The Rigel Black Chronicles / Tropes E To O

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E-G

• Embarrassing Nickname: Members of the "Save Our World" party pronounce SOW like sowing seeds. Its detractors, though, pronounce it like a female pig. It doesn't help that the previous incarnation was named "Cure Our World" (ie COW). Hermione genuinely doesn't realise that it's intended as an insult until Archie explains.
• Emotion Control: It's harder than merely sensing emotions, but with practice, Draco is able to project emotions as well. He helps Rigel calm down before the First Task — although judging the intensity takes some trial and error, leaving her initially feeling rather numb.
• The Empath: Draco Malfoy, starting in third year. Harry feels both guilty and worried when she finds out, because she brewed the Potentialis Potion that unlocked his gift, so she feels like his emotional turmoil is her fault, and it might blow her cover.
• Enemy Mine: Harry and Riddle are opposed in many things, but have common ground against the Diary-construct styling itself Voldemort.
• Engineered Heroics: The Diary-construct tells the basilisk to kill itself with the intent of taking credit for it upon stealing "Rigel's" body. For extra evil points, the plan included accusing Dumbledore of similarly engineering it for his own benefit.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Harry's friends come to various wrong conclusions about Rigel after the ruse breaks, because they still accept the lie that Rigel was a third party. For example, since Harry has to hide her wand and just uses wandless magic, they assume that that was the reason that Rigel's wand didn't originally work right; he was using Harry's. And Draco assumes that Rigel seemed androgynous in order to let Harry take his place sometimes, when really Harry was making her body as masculine as she safely could.
• Epic Fail: Tom Riddle organises the "True Triwizard Tournament" as a ploy to convince the public that pure-blood magic is superior to half-blood or muggle-born, and sets out to recruit the talented and powerful Rigel Black as the pure-blood champion. When it's all over, a half-blood has convincingly won the Tournament, swinging public opinion firmly against Riddle and defeating his marriage law, plus he's bound by an Unbreakable Vow never to introduce or support another one, and that means he has lost his leverage on Severus Snape, and senior party members like Lucius Malfoy have seen the physical resemblance between Riddle and Voldemort and heard that Voldemort is a half-blood.
• Evil Mentor: Once he starts paying serious attention to "Rigel", Tom Riddle decides to take him in and train him as a symbol of pureblood superiority and power. Harry steadfastly refuses, but Riddle has a habit of using any means necessary to get what he wants.
• Exact Words:
  • Archie needs Hermione's help in procuring Polyjuice Potion for himself and Harry to switch back for Christmas, but she's suspicious of his motives.
    Arcturus: Look—I solemnly swear that I am not planning on ruining anyone's grade, test score, or academic career.
    Hermione: I—really, Harry? Because you seemed awfully interested in that boy once you heard he was brewing Polyjuice.
    Arcturus: I would never steal someone's Polyjuice potion before it was graded, Hermione, honestly, I thought you knew me.
    Hermione: Oh. Okay then, I thought—wait. Oh, no.^note  Archie is, of course, planning to steal as much Polyjuice as possible after it's graded.
  • He later solemnly affirms that he didn't ask about "Rigel's" blood status. Which is true, since he knew perfectly well that Harry is a half-blood without asking.
• Explosive Results:
  • Harry follows an unfamiliar recipe for a love potion to sell to the Serpent's Storeroom, and it blows up in her face with enough force to send chunks of cauldron flying, though fortunately the lab's safety precautions save her from injury. It turns out that the recipe had been tampered with, adding an inappropriate and highly volatile ingredient (dried chimera eyes). It's suspected to be an undirected Assassination Attempt, since the owner of the Serpent's Storeroom is known to be an ally to Leo; either Krait would brew it himself and get blown up, or one of his subcontractors would get blown up and hurt his business.
  • Repeatedly defied during Harry's free-brewing lessons, to Professor Snape's mild consternation at her unblemished apron — "If ever your effects hang in the National Potions Archive, no one will ever believe their authenticity." It's not that she makes no mistakes, far from it, rather that her magic rapidly responds to any destabilisation and suppresses the rogue reaction. As the year progresses, she's so on edge that her magic even suppresses Exploding Snap cards and ruins the game.
• Face Your Fears: The boggart in Remus' defence class is canon, but in canon it was mostly focused on being able to defend yourself if you encounter a boggart. In this story, the lesson is broader, using the boggart as a tool to understand your own fears, your mental and physiological responses to them, in order to be better prepared for any dangerous situation.
  Professor Lupin: This class is called Defense Against the Dark Arts, but the defender who is controlled by fear is as much a danger as the thing he or she is defending against. Before I teach you how to combat the Dark Arts, then, I am going to teach you how to overcome fear. Only when you can act in the face of terror, in the midst of surprise and uncertainty, only then can you defend yourself against anything, much less the darkest of our magical arts.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • Blaise wins two sickles by betting that as soon as someone actually tells Rigel about their study group, he'll be happy to join in. Theo took the bet because he couldn't believe that Rigel hadn't already noticed them meeting in the common room every school night for the past month and a half.
  • Harry remains quite unaware of the first Hogsmeade weekend in third year, until she asks at breakfast what all the fuss is about.
    Theo: You're kidding, right?
    Millicent: You know he isn't.
  • After the second Triwizard task, Harry marches into Professor Snape's lab to demand that he honour their agreement to start teaching her free-brewing, "or I will transfer to Durmstrang and take up an apprenticeship with Master Montmorency." He snidely responds that Master Montmorency would never take an apprentice who could not use his eyes (and notice the cauldron and ingredients made ready) before speaking.
