{ Harry Potter Book Starters }
“Short, if you’re bloody stupid about it,” Helen returned, taking hold of a second pair of protective gloves and handing them quite firmly to Mr. Longbottom. “I won’t be having any Gryffindor nonsense here – these animals require patience, not recklessness, and I’ll have you right back to Augusta if you cause them any distress, you understand?”
“Keep” they called it. This was their word for theft, their word for attacking setts and hauling good nifflers from their kin. To keep. Rising to his feet, he approached this human – he had always considered him a herd sort, but now that it appeared he was pack, Trouble wondered if this sun would be the one under which he died.
He did not know how to fight in this form – as the lone bull, it was his job to protect his kin from danger. He had never seen this human as a threat before, but seeing kin grasped with intention of keeping, his view had shifted sharply.
“No.” His human words were not good, and humans did not growl or bark well. The best he could do was make the word low and gravelly, as much warning as this body could manage. “No keeping. She is kin. Release her.”
“I’d ask why you care, but we really don’t have time for that,” Millicent bit out, still gripping her leg where that cutting curse had caused her to crumple – she was damned lucky Longbottom had shot a stunner moments later, or the masked bastard advancing on her might have been able to wipe her off the playing field once and for all rather than disapparating when the odds seemed tougher.
Later, some part of her would look back on this and wonder if that had been an old “friend” of her dad behind the mask, but for now the only thing that mattered was keeping this area contained and making sure whoever that was didn’t cause any real trouble.
“If you really want to help, you should report this to the Ministry – I think we both know they won’t believe shit from me.” A Slytherin reporting an attack from a Death Eater, two days before the commemoration of the fallen fifty? She’d probably be arrested for breathing.
“I can handle this, but whoever that was, I can’t imagine they’re going to stop here, so go.”
“Mister Longbottom,” Rowena interrupted this before it could form into a pattern, “As forgetting one’s remembrall is counter intuitive to possessing one in the first place – and those who own them are indeed forgetful – how has it not occurred to you that the swiftest means of returning it would be to summon it back?”
He was still just a boy – no older than her Draco, with absolutely no right to be playing these sorts of wicked games. How terrible it was now, to be a mother and see the effect of war on young faces – she understood now, her own mother’s strange and decided indifference. The fever in Bellatrix must have been as terrifying to her as the tragic determination in Draco now was. Narcissa wondered if this boy’s quiet determination to stand by his friends was as terrible for Augusta to witness – it shouldn’t be THEM.
War was no theater for children, and that the Dark Lord was so determined to make it so only forced her hand farther from the loyalty her husband required of her. With Lucius in prison – in no small part thanks to this very child – she found herself swaying on a most delicate precipice. Her son would not dream of leaving, even if the cost of staying was his own life, his own soul – and they had done that. They had placed him in this position – as surely as they had set this child in opposition to him.
“To lack fear is not bravery – surely being in Gryffindor, you recognize that bravery comes from what we face when we’re afraid, even if wisdom dictates it might be better to retreat.” The terrible element of this conversation was not being entirely certain who she was advising at the moment, but it would not benefit her now to be uncivil. She would need allies on the other side set in place for her Draco, in the event the Dark Lord and his minions forced her hand to drastic measures to protect him.
“You can’t mean me darling,” Druella was quite certain the boy had no idea who she was – his tone was not nearly sarcastic enough – and yet there was no sign of anyone else. He didn’t even have a chaperone ( where was Augusta? It had been ever so long since their last little talk ) and in this climate that was rather dangerous for friends and playmates of little Harry Potter.
Curious – insatiable as ever – she stepped a little closer to examine him. He’d grown of course, children had the most lamentable habit of turning into adults and the young Longbottom was certainly shaping up to be a fine one. He had the dawnings of his father’s build ( sturdy, never quite fit but always strong, always rooted to the ground and the earth, stable as stones ) but that face oh, she knew that determined look quite well, though the burn of it was a distant memory from a long ago time, and an earlier chapter of war.
