Subject: To Isengard? {= D
Author:
Posted on: 2023-10-30 21:13:07 UTC
ETA: They're taking the beetle to Azkaban. To Azkaban? To Azkaban! They're taking the beetle to Azkaban—ban—ban—ban—
Also wanted to say I DID catch the ace implications and appreciated them. ^_^
~Neshomeh
Please pay attention to the warnings in this chapter: BL9 during a brief mention of the Knights of Camelot's crimes, plus mentions of kidnapping, imprisonment, torture, murder, sexual assault (look out for a mention of 'Valerius Mulciber'). Plus verbal/emotional abuse from Lord Crouch towards Heir Crouch, plus misogyny against Lady Bellatrix.
We open on a very eventful birthday party!
Warning for some secondhand embarrassment re: Draco's outfit, PTSD flashbacks, vomiting, and Lucius insulting Muggle sex workers.
Oh. Oh, we’re M-rated now. I’m scared . . . And we open on a radio program that’s basically “Classically Abby” but for wizards? I’m scared-er . . .
(This is probably going to feel kind of rambly, but I took a lot of notes, and I’m more or less going in order so I don’t lose track.)
I know Héloïse is from canon, but I just wanted to note really quick that eagle owls are cool and handsome, and that I’m glad she got to appear here, too!
I am legitimately shocked to hear Lucius swinging more towards Silverstream than Gaunt! Lucius was the Voldemort hardliner in canon, but here, it seems Narcissa is the more dedicated one. I’m interested to see how that shakes out in the long run, especially given Narcissa’s “Family comes before ideology” here. Canon!Narcissa certainly would agree; how long will it be before Gaunt decides Draco is a problem, and how will Narcissa feel then? Oh, and Regulus is running? Nice! Third party Teddy Roosy victory for the win!
It's so easy to get sucked into the “fantasy racism” of Purebloods vs. Muggles, but the reactions Draco’s narration has to all the Muggle areas he passes through, and especially Harry’s neighborhood, really made the wealth vs. poverty element come slamming back into my mind. Draco has been taught to avoid and disdain people below a certain class status, even putting aside the anti-Muggle elements of his upbringing, and he’s literally never been anywhere where he could see trash on the sidewalk, or homeless people. More for Draco to deconstruct about the world! I also found it interesting that Rose and Gary saw Hermione as “posh,” too. I’ve never really thought of her that way (she is nerd, like me!), but just like with Draco, it comes down to perspective, doesn’t it? Oh, and related to that is Draco’s realization at the end about the difference between the two birthdays, and that Harry was enjoying the public pool party better than the mansion party. It’s about the people we love, Draco, not the expensive decorations and food!
My headcanon is that the public pool smells like Scouring Potion to Draco because Scouring Potion is literally just ordinary chlorine, and the wizarding community doesn’t realize making that potion is identical to practicing Muggle chemistry. Also, did Draco really just disparage flip-flops? I will NOT stand for this denigration of Muggle culture! You will learn to appreciate the flip-flops, boy!
So, you made me laugh out loud twice this chapter! First, “The men even had their chests bare, in front of their Muggle God and everything!” is hilarious because the idea that Draco’s upbringing is so repressed and controlled that he’s literally never seen another amab chest before is . . . well, now that I’ve typed it out, that’s pretty uh, sad. But the line still made me laugh, because being scandalized by that is just so, so silly! And the other is the “Oh. No.” after Harry starts losing his shirt. The abrupt switch from fairly neutral narration to the inner-thoughts-teenage-hormone-panic threw me completely off-guard and dropped me straight into hilarity! (But yeah, funny how making human bodies a taboo thing while kids are growing up makes it harder for them to react healthily and comfortably when they reach an age where they start getting attracted to those bodies, weird how that works!)
I know there’s potential that I’m going to regret this phrasing, considering what year we’re at, but I could legit kill Sirius Black right now. No hyperbole, I am so actually angry with him for tricking a teenage boy into wearing a bikini in public, like, does he not remember how painful it is at that age to be humiliated in front of one’s peers? I actually had to stop reading for a couple minutes and steel myself before continuing, because I was dreading the scene that was about to unfold. Your Draco is made of much firmer substance than me, because in this situation, I basically would have died right on the spot rather than have anyone look at me. (And yes, I know, clothing isn’t gendered, and we shouldn’t listen to social norms in determining who’s “allowed” to wear what, but I’m just saying that for me, the embarrassment would have stopped my heart.) It was great and hilarious for Draco to team up with Rose in order to torment Harry as a result though; and how far we’ve come, seeing Draco make such a natural alliance with a Muggle, and later chat casually with her about magic, besides!