• Fantastic Racism: As per canon, many witches and wizards of long magical ancestry consider themselves to be inherently superior to first- and second-generation magic. However, here it's been accepted so widely for so long that rather than being driven by violent terrorists, it's simply normal and assumed among otherwise friendly and affable members of society. Furthermore, it's misguided but not entirely meaningless; there are differences between newer and older magic, but they're a matter of order vs chaos, not good vs evil.
• Fantastic Terrorists: The Death Eaters first appear at the Quidditch World Cup, where they cause severe structural damage to the Top Box, broadcast an anti-Muggleborn message, and leaflet-drop the Stadium.
• Fatal Fireworks:
  • The Twins supply Harry with one of George's inventions for the first Triwizard Task: a palm-sized grey disk enchanted with the equivalent of several crates of fireworks. It's meant to be either a distraction to help get through the task, or else a celebration afterward, and it packs enough of a punch to scare off a dragon.
  • Harry later sets off a second one in an enclosed space, disabling two attackers so badly that they couldn't apparate away.
• Fight Clubbing: Free-duelling is a common sport in the Lower Alleys, and the tournaments are a significant fundraiser for the Court of the Rogue. Unlike the Trope Namer, however, it's not bare-knuckled; dual-wielding a wand and a knife is typical. Harry takes the opportunity to learn the skills from Leo, as it's a very practical form of self-defence, and he encourages her to compete. She makes it through her first two brackets, and puts up a good showing in the third.
• First-Name Basis: Tom Riddle likes drama and grandstanding, so Professor Dumbledore regularly refers to him by his first name to undermine it.
• Flight:
  • This is Draco's preferred superpower, so Harry invents a potion to let him fly for for up to an hour, by modifying a weight-altering potion, and thus accidentally invents "shaped imbuing".
  • At the World Cup, Harry's family and friends pair up Weightless Draughts with imbued Levitation Charms to let pairs of people make emergency semi-controlled flights down from the Top Box.
• Flower Motifs: Margo has firm opinions about the suitability of various flowers for different occasions, and naturally, she knows what she's talking about.
  Margo: Aren't you glad you didn't go for carnations?
• Foodfight!: With a difference. After the Chamber of Secrets, someone reenacts the scene (with artistic licence) by animating half of dinner in the Great Hall to form giant golems. A Rigel made of brown food (bread, meat, potatoes) battles a basilisk made of green food (lettuce, cucumbers, broccoli, with pea-pod teeth and apple eyes), using a sword made of red food (capsicum, carrots, tomatoes). Rigolem is swallowed by the snake but then cuts his way out from the inside. Harry knows it's not accurate, but isn't publishing the true details to everyone.
• Forced Dance Partner: When "Rigel" is invited to high society events, Harry isn't keen on dancing with anyone, partly because she doesn't enjoy it much, and partly because someone might notice that she isn't nearly as skilled as the real Arcturus Black. She isn't always able to avoid it, though; she manages to arrange a substitute when standing Pansy up, so that Pansy won't be too miffed, but when she later attends a dance as herself, with the Parkinsons hosting, Pansy pins her down wanting to dance the current set, so she can't get out of it without being extremely rude.
  Pansy: Rigel once refused me a dance, and I was rather heart-broken. If you turn me away, too, I shall develop a complex.
• Foreign-Language Tirade: When Fleur hears that the flowers Owens sent her will smell like a corpse when they bloom, she screeches and lets out a torrent of French too fast for Rigel to follow.
  Fleur: A pox on zis tournament.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When the poisoning of Rigel's drink causes a prank war between Gryffindor and Slytherin, Draco is bitten by a large tarantula left in his belongings. Canon mentions that Lee Jordan had a tarantula on the Hogwarts Express, and sure enough, Lee turns out to be the culprit behind the attack on Rigel.
  • Harry watches the Marauder's Map and notices Pettigrew repeatedly leaving school grounds, wondering if he's torturing some poor creature with the Dominion Jewel. It later turns out that he was torturing her, trying to steal her magic with the Jewel after kidnapping her through time.
  • When Harry is wrestling with her unruly magic after confronting Riddle, she wishes she could "crawl into a dark hole and stay there for a week or two" rather than keep dealing with it. In the following chapter, Peter Pettigrew imprisons her underground for weeks, unsuccessfully-but-painfully attempting to steal her magic.
• A Friend in Need:
  • Harry's first meeting with Hermione (who thinks she's been Harry's friend for years) goes unexpectedly, since Harry needs to deliver an illegal potion. She tells Hermione that she has an errand that involves breaking a law, and Hermione can meet up later if she doesn't want to know. Hermione is having none of that.
    Hermione: I certainly won't look the other way, you idiot! If I'm not looking, I can't help you. I can't promise to keep my mouth shut if I disagree with you, Harry, but I will never betray you. If you do something you think is morally questionable I want to know about it, so I can help you figure out another way, if there is one, or support you, if there isn't. Now stop being dramatic and just tell me what's going on.
  • Leo makes Harry promise to come to him if she gets in over her head and needs help. When the ruse blows up and he works out that she's Rigel, he makes sure that the Alley residents support her claim to have lived there for years.
