I'm so sorry I didn't get to this before it fell off the front page! I've been fighting an infection and a sore throat, so I haven't had much energy outside of work. : (

Oh dear, I can see why those witches would be irritated by their "cameos" in Macbeth! Although considering how they're compared with Macbeth in the play ("something wicked this way comes"), I can also imagine Shakespeare intending it as a bit of satire: "You think our magical neighbors are spooky and weird, get a load of what obsessive ambition can do to us Muggles!"

Oh my gosh, Percy, dude, you were touching her hair in public my dude! What were you thinking man, your hands were in her hair, holy crap! It's just so scandalous and ha ha h ah ha ha ha ha ha ah ah ahga rfbyhuifcweifubyhwuc hair being a taboo thing will never stop being funny for me!

Wow, and here comes Pansy with some actual character beyond "bully!" I hope she does manage to get on the Quidditch team without catching too much flack from her parents. And I doubt she'll be able to convince Draco to lay off, but I'll be impressed if she at least tries. Jeeze, JKR really named one of her least friendly female characters, "pansy," didn't she . . .

—doctorlit only just noticed you added "Lord" into the title for this year

The character interactions were just, well, adorable. And the Shakespeare line was very amusing.

Though I think it’s spelled “boogie” and not “bogie”? Maybe it’s a regional difference I’m picking up on.

—Ls

Even though it largely stayed close to its original analogue, there are so many little changes that it held my attention quite a bit. It was especially fun to get a greater glimpse of Knockturn Alley, even with the adult additions, since we never saw much of it in canon. I love all the stores you invented there! Oh, and nice job sneaking it that early reference to the Deathly Hallows in the one painting!

I have to say, seeing Arthur Weasley go absolutely feral on Lucius Malfoy was an unexpected treat! It feels so off for his character, but I can also understand how galling the deprivation of the Weasley family resources has been for Arthur, especially with all the kids he has to house and clothe and feed. (Though it's nice Ginny doesn't need to wear her brothers' hand-me-downs in this timeline!) But in a weird way, it was also rather satisfying to see Molly and Narcissa both scolding their husbands at the same time. I know Narcissa is no friend to Molly, but it was just . . . kind of nice to see them on the same wavelength, even if they weren't necessarily teaming up in any direct fashion? I guess I just subconsciously want everyone to be friends, and that moment had the right vibes for me.

—doctorlit, somehow cheering on both the dad fight and the double-mom-scold

Nice to see the Weasleys are mostly unchanged! They're teeny bit off, with the way Ron talks about house-elves being like furniture, and Mrs. Weasley worrying about Arthur's standing in the government, but they're mostly untouched by the phoniness and performativeness of the culture. It's nice when people get to act like people, yeah?

I was going to say something about Ginny dropping off the roof, but then I realized it would be hypocritical of me. montage of doctorlit dropping off ladders and throwing himself over fences at work

(Incidentally, Ron is probably objectively right to prefer gnomes over peafowl! Peafowl are nice to look at, but their waste is large solid splops, like a mix of dog waste and soft serve ice cream. Also, their voice can be distracting, especially when you're still asleep in the morning!)

New Terms You've Taught doctorlit Today:
-kissing gate
-Wellies (though I'd heard of the brand before)

—doctorlit, Lord of the Embarrassing and Ignoble House of _________

Second year will delve into older variants of bonding and other ways of accessing magic, so...perhaps something of that sort is on the horizon? But I do absolutely intend on emphasising the necessity of choosing to give someone your magic rather than having it be taken from you as their birthright/marriage right.

Thank you once again for reading! Hope you like the second year, too!

Aaaaah. Aaaaaaaaah. And you had to drop Dobby on us right away! I don't know if I'm emotionally ready to read through Dobby's character arc again . . .

I feel like I learned a lot about all these characters through this POV-swapping perspective, most especially Narcissa and Malfoy. It's nice to see that Malfoy really hasn't swallowed the full Koolaid yet, and is still a kiddo wanting to have fun with others kiddos. It was especially eye-opening to realize that a lot of the mean stuff he had been saying was spoken less from a place of actual haughtiness, and more out of (what Draco feels is) necessity. The canon version of Narcissa felt so much like a copy of Draco when she was introduced—bullying the Weasley family, like that's such a normal thing for an adult to do—that dropping into the inner narration of this version was quite jarring. She seems so controlled and calm compared to her canon self! And she doesn't seem to bear any particular ill will towards the Potters. Putting the Pureblood stuff aside, she's a rather ordinary and straightforward person! . . . is what I might have said if she didn't open on threatening poor Dobby over one 64th of the color pie. I hope she chokes on a garden rake! I loved Harry during his interactions with Narcissa. In year one, I pictured his voice being the same as little, tiny Daniel Radcliffe's, but during this chapter, he kept slipping into disaffected U.S. suburban teen, and it's glorious to picture him deadpanning some of those responses to Narcissa's proselytizing. Lastly (and I don't even know if this was intentional on your part), I find it very interesting that Neville's presence at the party isn't mentioned until Harry's POV section, with both Lily and Narcissa overlooking his presence entirely. A bias on the part of the grownups to overlook the sad, wimpy kid, while his fellow students at least recognize him as a peer? Also, it's easy to overlook next to the revelation that Draco wouldn't have been allowed to invite Hermione and Ron, but it really is a big deal that Draco insisted on inviting Neville to make sure Harry would have someone he knows at the party!

