Fanfic / Seven Favours For Harry Potter

When Hagrid learned that the baby he had just rescued from the ruins of Godric’s Hollow was "marked for death," he made a bargain with his aunt, Lady Vidia of the Spring Court of Faerie: Seven times, whenever young Harry Potter needed it most, Lady Vidia would come to his aid and give him whatever he needed.

But favours from the Fae always come with unexpected consequences...

Seven Favours for Harry Potter by Dina M Nealey is a Harry Potter Alternate Universe Fic which, according to the author "at first glance looks like it could take place in the canon world, but if you read a bit you'll see that it doesn't." Hogwarts and the people within it are mostly the same, as is the Voldemort situation... but there are clear differences in certain character histories, relationships, magical terms and the way certain magics work.

Most notably, this AU heavily features The Fair Folk and the world of Faerie (or at least the author's version of them, most notably Lady Vidia and her daughter Jenny from her comic series Erotic Adventures in Faerie), whose relationship with the wizarding world is ambiguous at best. Sometimes they can be powerful allies, and sometimes they can be the worst of enemies.

This work proides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Just like in Dina M Nealey's other fanfic, Vernon and Petunia are slightly toned down compared to canon; pre-transformation they're still horrible guardians to Harry and are at the very least guilty of neglect and emotional abuse, but it's made absolutely clear they never crossed the line into physical abuse.
• Accidental Truth: Hermione's desperate ramblings to Voldemort that all the obstacles surrounding the Philosopher's Stone were so easy to bypass because they're part of an elaborate trap that Dumbledore has set up for him. She's really just trying to play for time in the hope that someone will come to the rescue, and Voldemort sees through her ruse quite easily, but admits that it would be in Dumbledore's character to try some clever trap. Turns out that while Hermione got a couple of the details wrong, she was otherwise right on the money — the defenses were part of a ploy to get Voldemort into a location that would allow Dumbledore to confront him without putting any bystanders in harm's way.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Downplayed example, but in this universe the Weasleys are looked down upon not only for beeing poor, working-class and "blood-traitors," but for being allies to the Summer court and "filthy Fae lovers." Fred and George briefly bring it up, explaining how their constant joking, as well as Percy’s constant drive to be the best, is mainly about escaping their stigma.
  George: Yeah, wizards get tetchy about the Fae, and if they know you have a connection to the Fae... Why do you think Fred and I always play the class clowns? Or Percy's so obsessed with being Prefect? Everyone knows the Weasleys are 'filthy Fae lovers.' We’re just trying to show them that there's more to us than that.
  Fred: It worked too! When people talk about us at Hogwarts, they hardly ever mention Fae at all!
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Probably thanks to being half-Fae, Luna has white-blonde hair instead of her canon counterpart's dirty blonde.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Downplayed a little, but several of Harry's fellow students make cameo appearances already in Harry's first year, when most of them weren't introduced until later in the series. Cormac McLaggen, Hannah Abbott, Ernie Macmillan, Terry Boot, Padma Patil, Michael Corner, Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis and Millicent Bulstrode all have speaking roles, though most of them have minimal influence on the plot.
  • Luna Lovegood first appears in chapter 14, which takes place between Harry's first and second year, rather than not being seen at all until Harry's fifth year. The same chapter also features the first appearance of Horace Slughorn, who didn't show up in canon until Harry's sixth year.
  • A curious example with the village of Tinworth. In canon we first learn of it as the village Bill and Fleur live in after they got married. Here, thanks to the Dursleys being transformed into flitlings, Harry is taken in by Mrs Figg and moves to Tinworth before starting Hogwarts.
• Adaptational Intelligence: The troll from Halloween is notably smarter than in canon. Still an incredibly stupid brute, but where the troll in canon was little more than a mindless angry beast, this one is capable of speech and reason... which doesn't make it easier on a panicking Hermione when the troll calls her "little morsel" and tells her to stop fleeing so he can eat her. Harry and Ron defeat him through trickery rather than levitation spells.