  • Harry is able to comfort and reassure Draco when his newfound empathy is overwhelming him and slowly driving him mad. Knowing that she's there for him lets him face down his boggart that shows him fallen to madness; he counters it with the image of Rigel coming to help.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: The two vampire covens living in the Lower Alleys are not especially friendly, but they coexist mostly peacefully — albeit usually at arm's length — with their neighbours. The Alleys' medical clinic even runs a regular blood drive to help support them.
  Harry: People donate blood to vampires?
  Leo: The vampires pay a handsome tithe. Their privacy and safety during the day is valuable to their way of life. This money goes to feeding and housing those who fall on hard times in the alleys. It goes to infrastructure such as waste removal, public Floo facilities, and wards for privacy and protection around businesses of a less than strictly legal nature. It benefits the community at large to have rich covens in our alleys, and as long as they don't cause trouble, they're welcome.
• Gender-Concealing Voice: Harriet starts practising a deeper octave when she first boards the Hogwarts Express. It helps that she's only eleven, so boys' and girls' voices are both high-pitched, but she's laying the groundwork for years to come.
• Gender Flip: "Harry" is actually Harriet. Not only does this match the Song of the Lioness crossover, it also explains how she doesn't have any trouble living in the boys' dorm at Hogwarts; attempting the reverse is canonically shown to have unpleasant results.
• Gone Horribly Right:
  • Professor Snape lets Harry prove she can assist with his regular brewing tasks, by letting her make Sweat Inducers for two weeks, "however many you find the time for, without overworking yourself." Neither of them realises that Harry's magical reserves are dramatically larger than most students', allowing her to just keep brewing as long as she has time and ingredients. At the end of the two weeks, instead of Harry having completed perhaps a crate as he expected, his office is filled with dozens of crates, thousands of individual doses, costing him hours of effort and significant magical exhaustion just to quality-check them all.
  • Harry brews a "Potentialis Potion" intended to reveal magical aptitudes and gifts, but her potion seems to also unlock magical gifts. Which is fine for Archie, who gets an easily controlled power, but Draco gets an uncontrolled emotion sense.
  • Sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle created the magical consciousness in the Diary as a safeguard against becoming complacent and comfortable. So, naturally, when he grows up a bit more, and decides to change the world nonviolently, his construct doesn't agree, and as soon as it's reactivated, it opens the Chamber of Secrets.
• Good Parents:
  • James and Lily have their faults, but they are supportive of Harriet's interests and goals (albeit not always comprehending them), interested in her life and concerned about her wellbeing. (There have been less-supportive incidents in the past, but James really is trying to let her do what she loves.) She still doesn't dare tell them about the identity swap.
  • Sirius struggles with the distance that grows between himself and "Rigel"; Harry can try to mimic Archie's personality in her letters, but she just doesn't have the same closeness and trust, leading to several cases where Sirius is disappointed at not being entrusted with things. He still goes out of his way to make things easier for "Rigel" (including smoothing the way for friendships with prominent SOW party families), defends and trusts "him", and tries to be as supportive as he can.
• Groin Attack: Attempted on Harry in the free-duelling tournament, but of course it isn't as crippling as expected. She's sore later, but is able to finish the fight.
• Grounded Forever: Archie readily agrees to being grounded for a year, to help settle Sirius' nerves before Archie is questioned by Aurors about his role in the Ruse. Sirius entertains himself by imposing ridiculous punishments like forbidding the use of any form of the verb "to be". Archie and Harry end up with 30 minutes of time together per day, but under close supervision.
• Guilt-Free Extermination War: After the Carpathians help Voldemort to possess one of the Strigoi vampires, Kasten informs Harry that it "cannot be borne", and that soon there will be only one coven in the Alleys.

H-L

• Heroic Sacrifice: Harry chooses to poison herself with a basilisk fang rather than risk being used against her friends and family.
• Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Caelum Lestrange makes Harry meet him at an expensive restaurant and foot the bill, instead of the cheap place she suggested, then presents her with a menu in French, and pretends to go through quite a lot of expensive wine (which he isn't actually drinking). She retaliates by instructing the waiter, in French, to water down his next bottle, correctly guessing that Caelum doesn't actually speak French and merely memorised what he wanted.
  Harry: I suspect he will be a tedious drunk. Don't worry about irritating him—he won't even notice, and I'll pay for the whole bottle regardless.
  Waiter: Yes, Madam. That is no problem. What shall we do with the wine we remove?
  Harry: Sell it by the glass.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Peter Pettigrew is ultimately killed by the Dominion Jewel.
• Home-Early Surprise: Harry and Caelum Lestrange spend three hours at his house, practising difficult potion brewing — and then his parents unexpectedly arrive home early, forcing her to flee out the back of the property. (Since he had to disable blood wards that would have fried Harry to ashes, before she could enter, it's pretty clear that they would not have reacted well to her presence.)
• Homework Slave: This is the price that Marcus Flint demands for his silence about "Rigel" not really being Archie. He's smart enough to pass all his exams, but couldn't be bothered writing homework assignments, so he wants Rigel to do them. Harry pulls it off successfully, for three years, until Flint graduates, ensuring that by the time the ruse breaks down and she has to flee from Hogwarts, she has just about a full education.
  Rigel: Can a first year really do a fifth year's work? Won't it make you look bad?
  Flint: You can put my name on whatever drivel you want, as long as it meets their arbitrary requirements for passing the year.
• Honor Among Thieves: Once it's established that Aldon Rosier is Harry's friend, Leo hands him a money pouch — which Aldon then realises was pickpocketed from him earlier without him noticing.
