Firebird's Son is an Alternate Universe Harry Potter fanfic by Darth Marrs
, covering the first four years of this world's Hogwarts. It has two sequels, one during 5th year, the other in the aftermath of said year.
Contains examples of:
- Adaptational Backstory Change: Sir Nicholas. In the books he was executed after a magical mishap caused a noble woman to grow tusks. Here he was executed after supporting Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the English throne.
- Adaptational Badass: Non-fighter example, as Professor Trelawney goes from the delusional woman who occasionally acted as a Plot Device she was in canon, to a truly competent seer and a mentor figure to Harry.
- Snape is also much less obsessed with Lily and much more concerned with preparing his students for the future in their Crapsack World, while trying to steer them away from becoming extremists like Voldemort.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Viktor Krum was a Nice Guy and a Red Herring in the books but here he's much more violent (including shoving Harry off from a broomstick during a Quidditch match) and cruel.
- Trelawney is this along with Sir Swears-a-Lot but it's Played for Laughs.
- Adaptational Nationality: Seamus Finnigan is Scottish rather than Irish.
- Adapted Out: Olivanders because wizards are forbidden from trying to make wands. Though it turns out he does exist in sequel, where Harry goes on a quest to find him.
- Adaptational Personality Change: Percy Weasley is a more open, devilish person than in canon.
- Adaptational Sexuality: A lot of witches suffer from Situational Sexuality due to the gender disparity. A more straight foward example is Cedric Diggory who's homosexual.
- Adaptational Species Change: Charity Burbage is a witch in canon but here she's a squib.
- Adaptational Villainy: Is a character female? If so it's likely they suffer this to some extent, ranging from having a few extra levels of jerkass they don't have in canon, to being morally unpleasant, to being a legit and quite punchable villain. Male characters can suffer this however like Sirius, as can entire species, like Goblins.
- Voldemort managed to pull this off with such antics as killing Harry's mother substitute in front of him after taunting him with visions of a happy life and turning Cedric Diggory into a human bomb. However he still has fans. See the YMMV page.
- Adaptational Wealth: Played with. The Weasleys are much better off than in the books because Molly and Arthur had seven kids with four being boys. This caused them to be raised in standing, with Arthur becoming a Department's head at the Ministry and an Elder of the Wizengamot while Molly became Dame of a coven but their income remains generally the same.
- Adaptational Wimp: In Quidditch, the golden snitch goes from being worth a 150 points to just 50 points. This is Played for Drama as it levels the playing field and makes seekers just another player.
- Luna Lovegood was an Action Girl in the books who fought both in the battle at the Department of Mysteries and the battle of Hogwarts, holding her ground. Here she's doesn't like fighting and tends to scream when dragged into dangerous situations. Though the canon Luna spent nearly a year training to fight in the Dumbledore's Army.
- All Men Are Perverts: Wizards have a magically reinforced biological programming against cursing naked witches.
- Alternate Universe: The premise as the magical world is an unenlightened Lady Land and the Death Eaters want to create a No Woman's Land.
- The Triwizard Tournment is replaced with a trial basis for the Junior Quidditch League and the number of schools involved is greater than in canon.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Goblins- they can only breed by raping witches. If a goblin and a witch conceive through consensual sex, their child will be a normal witchkin with a small number of goblin features, as was the case with Professor Flitwick.
- Bittersweet Ending: Voldemort is killed and magical society has changed for the better with bonding and polygamy no longer being enforced, but Ginny is dead and Hermione leaves for Australia, never to see Harry again.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: People under the Imperius curse, which Aethers' percieve as a grey color over their eyes and top head. Examples include Seamus (temporarily) and Charity before she's killed by Voldemort.
- Broken Pedestal: Lily set up Harry with every advantage she could give him, but experimented on him in-utero, cared less about the equality he'd achieve than proving her own worth as his creator, and used James as a tool in her plans.