• Adaptational Heroism: Minor case, but Hagrid's goals for hatching a dragon egg are much nobler here: in canon he just wanted a pet dragon even though that turned out to be a really bad idea, while in this fic he's trying to save the unhatched dragon's life, as the dragon egg here comes from Faerie and is dying from lack of Fae magic. The only way to save it is to get Jenny and a number of Fae friends to perform a life-saving ritual, hatch the egg and raise the baby dragon until it's strong up until it's strong enough to survive the trip to Faerie. Luckily this baby dragon is far less troublesome than the canon one.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • In canon, Norbert/Norberta was a savage and untamable beast that had to be sent away for everyone's safety. Here, Baby Danny/Danni is much more intelligent and friendly, behaving more like a mischievous but affectionate kitten. She does misbehave a bit (burning Fang with her flame, trying to eat Harry's glasses) but it's playful excuberance rather than aggression.
  • Fluffy's fierceness turns out to be an act; he's only there to scare snooping students away and wouldn't actually harm them. Dumbledore admits that he "may have exaggerated a little for dramatic effect" at the welcoming feast when saying that Fluffy's corridor was off-limits for anyone who didn't want to die a gruesome death.
• Adaptation Species Change:
  • Sort of with Hagrid and Flitwick; they're still respectively a half-giant and a half-goblin, but in this universe giants and goblins are both Fae, and as such both Hagrid and Flitwick are classified as "half Fae." Hagrid is confirmed to belong to the Autumn court.
  • Luna is half-Fae as well; more specifically she's a princess of the Summer Court.
  • The dragon who gets hatched out in Hagrid's hut is a Fae dragon, also called a "luck dragon" or "noble dragon." Not being a Norwegian Ridgeback, the names "Norbert" and "Norberta" never comes into play; instead Ron suggests the name "Daniel," which sticks. Harry keeps thinking of the dragon as "Baby Danny" — changing it to "Baby Danni" when it's revealed the dragon is female and renamed "Danielle."
  • Both the Dementors and the Grim are mentioned as originating from Faerie, with the Grim coming from Autumn and the Dementors from Winter: Lord Acheron claims that he, along with some other Winter Fae, created the Dementors a few centuries ago, as being that would embody "the coldness, the despair, the living death of the coldest winter."
• Adaptational Sexuality: Hermione is straight in canon, but here she develops a big Precocious Crush on Lady Vidia.
• Adaptation Name Change: Luna. In this story, "Luna" is just a nickname; her proper name is "Aurora Maluna." Or, to use her full name and title, "Her Royal Highness, Princess Aurora Maluna of the Summer Court, Duchess of Sunhaven, Countess of the Glens of Eternal Light, Mistress of Midsummer's Splendour and Enchantress of the Luminous Skies — daughter of Crown Princess Solis Pandora of the Summer Court.”
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Thanks to certain changes in their history, Hermione is closer to Lavender and Parvati than she was in canon. They even occasionally have "girl days" together. Turns out the "girl days" are mostly about trying to find out the amnesiac Lavender's background and trying to find out who her parents are.
  • In canon, Ron and Draco knew of each other thanks to their families' bad history, but it was clear that they met for the first time at the Hogwarts Express. Here, they know and dislike each other of old, starting to hurl insults at one another the moment they meet.
  • House-elves in canon are essentially slaves. Here, they work for the wizards as part of the treaty between wizards and Fae, and while as a rule they still don't wear clothes or receive wages, they aren't bound to their wizard families and don't have to take their orders if they don't want to... and abusing a house-elf carries the risk of bringing down the wrath of the Fae upon you, which was what happened to the Blacks. As such, Dobby still works for the Malfoys, but isn't the downtrodden and abused slave he was in canon. Here, he not only wears ridiculous clothes and receives wages from the start, but has a somewhat more flippant attitude and can even refuse to follow direct orders. Lucius is not happy about this; he thinks of Dobby as a nuisance and an imbecile, but since Dobby was the only house-elf who was willing to work for a family that included Narcissa (a former Black), he knows it's either Dobby or no house-elf at all.
• Adapted Out:
  • Not that it's especially noticable, since the characters in question never played any role in the books... but in this fic, Hermione, Lavender and Parvati are the only three Gryffindor girls in Harry's year, and the two extra girls who went unnamed in the books are nowhere to be seen.