• Honorary Uncle: James, Sirius and Remus (but not Peter, who's estranged) consider each other to be brothers, and Harry and Archie call each other cousins. Sirius actually is related to the Potters, albeit a bit more distantly, but Remus isn't; still, he's "Uncle Remus" to both children.
• I Know You Know I Know:
  • Harry pulls something similar at breakfast.
    George: Clearly we need to talk about your pathological acting skills, little pup.
    Rigel: I employ them mainly in self-defense.
    Draco: I'm sorry. What?
    Rigel: I do. It's not my fault I'm surrounded by aggressively nosy people who also happen to be incredibly gullible.
    Pansy: You're aware that you shouldn't have said that out loud, right?
    Rigel: You're aware that that's only what I want you to think, right?
    George: I'm not sure that makes any sense.
    Fred: I'm not sure that anything makes sense, anymore.
    Rigel: As long as no one is certain of anything we can all go about our lives in peace.
  • Marcus Flint gives a more straightforward example, assuring Harry that he knows the teachers know he's having someone else complete his homework, and they know that he knows they know — but they can't make a move without proof.
• I Lied: Harry's family, except Archie, has no idea how many lies she tells, but she's honest about that with her friends.
  Caelum: You lied. You said you were already planning on getting food out.
  Harry: Yes, I lied to you. I lie a lot, actually. You should get used to it if we're going to be friends.
• I Owe You My Life:
  • The Malfoys make "Rigel" an honorary member of their family after she saves Draco from the sleeping plague before his body starves. She calls it in to stop him trying to track "Rigel" down after the Triwizard Tournament.
  • Tiberius Ogden makes a similar declaration of indebtedness after Harry identifies that his drink has been poisoned, and a second time when Harry and Archie heal him from poisoned wounds inflicted by an assassin bug.
  • Harry narrowly avoids Irina swearing herself to Harry's service after Harry brews a potion that helps her mate Gavril recover from being possessed by Voldemort.
• I Thought Everyone Could Do That:
  • Harry is quite surprised to learn how revolutionary her "shaped imbuing" technique is. After all, anyone who learns to cast spells without a wand, can consciously imbue potions with magic, has enough Occlumency skill to monitor their own mind and magical core, and can isolate the process of forming a spell from actually casting it, should be able to learn shaped imbuing...
  • She also had no idea that it was supposed to be impossible to enter someone else's magical core from the outside, until she went ahead and did it, and freaked out Professor Snape in the process. When Archie later tries to replicate it, he can't.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The title of each book is "The X Y"; X and Y start with the same letter, and for the first four books, this letter comes from one of the words in the equivalent canon title (eg "The Serpentine Subterfuge" copies the S from "Chamber of Secrets"). The Malignant Masquerade had to halt the previous pattern of copying canon, but is alliterative anyway.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: At the first meeting of the unofficial duelling club, Draco invites the participants to divide themselves into two groups, beginners and advanced. Most of them shuffle themselves into the advanced group, and Draco has to send them to Ron to test who's really skilled and who isn't. Despite Ron's negative judgement, though, Cormac McLaggen is quite insistent on remaining in the advanced group — until Draco and Rigel demonstrate what duelling skill really looks like.
• Immune to Fire: The Marauders' "Fire Free Burn Baste" takes the form of a spray to be used all over one's skin, which will then absorb heat above their body temperature. The original idea was to let someone walk through flames as a party trick. Sirius gives Rigel a stronger version that lets her temporarily survive dragon fire.
• Imperfect Ritual: Voldemort's attempt to steal Harry's magic trips up twice, first because she's not closely related to Tonks, and secondly because she's not Pureblood. Unfortunately, that publicly exposes "Rigel".
• Improvised Weapon: After Sirius teasingly semi-flirts with Lily, he "hightailed it out of the kitchen before Lily had time to pin him to the table with one of the butter knives."
• In Medias Res: Harry returns from a fairly normal day out at the end of one chapter, then starts the next chapter with her father confronting her at wand-point as she steps out of the fireplace — and then the narrative reveals that it's actually a different day, where all kinds of things happened and led to her coming home long after curfew.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Harry is still a Parselmouth, but it's hereditary rather than coming from a soul shard. Everyone still finds out about it at Lockhart's dueling club, even though Draco's her friend.
  • Ginny is not isolated or shy, but still shows signs of the Diary finding a way into her head. She's paranoid about mental invasion after hearing about the Sleeping Sickness, and Tom persuades her that the best defence is to have him inside her mind guarding it.
  • Despite Riddle behaving quite differently, Defence Against the Dark Arts still has a new teacher every year.
• In the Back:
  • Lee Jordan hits Harry from behind with a trip jinx while going down a flight of stairs, causing her to fall and break her wrist.
  • Leo stabs a challenger in the back when defending his title — but it was simply a clever tactic (wordlessly summoning his thrown knife, like a boomerang) in a formal duel, not a sneak attack. And it wasn't fatal, just meant to teach a painful lesson. Much later, Leo admits to Harry that it was an intentionally brutal way to end the fight, because he wants to discourage Marek from trying it again.
    Leo: Whatever his skill in the ring, he would make a terrible Rogue and I refuse to allow it. Even if it means stabbing him from time to time to remind the idiot why it's a bad idea to challenge me.
• Inane Blabbering: The jelly-brains jinx causes Harry to speak nonsense for several minutes, somewhat like being drunk, and then develop a headache afterwards.