Oof, Lily, should have picked up Draco’s clothes at Grimmauld Place before bringing him home! He was already late, but at least Lucius wouldn’t have seen the Muggle clothes . . .
New word you taught me: “chignon,” though my hair is much too short for such fancy thoughts! Oh, and I guess you also taught me “lido” as both an Italian word and a UK slang!
—doctorlit, coming down with an acute case of second-hand embarrassment
Haha "Classically Abby but for wizards" is definitely an observation!
Héloïse is not named in the books, but I'm glad you enjoyed her appearance. I feel like if this Harry ever got an owl, Draco would beg him to name it Abelard ;P
You're not the only one taken by surprise, but let me put it this way: in this world, Pureblood supremacy is very much already enshrined, and so Lucius would go for a more moderate-conservative politics because it still upholds his snobberies without putting him in a position that could backfire for him if things go sideways (c.f. Lucius being considered slippery in the books for not actively doing anything to bring Voldemort back). Narcissa, meanwhile, is convinced her brother-in-law coming back to power will enable her to reunite with her sister. The rhetoric is mostly a sideline to the family relationships that form the Malfoys' loyalties.
Yes, Reg is running! It's a four-candidate field, though. We'll see how he does...
Gary and Rose view Hermione as posh, but it would technically be inaccurate. Hampstead is fashionable, but Hampstead Suburb Garden is not as posh as the rest of Hampstead. It's still a very expensive location, though, so Hermione is upper-middle-class. But when you're working-class teens like Gary and Rose are, everyone with more wealth than you is posh. They're not quite pinging the fact that poshness has its own signifiers that even upper-middle-class or the nouveau riche pick up on. (And often some posh people don't live as conspicuously consumer-rich lifestyles as you might expect!)
Yes, I intended Scouring Potion to be some chlorine variant!
Haha, I'm glad you liked Draco's commentary. And the prank, well... yeah. Sirius pulling humiliating, hurtful pranks on people is a part of his character that gets a bit overlooked (unless, ofc, you're a Snape fan), and Draco was resilient for owning it regardless and turning it into something to bother Harry with :P
Ah, well, we forget these things in the rush of a Situation happening...
Thank you for reading!
And at last, we end year four.
Year 5 opener goes up next week, but after that the updates will be more sporadic while I finish writing year 5.
See you next week for Lord Harry Potter and the Whispers of Lady Polixenes!
Oh, Pius Thicknesse, I always forget he exists, because he’s basically if Voldemort engineered himself an intentionally uninteresting background character. And it was always a bit ambiguous how down with the dark stuff he was, so seeing him running doesn’t feel much better than Gaunt himself. (I know he was under an Imperius Curse for most of Voldemort’s reign of terror, but he also expresses some pretty nasty Pureblood rhetoric when Harry meets him in the Ministry in Deathly Hallows, and I don’t know if an Imperius Curse would give its victim the caster’s opinions?) And looking at both his and Silverstream’s campaign messages: “law and order” “family values” “on both sides” Ah, yes, phrases that tell me not to vote for that candidate! (The last is a fairly new addition to that list!) Then again, the third option is a bigot who’s actively genociding a culture using his giant snake, and calling the culture he’s genociding bigots soooooo . . . guess I’m voting for Silverstream, how dull. How old do Ministers have to be? If Hermione ran on a platform of “slavery is bad actually,” she would get my vote for sure! I am digging those extremely unrestrictive voting laws, though. Long, open period to register, and seventeen-year-olds get in on the action! We should let seventeen-year-olds vote in the U.S. too!
A. Wolf. A wolf. The aurors told the police that the string of mysterious disappearances stretching back to the 1930s(?) was caused by a wolf. For ~70 years. Yes, dogs are famous for being one of those pets that outlive their owners all the time, it’s very tragic how many decades canines can live. Honestly . . .