  • A sort of Put on a Bus variant occurs with the Black family. It's specifically stated that Sirius, Narcissa and Andromeda are the only ones left of the family and that the rest of them (including Bellatrix, Regulus, Walburga and Orion) "vanished without a trace" while Sirius was still at Hogwarts, because the Spring Court dissovered that they'd been mistreating their house-elves. In true Fae fashion, the entire family was punished whether they were involved in the mistreatment or not — the only reason Sirius and Narcissa were spared was that they were at Hogwarts at the time and the Fae were forbidden from hostile actions towards Hogwarts... and Andromeda was spared because she'd been disowned for falling in love with a Muggle-born and was no longer part of the Black family. This means that Bellatrix and Regulus never became Death Eaters in this AU; Voldemort even mentions to Lady Vidia how the House of Black "would have made such excellent followers" if she and the Spring Court hadn't meddled.
  • Sovanna, Lady Vidia's youngest daughter, is a prominent character in Erotic Adventures in Faerie, but doesn't appear in this story. Since the fic takes place in The '90s, it's possible she simply hasn't been born yet.
• Alternate Universe Fic:
  • Of the Familiar Contextual Reassignment type. The fic takes place in a world that looks a lot like the canon HP one, but even discarding the presence of the Fae, there are a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle differences. One of the earliest hints of this comes in chapter two, where Hagrid tells Harry that the word "witch" is considered old-fashioned and "wizard" is a gender-neutral term.
  • In addition, the author has made it clear that the Lady Vidia and Jenny who appear in this story are alternate versions of the ones who appear in Erotic Adventures in Faerie, with slightly different background stories.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: The Fae can have very colourful skin, but it's not 100% clear if this is their natural skin colours or just a glamour. Lady Vidia has green skin, and Yellow, Magenta and Cyan are named for their skin colours.
• Amicable Exes: Very much averted with Aberforth Dumbledore and Lady Vidia. She can barely tolerate even hearing his name mentioned, and he's got nothing nice to say about her. Lady Vidia still gets along fine with Aberforth's brother Albus, though, and Aberforth still clearly loves their daughter Jenny even if he doesn't get to see her very often.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Lavender has a much larger role in this fic than in canon. (As does Piers Polkiss, since Lavender turns out to be a transformed and amnesiac Piers.)
  • Arguably the Dursleys, even though past the second chapter they're no longer the Dursleys Harry knew and loathed.
  • Mrs Figg has a somewhat larger role this time around, being the one to take Harry in after the Dursleys are transformed into flitlings.
• Banishing Ritual: At the end of first year, when Lady Vidia is unable to destroy the spirit of Voldemort without using so much power that she'd risk also destroying Hogwarts and everyone in it, she decides to Take a Third Option and use a ritual to banish Voldemort to Mars. She's aware that it's not a permanent solution, because Voldemort is currently a spectre and can survive in space. The end of chapter thirteen confirms that Voldemort will eventually make it back to Earth, though the journey through space will take years... and he'll have a lot of time pondering revenge.
• Batman Gambit: Dumbledore is revealed to have been playing one with the Philosopher's Stone. He knew Voldemort was after the Stone, and with Voldemort's abilities to get in anywhere (as exemplified by his break-in at Gringotts), it wasn't a question of if he would get to the Stone, but when. Hence, Dumbledore's entire plot was to lure Voldemort into the caverns under Hogwarts where Dumbledore himself could confront Voldemort in a place where there were no bystanders that could get hurt. Fluffy was there to make sure nobody except Voldemort tried to get to the Stone, and the obstacles were there to slow Voldemort down, giving Dumbledore ample time to catch up with him. Of course, the gambit failed because Harry and Hermione got involved and ended up kidnapped by Quirrell and Voldemort, which Dumbledore had not foreseen.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: A staple in stories about dealing with the Fae, though it's less prominent here than you might think. However, some ill-chosen words on Aunt Petunia's part allows Lady Vidia to work in some Loophole Abuse and "take care" of the Dursleys.
  "The problem," said Lady Vidia, "was that I wasn't supposed to get involved unless the situation was in some way dire, and I did rather tie my hands by promising not to act against any friend or ally to the boy... and that blood protection Albus placed on your house placed you firmly in the 'ally' category. Reluctant allies, maybe, but you weren't beating or starving him... and living with you was literally keeping him safe from those who meant him harm..."
