boy with a scar
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What if Voldemort had chosen the pureblood boy, not the halfblood, as his opponent? This Neville would have had graves to visit, instead of a hospital. He’d still have grown up in his grandmother’s clutches, tut-tutted at, dropped out windows absentmindedly, left to bounce on paving stones.
Let’s tell this story: Alice Longbottom, who was the better at hexing, told Frank to take Neville and run.
Series
- Part 1 of boy with a scar
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the kids who chose themselves by dirgewithoutmusic
Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
10 Jul 2015
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What if Voldemort went after Harry and Neville, and gave no one a chance to die for them? What if both Chosen Ones died as children?
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There was no prophesied boy, but there was still this--dozens of shadowed young faces refusing to run, even at the very end of the world. Dumbledore looked out at his chess pieces, pawns and queens; his children and his friends; his collateral damage. He had the beginnings of a plan swelling in his chest.It would take them decades to get their hands, quietly, on every Horcrux. Tom Riddle had to think they were secret. He had to think he was safe. It would take them almost decades, but one day he would be mortal again.
These dozens of faces--they were mortal now. Alastor Moody could feel mortality in the aches of old broken bones; Andromeda rewrote her own last name. Remus and Sirius felt empty, gaping holes in the seats around them, and they made crude, expansive, joyous toasts to friends' memories.
When Molly first reached over and held Arthur's hand, they knew this was something that could not last. That was why they held hands, held on, held tight.
Series
- Part 2 of boy with a scar
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no place like home by dirgewithoutmusic for Elennare
Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
10 Jul 2015
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When Petunia Dursley refused to take Harry in she forfeited his birthright protection, so Dumbledore took the baby to the safest place he knew: Hogwarts.
The applicable staff (mostly just… not Snape) took Harry in on a rotating schedule as he grew from baby to toddler to child. They traded extra credit for babysitting among the older students, and Harry grew up knowing a few dozen different laps that were safe and warm to nap in.
This was a Harry who grew up among books, among old transient walls and learned professors. They gave Binns night duty sometimes, and let him talk young Harry to sleep. This was a Harry whose world changed, on principle, daily. The stairs moved. The walls became doors. You had to keep your eyes open–you had to pay attention. So he did.
He grew up in a school. Knowledge was power, but knowledge was also joy. This was his sanctuary. There was magic in his world from birth.
Series
- Part 3 of boy with a scar
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the family evans by dirgewithoutmusic for darkersoltice
Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
01 Jan 2015
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What if, when Petunia Dursley found a little boy on her front doorstep, she took him in? Not into the cupboard under the stairs, not into a twisted childhood of tarnished worth and neglect—what if she took him in?
Petunia was jealous, selfish and vicious. We will not pretend she wasn’t. She looked at that boy on her doorstep and thought about her Dudders, barely a month older than this boy. She looked at his eyes and her stomach turned over and over. (Severus Snape saved Harry’s life for his eyes. Let’s have Petunia save it despite them).
Let’s tell a story where Petunia Dursley found a baby boy on her doorstep and hated his eyes—she hated them. She took him in and fed him and changed him and got him his shots, and she hated his eyes up until the day she looked at the boy and saw her nephew, not her sister’s shadow. When Harry was two and Vernon Dursley bought Dudley a toy car and Harry a fast food meal with a toy with parts he could choke on Petunia packed her things and got a divorce.
Series
- Part 4 of boy with a scar
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the heir of something or other by dirgewithoutmusic for xiaoguban
Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
13 Jul 2015
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When kids in the Slytherin Common Room tossed jeers at the pudgy feet of Millicent Bulstrode, Harry rose up to do something about it. This Harry, now one of Snape’s own, got fewer House points lost but many more detentions– it had never been the colors on his hem that Severus hated.
This was not wishing Harry an easy path. This was not wishing the boy a warm House. This was Harry, three weeks in, sleep deprived and considering running away and going back to Privet Drive. This was Harry in the back of Potions class, blank-faced under Snape’s disdain the way he’d perfected under the Dursleys’s torments.
When Quirrell shouted “troll in the dungeons, thought you ought to know,” and Harry overheard that there was a girl in the bathroom crying, he still ran off to make sure she got out okay. He hesitated first, at the back of the little pack of Slytherin first years (at the back so that no one could get behind him)– he hesitated.