- Crapsack World: The Magical World is not a place you want to live in. Regardless of your gender. Thanks to the efforts of Harry and the Order of the Phoenix, it gets better.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Because most of Griffindor's best players left with Charlene Weasley the Quidditch Team is far more outmatched even without the Slytherin's poor sportsmanship.
- Death Is Cheap: Unlike in canon, magic can ressurect people such as when Professor McGonagalll revived Lily's mother after she was killed with accidental magic. However the woman was forced to walk with a cane for the rest of her life.
- Deconstruction Fic:
- Ever wonder what would happen if someone decided give the Evangelion or Madoka treatment to Harry Potter harem fics? Here you go. You're welcome.
- The series more briefly takes aim at stories where the Muggle government intervenes in the magical world. Rather than help the heroes bring the witch-born into the 20th century, the Muggle authorities are more interested in doing unethical experiments on efficient ways to kill them.
- Disproportionate Retribution: A Brainwashed and Crazy Seamus destroys Lily Potter's book about Aether magic after Harry's first Quidditch match ends with a Griffindor defeat.
- Divided States of America: What in canon is MACUSA (which never existed here due to the fic being written before Fantastic Beasts) is divided into two warring nations: the Western Confederation of America (or WestCons) and the East Confederation of America (or EastCons).
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Averted, invoked, and inverted.
- Averted by the narrative, which considers all rape to be equally evil.
- Invoked by magical society which considers it necessary to force Wizards to reproduce due to the gender imbalance.
- Inverted by the Death Eaters, who consider it completely acceptable a Wizard to rape any Witch he can get his hands on. Notably, the mainstream magical society the Death Eaters are fighting against doesn't seem to care if a Witch is raped by a Wizard either- it was Voldemort killing the women he raped that ticked them off.
- Dumb Muscle: The Salem's Institute's Quidditch team is made of Amazon Brigade who, while having a good first hour, are defeated by the Hogwarts Dragons' greater agility and team play.
- Elemental Powers: Downplayed. Instead of the traditional personality-based houses from cannon, Witchkin have natural affinities to one of the four elements which the houses are based on- Griffindor for Fire, Hufflepuff for Earth, Ravenclaw for Wind, and Slytherin for Water. A small number of Witchkin are a fifth alignment, Aether, and are allowed to pick their own house.
- Endangered Species: Wizards and Witches are declining in numbers. It's a giant elephant in the living room in public.
- Exotic Extended Marriage: Polygamy is the norm for the magical world for obvious reasons, but as magic plays a heavy role in these relationships, it's possible for these marriages to become very internally complicated.
- For Want Of A Nail:
- Beyond the gender flip, due to the mandatory marriages, most of the character are related with one another with muggleborns being more distantly related;
- The Basilisk is already dead for decades by the time of Harry coming to Hogwarts;
- The secrets of wandmaking is closely guarded as it's what ensures the domination of witches over wizards. As such wizards are forbiden from engaging in wandlore and Olivanders is a victim of Adapted Out.
- Freudian Excuse: Due to the Gender Rarity Value of wizards, Tom Riddle was systematically raped as a teenager. He went so far in his revenge that it led to...
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: The Matriarchy is fucked up, but the Death Eaters manage to be even worse.
- Gender Rarity Value: There's a 1-4 male-female ratio amongst witch kind. Most of the magical world is a type 2, and Voldemort plans to turn it into a type 1.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Played straight and even evolutionarily sound for witchkin- it's much easier for everyone if the Witches married to a Wizard are banging each other instead of fighting for his attention.
- Harry gets a moment of this when Trawlawnee makes out with her partner, even though he's aware it's not for his benefit.
- Neville actually marries two bisexual witches who are just as in love with each other as they are with him.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Trawlawnee smokes pot to assist in her foresight, which is common among divination users.
- Hate Sink: Are you a Witch in power whose not a Light or a really nice traditionalist? Then you are competing with Umbridge for how hated you will be, with Firebird Umbridge competing as well.