Hagrid leaving came as quite a shock, because for a second, I thought he was leaving. But I see he’s actually getting some remedial schooling at last! Heck yeah, Hagrid! Get that education!
Oh boy. Sounds like the other Slytherin students are very much Done With tolerating Draco’s friendship with Gryffindors. Heading for a rough year, indeed . . .
—doctorlit is intrigued by that very different fifth year title!
Yeah, I think Pius Thicknesse was always a bit blood supremacist (or you know, centre-traditionalist, or something) because people would've pinged the Imperius if he suddenly did such a drastic about-face in policy. Hence me thinking he'd be the ~law and order~ candidate. The candidate field isn't fantastic, yeah. Silverstream is status quo, Thicknesse is too focused on policing criminality, and Gaunt is straight up a genocidal maniac. But you'll see in year 5 if the field changes....
It's a very, very old magic wolf, Doc, obviously!
Wait no longer, fifth year is here!!
We're one chapter away from the end of year 4, and I'm still in the middle of writing year 5, so there's going to be a brief hiatus while I finish up year 5! A bit like the hiatus before OotP's release, whoops
Oh no, Prince . . . she’s getting sent on a double agent mission, just like Snape was, isn’t she? I hope she makes it through okay. She’s a lot more likeable than Snape, and I like the idea of her being part of Harry’s family—I mean, I guess she has been all along, huh? And it’s nice to see Lily returning Prince’s affection at last. It’s been clear that Prince loved Lily, and I kept seeing that “Lily Potter/Severus Snape” tag in the . . . tags . . . but I wasn’t sure if Lily loved her back until now. I’m fumbling for words, but I guess it just feels nice for them to be there for each other, knowing that a fascist crapstorm is brewing?
Oh hey, Marlene McKinnon is alive! For now! Nice to see an entire family not blotted from the earth! It’s the little victories.
I love our golden . . . quadruple? linking hands and swearing to work against Gaunt; felt very Stephen Kingish (in a good way). As always and everywhere, getting the youth to vote will be deeply critical, and that’s an angle the students are better equipped for than Dumbledore and the other older folks. Oh, the in-school Order meetings are about to turn even more divisive, aren’t they?
Why, Hermione, what is that you found upon the windowsill, Hermione? What have you got in your hand? Could it possibly maybe perhaps be, I don’t know . . . some variety of . . . BEETLE?! IS THAT A BEETLE HERMIONE HAVE YOU FIND A BEETLE HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH AHJMAHSGSDHWDUGYWEDIGHWE8OFUG
—doctorlit, normal and fine
Yes, she is indeed being sent off on a mission of some sort. How it shakes out... you'll just have to see :P I do like that people like her a lot more in comparison to canon Snape--I intended for her to stay mostly true to the character's roots (misanthropic, authoritarian teacher) with a bit more sympathy and past character growth (since Snape was very much frozen as the victim of the Marauders and he took that out on Harry). That being said, she and Harry's relationship will definitely get more complicated as we get into the later years of the story.
Harry, as frame narrator, isn't really bound to pay attention to his mum's love life, but yes, there was rapprochement between Lily and Sev during his childhood, and a sense of... a second chance, really. There was a hint of it at the end of 2nd year when Lily mentioned sharing a bed with Sev, but it's very much a blink-and-you'll-miss-it hint.
Marlene McKinnon will be showing up in year 5!
Yes, year 4 was about unity! And I'm in the middle of year 5, and year 5 is about division. So you'd be right about how the Order meetings are going to go...
Thank you for reading!
Harry confronts the saboteur, and the fallout from the Third Task has significant consequences.
This is probably the darkest chapter of year 4, so PLEASE mind the warnings: BL6, BL11 for the Crouch backstory.
Okay. Okay. I felt so very slapped in the face for a moment there, because when “Jacques” first pulled his wand on Harry, I thought Crouch Jr. had been Jacques for the entire year, and I really and truly couldn’t force my brain to accept that. It felt so wrong, not only because I was so sure Junior had been in Senior nope that phrasing is no longer okay impersonating Senior, but also because Jacques has just been so much fun all year, and also I hated the idea of one of our PPC boys being locked in a trunk all year . . . but now I just feel so dumb! Because of course Junior switched identities throughout the year. That’s actually easier than the original Junior remaining Moody all year! But yeah, thanks for that early morning crash into my senses, there!
