Mortis Magister
is a Harry Potter 1940s Alternate Universe Fix Fic with prime-universe Big Bad Tom Riddle being an Anti-Hero this time around.
Tropes appearing in this fan fic include:
- Absent-Minded Professor: Binns. Oh, Merlin, Binns. He can't get anyone's name right (apparently through historical association); Dumbledore becomes Dimbleby, Bonaparte becomes Wellington, Finnegan becomes Flaherty, Perkins becomes Potter and vice versa... Subverted in that he'll throw cricket balls at anyone not paying attention, and he'll become very interesting indeed if someone stays awake long enough to ask a question.
- Big Bad: Most probably Grindelwald and Those Wacky Nazis. It's a 1940s fic, after all.
- Brotherhood of Funny Hats: Malfoy Sr was in either one of these or an Ancient Conspiracy. It's implied that some of their rituals centred on the Deathly Hallows. Or that they're British Nazis. Or both. Then there's Slughorn's definitely-not-a-society that doesn't even have a ''name''...
- Bookworm: Tom Riddle and Seraphine Bonaparte. Abraxas, to a lesser extent.
- Cool Car: Abraxas Malfoy's silver 1938 Talbot-Lago. For visual reference, it's this [1]... and did we mention it flies?
- Cool Teacher: "Nick" Flamel and Horace Slughorn.
- The Dark Arts: Conversed and played with every which way. The government definition, essentially, boils down to a) Blood Magic, b) anything whose only use is as a weapon (jinxes and hexes) or c) anything Powered by a Forsaken Child. The majority of magical schools teach b), some even teach a)—-but only a very few call a spade a spade. Per
Word of God, even Dark Alchemy exists; Muggles call the result Nuclear Weapons once they discover it. - Deadpan Snarker: Tom. Frequently. Also many of the teachers.
- Doomed by Canon: We all know that Merope Riddle is dead, that Tom Riddle Sr is a Muggle, and exactly what happened between Dumbledore, his brother, and Gellert Grindelwald.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: Is the Slytherins' hat.
- Expospeak Gag: Malfoy Sr rattles off a Long List of upper-class period synonyms for "gay" (catamite, paederast, a practitioner of the Greek vice)... then finishes it off with the modern "homosexual".
- Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire: Heavily implied in the case of Lucius Malfoy's colleagues. Unusually, it's the vampirism that's implied, rather than the friendliness, but with a name like Lucy Westenra...
- Funetik Aksent: The Malfoys speak in Traditional Received Pronunciation (a la [2]; see British Accents) and this is reflected in the text by his droppin' apostrophes all over the place and speakin' in a frightfull-ear posh way (going to work on a Seturday, for example). Averted in the case of Seraphine Bonaparte, who's from Corsica and speaks in Gratuitous French.
- High-Class Glass: Lucius Malfoy Sr. wears one.
- Interspecies Romance: Informed for one of the Blacks. Implied that this actually is the case—-or at least interspecies sex—-for Abraxas Malfoy.
- Magitek: Borgin and Burke's shop is one that repairs these (and makes them on occasion). In general, this is what wizards use instead of or in addition to "Muggle" technology.
- Missing Mum: Merope Riddle.
- Missing Reflection: Malfoy's mirrors are a smartphone Fantasy Counterpart; Lucy doesn't show up in them, though her voice carries just fine, making it more like a normal mobile phone for her.
- Narcissist: Tom. In a way, it's justified and discussed at length.
- Nerd Glasses: Abraxas wears the 1940's equivalent. He's as far away from socially awkward as possible (he suffers from crippling depression, as if to compensate), but he's in the most demanding class of all (think high school quantum mechanics).
- Postmodern Magik: Most magic in this book is in this style.
- The Sociopath: Tom is one of these, but high-functioning and not criminally violent. Some of his actions literally qualify for Kick the Dog, though.
- Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Sex, drugs, and swing, in the case of Abraxas Malfoy. The drug he's on is unspecified, though given his pain issues and its identification as "German poison", it's almost certainly methadone.
- Slobs Versus Snobs: The Malfoys are explicitly Snobs, in an Edwardian Britain kind of way. The Weasleys are Slobs, both out of poverty and a conscious rejection of the Malfoy way of life.
- Stepford Smiler: Abraxas Malfoy. He knows his time is running out, thanks to a progressive disease comparable to Huntington's, and feels accordingly.
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Values Dissonance: Lucius Malfoy Sr (Jr, per Word of God, hasn't been born yet). He's remarkably progressive but makes jokes about gay characters Albus Dumbledore and Hector Fawley, and two of his dogs are named offensive things (one is an ethnic slur, the other is a Fantastic Slur). - Who Wants to Live Forever?: Quoted word-for-word by Seraphine. Tom answers that...
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In Abraxas' opinion? Exactly the same as a human, thank you very much. Implied Interspecies Romance.