  Pansy: Jelly-brains! You turned his brains to jelly?
  Rigel: Pan, it's okay. The sky is going to rain honey for me tomorrow, and if we have jelly too then everyone can have toast.
• Insult Backfire:
  • When Caelum Lestrange tells Rigel that Sirius is "a general disgrace to the name of his forefathers," she responds that Sirius (who hates everything his family stands for) would consider that the highest of compliments and that she'll be sure to pass it along.
  • Sirius' brother Regulus later warns him that due to not having spotted the Ruse, "We look like fools, brother. Incompetent fools." Sirius laughs and calls that a silver lining.
• Internal Reveal: Different people find out pieces of Harry and Archie's true identities at different times.
  • Marcus Flint is a friend of Arcturus and knows that "Rigel" isn't him, but can guess why Archie would do that and doesn't immediately expose them. He also doesn't realise just who is pretending to be Archie; he assumes it's a random half-blood (and doesn't much care).
  • Leo realises that Harry is a girl as soon as he hears her surname.
  • Leo's mother knows Harry is a girl immediately, and has a lie detection ability that lets her see right through Harry's story about studying in America, but she doesn't push it. (She's rather confused when Hermione turns up with Harry, talking honestly about their time in America together.)
  • Subverted with Marek, who learns from Leo that Harry is actually a girl, but is convinced by Archie that Leo was pulling his leg.
  • Feeling guilty about all the lies, Harry tells Draco and Pansy that she's a Parselmouth. Technically it's not a part of their subterfuge, but since Archie can't speak to snakes, it increases the risk of being caught out at some point, especially during summer when they're switched back.
  • Professor Snape finds out about "Harry" and "Rigel" keeping up with each other's coursework, including mixed-but-true reasons why "Rigel" didn't just go to America: Sirius wanted Arcturus to stay in Britain (Archie's reason for having a place at Hogwarts), and the American Institute of Magic lacks a good potions program (Harry's reason for taking that place).
  • Hermione does some research and works out that Harry Potter was definitely born female. Rather than expose Harry to danger, Archie convinces Hermione that he identifies as male.
  • After the sixth Triwizard Task, the public finds out that "Rigel" is half-blood and unrelated to Nymphadora Tonks.
  • Leo recognises the knife Harry used against Barty Crouch, and one of his subjects sees her in the Alleys just after the task, letting him work out that she was Rigel.
• It's All My Fault: Lily feels responsible for Harry's horrible thirteenth birthday experience, even though she couldn't have done anything about it.
• It's Not You, It's Me: Harry's reaction to Draco admitting he's attracted to Rigel.
  Harry: We would never work together. My goals preclude it. Really, though, that's a good thing. You're going to end up with someone a lot less crazy than me. Someone communicative and honest.
• Jaw Drop: James Potter's mouth hangs open (partially chewed food forgotten) for several seconds after Harry tells him that she's inviting Caelum Lestrange to their house to brew potions together.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Severus Snape is still a hard and sharp man, but he has a little less self-loathing in this story than in canon (especially with Lily alive and well), and Harry's combination of skill and true passion for brewing (and desire to learn from him) brings out his better traits. He becomes genuinely concerned for "Rigel's" wellbeing and invested in him both professionally and emotionally.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: In order to combat the sleeping plague, Harry has to bypass an impenetrable mind shield. So, she goes into her own mindscape, enters the representation of her magical core, uses that to connect to the magical core of the victim, then sends her consciousness along the connection and passes through the other person's core to use its backdoor to their mind. Once there, she can use her magic and the other person's to fight back. Draco's mind is a land of ice with a pool of water representing his magical core, Pansy's is a forest, other students vary from tornadoes to volcanoes to lightning bolts.
• Just Between You and Me: Harry tries to encourage this when kidnapped into the Chamber of Secrets by Ginny, with reasonable success. Possibly justified since Ginny was being possessed by the teenage, immature version of Tom Riddle, and moreover they were in a quite secure location.
• Just Friends: Harry insists to Draco, after he tells her that he's never met anyone like her that she'll be a friend as long as she can, but that more than that wouldn't work.
• Keep the Reward: Both Harry and Ginny make it clear that they don't want anything for defeating Voldemort in the Chamber of Secrets, their lives are enough reward, but Dumbledore insists that it is healthier to end things on a positive note. Ultimately, they both settle on knowledge: Ginny wants to learn Occlumency properly, so that she'll never be possessed again, and Harry wants to continue assisting Professor Snape with his private research, as it's been highly educational.
  Dumbledore: We must be doing something right, when students consider learning to be the greatest of rewards.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Owens has effectively won his duel with Hermione, who can no longer stand and can barely raise a wand. Then he finishes the fight — not with a simple Disarming Charm, but with a Knockback Jinx at point blank range, resulting in a crushed ribcage. It's not fatal, but the other champions are furious with him.
• Kicked Upstairs: When Harry talks to Matheus Sousa about his apparent lack of effort in the Triwizard Tournament, he reveals that his school nominated him for it because they don't much like him and wanted him out of the way for a year. Harry is upset at the thought of someone being forced into the competition, but Matheus is quite laid back and sees it as having more free time.
• Kill It Through Its Stomach: The Animators reinterpret Harry's confrontation with the basilisk in this way. She knows it's way off, but doesn't want to tell everyone what really happened.
• Killed By The Adaptation: Arabella Figg is killed by Death Eaters.