“My my, I can see why Lucius struggled ever so – to be brought down by teenagers is shameful, but you have war in your veins, don’t you? You wont be standing down at all – it’s not in your spirit.” She had seen the photographs – the haunted look in the Potter boy’s gaze, the eyes of a man too old for this world trapped eerily in the features of a child. The Daily Prophet hadn’t run photos of the other children involved – doubtless some minor counter measure to protect them – but she would wager this one would not have looked as dead inside.
He’d have had the fire of his mother burning through, fierce as any flame and held steady by that frank solidity from the other side of his family tree. It made her wonder what the others looked like – what warriors were being forged in the crucible before the war even declared itself. Her eldest wanted this one – wanted to finish what she started all those years ago – but her mind had slipped. Madness nested inside of her very core, twisting her wits and her magic to such a degree Druella wondered if her darling would be able to win against this one, if he had the chance to grow. If he had the strength to channel his mother’s flame and the will to hold fast like his father had – would he be the one to end the cycle? It would be curious to witness, but Druella was not yet driven to any action – everything resided on Narcissa. Her word, would be the one to determine where Druella would fall this time – but it didn’t hurt to have a little head start in the game.
“Do you want silver linings?” Her question this time, required a response and lacked the air of rhetoric that came before. “Or would you prefer to play in gold percentages.”
There were times when her students truly did manage to rock her to the core – and it was very rarely the ones with true sight that pulled it off. Longbottom was not the best interpreter nor was he the worst – in truth his were the average scores of someone who had chosen a bird course in Divination – unremarkable, but clever in seeing an opportunity for an easy enough O.W.L. to add to one’s overall achievements.
Setting down her tea lest she end up choking on it, Sybill considered the observation before her in light of present events. Oh, it would have been easy to keep herself sequestered away in her tower, locked above all the violent bustle and lending the whole business to the centaur that – for strange reasons nobody saw fit to question – Headmaster Snape had not seen fit to discharge. ( And how interesting, that none of them questioned the fact he maintained a position set by Dumbledore to spare the life of one the Dark Lord had little use for? ) Yes – it would have been easy to disappear into the cloud of smoke and incense that served as her shield from these people – but the future ahead was not built for those who took the easy road and it seemed even the children could see it. A sight they should never have had need to become so intimately familiar with.
“The causeways of what is to come are not for us to pave, Mister Longbottom,” What future was left to them laid most tragically in the hands of a boy no older than the one before her now, and his path alone would lead them to the end for better or for worse. “It is the present that we must keep ourselves in when the future is unclear – for it is the choices we set down now that will dictate how useful we shall be, when the time comes.”
Mun Note: This ties into the post I made regarding international wizarding schools and is mostly a result of me talking to @forttem about how Durmstrang works, which I know a phenomenal amount about on account of Gellert and on account of having built the school’s details in 2012 for a site-wide triwizard tournament on a forum I used to administrate, with some very loose inspiration from the long dead DIN.
As my blogs fundamentally oppose Pottermore and JKR’s twitter feed, anything that has come up about the school since the release of the fourth book is a relative unknown to me. This information is for my own reference as well as that of my friends who wish to further expand on Durmstrang with me. Anyone who wishes to use this information for the creation of Durmstrang characters ( original or otherwise ) is more than welcome to – please just ask me, and do not reblog this post.
Deimos Drachenauzen is Durmstrang’s primary architect. He created the initial blueprints and incorporated the modifications of his fellow founders before hand-picking the stones, trees and other materials that would be used to build the school and its outlaying buildings, which included a stable, two greenhouses and a practice court for unobstructed dueling. Deimos insisted on the practice court and had it built to accommodate not only magic based duels, but mundane challenges such as swordsmanship and archery as well.
The House of Drachenauzen bears a bronze dragon upon a green standard and is characterized by a thirst for power and freedom. They care little for being remembered beyond their time and only desire to be capable of ruling themselves without having to answer to anyone. Drache are most renowned for military practices and espionage.