I love Harry’s observation that the Knights view Gaunt as “some sort of Chosen One,” since it’s a turnabout from canon, where Harry is “chosen” rather literally as the “solution” to Trelawny’s prophecy. (Which I rather forgot about; did that prophecy just not occur in this timeline?) And it’s a lovely demonstration of why Chosen One plots can get kind of toxic, and assigning people a status of “most special child” can lead them to stop questioning their actions and goals in a healthy way, to say nothing of the possibility of collecting worshipful followers . . . oh, hello, parallels between Gaunt and Trump. it’s been a while!
For being such a dark chapter, I was filled with wonderful feelings when Dumbledore stood up to Fudge and put him in his place. What an absolute and fully justified power move! Fudge having the audacity to think of himself as “the very last defence you’ve got against tyranny” is so pathetic and cringey, I can’t imagine having that level of self-confidence. “Everyone in this community got a magic wand, but it’s me, the Wizarding World equivalent of a one-term U.S. president, the walking embodiment of middle management getting promoted beyond their competence level, the very goodest of boys with a title in front of my name, I’m the only hope this country has!” CRINGE. Still, going to be a hellish election next year, with potentially disastrous results. And the one in Heirs of Avalon could be bad, too! (Oh, hello, parallels!)
—doctorlit is even more concerned about Neville’s continued absence, considering Junior clearly had the Longbottoms on his mind before kidnapping Harry
Just because something was one way in the books doesn't necessarily make it the same in this setting! -cackles- And to be clear, the only reason he didn't kidnap Jacques for the entire year was because he's blood purist. And it would be easier for him to fake being his dad rather than a complete stranger who's sort of the diametric opposite of him. At least with Moody in the books he could act entirely unhinged and no one would notice...
There is no Trelawney prophecy, but the Centaurs did note of a "strife between the houses of the snake and the stag, of a battle for the soul of magical society itself", so there was a prophecy of sorts made, just not necessarily about Harry. I wanted to lean into how the "Chosen One" narrative was a burden even book Harry didn't enjoy having, hence this Harry going out of his way to hate on anything that might suggest that he's an archetypal specialest boy. He's not an orphan in a cupboard with nothing to lose; he's got his Mum and his friends and he'll do what is right because of them, not because some old dude centuries ago predicted something that might vaguely be about him.
(And also I'm just hating on the classical "Great Man" sort of leadership that leads to shit like dictators!)
I'm tickled that you liked the Dumbledore scene. I personally felt like he sounded like an Aaron Sorkin character, hahaha. But I guess Dumbledore is sort of in that mold as the Wise Good Leader who tells you the moral of the story :P
Yes, definitely, we're going into ~election year~ in this series and in IRL! Still in the middle of writing 5th year, so there may be a delay before I start posting it (just like how there was a delay in releasing OotP, whoops) because I like to have fics complete or nearly almost complete before I start posting. I will say that the Trump-Gaunt parallels will continue to hit, though!
(Neville is fine, omg, he was taking his exams!!!)
The Quartet celebrate Draco's birthday and puzzle some things out. Warning for depiction of a PTSD episode.
The Third Task. Warning for a much more gruesome and bloody version of the character death that happens in the books, plus allusions/implications of other character deaths.
ETA it's chapter 19 I can't count haha
I’m really digging the time jumps here; I think Tarantinoing the timeline helped spread out the information vs. action, and built up more suspense for the events inside the maze. It also reduces the time between Amos Diggory saying and regretting his words even shorter and more painful! “Whatever means possible,” sir? Welp . . . I’m slightly proud that I guessed the answer to the sphinx’s riddle before I read the solution! (“Proud” because I’m terrible at such riddles, “slightly” because the answer was one of the overarching themes of this canon . . .)
Gosh, that Boggart sure . . . used a prop, and seemed weirdly self-aware of what it was doing! Are they usually that smart? reads Wiki page Okay, I always had Boggarts pegged as being animalistic, and transforming automatically, but I guess there is some evidence that they may be sapient? Weird! Although, rereading your scene, the tomato sauce thing might just be the effect of Harry’s Boggart-Banishing Spell, huh? . . . Boy, I hope no one in the audience read too much into the conversation Harry had with the Boggart! Except for Draco, he should read everything into it!