  Lady Vidia reached out and teasingly bopped Petunia's nose with a slender green finger. "But then you, my silly little goose, made it very clear that you weren't his allies. How was it again? 'Take him and turn him into a freak like my perfect sister, but don't expect us to lift a finger to help him.' Those are pretty clear words, I would say. And since you aren't allies... you're fair game."
• Berserk Button:
  • Unicorns are revered by the Fae, and killing a unicorn will set every Fae and Fae-touched in the vicinity on you. Voldemort actually incorporates this in his plan to get the Philosopher's Stone; since Fluffy is a Fae dog in this story, he leaves his post to go hunt the unicorn killer, meaning that the trapdoor to the Stone is unguarded.
  • Don't suggest finding a way to transform the flitlings back into the Dursleys they used to be. Yellow in partuicular finds it very insulting. Bothering Harry is also a good way of getting on their bad side.
• Binding Ancient Treaty: Between the wizards and the Fae. The treaty was established around the same time as the Statue of Secrecy, and essentially forbids open hostilities between the two. The treaty is, however, quite vulnerable to Loophole Abuse, which both sides have been known to exploit.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: The trope is played with when Draco Malfoy tries to bully Neville into finding out what ties Harry has to the Fae:
  Neville: You... you want me to spy on Harry and Ron and Hermione?
  Draco: Oh, "spy" is such a nasty word. So yes, that's exactly what I want you to do. Well done, Longbottom.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Downplayed, but still present, with the Fae. Lady Vidia has a very different sence of right and wrong than the wizards do, and sometimes the ideas clash.
• Bound and Gagged: Harry and Hermione, when kidnapped by Quirrell and Voldemort, are tied up and cagged with magic, then levitated away under Harry's Invisibility Cloak.
• Broad Strokes: The fic's attitude towards canon world. The wizarding world and Hogwarts are mostly like in canon, but a number of details are very different. Some of it has to do with the involvement of the Fae, some of it doesn't.
• Chekhov's Gun: A number of instances only in the first year, where a humorous or seemingly insigificant detail returns later on to play a significant or semi-significant pat in the plot. Examples being Parvati's sleeping potions, the flitlings' decision to give Christmas presents to all of Harry's year-mates, and Harry seeing Lady Vidia in the Mirror of Erised instead of his parents.
• Childhood Friends: Hagrid and Jenny, who grew up in Faerie fogether and who think of each other as cousins even if they're not related by blood.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Sirius finds out that Lord Acheron was one of the people behind the creation of the Dementors, he furiously calls him a "bastard." Lord Acheron is mildly confused at the term:
  “I don’t see how my heritage features into this, Mr Black, but I can assure you it is well-documented and beyond question."
• Composite Character:
  • Lavender Brown is in fact Piers Polkiss, who had his mind addled by Magenta and was later transformed into a girl and made into a wizard by Lady Vidia. She doesn't remember anything of her previous life.
  • Jenny is essentially a stand-in for Aberforth's son Aurelius from the Fantastic Beasts movies (confirmed not to exist in this Alternate Universe).
• Cool Old Lady: Mrs Figg has traces of this. She's got a few Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior! moments, but she's overall kind and helpful, taking Harry in when no other practical solution is available.
• Creepy Good: Lady Vidia is on Harry's side, she's polite and amiable and for a Fae she's overall very kind and understanding... but she has a lot of unnerving sides to her; she sometimes has a distinct predatory edge to her and can do some really questionable things.
• Crossover Relatives: In the Erotic Adventures in Faerie continuity, Jenny's father was an unnamed Norwegian man that Lady Vidia met at Woodstock. In this fic, her father is Aberforth Dumbledore, making her Albus Dumbledore’s niece.
• Disproportionate Retribution: By human standards, at least. Aberforth's infamous liking for goats is a result of a curse Lady Vidia put upon him, and it's revealed that the reason she did it was an Open Relationship Failure — she wanted an open relationship and he didn't.
• The Dividual: Yellow, Magenta and Cyan are the Twindividual version; they have very similar appearances and personalities; all of them are cheerful Genki Girls prone to nonsense and Seinfeldian Conversations. They do have some individual traits, though; Cyan is the sweet and ditzy one who bonds with Hedwig, while Yellow is more playful and independent with a slight contrarian streak. Magenta seems to be the most-level-headed of the three, but is also the most trigger-happy when it comes to dealing out curses.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": It's mentioned briefly that Hagrid doesn't like to be called by his first name, Rubeus, but unlike the wizards, the Fae tend to forget or ignore his wishes, and call him "Rubeus" anyway. The exception is Jenny, who consistently respects his wishes and calls him "Hagrid."
