Oh, Lily was actually sponsored by the Prince family? Interesting detail; that probably made it all the worse for her when Severina started spiraling into bad places, and frankly, worse places than Severus did. I had forgotten about the Mary Macdonald incident from canon, but it definitely feels like the event was significantly worse in this timeline. Severina has a LOT to atone for, so I can see why she wanted to be Harry’s Occlumency teacher, although I’m somehow more frustrated with her efforts than Severus’s, despite the similar structure. I have a feeling Liu is giving Draco a bit more actual instruction than just, “I’m going to pew pew your brain, try and stop me!” Like, both Harry and Severina acknowledge that Harry is starting with less experience than he should, so maybe some actual teaching would be helpful here? I was, however, amused that Harry’s surface-level thoughts are basically, “Oops, All Boyfriend.” Don’t do puberty, kids, those hormones will really get you! (Oh, and speaking of Liu, I am in deep love with him and Jenni distributing contraband books to Hogwarts students, partly because it's such a glorious concept on its nose, partly because it’s in direct defiance of Umbridge, and partly because the unpublished book I’m reading through for Rosie right now features characters distributing contraband books! “If I had a nickel for every . . .”)

But speaking of Umbridge, we’ve had a lovely break from her, but she’s back on the page now, and Hogwarts is feeling bleak. Banning children from hugging or holding hands is not psychologically healthy in any way! And Hermione is losing it. While there’s a degree of fun in seeing her start rebelling against the system of rules and discipline she normally honors, it’s also a bit worrying to see her change so much. I understand why she went to Polixenes to expose the situation with the vassal bonds, but oh boy, she may have just handed Silverstream the win for Minister there. Nothing to do but watch what happens . . .

With Umbridge’s weird reaction to Professor Babbling’s wardstone dating project (which sounds extremely fun and cool, by the way, would read a whole story about that), I can actually buy that “conspiracy theory” about Binns being kept as a history teacher because his poor delivery makes the students less likely to question the Ministry’s actions and beliefs. The detail about Babbling’s long lifespan is intriguing. I doubt she’s a ghost; it feels more likely, considering what she teaches, that she did something involving runes that preserved some imprint of herself in the room that’s able to linger and interact with people beyond her own death. She might be something like the “shades” produced from the Resurrection Stone, and keeps the lighting low so people can’t tell that her colors are “washed out.” Although if she’s been physically accompanying Draco into the Chamber of Secrets, I suppose that annihilates that theory!

I’ll have you know, when I read Draco criticizing the “plebian cheese sandwiches,” I was having a perfectly filling clearance pizza crust with mozzarella melted all over it. There was no need for Draco to insult my very normal adult meal like that! (That wasn’t my whole dinner, of course. I had gummy bears, too.)

(For anyone other than Lily reading, I do recommend butting out now, because I think I’m about to accurately identify Lady Polixenes at the end of this paragraph. You have been warned!) That really is a top-quality little essay that Polixenes published at the end of this chapter. Very engaging, very swaying, I agree wholeheartedly. I wonder if Polixenes always rights essays of such quality for schoolwork, because they’re not exactly known for their academic performance. Maybe it’s just a matter of the right motivation? Let’s look at our list of clues so far:
-Polixenes feels no duty to uphold Pureblood or Circle social mores
-Polixenes chafes under Umbridge’s authority
-Polixenes has access to all kinds of gossip from around the school
-Polixenes is familiar with Muggle literature, specifically 1984
-Polixenes may be using the title “Lady” partly to obfuscate their actual gender identity
The last point is pure supposition on Ron’s part, and doesn’t eliminate anyone out of the students or staff. The first two points are also very broad, especially since the Inquisitorial Squad appears to be anonymous in this timeline. The third point is a bit of a null data point, since we have no idea who Fred and George have given or sold extendable ears to at this point, so just about any students could be abusing one of those (except Harry, since his status as the point-of-view character means we-the-reader know he hasn’t been spending time on an illicit printing press. The most unique thing we know is 1984. There are, of course, plenty of Muggleborn and Half-Blood students who may have encountered Muggle literature at home&mdas;heck, Draco probably isn’t the only Pureblood who’s been sneaking some himself! However, there’s only one character who’s been explicitly stated to be reading 1984, isn’t there? Or rather, a pair of characters, and one of them even quoted from it this very chapter (after I had arrived at this conclusion, for the record!). So, let’s reexamine our list:
-the Weasley family had their social status and wealth taken away due to Circle of Avalon politics
-the twins chafe under most authority, really, and were famously, militantly opposed to Umbridge in canon
-the twins are themselves the supply of extendable ears, and have the most access to the product
-the twins were reading 1984 this year, and George quoted “wrongthink thoughtcrime” in conversation this chapter
-Not only was Ron right about “Lady” being a misleading title in the publications, but so was the pronoun “I.” What better way for a pair of male authors to hide their identities than to present themselves as a single woman?
Lady Polixenes is actually Fred and George Weasley! (And if I’m wrong this time, I’m truly giving up.)