And Millicent Bulstrode, who could never quite keep her tummy tucked in enough, could never brush all the cat hair off her robes, never quite keep her temper in check, hesitated, too.
Series
- Part 5 of boy with a scar
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he will have power the dark lord knows not by dirgewithoutmusic
Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
30 Dec 2015
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It was Mrs. Figg who suspected first.
She noticed many things, sitting on her side of her fence with her cats chasing butterflies and nuzzling her ankles, Mundungus and the other watchers dropping by for tea now and then.
Mrs. Figg noticed that Petunia was a nosy bit of work with insecurities hanging from her every harsh angle. She noticed when Dudley learned the word MINE-- the whole neighborhood noticed that one. She noticed that Vernon glared at owls.
She noticed that when Petunia gave Harry a truly horrendous haircut one year, it grew back in at a normal rate. Harry was uneven and weird-looking for ages, hiding under beanies when he could.
When Mrs. Figg had Harry over for carefully miserable afternoons of babysitting, she noticed nothing moved that shouldn't. He didn't accidentally make flowers out of fallen leaves, or levitate anything during tantrums, or turn toys funny colors.
Mrs. Figg called up her mother, interrupting the wizarding bridge game she was winning against the nursing home staff, and asked her how she had known, decades back, that her youngest daughter was a squib.
Series
- Part 6 of boy with a scar
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Harriet Lily Potter was left on the doorstep of 4 Privet Drive. They called her ugly and gave her Dudley's hand-me-downs. They would tell people that she went to a boarding school for troubled young women. Dudley still offered to stick her head in toilets, and she still learned to snap back, "Really, Duds? The poor toilet's never had anything as nasty as your head down it, it might hurt it," and run.
Harry was the kind of girl who came home with scabby knees, who snuck the kitchen shears in the dead of night to snip her dark messy hair short.
She wondered, as she curled up in her cupboard, if Vernon and Petunia would have loved a niece who was pretty instead of scrappy, who had soft hands and never burned the bacon at breakfast.
Series
- Part 7 of boy with a scar
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Molly tried her best. When Harry had told them, Arthur had asked excitedly, "is this a Muggle thing?" Hermione had hurried out a "no!" and a frantic history of gender diversity in the wizarding world.
"It's just that I'm a girl," Harry had said, and Arthur had nodded and asked her about how telephone booths worked. He would call her by the right pronouns until the day he died at the respectable old age of one hundred and thirty three, and he would make it seem easy.
But Molly had to try. Hermione explained things faster and higher-pitched every time Molly messed up a pronoun. Molly frowned and muttered and put extra potatoes on Harry's plate at breakfast. Harry slept in Ron's room, which didn't bother either of them but which made Hermione scowl.
Harry got boxes of sweets and warm hugs, as Molly chewed things over. For her fifteenth Christmas, the Weasley sweater she would receive would be a bright, friendly, terrible pink.
The next time Harry visited, Molly put her on Ginny's floor to sleep-- for some definition of sleep that involved Hermione hissing threats at three in the morning if Harry and Ginny didn't "shut up about Wronski feints, do you know what time it is."
Series
- Part 8 of boy with a scar
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On the train platform, Harry suffered a hug from Remus, a hair ruffle from Sirius, and a "don't do anything I wouldn't do" from his mother, and then he ran for the brick wall, cart rattling before him. The snowy owl they'd gotten him hooted softly in protest. Harry had named her Ororo after the Muggle comic books his mother had introduced him to. Lily took Harry to the comic store every time he sat through a whole visit with his aunt, uncle, and cousin and didn't kick anybody unless they kicked him first.
Bill tried to wipe some dirt off a dodging Ron's nose. Ginny complained loudly about being left behind. Fred and George ran off to see Lee Jordan's spider. People watched the Weasleys from all directions--they were hard to miss--and Ron's shoulders slowly rose up and up to his reddening ears. He missed the big empty orchards behind the Burrow already.
Ron was one of the last people on the train. He slid past staring eyes and finally stepped himself into an almost unoccupied compartment-- there was just one small boy tucked in there. He had messy dark hair, slightly askew round glasses, and a comic book held up in front of his nose.