• Drama Queen: Hermione notes that Lavender can be one at times.
• Faerie Court: The various Faerie courts are frequently mentioned. The major ones are Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter (with Spring and Summer often classified as "Seelie" while Autumn and Winter are classified as "Unseelie"), but there are several minor Courts as well. A number of Fae, like Dobby, are "Solitary" or "Courtless" Fae who don't belong to any particular Court.
• The Fair Folk: They're all over this fic. Most wizards treat them with suspicion and would rather stay away from them, while others have a more positive relationship with at least some of the Fae.
• Fantastic Racism: In addition to their usual disdain for Muggles, and the pure-blood discrimination against Muggle-borns, wizard society as a whole do not like the Fae and treat them with suspicion and contempt. The feeling seems to be mutual. There are, however exceptions; the Weasleys are on great terms with the Fae of the Summer Court and Dumbledore turns out to be a friend of Lady Vidia's of old. Likewise, those who have grown up in the Muggle world, like Harry, Hermione and Dean, haven't grown up with tales of evil and untrustworthy Fae, and, in Hermione's words, don't share the "cultural bias against the Fair Folk that seems to be one of the staples of wizarding society."
• Forced Sleep:
  • At several points in the story, a Fae will hit someone with some form of sleep spell. Lady Vidia makes a mind-addled Piers Polkiss fall asleep before transforming him into a girl, and later on puts Harry to sleep after talking with him through the Mirror of Erised. Fang is made to sleep during the hatching of Baby Danni because he was getting too nervous, and in the same scene Cyan hits Hermione with a sleep spell because she looks like she's about to freak out. It's also hinted, but not confirmed that Harry and Hermione's sudden sleepiness when they are taken to Faerie isn't completely natural.
  • Played with when it comes to Parvati, who at one point misses out on an adventure because she's taken a sleeping potion and is impossible to wake up... but she took the potion willingly because she suffers from insomnia.
• Forced Transformation: One of Lady Vidia's favourite methods of dealing with "loose ends" or people she'd rather not deal with anymore. The most prominent example is the Dursleys, who are transformed into flitlings in chapter two and remain in this form for the rest of the fic... though they're not the only ones. The transformations are both physical and mental, so the transformed victims are usually completely different people than they used to be, and for the most part they barely remember their previous lives and are completely uninterested in learning about those previous lives, much less changing back. Neville finds this creepy.
• Full-Frontal Assault: When Lady Vidia confronts Quirrell and Voldemort, she at first tries to deal with them with seductive magics. While it works on Quirrell, Voldemort is not so easily seduced; forcing her to fight him in a more traditional way... while completely naked.
• Gender Bender: Lady Vidia's Forced Transformations often, but not always, include this. So far, the First, Second and Third Laws of Gender Bending are all sort of adhered to; there doesn't seem to be any way to reverse the transformation, and the transformed victims quickly adjust to their new lives and have drastically different personalities (Lavender in particular is very feminine after the transformation)... but this all seems to be a deliberate part of the transformation, as the transformations also include mental changes that prevent them from wanting to change back. In the cases where the victims can remember anything at all about their pre-transformed lives, they view those lives with disinterest or outright disdain.
• Genki Girl: Magenta, Yellow and Cyan are all very cheerful and energic.
• Girls Have Cooties: It's probably a mix of this trope, preeteen awkwardness and the Dude, She's Like in a Coma trope, but when Hermione is hit by a Forced Sleep spell, and the only way to wake her up before the spell ends in a few hours is to kiss her on the lips, eleven year old Harry and Ron have this reaction:
  Harry: A few hours? Isn't there a way to wake her up before that?
  Ron: Yeah, but she's all right, isn't she? Probably needed a bit of sleep anyway, she's been stressing out for weeks...
  Harry: What? Come on, we have to wake her up. She’ll be livid if she wakes up and finds out we didn't at least —
  Ron: Look, it's Fae sleep, all right? Only way to wake her up before the spell's worn off is to... you know, to kiss her. On the mouth.
  Harry: Oh. Oh! You know, you're right, she probably does need a bit of sleep!