Eleos Ehrenweise was a dedicated scholar who ultimately spearheaded the creation of Durmstrang Institute. His dedication to knowledge and learning prompted him to provide the funding necessary to build the school. His primary contributions, beyond that of the funding itself, was the designing of the Towers, the Grand Library, and the two Tower Libraries.
The House of Ehrenweise bears a silver hawk upon a red standard and is characterized by a desperate desire to broaden ones mind, to acquire knowledge of any and all sorts and to be willing to take the risks necessary to learn even the hardest of truths. The Ehren are most often renowned for connoisseurs, professors and philosophers.
Kasdia Kriegkatzen is notable not only for being the only female founder of Durmstrang, but also for the creation of the Sorting Sword, whose magic appears capable of locating weaknesses that were not tolerated by the Durmstrang founders and remain unacceptable today. She also built the underground pathways that allow escape from the school in times of siege. These pathways are known only by the Heads of the school, though one or two have been found by students and their locations have been whispered down through the years.
The House of Kriegkatzen bears a black cat upon a gold standard and is characterized by ruthless ambition, a desire to be remembered well past ones time and a willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve that end. The Katz are most often renowned for politicians, ambassadors and spell creation.
Drachenauzen value freedom above all else. The freedom to decide for oneself what is right and wrong, what can be done and what is unwise to do. They are dedicated to learning only the things they personally feel will lead them to a position in life where they can make these decisions for themselves. Those who aspire to leadership roles value strength and power, while those who aspire to live more adventurously value solitude and physical fitness. Drachenauzen view war as a stage where opposing beliefs clash and they believe firmly in upholding what they believe in. If their views are a part of the battle, then they will fight to preserve them.
–Gryffindor and Hufflepuff: Recklessly daring and brutally loyal to those they befriend.
The noble sons and daughters of Ehrenwise know that there is nothing in life more important than the acquisition, absorption and application of knowledge. These fine minds aspire to become the savants of the wizarding world and therefore believe that education never ends. They seek to discover that which is unknown – forgotten lore or newly discovered ideas – and they are ruthless in their dedication to the subjects they choose to pursue. Ehrenweise do not believe in the violence of war and seek to avoid battle at all costs, wishing instead to live peacefully amongst their books and philosophies. As such, there is none more skilled at hiding or versed in diplomacy than an Ehrenweise.
Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff: Dedicated to knowledge and loyal to those they befriend.
The greatest fear of a Kriegkatzen is to be forgotten. They are highly motivated and do not believe in doing anything at half-speed. If there is something that they want or wish to obtain, they will invariably contrive the quickest way to get it and undertake any means necessary. The Kriegkatzen have a no-holds-barred approach to life and consider laws and regulations to be obstacles more often than not.
This is not to say Kriegkatzen have no moral compass – every Kriegkatzen simply has a personal code of things they consider acceptable under certain circumstances, and this code is formed by their personalities and what it is they wish to achieve. They are driven and will over-achieve in everything pertaining to their goal, while completely ignoring anything that does not – this often results in sharply staggered grades. A Kriegkatzen’s view on war is simple – in war, violence is to be expected and the ultimate goal is to be on the side of the victors.
Slytherin and Ravenclaw: Cruelly cunning, the Kriegkatzen use knowledge as a weapon. Loyal to themselves and those they deem worthy of allegiance.
The sorting sword cannot be negotiated with. Unlike other schools where there may be stalls or hesitation, even the option to choose, the sword never wavers or takes doubt into account – in fact doubt is often something the sword punishes, as there is little room for wavering souls in Durmstrang, which was designed from the very start to train the most elite witches and wizards of the countries allied to the founders common organization.
Though the organization itself bears no responsibility toward Durmstrang, the three founders did design the school to churn out individuals that would best be able to support that organization – and only accepted students from locations with strong associations to it politically. Due to this, the sorting sword was created to be an unyielding and unforgiving artifact.