"Is it okay if I sit here?" said Ron. "Everywhere else is full."
Series
- Part 9 of boy with a scar
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the brightest witch of her age by dirgewithoutmusic
Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
16 Jan 2017
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When Hermione Jean Granger was one year old her parents died in a car crash. She knew all about it because she asked a lot of questions and her aunt and uncle believed in answering them.
Why is the sky blue, auntie? Why are b's and d's like in the mirror? Where do songs come from? Why did Jenny Hopkins call me a--?
Her father had accelerated into a green light, like you were supposed to. (By the time she was eight, Hermione had the driver's rulebook memorized). A truck driver, going the opposite way, hadn't stopped at a red.
Hermione had been strapped in a car seat in the back, her aunt and uncle told her. She hadn't been hurt at all except for the scar that stood out, jagged, on her forehead.
As Hermione grew up into a gangly, bushy-haired, buck-toothed wonder, she thought she could remember it-- a glaring green light, a rush of cold air.
Series
- Part 10 of boy with a scar
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baby birds and other adventures by dirgewithoutmusic
Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
24 Feb 2017
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Harry did not know this and would not know this until Mrs. Granger mentioned it casually over a Christmas dinner years and years later-- but she and Mr. Granger reported the Dursleys for child abuse and neglect, over and over.
The reports got lost-- minds scrubbed down, papers vanished-- but they kept calling in reports. They considered kidnapping. They couldn't imagine why the wizarding world might want to keep their chosen one somewhere so toxic, why they might want to keep this underfed child and his messy hair with those people.
"My mother left me a blood protection spell," said Harry, whose scar had not ached in years. He poked at his mashed potatoes under the focused attention of Mrs. Granger's stern little forehead wrinkle. "I had to live with family, blood family."
"Then they should have made them treat you right," Mrs. Granger said, as though it was that simple.
Mr. Granger gave Harry another helping of peas.
Series
- Part 11 of boy with a scar
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Lily remembered her sister, how there had been a time she was curious and delighted about magic, before it slowly sank in that she could look and not touch.
The last thing Petunia had said to Lily before she died was a chilly goodbye, ending a holiday dinner where they'd had a shrieking row in the entryway. Petunia had said 'freak' and Lily had hissed 'better than this, better than this being my whole fucking world, Tune, do you even see yourself, are you happy--'
And now here was Dudley Vernon Dursley fussing himself to sleep as Lily walked the halls of the Godric's Hollow house. His tiny soft hands with their tiny soft fingernails curled under her chin, the same way Harry's always had.
She passed James, who was gently bouncing his way up the hall the opposite way. "I think he's asleep," James mouthed over Harry's tousled head. His hair was the same mess, his head bent down as he peered at his sleeping son.
Lily stopped where she stood, her nephew heavy on her chest, her husband smiling, her sister buried. "James," she said. "How are we going to do this?"
Series
- Part 12 of boy with a scar
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perfectly normal, thank you very much by dirgewithoutmusic
Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
20 Apr 2017
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When the letter arrives, Lily is almost as excited as Petunia. She writes Albus Dumbledore to ask if she can go too, and if she cries a little when the answer comes back no she doesn't tell anyone. Lily waves from the train platform, writes diligently, and listens with excitement whenever her big sister deigns to share stories of magic.
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Anonymous asked for "what if Petunia was a witch and Lily a Muggle?"Series
- Part 13 of boy with a scar
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When Harry was eleven years old, his Hogwarts letter came by owl. He'd been accidentally blowing windows open and lighting cauliflower on fire for years. James took Harry to go get his wand at Ollivanders, and Lily took Dudley to the Owl Emporium where he tried to convince her they should build an aviary in the backyard. They came home with a fat black cat who hissed at everyone. Dudley named him Spooks, and Lily called him Monster.
"Did you have to?" said James. "That is the meanest beast I've ever met, and I've known Remus unmedicated on full moons and a pubescent Sirius thwarted in love."
Lily, who had ink on her cheek and a ballpoint pen stuck behind her ear, waved vaguely at the living room without looking up from her arrest report. Dudley was asleep in an armchair. The cat sprawled across his lap. Both its front paws were wrapped around Dudley's arm as it cleaned his wrist with aggressive fondness.