Not to make light of Cedric dying, but it was a good scene, enjoyable in the sense of tense and exciting. I think maybe your title for this year is a bit too on-the-nose compared to the other years, because I pretty much knew the Triwizard Cup was going to be cursed with a trap all along, it was mainly just a question of who would wind up touching it, and whether they would survive. I loved seeing Harry and Fleur teaming up to try to counteract the curse. With both of them bringing different, relevant talents to the table, and the progress they were making in contacting Skaro, you almost had me thinking they were going to rescue Cedric for a moment there . . . At least that whole scene got spellcast to the wizarding community, including Harry’s ill-timed rant, so the authorities won’t be able to deny that there was intentional, malicious sabotage going on!
Ooooooooh, “MWPP” stands for “Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs!” I got so confused by that when it got mentioned in an earlier chapter, because my brain went, “Myrtle Warren/Peter Pettigrew” and I was like, the timeline doesn’t work for that?! Hah hah, I’m incredibly dense. I was also about to ask why Bonnefoy, Liu and Robinson had to hide their polyamory, because I had already seen that this culture is fine with queer couples, but I think I just answered my own question: the culture is fine with queer couples, because sorting Pureblood society into couples maximizes Pureblood babies, just as sorting capitalist societies into hetero couples maximizes labor units. It’s just not efficient for Lady Robinson to hog two men all to herself! Gross! I hate that I thought of this!
“. . . before pulling out a photograph out of a beaded handbag . . .”
Out, out, extra out! (I do love the detail that goblins, with their love of metal artisanry, would give each other sculpted flowers, amazing detail!)
“Cedric, ask Qiu to give her your magic.”
Unless I’m wildly misunderstanding the bonding magic situation, I think these pronouns are backwards?
—doctorlit, extremely troubled that Neville’s absence hasn’t been resolved by the close of the chapter D :
I figured for something as climactic as the maze that telling it in media res would be more exciting.
The Sphinx's riddle was pretty obvious, wasn't it? :P
I'm glad you enjoyed (term use loosely) the scene at the end of the maze. I chose the title "Cursed Cup" to refer not only to the Triwizard Cup, but also to the Quidditch World Cup and the Goblet of Fire--all of which were very cursed cups this year. So although it's a little on the nose, I think it fit thematically!
Myrtle Warren/Peter Pettigrew is certainly an odd combination that I'm sure has at least 2 or 3 fics written about it... the HP fandom truly is vast. And yes, seconding Nesh's comments on the JJR polycule: there's other things to be taken into consideration for why Jacques' connection to the two of them is kept secret!
Thanks for catching the typos. And I totally wasn't inspired by Tolkien's Dwarves at all with these goblin customs and (some) names, nope, definitely not.....
A theme is materializing in my brain . . . all three cups/goblets are linked with an international competition, ones that encourage the participants to compete against each other and see the other team/participants as an adversary. And there's a connection between those arbitrary clashes and the Pureblood community's insistence on placing themselves above and at odds with the rest of their own culture, as well as Muggles, viewing the world as a competition to survive, rather than an opportunity for cooperation. And as usual, The Kids Are All Right in comparison with the adults, because the Quidditch Cup ends with the Pureblood parents going on a race riot (the bad kind) against their own countrymen, while the students from the three Triwizard schools wind up bonding together, and the actual participants start helping each other out . . . until the pressure from Amos Diggory ends up pushing Cedric to make a run for the win at the last moment, costing his life. Infighting destroys, just like a curse can; working together can save lives. Unionize
So you could say, the real curse was the friendships we almost missed making along the way?
Remarkably, neither Ao3 nor the Pit appear to have Pettigrew/Warren at all, which is the best possible outcome really. Was so scared hitting enter on those searches . . .
—doctorlit so wise
Allow me to draw your attention to this line:
“Or maybe I’m just tired of being your quiet little Muggleborn pet!” rejoined Bonnefoy[.]
The answer to why the polycule is a secret lies there.