—doctorlit still finds the existence of Babbling Beverage to be one of the weirder inventions in the Wizarding World

It's all right! I know real life can be busy as hell.

Yeah the one big happy Weasley family thing falls apart when you're in it :P and I feel like Molly and Arthur even in the books were arguing a bunch--or, rather, Molly seemed to henpeck Arthur a lot. But yes, the formerly-moneyed-but-had-it-all-confiscated situation here does amplify arguments since neither Molly nor Arthur were raised to handle economic precarity. Love can't buy your kids food and robes for Hogwarts, after all.

I made the deliberate choice to have the Weasleys in that situation because it's the natural extension/subversion of the idea that families "in the sacred 28" must be Pureblood aristocrats with money and Wizengamot seats. It always seems to extend naturally to, say, Blacks, Malfoys, Potters, but not so much to Weasleys because, well, they're poor in canon so fandom gets weirdly classist about them. And yet, in the books, the type of poverty the Weasleys are in is a fairly genteel sort and Arthur Weasley's job at the Ministry, while unglamorous, gives him enough power to write laws that affect people like Mr Bashir (GOF) and Lucius Malfoy (CoS, Muggle Protection Act). So I've tried to be a little bit more consistent with the sort of social punishment that took the Weasleys' former status away from them.

The wardstone of a magical family powers the house's wards, so yes, the Ministry was trying to remove the wardstone out of the building so that the land could be sold to pay back Lord Septimus' debts. However, I kinda borrowed from Encanto's Casita for the Burrow--that thing isn't going anywhere without a fight! Hence them deciding to confiscate the house-elves instead.

Of course Ron is acting bratty in his own way. He's eleven, and he's had ten years of (what he perceives as) unfair treatment :P

Given that I'm leaning hard into making a magical bond look and act like Voldemort and Harry's horcrux bond, it only seemed natural to have Occlumency be more widespread as a result.

Re: the poison: it was B :P Occam's razor. The reason for the poison flashback is to show Lily and Severina brewing a poison that acts like black mamba venom, and then imply that black mambas and runespoors are close enough taxonomically (they're both native to Burkina Faso) that runespoor antivenom would neutralise this poison. And the ASKE antivenom was, yes, a stopgap--it's more effective against stuff like bee stings and Swedish Short-Snout bites, but it managed to keep Lily from going into total anaphylactic shock before help could come.

(The idea is, ofc, that it looks like a bad allergic reaction to most people, and initially medics would try to treat an allergy not knowing it was replicated snake venom. And then by then it would be too late.)

Lockhart is just being weird lolol that monologue is from A Very Potter Senior Year!

Yeah, this world's messed Neville up :P Purity culture is one hell of a drug!