• Knockout Gas: Harry encounters this in the free-dueling tournament, from an opponent who has trained himself to resist it. She actually gets her magic to flush most of it out of her system by the time he manages to capitalise on the distraction and finish her off.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After Harry's disappointing first meeting with her Guild mentor, Caelum Lestrange laughs at her misfortune and gloats about how he'll be studying Wolfsbane — which he knows interests her — with his own mentor. Then, at the end of the summer, shortly before they present their research findings, Professor Snape publishes his revolutionary research into Wolfsbane, rendering Lestrange's work largely obsolete. For bonus points, Harry (as Rigel) provided Professor Snape with invaluable brewing assistance that allowed him to complete his research in a timely manner, and is credited in his publication.
• Laughing Mad: Draco's boggart shows him reduced to hysterical mindless laughing and rocking from his overwhelming empathic sense breaking his mind. He eventually overcomes it through his assurance that Rigel would come for him and help him recover.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: It doesn't take long for the Hogwarts staff to recognise that "Rigel Black" is quite different from Sirius Black. Professor Snape particularly struggles; he intends to develop "Rigel's" potential as a potions prodigy, but his hatred of the Marauders is simmering under the surface. (He's skeptical all over again when he meets Harry under her own name, but by then it's more "how can there be two of them in one family?")
• Literal-Minded: Vampires come across this way, which might be a side effect of their separation from human culture.
  Kasten: Your inquiry is met, as always, with pleasant surprise and a modicum of polite puzzlement. Grandfather asks, and I hesitantly relay the question: what is the manner of assistance you offer? ... If, as I suspect, your offer to help was a verbal display of support of the kind one friend may extend another, then I thank you, and we shall say no more of it.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Harry and Riddle exchange Unbreakable Vows about her participation in the Triwizard Tournament, but she didn't consider the possibility that he would push his marriage restriction law through the Wizengamot before she could win the Tournament and activate his Vow.
  • Harry is quite put out to find that the illusion of an Egyptian-style society in her mind has slaves, and complains about it — so the Jewel creates some illusory coins and tosses them to the nearby illusory man.
  Dominion Jewel: There. Now he's a servant. Happy?
• Love Confession:
  • Before the start of Harry's fourth year, Leo tells her that he's serious about her. It's not entirely a surprise, but it still takes her off guard and has her grappling with her own feelings.
  • Later the same year, Draco admits his feelings to Rigel and kisses her, but she turns him down and insists he deserves better.
• Lured into a Trap: Double-subverted. Canonically, the Triwizard Cup was a Portkey to kidnap Harry away to Voldemort. Here, when it's mentioned that the Cup is a Portkey to take the winner to the podium, it looks like a setup to have the same thing happen. However, the Cup instead works exactly as intended, with Harry appearing in front of everyone. And then the trap springs after all, with concealed wizards at the corners of the podium raising a powerful ward to keep everyone out while Voldemort steals her magic in front of the whole audience.

M-O

• Magic Eater: Voldemort procures a substance that absorbs magic in order to help him capture Harry. It doesn't cause direct harm, but any magic that leaves the skin is quickly drained away.
• Magically-Binding Contract:
  • Harry and Riddle use the Unbreakable Vow to ensure that their deals are kept. It's actually possible to break the vow, but fatal.
    Snape: An alliance with a halfblood or muggleborn in this task does not impact your odds of being chosen the pureblood champion and advancing in the tournament. Such a move may in fact increase your odds of succeeding. That said, it may be prudent to have an alternate plan, should your blood begin to boil.
  • Harry uses a sealing curse to ensure that Marcus Flint Jr can't back out at all (and has Plausible Deniability to go along with it).
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Harry is uncomfortable enough at overhearing a dispute between the Lestranges at the New Year's gala, but then Bellatrix decides to win the fight by distracting her husband from his complaints about her behaviour. Fortunately, Aldon is with Harry and knows silencing charms.
• Marriage of Convenience:
  • An engagement of convenience is suggested to Harry and Arcturus as a protection if certain aspects of the SOW party's marriage legislation might pass. Not only would it protect Harry from being forced to accept another offer, it also gives her some of the legal status advantages of a pure-blood (though not the right to attend Hogwarts). Neither she nor Archie have any intention of actually marrying, though.
  • Aldon Rosier offers (on multiple occasions) to marry Harry, primarily in order to protect her, but he does have some respect and liking for her. She gently turns him down, though.
• The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: The ruse really comes between Archie and Hermione, particularly when he claims to be biologically female and identifying as male, to protect Harry. He hopes to patch things up after the swap is exposed.
• Master of Illusion: Scar fights dirty (which is actually allowed in free-duelling) by distracting his opponent with small illusions, just enough to make them misjudge his stance or position. If he can get eye contact, he can do more than that — and, of course, keeping your eyes away from his face is a disadvantage all of its own. Leo narrowly beats him by closing the distance and turning it into a brutal stabbing match instead of an elegant contest, until he succeeds in destroying Scar's wand and stopping the illusions.
• Mentor in Sour Armor: Professor Snape never really stops berating Harry for foolishness or impetuousness, but he does really want a protege who's truly talented and passionate about brewing, and so he ends up being deeply invested in "Rigel", professionally and emotionally.
  Rigel: Thank you, Professor Snape. I'm so honored that you'd include me in—
  Snape: You will stop that this instant, Mr. Black. I detest flattery of any kind. All I require from you is an extra pair of hands this month. If you perform adequately…I shall consider allowing you to assist with other projects in the future.