• Half-Human Hybrid: There are a few half-Fae, such as Hagrid, Flitwick, Jenny and Luna — that's not even counting those Fae who used to be human but were transformed into Fae, such as the flitlings. There doesn't seem to be a lot of Half-Breed Discrimination, though — the Fae don't seem to care if you're half-human or of human origin (Luna is even recognized and respected as a Princess of the Summer Court, despite being half human), and the wizards just dislike anything connected to the Fae, human blood or no.
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Lady Vidia is on an entirely different power scale than the wizards, and could probably have taken care of a lot of Harry's problems with ease (and likely created a whole lot more for him in the process), but thanks to her bargain with Hagrid she's limited in what she can actually do. She owes Harry seven free favours, but she can't intervene unless it's a dire situation, and she can't harm anyone who is a friend of ally to Harry. While she indulges in a fair bit of Loophole Abuse, she can't outright break these conditions.
• Honorary Aunt: Lady Vidia to Hagrid. She's really just a friend of his mother, but he calls her his aunt. He and Jenny treat each other as cousins.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Not uncommon for the Fae. The flitlings, thanks to the Fae lack of modesty and the fact that they don't feel cold, always fly around in the nude. There's a hint of vanity to it (Magenta even asks why she would want to cover up "this beautiful body"), but for the most part they just don't get why people make such a big fuss.
• Insistent Terminology: The flitlings would like everyone to know that they are not pixies.
  "Pixies are those other small winged people from Faerie. Not like us at all!"
• Invisible to Normals: The Fae can only be seen by Muggles if they choose to be seen. Wizards and people with Second Sight (including Mrs Figg, who is a Squib) can see them all the time.
• Line-of-Sight Name: A variant. Harry is asked to name the three transformed Dursleys, but he can't think of any good names... and they don't help the matter by suggesting he name them "Harry-Harry," "Harry-Harry-Harry" and "Harry-Harry-Harry-Harry." In the end, just to get an end to their ramblings, he suggests naming them "Pink," "Yellow" and "Blue" after their skin tones.
  "Oh, why don’t I just call you Pink, Yellow and Blue!" said Harry exasperatedly.
  Once more, the flitlings looked at him in confusion. "Why?" they chorused.
  Harry tried not to grimace. Whatever else the transformation had done to the Dursleys, it hadn’t made them any smarter. Even Dudley wouldn't have been this clueless. "Because," he said slowly, "you’re pink, yellow and blue. The colour of your skin?"
  They all looked down themselves, studying their bodies with interest.
  "That's silly," the pink one finally said. "I'm not pink. If anything I'm more of a magenta."
  "And I'm cyan," said the blue one. "Definitely cyan. It looks kind of like blue, but it isn't really."
  "And I'm yellow!" said the yellow one.
  "Er," said Harry. "That’s what I said. Yellow."
  "No, you said yellow. I'm a different shade of yellow than the yellow you said."
  Harry opened his mouth to argue, and then thought better of it. "So... Yellow, Magenta and Cyan, then. Do you like that?"
  They looked at each other, and then nodded.
  "It'll do," said Magenta.
• Locked Out of the Loop: For much of Harry's first year, Hermione doesn't know about Lady Vidia, Jenny, the flitlings, Baby Danny, or Harry and Ron's involvement with the Fae. It gets increasingly awkward for Harry and Ron to not tell her, especially since they're all together in investigating the mystery of the Philosopher’s Stone, and so they plan on telling her everything, only for the plot to set things off in a different direction. But it turns out that she's been keeping some secrets from them too...
• Magic Eater: Noble dragons feed off magic. While not shown to drain living beings of their magic like many other examples of the trope, they can eat pretty much anything as long as it's at least slightly magical — even magical residue from spells placed on an object is enough, as Harry finds out when Baby Danni tries to eat Harry's glasses. Turns out there was still a trace of magic on the glasses after Hermione had used magic to repair them.
• Narnia Time: Time between Faerie and the mortal realm gets, in Lady Vidia's words, "a little confused." The biggest indication of this so far is how Harry and Hermione end up in Faerie and are there for "at least a night and a day" while back at Hogwarts only a couple of hours have passed. Seamus mentions people who thought they were in Faerie for only a day, while decades have passed in the mortal realm.