Sending a child to Durmstrang came with the understanding that rejection would mean permanent harm done to the child. The sword strikes the unacceptable – never to kill, but always to scar – and depending on what the sword finds, it may even seek to maim in the event that the qualities found appear too fundamentally opposed to what the sword is looking for.
Students rejected by the sorting sword would need to apply to other schools and would be permanently scarred in a visible place for their attempt to “gain entry by deception” which, in the 1100′s when the school was founded generally meant an association to threatening organizations, or a weak magical core. Later it would be associated to ‘muggleborns lying to get in’ but this would be a falsehood perpetuated by the Statute and its more vocal supporters.
The reason Durmstrang is believed to be 100% anti-muggleborn despite being created prior to the Statute and having no historical precedents for it like Hogwarts and their fighting founders, is because most often than not muggleborn powers were not as strongly attuned, or they came from families with particular religious roots that were fundamentally opposed to Durmstrang’s politics – something the Sword would hone in on.
The Sword attacked muggleborns with enough frequency that Durmstrang started screening their invitations and applications, eventually refusing to accept muggleborns full stop around the time the Statute kicked in. By the time Gellert went to school it was 100% a prejudice matter, but prior to that point it was a matter of PROTECTING KIDS from the violence of the Sorting Sword.
A secondary school in the region was being built prior to the Statute to cater to the less powerful – those rejected by the Sword would be permitted to continue their education rather than sent home. The advent of the Statute caused this project, and efforts to change the Sword’s violent sorting magic, to cease. It was believed war against the muggles would be inevitable and it would be easier to train an elite force than to try and keep the weaker masses up to date, so muggleborns and those rejected by the sword would either move to other regions, or be homeschooled.
It is important to understand however, that Durmstrang – despite its reputation – was never designed to be antimuggleborn and its precautions later when a trend appeared to form were designed out of a desire to protect muggleborn students. A history that come the 1900′s, has unfortunately been left forgotten in favor of rampant blood prejudice.
{ Positive Vibes – Shouting 3 folks per ♥ cause I can }
@intolerablexsacrifice / @theypissedonme / @thatwasdark Malakh is a gift I will always treasure and that is the tea on that !!! admittedly someone I was too shy to approach which is fucking hilarious because he’s an even bigger dork than I am and I thought that was an impossible achievement, he successfully managed to make me care about the first main character of a series I ever met who felt boring and not at all my cup of tea.
Straight up the sheer passion and love I have for Flint is like a teeny tiny shadow in the mountain of Malakh’s devotion to the character and it has all STEMMED FROM Malakh’s devotion to him. Straight up Severus’ age of sail verses translate over here and I am working on Salazar’s “pirate period” and Rowena’s “navigational cartography” period solely so we could keep yelling lmao.
@lightsailing Kara brings light wherever she goes and whatever she does so her url is fucking apt as hell I am just throwing that down there. I absolutely love her characterizations and writing, and I need to yell at her so I can figure out how to crawl all over Ahab seeing as he has a Harry Potter verse set up. ( Cue 100 eye emojis cause listen fam it is FABULOUS and ya’ll should check it out. Here I’ll make it easy. Also all of this cause it’s phenomenal. ) Shameless buddy promo? Shameless buddy promo.
@icarianfate Train was – I think the first blog I followed when I returned to the fandom from a near-year long awaytus. I was cautiously optimistic about seeing a Regulus blog as generally speaking I’ve always found his character difficult to get invested in as more often than not he feels like some sort of self insert. Train reminds me why he is one of my favorite undeveloped characters in the series constantly – Regulus belongs in this world and does not feel even remotely out of place. He is quintessentially the pureblood heir, the good son of Walpurga – and by that I don’t mean through morals, I mean through the lenses of a crazy bitch. He’s complex, riveting, true to canon form and yet SO DEVELOPED BEYOND WHAT SCANT INFORMATION WE GET – while still maintaining the atmosphere of what canon offered that I am left, consistently, in awe of the work put in. Fantastically well done!