Not that it doesn't also have to do with Pureblood babies, because of course it does. You're probably right about Pureblood society wanting to maximize legitimate baby-making units—that could account in part for all the speshul soulmates stuff. {= P
~Neshomeh
But they still have things besides their own desires to take into consideration, I'm afraid! They both have goals they need political allies to achieve, and families they love enough not to blow off entirely, and centuries' worth of bloodline-related magical contracts binding them whether they will or nil.
Since I dunno how much of this will end up in writing at all: In Jenni's case, it's my headcanon that the Penruddock family magic is deeply connected to their ancestral home in Cumbria, going back to times when Mages and Muggles had a functioning relationship and the folk traditions around ensuring a bountiful harvest and healthy livestock actually meant something. (I may been inspired by the Arthurian conceit that the king is the land and the land is the king, given all the references to Arthurian legend in Purityworld, haha.) The Penruddock family magic may also be connected to a magical creature sanctuary that would be endangered if their protections failed.
So, unfortunately for our trio, the situation is more complicated than it may seem on the surface. We made sure of it; we're authors, we're evil like that.
~Neshomeh
... I'm not reading HoA (it's way outside my genres these days), but I've been following along with doctorlit's reviews, largely drawn by the number pun reviews. ^_^ I just wanted to say that Nesh's stuckthrough comment at the end of this post gives me the warm fuzzies - it's exactly the kind of thing I remember seeing the likes of Miss Cam or Meir Brin writing in their notes waaaaay back in the day.
hS
Yessssss, yessssssssssssss! I like reading me a little smart Harry! Hermione will always be my favorite of the three, but it’s nice seeing Harry manage to flex the brain parts a bit! He’s well on his way, as long as the adults in the room have to sense to listen and follow the trail. He’s even starting to notice that damn beetle, that damn beetle, that damn beetle! DON’T TRUST THE BEETLE HARRY, DENY THE BEETEL, STEP ON THE No, I suppose Skeeter doesn’t deserve that. (Not to express sympathy for two very nasty characters, but there must be a lot of fear involved in using one’s Animagus form when that form is a beetle or a rat. People already pay bugs and rodents a lot of negative attention, and I would be worried about anyone reaching for a shovel or shoe or something without me noticing, and not being able to defend myself with a spell . . . In Skeeter’s case, even an accidental misstep would be fatal!)
I had assumed that Beedle’s tales were old enough to be unchanged in this timeline, but wow, that is almost a complete morality flip of the original “Hairy Heart” story! I see your version only uses “a hairy heart” in its metaphorical form, possibly because of the association between hair and magical power/talent? It also eliminates the Horcrux metaphor from the original, which makes me wonder if Horcruxes even exist in Purityworld . . . clearly, even Gaunt hasn’t indulged, since he still looks fully human! I like how you tied one of the Beedle stories into the family history of some of the main characters; while I dislike the general concept of people being born cursed because a wand got pointed at some ancient ancestor, I know it’s canon to the universe, and it ties in with Astoria’s situation, too! (Also, I just popped back to “Pureblood Panopticon” to double check I wasn’t mixing up the Greengrass sisters’ names, and caught this line from Lockhart: “But unfortunately this time, when Lord Hydrus Privett finds out his beloved Heiress Dracaena Merrington was one of the haircutter’s victims, he’ll completely lose his mind with grief…” That’s some wild foreshadowing, Lily! But of course, with Lockhart being a story thief, he would be aware of the hairy heart story, and its ties to the Malfoy family, as well!)
Loved seeing the name correction with Mahoudokoro, too! I’ll try to memorize that as the proper spelling. I think Hamelin Books will be headcanon for me, as well!
—doctorlit still needs to sit down and watch A Very Potter Musical all the way through
I think it's fine and healthy to feel bad for characters even when they're horrible assholes, and in this case things can be dangerous for Rita, even though she's a shameless grifter and parrot for Gaunt!
Yeah, Harry's actually pretty good at solving these little yearly puzzles, even if it takes him a whole year to do it... :P
Actually, the "hairy heart" in the Black family legend is more of an explanation for the ancestor's "unfeeling coldness", that is, his lack of romantic/sexual attraction towards the woman he courted/married. I was sort of exploring the idea that Purityworld might have some older, ingrained prejudices towards aro/ace or low-empathy people.