• No Love for the Wicked: Voldemort is more or less confirmed to be asexual and probably aromantic as well, meaning he's immune to Lady Vidia's glamour-enhanced seductive viles. Quirrell, on the other hand...
• No Man Should Have This Power: On a much smaller scale than what's normal for this trope, but for a few chapters Neville wears a bracelet that gives him Nigh-Invulnerability. He decides to give it back to Jenny because he'd rather deal with the risk of getting hurt, than with the risk of growing too used to being invulnerable, growing reckless and perhaps causing other people to get hurt instead.
• Older Than They Look: Jenny looks to be in her early twenties, but is in fact the same age as Hagrid (i.e. in her sixties). The trope counts for Hagrid as well, who doesn't look like a man in his sixties. Of course they're both half-Fae and effectively immortal.
• Only Sane Man: Harry often takes on this role when dealing with the flitlings, much to his frustration.
• Our Fairies Are Different: To quote the author's notes:
  The Fae in this story are based on, but not completely identical to, the many stories of the Fair Folk you find in folk tales across the world. Folk tales come in many versions, several of which contradict each other, and rather than tie myself to one version I have shamelessly mixed and matched, and added quite a bit of my own stuff.
• Our Pixies Are Different: The flitlings, though they insist that they aren't pixies, definitely look and act a lot more like the classic depiction of pixies than the pixies from the canon books.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The flitlings are tiny, but strong enough to lift and carry objects many times their weight. Harry first sees this when Yellow effortlessly lifts his trunk, filled with his school supplies, and carries it through the air with little effort, even though, as he notes, "could have fit thirty or forty of her inside that trunk."
• Precocious Crush: Harry probably has one on Lady Vidia, though he's a little icked out by the thought. Hermione definitely crushes hard on Lady Vidia from the moment she lay eyes on her, and spends a bit of time justifying it to herself.
  Hermione: I’m not in love with her. I just… I just have a crush. A silly schoolgirl crush. It’s very common for girls my age to develop a crush on some older person, that’s why they call it a schoolgirl crush. It’s just hormones. It doesn’t mean anything.
• Riddle for the Ages: Yellow, Magenta and Cyan are the Dursleys transformed into cute little pixie-like women... but which flitling was which Dursley? Lady Vidia chooses not to indulge the information, and the flitlings themselves have forgotten. The author herself has made it clear that even she doesn't know, and has no plans revealing it either.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Dobby. And how.
  Neon pink, polka-dotted stockings, but no shoes or even a shirt. Lime green, chequered shorts that were at least three sizes too big and held up by a large, silver-studded belt. On one hand, a leather driving glove in electric blue; and on the other hand, a fuzzy, hot pink mitten with a pom-pom dangling from the cuff. Completing the ensemble was a fuchsia bowtie adorned with glittering sequins, which sat crookedly around the elf's neck, and a pair of oversized, heart-shaped sunglasses that covered half his face.
  [...]
  "Dobby is a fashionable elf, sir!” he said proudly. “Does sir not love Dobby's sense of style?"
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Where the flitlings are Innocent Fanservice Girls, Lady Vidia knows exactly how beautiful she is and has no problems exploiting it.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • For much of the first year, Ron is the only one of Harry's classmates who knows about his connections to the Fae, his seven favours from Lady Vidia, and he's also the only one of them who knows about Magenta, Yellow and Cyan.
  • As the year goes on, all of Harry's Gryffindor year-mates (Neville, Hermione, Lavender, Parvati, Dean and Seamus) also learn about Lady Vidia and Harry's connections to the Fae, though Seamus is very skeptical about the whole thing.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Snape is one of the few people who knows about Harry's involvement with the Fae, mostly since he's supposed to help Dumbledore protect Harry and as such needs to know. Of course, he never so much as hints to Harry that he knows his situation (and really, since he hates the Fae it only gives him more incentive to dislike Harry).
• Seinfeldian Conversation:
  • Yellow, Magenta and Cyan have a knack for these. They can chatter on and get into argument about nothing at all.
    Magenta: Why do all humans make such a big deal out of us being naked?”
    Yellow: I always thought of us as nude more than naked.
    Cyan: What's the difference?
    Yellow: Well, naked just means you don't have any clothes on. Nude means you don't have any clothes on and it's very artistic and tasteful. Now, if I had said nekkid, that would mean —
    Harry: You're not helping!
