"At least I didn't write Celebrian!"''
— Eliza Diawna Snape
Before Ebony and Rose Potter were even mere plot bunnies, Harry Potter fans often cited another name when asked to give an example of an OC Self-Insert. That name is Eliza Diawna Snape.
The Eliza Trilogy, written in 2000, is considered a classic Harry Potter fanfic often mentioned in the same breath as The Draco Trilogy and Pawn To Queen. While it was very popular and much praised in its heyday (it was often praised for having writing that was as good as and even better than Rowling's), it has been Condemned by History - or, rather, by our anti-perfection instincts.
The trilogy is centred around the titular character and her identical twin sister Diawna Eliza Snape, the half-American daughters of Severus Snape and recent transfer students to Hogwarts, and the prophecy that they are linked to.
The trilogy includes:
- Harry Potter And The Story Of Eliza
- Harry Potter and the Return Of Eliza
- Harry Potter and the Prophecies of Dredloris
Copies of all three stories can be found (in .doc format) here. Summaries of the OCs more sueish points can be found here and here.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Bed Trick: A G-rated variant; Diawna kisses Draco several times while pretending to be Eliza. Draco profusely apologizes to the real Eliza when she's resurrected but she makes it clear he didn't know.
- Bitch Slap: Diawna is fond of doing this to her sister. Eliza lies about the mark on her cheek, saying she ran into a door. Later Diawna tries the same thing on Harry in book two, taking off her invisibility cloak to smack him. He recovers and proceeds to beat her in a duel, that ends within minutes.
- Cain and Abel: Zigzagged. Diawna started bullying Eliza when the latter had a Heel–Face Turn and impersonates her at various points to manipulate her friends. However, the narrative establishes that Diawna doesn't want her twin sister dead and actually takes time to say goodbye to her on the day before they both turn sixteen, knowing one of them will perish before midnight. Eliza scoffs thinking this is another trick and doesn't want to believe her sister is capable of sorrow or remorse. It turns out that Diawna wasn't so loving as to let Eliza's shade float around and put ample repellent so as to impersonate her without interference. Eliza also shows no angst about her sister receiving the Dementor's Kiss and being able to take over her body as a result, showing the Cain was still there.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Eliza is revealed to be Voldemort's granddaughter, with her mother being Deloris Riddle, and she "borrows" a necklace from the old house where their family lived. It turns out Voldemort used a similar necklace to become a shade before he confronted the Potters, which was how he became a spirit possessing others.
- Eliza's diary also becomes a plot point in book two. Snape had it as a Tragic Keepsake and suspected Draco when it went missing. It turns out Diawna stole it so that she could imitate her sister perfectly.
- Creepy Child — Wyrren borders on this. At one point, she says she prefers dead people to living people.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Mentioned by Harry and Hermione of all people when they learn Draco asked Fudge to punish Diawna with the Dementor's Kiss. It's a Fate Worse than Death, and Draco admits he did it because Diawna tricked them by giving them hope Eliza was alive, not because of the kidnapping, the attempted murder, and taking a good portion of the school hostage. Harry said it was cruel and no one deserved that, but is oddly not traumatized when Wyrren shows them Eliza's body.
- Doesn't Know Their Own Child: Played for Drama. Snape said he could only tell Eliza and Diawna apart as babies because of their nail polish. This is how he fails to realize that the Eliza in book two is actually his other daughter, Diawna.
- Elephant in the Room: Sirius refuses to talk about his wife Cecillia. We find out it's because Cecillia killed herself after Sirius was put in Azkaban.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Unlike her mother, Diawna doesn't want Eliza dead. Sure, she wants to control her twin sister who's become good, but she hesitates when realizing she could perform Psychic-Assisted Suicide via the Imperius Curse. Diawna then dawdles over it until Dumbledore breaks the curse.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Animagus rather. Diawna poses as Eliza and tries to put Hermione under the Imperius Curse. Sirius happens to be prowling nearby and saves Hermione, because he could smell this girl was different.
- Idiot Ball: Lampshaded in book two; Harry, his friends and Draco say they were idiots for not realizing that Diawna was impersonating her sister because it was the most obvious explanation for Eliza's supposed resurrection. Wyrren had an excuse in that Diawna blocked her powers and made sure to put enough shade repellent around so the real Eliza couldn't come and intervene, but she also said multiple times that she didn't resurrect Eliza and she couldn't, unless she killed herself or turned Eliza into a zombie.