  Rigel: What time?
  Snape: Every afternoon between your last class and dinner. With an additional three hours after dinner on the evenings you do not have Quidditch practice. Too much?
  Rigel: Definitely not.
  Snape: Get out of my sight. Your happiness sickens me.
  Rigel: I look forward to working with you as well, sir.
  Snape: Cheeky brat.
• Metaphorically True: Harry does have to tell a lot of Blatant Lies to her family and friends, and her friends know that she lies to them (though her family doesn't), but she prefers to give technically-true answers when possible.
  • "Oh, well, Archie and I have it all worked out. We're going to try and fulfill each other's dreams." — Yes, they are, but not by swapping just class notes, they're actually giving each other their places in their respective schools.
  • "I have a physiological condition that makes it difficult for me to let others touch me," namely, she's a girl, and is worried that as she goes through puberty her anatomy may be noticed if people hug her.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: Harry becomes so accustomed to watching her every word and action that she doesn't even notice how perpetually stressed she is, but her magic responds to it by sitting on a hair trigger.
  • A ball flying toward her in a classroom exercise results in her magic manifesting a highly dangerous shield that dissolves anything it touches. Draco is upset, because the exercise was meant to be about protecting each other, and he feels that her action shows a lack of trust in her friends.
  • Harry gets so much practice suppressing volatile free-brews on the verge of explosion, that she can't play Exploding Snap anymore, because as soon as she senses the impending reaction, she instinctively squashes the magic on the cards.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: Leo has a crystal knife in the shape of a triangular prism on a handle, instead of a flat blade, with a hollow inside for his wand — thus allowing him to fight with a knife in each hand and cast spells. The crystal is also magically reinforced so his wand is protected from breaking. However, fighting with such an unusually shaped knife is a skill of its own; Harry notices him frequently shifting his grip on it to move its three edges around.
  Marek: He only uses that knife when he's fighting seriously, and he only conceals his wand inside it when he's fighting very seriously.
• Motivated by Fear: Marcus Flint's pre-Quidditch match speech promises the team that they'll win, "because if we don't I'll have you practicing in sandstorms for a week straight, complete with blistering heat and swarms of sand fleas. Any questions?"
• Multilayer Façade: Harry puts as much concealment as possible around the most dangerous truth: Harriet Potter has committed "blood identity theft". She lets people in the Lower Alleys think she's a boy, if they don't know better; she keeps a largely unused apartment to give an alternative explanation for her absence from America if Archie is exposed (though Leo sees through that); and they swap back every summer, allowing them to lay a false trail of events and actions as themselves. It works to keep Harry from being immediately arrested when Rigel is exposed as a half-blood; amongst all the confessions of what they've been hiding for years, their parents and interrogators accept the remaining lie that Rigel was a third party.
• Mutual Masquerade: Harry's parents head out, purportedly to a game night at Longbottom Manor, giving Harry the opportunity to sneak out as Rigel and meet with Professor Dumbledore. Who takes her to a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix at Longbottom Manor...
  Archie: They were never at the Longbottoms', were they?
  Harry: Technically, we all were.
• Mystery Meat: Bathilda Bagshot, a neighbour, gives the Potters a casserole that Harry internally describes as "dead on arrival." Everyone tries whatever tricks they can to avoid eating it, and even Lily, who stops them from actively fleeing, pauses upon tasting it, eyes watering, and has to have a drink, then decides to take her plate with her (ie out of sight) to get some work done. Harry and James are in agreement that she'll Vanish it as soon as she's out of the room.
  No clue as to its once-edible precursors remained; had it been meat-based? Vegetarian? And what, in Morgana's name, had gone so horribly wrong that its status as an item of dubious consumability was discernable only by the baking pan it arrived in?
• Mystical Plague: In Harry's first year, students start falling into comas, needing a constant potion regimen to keep them alive, but having no apparent way to wake them. It turns out to be a deliberate creation that traps the children inside their own minds and then jumps to their friends' minds, sent in an attempt to discredit Dumbledore and pave the way for the SOW party's marriage legislation. And then later, in fourth year, Harry realises that the origin of the plague appears to be the Rod of Zuriel that Riddle is offering as a prize to the Triwizard Tournament winner.
• Nepotism:
  • Harry's success is earned, but it's sometimes difficult for her to avoid the appearance, or even the accusation, of nepotism.
    • Malcolm Hurst comes across Harry's Blood-Replenishing Potions and is honestly impressed by their quality, before he has any idea who brewed them — but his son is also a good friend of hers. As a result, when Malcolm offers her an internship with the Potions Guild, she draws unfriendly looks and comments from the other interns.
    • Professor Snape is unusually strict with Rigel, even going so far as to assign a detention for a single missed piece of homework, which he would consider unreasonable for any other student. The reason is that he intends to apprentice Rigel, and taking an apprentice from one's own school is strongly frowned upon in the community, so he needs Rigel to be so far beyond reproach that it would seem more strange not to take him on.
  • Caelum Lestrange is apprenticed by Master Whitaker primarily because of a long association with Caelum's parents. Caelum is talented, too, but that was why he was snapped up so quickly. When Harry needles him about it, he promptly retorts that she only gained her internship due to knowing the Aldermaster.
    Harry: Fair enough. I guess we both have good connections.