- In the later stories, are you a Death Eater who isn't Snape? Then you're also competing with Umbridge.
- The Horseshoe Effect: With magical Britain's Matriarchy on one side and Voldemort on the other. Though the Death Eaters don't get much attention until halfway through the second book, it really becomes clear that this is in full effect.
- Invisibility Cloak: Harry's Cloak has its powers expanded, as it grows according to the people under it and can be used while using a Flying Broomstick.
- Invisible to Normals: Muggles can't percieve spells, though they can see their effects.
- Lady Land: The magical world is a non-enlightened one.
- Mage Species: The Witch-born are noticeably different from Muggles, especially as they get older. They can only crossbreed at a young age.
- Magic Staff: Before wands, staffs were the most common magical tool wielded by wizards. The fall of staves in favor of wands is considered the turning point that lead to the domination of magical society by witches.
- Manly Gay: The American Dark Lord, Morgan Murchison.
- Masquerade Paradox: The Witch-born not only have powerful Functional Magic, accidental magic is much more commonplace than the books and they have a powerful Healing Factor that renders them immune to most poisons and weaponised bacteria and viruses, as well only getting a mild concussion from a hit by a cricket bat that would crack a normal skull. One wonders why witch-born even hide at all.
- Kind-of averted in the second book- a small handful of semi-trained military muggles with some moderate weaponry begin using their knowledge to hunt down witches, and prove to be roughly on even footing with the witch kin. It's implied that should a full army's worth of resources be dedicated to hunting down the witch kin, there would be dire consequences for all involved- and given the witch-kin have fertility issues that muggles do not, one could imagine it'd be much harder for them to recover...
- Mundane Utility: Subverted with staves. They are awesome as a magical equivalent of heavy artillery but useless for magic outside of combat.
- No Woman's Land: Voldemort and the Death Eaters' goal is to turn Magical Britain into one of these.
- Plot Hole: The existence of Binding note is this as it renders the use of Dementors in Azkaban a case For the Evulz while in canon one could argue that the inhabibility to strip a magical criminal of their powers as reason for the ruthless usage of such creatures.
- Power Incontinence: Magical cores are unstable in young witch-born, which is why potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts are not taught until Third Year.
- Power Parasite: The bonds between magical couples are a one-way street in which magical power flows from a wizard to witches. Before the Saxons brought wands to Britain, it was wizards who bonded and stole the magic of witches through their staves. There are ways to mitigate this, but those in power don't advertise or condone them for means of staying in power.
- Related in the Adaptation: Charity Burbage is Dumbledore's great-great granddaughter.
- The Republic: The Western Confederation of America, being one of the few magical nations to have equality between witches and wizards and bonding being illegal. It is governed by a Senate and the president, the Dark Lord Morgan Murchison. The Eastern Confederation claims to be this, being governed by a Wizards' Congress, but it's in truth it's yet another Lady Land.
- Rule 63: Happens to some characters, including Goyle, Dean Thomas, Finch-Fletchey, the Creevey brothers, Charlie, and Zabini.
- Self-Abuse: Inverted; There's a spell for masturbation that is taught to third years, with the goal of making the wizards less frustrated and thus less likely to fall for a bond.
- Soulmate AU Fic: The magical bonds between witch-born couples has elements of this. Most scholars believe they are an evolutionary trait that is used to ensure the loyality of a wizard and ensure magical power but the use of wands turns this bond into a Power Parasite.
- Twincest: Rumored to be happening between Fred and Georgina Weasley.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Adverted in the firs story's chapter eight when a nervous Harry vomits on Angelina Johnson trying to poach him.
- Whatevermancy: Divination. However, while this skill can be taught to some extent, the knowledge is not necessarily an earth-shattering revelation with Trelawney providing examples of seers having mundane visions such as learning what their siblings will have for dinner or their mother's adventures in brothels. It is a Power at a Price though.
- Women Are Wiser: The covens would like to convince you of this, but intelligence and wisdom are pretty evenly matched between men and women.