- I See Dead People — Wyrren becomes a necromancer when she starts seeing Lily's ghost.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: Most of the time, someone can tell when Diawna is trying to impersonate Eliza. In book 2, it takes a very long time for Draco to realize that something was wrong with the resurrected Eliza; Diawna reveals that she stole her sister's diary from Snape to figure out how to play the part.
- Kids Are Cruel — Eliza transfers to Hogwarts due to death threats made by the kids in their old school, including her own sister.
- Left Hanging: Sadly, the fic ended on the cliffhanger that wyrren accused Lasi the vampire of draining someone, with Harry defending him; we also learn that Sirius's wife Cecillia killed herself after Sirius was imprisoned.
- Memento MacGuffin — Eliza "borrows" a necklace from her parents' old house in Hogsmeade. It's revealed that the necklace turns the wearer into shade after they die, and Eliza took it because she wanted to subvert her own death eventually.
- Necromancer — Wyrren starts seeing ghosts and talking to them.
- New Transfer Student
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: After kidnapping a fair amount of the student body, his mother, and baby sister, Diawna delivers a message to Harry to come to the Chamber of Secrets, alone, and fight her. He does, and she has an invisibility cloak to give her an advantage, but then she takes it off to smack him. It turns out Harry has Took a Level in Badass and defeats her soundly.
- Offing the Offspring:
- During one invasion on Hogwarts, Deloris attempts to do this to Eliza as punishment for her turning traitor. Snape steps in to stop his ex.
- Voldemort kills his daughter Deloris when she annoys him one time too many with her prophecies. Not even Diawna mourns her.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Eliza has been calling her father "Severus" as a matter of formality. She then calls him "Dad" during a playful snowball fight in the Great Hall. It's the first hint that Diawna is talking.
- Pet the Dog:
- Before they both turn sixteen, Diawna decides to talk peacefully with Eliza and say goodbye to her before one of them dies. Eliza assumes it's a trick, as usual, and thinks she will be dead before midnight. Diawna admits it's not a trick and she wishes their mother hadn't made the prophecy.
- Diawna while disguised as Eliza acknowledges Snape as her father.
- Power Crystal — Eliza's necklace has the power to "grant a second life after death".
- Self-Insert Fic — The description of the twins matched up almost completely (save for a few modifications where the characters looked better) with pictures of the author that were floating around at the time. "Eliza Diawna" is also a variation on the author's real name: Elizabeth Dawn.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Eliza decides to take charge of the prophecy that will lead to either her or Diawna dying, one's "soul perishing in agony," and the other "living happily ever after". She, like Hermione, figured out that it would be Exact Words because death doesn't kill the soul. So she obtained a shade necklace that would preserve her soul after death, while Diawna assumed she would be the twin to live happily ever after. The way things turn out, Diawna receives the Dementor's kiss, which leaves her body an Empty Shell for the shade Eliza to take over.
- Self-Made Orphan: Attempted; after her mother dies, Diawna poisons Snape while disguised as Eliza. Later she drugs him with the Draught of the Living Dead and takes him hostage.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Hermione and Eliza have the same approach to Deloris's prophecy about the twins. One Hermione gets over her Arbitrary Skepticism, she points out Eliza's soul didn't perish, just her body, and Diawna working for Voldemort isn't living happily ever after. It turns out Eliza reached the same conclusion and proactively got a shade necklace to prepare for when Diawna's soul perished.
- Theme Twin Naming
- Twin Switch — Diawna pretends to be Eliza and attends Hogwarts in her place in the second book. Draco only realizes it when he busts her for stealing various library books because he knows Eliza would never do that.
- Villain Forgot to Level Grind: When Harry figures out that Diawna was impersonating Eliza during their sixth year, she destroys Gryffindor Tower and leaves a taunting message for him to fight her in the Chamber of Secrets. Having taken a good portion of the student body hostage, he doesn't have a choice but to comply. Thing is that Diawna spends most of the fight toying with him, and even tries putting an Imperius Curse on him. She apparently didn't know that Harry learned how to shake that off two years ago; after he calls her a sneaky fighter, he gets irritated and knocks her out.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The Gryffindors understandably call out Eliza for threatening another student with a knife in book three and losing a hundred points as a result, even if said student was drowning Draco with water magic. Parvati also tells her off for sneaking out again, getting caught, and losing more points.