• The Nose Knows: Werewolves have an unusually acute sense of smell, even in human form, which is a cause for Harry and Archie to worry when Remus is going to start teaching at Hogwarts; he can tell them apart by scent. Harry ends up making a perfume from Archie's sweat, which she uses before Defence lessons.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • Professor Lockhart catches Harry leaving a girls' bathroom where she has hidden an "elf on the shelf", and is about to escort her inside to check her handiwork, when Professor Snape comes across them. For bonus points, she was disguised as a girl at the time.
    Snape: Pray tell, Professor Lockhart, just what you intend to do after manhandling that student into the female lavatory?
  • Harry is found alone at the scene of a petrification several times, one of them with her hand covered in the blood that was used to write a threatening message on the wall. Her friends stand by her, but Daphne Greengrass is convinced she's responsible.
• Oblivious to Love: Cho Chang appears to have at least a mild crush on Rigel, who remains entirely unaware of it. Draco, however, notices, and is annoyed by Cho's presence.
• Obviously Not Fine: Draco insists that nothing is wrong after nearly collapsing on Harry, "despite the fact that his face was paler than parchment and he was fighting full-body tremors as they moved through the crowd." Harry only much later gets him to admit that he's overwhelmed by being The Empath amongst so many people.
• Odd Friendship: Harry and Caelum constantly snipe at each other, and she sometimes wonders why she bothers with him, but they keep hanging around each other anyway. Mostly it's because they respect each other's brewing ability, but she might actually be a good influence on him, which he sorely needs.
  Harry: Oh, enough about me. Let's talk about you. No, really. How's your life other than the upcoming intern—ah, apprenticeship?
  Caelum: Fine. Why? How's your life?
  Harry: Fine.
  <Beat>
  Caelum: Let's not do that again.
  Harry: Right. Back to the internship.
• On Second Thought: Adrien Pucey's snake is frantic to get away and taste the huge platter of meat upstairs — until Harry tells it that the meat is for the basilisk, at which point it freezes and calmly returns to its owner.
• Only One Me Allowed Right Now: Actually, a Time Turner allows a moment to be safely repeated up to six times, but if there are seven copies of the same person at once, their magical cores destructively resonate with each other and kill one of them. Harry faces this after Pettigrew kidnaps her back in time, but is able to survive it by letting the Dominion Jewel take temporary possession of her magic, which presents a different signature and avoids the resonance.
• Only the Worthy May Pass: Rosier and Rookwood are protective of Pansy Parkinson, and know that "Rigel" is keeping secrets (though they don't know what), so they give her a challenging task to complete as a precondition of keeping Pansy's friendship.
  Rosier: Yes, tested! If we're to approve your friendship with Pansy, you must be worthy in some way, and since it is obvious you aren't trustworthy, we'll just have to see if you're another kind of worthy.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Sirius becomes quite upset that "Rigel" didn't tell him about the Sleeping Sickness until afterward. When she realises her mistake, Harry feels terrible; it's both dangerous to the ruse and harmful to Archie's relationship with his dad.
  • It's bizarre and uncomfortable for Harry to see Pansy, who is normally very composed, get properly angry and then break down in tears, over Marcus Flint's abusive home life.
    It was like seeing Archie upset—there was just something fundamentally wrong with it, like a wrinkle in the fabric of reality.
  • It's clear that Hermione is truly obsessed with curing the Fade when she stops doing extra credit homework assignments.
• Ordered to Die: Voldemort gets rid of the basilisk by making it bite itself repeatedly, as part of his plan to permanently possess "Rigel" and claim to have defeated it so as to increase his political influence.
• Ostentatious Secret: Harry is pretty up-front with her friends about the fact that she tells lies and keeps secrets from them. It's not considered all that odd in Slytherin House, and she tries to use it to persuade them that they should keep their distance from her, but to no avail.
• Otaku:
  • Harry is only going to Hogwarts for the potions class, and it shows when she performs very erratically in spellcasting due to a lack of strong desire to see the spells work. In her first potions class, though, she quite legitimately knows all the answers to Professor Snape's questions, because she's studied and experimented with potions as much as she possibly could all her life. Commercial potion brewers and the son of the Potions Guild aldermaster consider her to be too obsessed with brewing. She does eventually learn about other topics, out of necessity, but not out of passion (except alchemy, which she quite likes, because it feels similar to brewing).
    The grass on the Hogwarts lawn smelled sweet, almost too sweet to be natural if she really thought about it. She skimmed through the types of grass she was familiar with, but couldn't pinpoint which breed this springy green stuff was. Probably it was useless in a potion anyway.
  • It's mostly off-screen, and he gives a more balanced outward impression, but Archie is likewise dedicated to healing. In his case, it's not just what he enjoys, but an obsession ever since his mother died of a disease with no known cure.
  • Kasten has spent ten years as a human, and then 50 years as a vampire, studying "essences" — distilling and separating substances in an effort to collect the essence of every substance on Earth. He appears to have no other hobbies or goals.
  • As per canon, Oliver Wood lives for Quidditch. Even when he's discussing the weather, it's not idle chitchat, he's thinking about whether it's good for flying. When he jokingly tells Rigel that the season would be duller if the Slytherins were never let out of their dungeon dormitories, she takes a moment to realise that he's not talking about the pleasure of her company, he's referring specifically to the Quidditch season and the fact that Slytherin is his toughest competition.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Harry is pretty sure that if her family sees her fight in the Triwizard tasks, they'll know she isn't Archie. She's right; Sirius and Remus watch her beat Auror Dawlish and know something's off.

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