Aha. I see was wrong to think Gaunt-as-politician wouldn't have a body count in this timeline. But now I see a lot more people than James went down to him. I should have known better that someone like Voldemort couldn't be that different, no matter the timeline or culture . . . and it seems he's Bonding multiple women? That's why no one realized Professor Greengrass was Bonded to him: he's already made multiple Bonds? And the Tome of Avalon is a Bible analog . . . I thought most of the yikes was over with in year one, but it seems the pureblood panopticon is filled with yikes, and they are all starting to pour out! (Excellent title, by the way, big intimidating energy!)

Although speaking of Voldemorts and kill counts, I had to stare at Regulus's name for several seconds before going, "of course!" It makes sense he would still be alive, and I like the characterization you've given him. Much more even-keeled than Sirius, but with an intense emotionality that can lash out when provoked. When "Pettigrew's betrayal" was alluded to during year one, I naively assumed the betrayal was publicly known, and that Pettigrew would be the one in Azkaban, and Sirius still free; it's disappointing to learn Sirius is still publicly blamed, but I suppose that needs to wait until next year . . .

Man, I could not get through that scene between Narcissa and Lucius without laughing out loud. I can't take "Be dreadful with me" seriously, on any level! But it did make me wonder why, if witches have greater magic power because of their head batteries, why this society still seems so masculine-dominated. (Sounds like mostly men in the Wizengamot, and Pureblood women are dissuaded from playing Quidditch, etc.) Why not just? Take over? Go full Lysistrata and withhold magic from the boys? Also, nobody better tell Pureblood society about Samson from the real Bible, oh boy . . .

I really liked the dynamics you wrote between all the Slytherin students during the Quidditch game. We're so used to seeing Slytherin characters being aggressive towards others, I enjoyed seeing them being able to play a game ruthlessly, and still be civil to each other afterwards. It feels like a great interpretation of the Slytherin ambition being curbed by these students seeing each other as equals, at least roughly.

Some random thoughts/observations/questions:
-I expected the house-elf band to be a joke, but I like the idea of them actually playing well, and the observation that sheet music is a form of instruction, which house-elves would naturally excel at!
-Gosh, it feels weird for Jennifer Robinson to have biological family members, but it makes sense; she isn't a magical avatar in this world!
-I am learning all kinds of new French words today! Parure, croquembouche, choux . . . and I will probably never use them again!
-Harry is producing wandless, nonverbal magic when he gets angry in this chapter. Still bleeding off his mom's energy from the fight with Professor Greengrass?
-So . . . the Lockhart in this timeline . . . is a . . . romance novelist? A romance novelist who self-inserts in every one of his books? Or is he . . . like a. . . love guru? Helping people in their relationships and then . . . publishing the accounts of them? That's somehow so much worse than what his canon self was doing!
-One typo: "At the gate, Lily turned to her son, fixing her with her sternest stare."

And now I am sleepy! Good night!

—doctorlit waits for the inevitable moment when a Muggleborn witch shows up the Wizarding World in Marge Simpson hair

...we haaaaaave BL11 The Malfoy parents are dastardly, I tell ya. You did a very good job selling us on the "evil couple of evil who genuinely love each other and complement each other well" in Narcissa's section. Not that you were very hamfisted with the evil part, but come on, that's what they are. Seeing the ball from four different perspectives gave us a lot of character insight as well as information we wouldn't have gotten otherwise -- you could almost call it a... panopticon? Getting Draco's perspective was pretty cool, and crucial since we need to understand what it's like to be a kid growing up on this dreck to truly understand the setting -- and to understand what obstacles Draco will face on his path to being a better-redeemed character than he was in the books.

I like this Harry! I have a brain now, so I can appreciate him more than I ever could with canon Harry: An idealistic, justice-driven hero who gets a little too emotional sometimes and blasts people into pudding. Typical Lion behavior, tbh, and behavior I find... resonant. I can't wait to see where his character goes; I think it'll do me some good. Him suffering consequences for his misbehavior was also a much-needed jolt, and parents doing actual parenting isn't something you see often so it's nice to see. Although he still got off lighter than Malfoy! At least Harry actually did something wrong. And it seems like it's not only possible for a man to drain a woman's magic through a familial bond -- it works both ways, but Societal Standards make it impossible to imagine other paths. Power relations, am I right?

It’s a thing in the “Hair Lore”, where a witch is supposed to keep magic in her hair that she can let her husband and firstborn son access, since they have the “right” to tend to her hair. We just mapped that connection to the same sort of protection that Lily gave Harry via her sacrifice in canon.

The master recipe can be modified with the changes reflected in other copies of the recipe. Therefore, it would be dangerous to keep a written master copy around, lest it fall into the wrong hands like it nearly did with Greengrass. Changes could be stuff like messing with the ingredients to sabotage the potion or putting in a written curse that marks anyone trying to read the recipe to use it, etc. Lily, Jenni, and Severina are simply going to have to personally teach people how to brew Un-Ceinte, and trust that they will pass on the know-how to others that they trust.

Ginny has always been outgoing to me in the books, because to me it was her big hero worship crush on the famous Harry Potter that made her act shy. You can see in books 4-6 that as she gets over her crush and moves on to dating other people, she gets more confident around Harry. Since this is a world where Harry isn’t marked as some special Boy Who Lived (more like a boy who faked his death), to this Ginny he’s just a normal boy who is her brother’s best friend and who happens to be a Lord but who cares about that? You’ll see more of her in second year!

Thank you again for reading!

Excited to share year two, too!