemort and that's why they need to ally with the other Hats. The author apparently considers this a very iffy proposition that threatens to compromise Gryffindor Hat values.
• Every Episode Ending: Almost every chapter ends with the line, "Author's Note: Blessings!" This is sometimes followed by a selection of Bible verses.
• Female Misogynist: Every "good" female character and, if it's not a Troll Fic, the author. What else would you expect from someone using the username "proudhousewife"?
• Flat-Earth Atheist: God answers prayers all the time in this story, doing stuff that very clearly can't have been done by humans, like teleporting people around, conjuring up food on a table or altering someone's entire personality. Taking this into account, the atheists in this story end up being this, as the existence of God is self-evident.
• Gender Flip: There is a passing mention of "Mr. Sprout" as the Head of Hufflepuff. This character's canonical counterpart is the female Professor Pomona Sprout.
• Hollywood Atheist:
  • Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, who believe God is dead from reading "the Dawkins".
  • Voldemort also claims to be using his Reddit account to parody this trope, but the "good guys" don't believe him...
• I Do Not Own: The author's note to the fifth chapter disclaims ownership of the "original books" in these exact words.
• In Name Only: Basically every single character, but the Dursleys and Voldemort are some of the most glaringly obvious examples. The Dursleys are a nice, loving family, Petunia is a career woman, and Voldemort is an internet troll mocking atheist stereotypes by deliberately posting exaggerated versions of them on his Reddit account.
• Instant Expert: Harry somehow knows the Bible inside out from the moment he converts to Christianity, referencing a specific passage as the reason why he won't hold the Dursleys' treatment of him against them despite the fact that the narrative leaves absolutely no time in which he could have read it. He is also shown time and time again to be a far better Christian than anyone else in the story and clearly understanding the will of God perfectly, as demonstrated in Harry and Draco's "pray-off".
• Kid Has a Point: Sometimes, the child characters will raise points that the author clearly agrees with, but which the "good" adults are apparently too tactful to put so starkly. This is typically followed by the narration ruminating about the innocent wisdom of "little ones" (for some reason, the author refuses to say the word "children").
• The Moral Substitute: Invoked as the author's stated reason for writing:
  Do you want your little ones to read books; and they want to read the Harry Potter Books; but you do not want them to turn into witches? Well-this is the story for you! This story has all the adventure of JKR's books; but will not lead your children astray.
• Mundane Utility: Harry uses prayer to open the door to his dormitory, after reflecting how he should not make Hermione open said door when he was easily capable of doing it himself.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: If the final chapter dialogue from Voldemort can be believed, he was never plotting to "make Christians illegal" like the characters thought. Frustrated by overt Christian-fundamentalism-insulting atheists, he created a Reddit troll account and posted poorly spelt phrases mocking religion and how he would write to Congress to get the religion outlawed. Apparently, the characters took his ridiculous threats to heart and assumed he was absolutely serious. When he tries to prove that this was all just him mocking Christian fundamentalism, he simply gets shouted down and everyone stops listening to him while verbally battering his character. Ultimately, he's forced to leave, having accomplished nothing and with the characters refusing any of his reason by simply dismissing it all with conjecture.
• Our Angels Are Different: They're "beautiful people" with wings, yellow halos and white robes. And they deliver mail to Hogwarts.
• Pink Means Feminine: Hermione, being a model of Christian femininity, always wears fetching pink dresses and skirts.
• Redhead In Green: All of the members of the redheaded Weasley family are in Slytherin, resulting in this trope.
• Related in the Adaptation: Hermione is Dumbledore and Minerva's daughter in this fic.
• Religion is Magic: Dumbledore frequently uses prayer to do miracles, including preparing elaborate meals for Harry and his friends. In fact, "prayer" is basically used as a stand-in for magic in this story, which anyone could tell you is not the case. This is another reason it is often suspected to be a Troll Fic.
• Said Bookism: Nearly every line of dialogue gets its own verb and adverb.
• Science Is Wrong: This is basically Hagrid's argument against Petunia's evolutionist claims. She tells Hagrid that Evolution is real, and Hagrid fires back with "Prove it" and somehow this stops Petunia dead in her tracks and she has zero response. It comes up multiple times that Evolutionism is equivalent in sin to being addicted to drugs.
  Aunt Petunia could only stare at him; and her big mouth hung open dumbly. Here she thought she was so educated; and always demanded that Christians prove what they believed in; but she couldn't even prove her own religion. It was then that Harry knew who the smart one here was!
• Setting Update: Rowling's original setting was very British. This adaptation is clearly set in America — characters go on about the First Amendment, and Hogwarts has lessons on Constitutional history.
• Stay in the Kitchen:
  • Petunia is described negatively because she works away from home.
  • Draco thinks women should not seek college education because they are stupid. Harry quickly goes to defend women... by saying they should not seek college education because they are better suited to be housewives.
• Stealth Insult: When Draco claims he hates the Slytherins, Harry says he does not hate them by saying the Lord dined with sinners all the time.
• Straw Misogynist: Draco loudly and repeatedly declares his opinion that women are worse than men. Like many other Straw Misogynist characters, his purpose in the story isn't to make misogynists look bad, but to make the other characters, who are more realistic misogynists, look good in comparison.
• Vagueness Is Coming: "Dark days are coming," both Hagrid and Dumbledore say without much explanation.
• Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: The author seems to have mistaken semicolons for commas. A dramatic reading mocked this fact by specifically reading all the semicolons as "Inappropriately placed semicolon".
• The War on Straw: A kinda weird use of it. At first, especially within the first two chapters, it's used very obviously. Petunia is treated as an unreasonable atheist who believes solely in evolution, and she's given zero chance to defend her position despite claiming to know so much about it. However, in the final chapter this is weirdly flipped on its head where Voldemort, the de facto villain and atheist of the story, is the most reasonable character and tries to show he's not a bad guy while absolutely none of the religious cast give him even a moment's thought, openly berating his atheism and supposed acts before basically trying to pray his evil away. Whether this was intentional is entirely based on the YMMV argument of this being a Troll Fic.

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