@directaur Although I highly doubt Scotch is at all aware of this, it was braving the nerve to start chatting with them that galvanized me into correcting Gellert’s verses so that he could functionally approach Percival Graves blogs – solely because Scotch singlehandedly revived my deep and ferocious feelings of frustration toward how canon handled “the real Percival Graves.” I am so delighted that we started talking because it revived all of Abernathy’s fiercer edges ( which even I at times forget are there ) and has proven to be just genuinely good content. Percival possesses a strong presence and is deeply thought out in all of his verses and fallouts and I appreciate the moral quandrys that some of those verses throw out into the plotting process. Honestly Scotch is just really fun to talk to and I’m glad I got up the nerve to do it!
@liedriven I was so excited to see a new Narcissa blog pop up and to see the absolute queen that is Victoria Smurfit cast as her that I literally squealed. I was a little alarmed though that I wouldn’t be welcome on account of same muse & face, but instead we just got to yell together about how perfect Victoria is? And I get to see someone else love Narcissa passionately and frequently remind us what a badass mother she is and I am blessed, absolutely blessed. Also being able to write Druella behaving like a mother rather than …. the manipulative oddity she is, is a unique delight so I’m really thrilled we’ve stumbled into one another’s paths !
@prodigalpercy shook me to the very core with a starter prior to my awaytus period that to this day remains one of my best memories in this fandom. They were the first person to ever write a starter for me that not only took Severus’ mainverse into account, it incorporated background details I’ve written, entirely without prompting, and I don’t think I will forget about it as long as I live because so often it feels like that information went straight to the void, and then that gem showed up on my dash and I damn near cried.
Speaking of crying though, Percy is murdering me on my dash of late so of course I have to shout this out because if I’m suffering everyone I love should have to suffer this same fate >/ As a character I find Percy to be brutally treated both in canon and by the fandom, and Bunny’s dedication to reminding me why he is such a valid and emotional character is not only commendable, it is admirable. Playing a character the fandom is happy to villainize and rip apart is fucking difficult and remaining dedicated can be hard as hell, especially when a lot of the ways the character is overlooked by fandom is not all that different to how canon also treats them. I am genuinely blessed whenever I see a post from this blog and that is the absolute truth.
{ Positive Vibes – Shouting 3 folks per ♥ cause I can }
@braverytaught has been the one true voice of
Minerva McGonagall ever since I started in the HP fandom on tumblr – or at least it feels that way. I know whenever I leave and come back, Rhys is there as steady and fantastic as ever, with more awareness of McGonagall’s continuity than the canon seems to possess these days. At this point when something new about Minerva shows up I prance straight over to get the full details, because I really don’t know how to see her without Rhys’ thoughts behind her anymore. Minerva lives and breathes here and that is the tea.
@cataclysmicdesign straight up I remember following Heather’s Peter Pettigrew blog during a phase when I was following every Peter I saw out of a desperate need to just – see him – because the fandom systematically erases him from everything. Artwork, headcanons, fun Marauders asides, he’s never mentioned unless its to make him look like he never belonged in the first place and I hated it. I also remember that within a week I had unfollowed every Peter but that one, because holy shit.
First of all above and beyond breathing life into Peter, the thread we started literally got me hyperventilating and genuinely emotionally rocked to my absolute core and – that does not happen often. I have been riveted by Heather’s writing ever since and was fucking THRILLED to see she was still around, and is now breathing that same life and passion into other characters. I can’t wait to get things rolling with Luna too ( I am slow its in my drafts kashd ) but literally everything I’m seeing gives me the same amount of EYE EMOJI that Peter did and it’s really exciting to follow someone whose stuff you always want to read.
@clumsyherbologist Ness is an absolute sweetheart and has a gift for bringing a smile to my face every time I get a small meme bombardment or answers to things I’ve managed to reply to. Neville is such a sweet character and so friendly, and honestly I just love how comfortable both muse and mun are to approach – and considering this blog started as a single muse Severus Snape blog, and that’s how we met I think that says a lot about how kind and open-minded both truly are ❤
Severely Archived 