I think in this 'verse Horcruxes do exist; it's just that Voldygaunt (due to a privileged single-dad upbringing + this 'verse's increased prominence of Pureblood privilege and supremacy giving him the keys to powerful/polite society because of the Gaunt bloodline) decided politics was a better avenue to immortality than Horcruxes. The canon Voldemort was an orphan during WW2 and literally got sent home every summer to bombed out London; it's really no surprise that he 1) was radicalised against Muggles, 2) hated Dippet and/or Dumbledore for sending him back to danger without any exceptions and 3) wanted to make sure he would never actually die even if his physical body was damaged. Whether or not JKR considered Tom Riddle's war trauma whilst she wrote him into a heartless unfeeling monster incapable of love is debatable, though...
That being said, the twist/reinterpretation of the Beedle story did factor into the decision to mention the Black ancestor as owning a "hairy heart", and the Black family has traditionally had their stories appropriated into more common fairytales. It's similar to how "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" is sort of a reference to the Potter family.
But yes, the foreshadowing with the Lockhart books is intentional, tee hee.
If you go to Tokyo, you can actually go eat at a HP-themed cafe and buy HP merch at the Mahou Dokoro store. So it is sorta canon. :P
ETA: They're taking the beetle to Azkaban. To Azkaban? To Azkaban! They're taking the beetle to Azkaban—ban—ban—ban—
Also wanted to say I DID catch the ace implications and appreciated them. ^_^
~Neshomeh
I named a fictional wizarding prison from the Harry Potter books, because it scans well in place of "Isengard." Does said fictional prison have some connection to what you said besides sounding similar? O.o
~Neshomeh
I guess not everyone has an encyclopedic knowledge of its various typos.
-Ls
Okay, yeah, coming from you, I should have guessed. ^_^;
And here I was afraid a classic 2000s meme was flying over the head of the next generation, haha.
~Neshomeh
I can see it now though, he was a an a-spec fellow who felt pressure to marry due to Pureblood culture, but mostly just wanted to hang out with his old pal . . . And a culture that looks down on anyone who isn't serving as breeding stock for the bloodlines that count . . . Poor guy!
—doctorlit
Lily: PLEASE read the warnings
doctorlit: does not read the warnings
. . .
doctorlit: The Knights of Camelot need to be tried by the Hague . . . the Wizard Hague
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at the extent of the Knights’ crimes; they are Death Eaters transplanted into a more conservative and controlling culture with a dash of religious extremism, after all! But yeah, they were busy little terrorists, and they have an absolutely monstrous rap sheet there! I love how you used the Pensieve memories to string together both the narrative of the Crouches’ relationship, but also to explain what happened to Neville’s parents. It’s great hearing about Alice and Frank going hardcore superspies on the Knights’s front shop, and managing to completely expose it and halt the operation! I also like how Dumbledore’s mercy towards Bellatrix seemingly led to the Muggleborn Protection Act squeaking through later on; very Bilbo’s-first-act-after-wearing-the-Ring-was-sparing-Gollum’s-life-granting-him longer-resistance-against-the-Ring’s-influence vibes. (Though his faith in Bella staying true to her exile is clearly a bit of a blind spot, not that anyone could know about her sneaking back in for parties without the other Pureblood freaks talking about it.)
Hm. Bagman attacked Cedric and grabbed Crouch Sr.? Although Crouch Jr. would have had plenty of opportunities to get hair from Bagman at this point . . .
—doctorlit is sure the unexplained absence of the Chamber of Secrets Pensieve is definitely not dreadful foreshadowing at all
so I don't know how effective the wizard Hague will be :P
I'm glad you picked up on all of those things. I thought it was important to finally show what happened in the Lord Slytherin Scandal, since there were so many questions before about what happened and how it led to Gaunt losing power the first time. It and the passage of the Muggleborn Protection Act all lay the groundwork for the differences between the wizarding world that Harry enters and the wizarding world that the older characters once inhabited. Some readers have been surprised that the Wizengamot would go so far as to pass the Muggleborn Protection Act, so I think this serves as an explanation for that! Dumbledore is, once again, acting For The Greater Good, even if he pretty much threw Sirius and the Longbottoms under the bus.
The fate of the Chamber Pensieve... will be uncovered in a later year! I think year 6 at latest?