Actually, the deliberate usage of Monty Python by Mr Weasley has a more prosaic reason, as mentioned during the Christmas Eve parlour dance when Ron mentioned Dirty Dancing Filthy Frolicking. Mr Weasley just watches a ton of Muggle films and has instilled a healthy love of Muggle literature, cinema, and music in his kids. Though he has his gaps--Ron hasn't read LotR yet, and didn't know about Star Wars and Doctor Who until he befriended Harry! But we see the twins knowing about 1984, and Ginny listening to vinyls, so of course by the end Arthur is just throwing out Monty Python references because, well, the whole game is made up and Avalon isn't even real, so why not be silly with it? utilising the incredibly risky and radical Mordicus Egg Gambit which, if played perfectly straight, allows one any amount of silly Muggle film references that force the Purebloods to either accept the location as a valid location in Avalon, or contest it and therefore confess to consuming Muggle film.

Narcissa was established in Year Three as taking parlour games very seriously. It's because the Black sisters were very competitive growing up. Lucius tries to hold his own, but Narcissa knows exactly how to push his buttons...

Thanks for catching the misspellings!

(I wanted a Regulus who was different from the fandom-popular sarcastic sad boy (that's just Snape reskinned to be rich ok) so my Regulus is a bit pompous and all about manners and being civil, so that's why he's Momma's Boy, as well as why he seems so much more mature than Sirius.)

Edit: Oop, I meant vice versa. facepalm

--Ls

. . . Well, gosh. Hermione seemed to so obviously be Lady Polixenes before, but this chapter is making me doubt that. I could understand her not reporting the cursed quill when Hermione was the only victim, to help obfuscate Polixenes’s identity, but she surely would have said something when Luna started getting hurt. My suspicion has now turned upon Lavender, of all characters. Lavender is riding the Pureblood train hard in this timeline, so it might seem at first glance that she would be supportive of Umbridge’s “reforms;” however, she’s also been waaaaay too interested in the “who likes who” of school life, so Umbridge’s blockage of the take-notice board, and the restrictions on public displays of affection, may have put too much of a damper on Hogwarts social life for Lavender to be properly entertained by her classmates. Plus, she was asking Harry about Lily’s outfit, and whether she was romantically involved with Regulus in an earlier chapter, and this chapter has her trying to pry information about Draco’s love life out of Ron, of all people. She’s been after material to publish as Polixenes the whole time, and no one (including me) has been noticing because she was already such a gossip. Well played!

A note from Karkaroff, eh? Hopefully, he’s following in his canon self’s footsteps and betraying Gaunt, though hopefully with less getting-murdered-for-it this time. I wonder if the finale of the Triwizard Tournament made him decide to prioritize the safety of his students/community over loyalty to Gaunt. Perhaps he had some dirt about Gaunt to provide Regulus with, as leverage? And as for Regulus’s own vassal bond with Gaunt, I had rather taken it for granted he would have a Knight’s Mark, since the canon original had a Dark Mark, so it wasn’t really a surprise for me. But I can understand Hermione’s shock over it; she was seeing Regulus as a separate option from Gaunt, only to learn that Gaunt is holding something over Regulus’s head all along. Hermione’s righteous anger in that moment was a beauty and wonder to behold! The reformation will not be spellcast!

Ah, man. The reaction Gary and Rose had to learning of Harry’s love for Draco felt all too familiar, as someone who attended grade school and junior high in the 90s. Yeah, let’s just leave it at that. It’s good for that decade to stay in the past . . .

Some other, minor observations:
-Ron is so gloriously unaware of Hermione and girls in general right now, I love him for it!
-I see Qiu has finally come to terms with exactly what kind of friend Marietta is. She deserves some better friends now!
-Ron is going to $*%@ing crush some high scores at Tetris, absolutely!

—doctorlit, $*%@ing crushing some mediocre scores at Tetris

It was somewhere in the comments on a post about Anarchy Chess rules.

I'm guessing you appreciate my insight into the true origins of Mornington Crescent as a bastardisation of the noble wizard pastime of Pendragon Castle, then ;)