"Alright," said James. "Yeah, you had to."
Series
- Part 14 of boy with a scar
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a life of smoke and silvered glass by dirgewithoutmusic
Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
10 Jul 2017
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Albus Dumbledore rose to his feet, smiling at them in that way of his, like he knew something you didn't and he was proud of you for it. "Friends," he began.
The door thudded open and the Marauders burst in, late and pink-cheeked with cold. The headmaster smiled at them, too, and Sirius gave a cheery little salute back.
Severus sunk lower in his chair, staring witheringly over his butterbeer. "You told Potter about it, too?"
"He might as well put all that energy to good use," said Lily. "And, to be accurate, I told Remus."
"But Potter, really?" said Severus.
"He and Black cooked up a jinx that gives you a boil every time you say a slur to a Muggleborn," said Lily. "It was either invite them to Alice's war club or bake them cookies, and I know where my skills lie."
Severus sniffed. "Don't come crying to me if he tugs your pigtails."
"Come crying to me if he pulls yours, and I'll deck him," said Lily.
(Slight AU in which Severus apologizes, tries harder, and stays friends with Lily)
Series
- Part 15 of boy with a scar
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Harry Potter spent his eleventh birthday in a cabin on a tiny rock in the middle of the sea, listening to his cousin snore on the couch.
When a knock sounded on the wind-swept, rain-drenched door, it was not a giant fist (or a half-giant's fist). It was a short sharp rap that sounded once, twice, three times before Minerva McGonagall simply charmed the lock open and stepped inside.
"Apologies," Minerva said crisply, as Vernon raced out brandishing his rifle and Petunia pulled Dudley up off the couch and behind her. "I wasn't sure you could hear me over the weather.” The rain fell down behind the professor in a roar. She was perfectly dry.
Minerva fished in her pocket without looking, because the only things allowed in her pockets were only ever exactly what she needed. “I've come to deliver this," she said, pulling out a letter and handing it to Harry, who was cross-legged on the floor, "because our owl post seems to have been unable to get through.”
“And I've come to deliver this," she added, pulling out a second letter, "because Hogwarts by-laws require a professor to hand-deliver acceptance letters to Muggleborn families for their explanation and comfort."
Series
- Part 16 of boy with a scar
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you know what would have been great? if ron got sorted into slytherin.
imagine– we have this kid on the train, the first friend harry meets, with his corned beef sandwiches and smudged nose. ron is eleven years old and he wants gryffindor, because he’s a weasley and that’s what always happens. but it doesn’t happen.
what a way to redeem slytherin house– or, god, at least complicate it. because ron is petty. he is mean and sharp and ambitious and jealous– and he is loyal to the ends of the earth. he is all those things, and he is and always has been good.
potter becomes before weasley in the alphabet, so harry says not slytherin please and gets told might as well be gryffindor. percy and fred and george are all sitting there in red and gold, ruffling the already-ruffled hair of the boy who lived, smug, and then ron sits down and the hat spits out slytherin!
Series
- Part 17 of boy with a scar
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When news had come home that Bill had gotten Ravenclaw, Arthur and Molly had shared a look but sent Bill a congratulatory letter and some newly knitted blue mittens. “He was always too smart for me,” Arthur had said, and Molly had hummed.
“Hufflepuff, it’s a… nice… House,” Molly had said the next year, searching in her knitting basket for a shade of yellow she didn’t dislike too badly while Arthur looked over the friendly little missive from Pomona Sprout. How had she ended up with so many ugly threads? They must have been gifts; she wouldn’t have bought this pastel mustard skein, even at a 90% discount.
“You know,” said Arthur, later, as they watched the Express carry Percy away to his first year at Hogwarts. “I don’t think Perce is gonna be the one to break the streak.”
“So it’s a streak, is it?” Molly said, keeping an eye on the twins, who were chasing pigeons she was hoping they wouldn’t manage to catch. It was making Ginny’s day, though, the little girl covering her laughter with her fists, so she wasn’t stopping them yet.
“I think it is now,” he said.
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(What if none of the Weasley children were Sorted Gryffindor?)Series
- Part 18 of boy with a scar