  • Ron and Harry sometimes have them. Usually they're instigated by Ron making some sarcastic remark or off-the-wall comment and Harry going along with it.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Lady Vidia first learns that wizards call humans without magic "Muggles," she likens it to how some of the Winter Fae call all humans "Mud People."
  • In one chapter, Ron tells Hermione and Harry about one of his cousins who got so nervous about his written exams that he had a total breakdown and wrote "I'm a daffodil" on every answer sheet. The author has admitted that this is a reference to Red Dwarf.
  • Later on, in the same chapter, Hagrid wants to call the newly hatched dragon "Nobby," but Jenny protests. Ron suggests the name "Daniel" for Hagrid's newly hatched dragon for a very similar reason to Nobby Nobbs naming a swamp dragon "Errol" in Guards! Guards!: he thinks the dragon looks like said cousin.
  • Dragons from Faerie are called "noble dragons" by the Autumn Court and "luck dragons" by the Spring Court. Like the noble dragons from the Discworld books they're Magic Eaters and Extreme Omnivores, and like the luck dragons from The Neverending Story they are clearly inspired by Asian dragons with long, serpentlike bodies, lion-like manes and no wings.
  • When hearing that Lavender has a "Fairy godmother," Dean says "Like 'Cinderella, you shall go to the ball' and all that?"
  • At one point in the story, when Seamus says the Fae are dangerous, Lady Vidia's speech has quite a bit in common with Gandalf’s speech to Gimli in The Lord of the Rings when he wonders if Treebeard is dangerous. Her wording even hints that she's read the book and is deliberately taking inspiration from it.
    “Dangerous? You’re right, I am dangerous. Very dangerous. More dangerous, I'd wager, than most people you will meet... but you won't meet many people who aren't dangerous in some fashion. Harry here is dangerous too. And so is Hermione. And my darling Lavender, she’s very dangerous. And young Ron Weasley. Every single person around you is dangerous in their own way. How did that quote go, again? ‘You are surrounded by dangers, young wizard, for you are dangerous yourself.’ Something like that, anyway.”
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Quirrell, whose life is ultimately saved by Lady Vidia. Well, she transforms him into a marble statue of a satyr, but makes it clear that he's not dead and more than hints that she will revive him at some point, to give him a chance at redemption.
  • Luna's mother Pandora is specifically mentioned to be alive and well. She's also a Fae, and the Crown Princess of the Summer Court.
  • In canon, Bilius Weasley is mentioned to have seen the Grim and died. Here, he still saw the Grim, but instead of dying he went to live in Faerie because the Grim's curse couldn't reach the Summer Lands. Jenny and Luna both mention him as being alive and well, with Luna even saying he's the life of every party in the Summer Court.
• Time Skip: Frequent. If an event happens approximately the same way as in canon, the fic simply skips it. Harry's first trip to Diagon Alley, his first meetings with Ron, Hermione, Neville and Malfoy, the first Potions class, the first encounter with Fluffy, and pretty much everything Quidditch-related, all happens off-screen during time skips, with references in the character dialogue confirming that the events took place in approximately the same way as in canon.
• Title In: The chapter titles simply state which moth and year the respective chapter takes place in. In addition, every scene in the fic begins with a time-and-place card that informs the reader of the place, date and time of day.
  Sunday, 5th January 1992
  Gryffindor common room, early evening.
• The Voiceless: Crabbe and Goyle, like in canon, barely get any spoken dialogue. Unlike in canon, the other students notice and comment upon the fact that the two never speak, though Pansy swears she heard Crabbe say "pass the potatoes" once at the dinner table. Contrasted with Theodore Nott, who is mentioned to be The Quiet One.
• Wanting Is Better Than Having: Not really called much attention to, but Lavender spends much of her first year at Hogwarts, with the help of Lavender and Parvati, trying to find out who she really is and who her parents are. When she finally learns that she used to be Piers Polkiss and who her parents were, she immediately loses interest, explaining with roundabout words that the mystery was a lot more interesting when she didn't know the answer.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Like in many of the folklore stories, most Fae are weakened and their magic fails by exposure to iron, meaning they avoid iron whenever they can. Half-Fae like Hagrid and Jenny can be around iron with no ill effects, though.