No Difference: Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sep. 12th, 2008 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
attackfishThis is in response to a challenge up at
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thematic_hp Disclaimer: Do I have to say it? I'm not making any money off this, because I own none of it.
Prompt: #17 (round 8) Through time travel, Harry is Snape's biological father. Severus really isn't happy to find that out. (Must be drama - not comedy.)
Summary: After Harry talks to Dumbledore in Deathly Hallows, he takes a little detour to Spinner’s End, back before it was Snape’s house, back when it belonged to a woman named Eileen Prince. Snape couldn’t be angrier.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: More Letters
Along with the two Howlers, the Daily Prophet, and the last three non-Howler hate letters, a stately black owl with star-like white speckles dropped a glossy purple envelope in front of Harry’s plate on Wednesday morning. He broke the seal with some trepidation as he carried the Howlers into an empty stone floored hallway and left them, tossing the three hate letters down on top of them to catch fire when the Howlers did. They began shouting and wailing at him before he had even turned down the hall to go back to the Great Hall. Shaking out the letter, he squinted at the ornate gold script glittering against the lurid violet parchment.
Mr. Harry Potter:
We of the Wizengamot wish to tender you an invitation to join our number. As you surely are aware, we are the most powerful governing body in Wizarding
Yours cordially,
Thaddeus Brookhurst, Chief Warlock,
On behalf of the Wizengamot, assembled 20 April, 1999.
He shivered. The paper, slick with gloss and Harry’s sweat, slipped from his fingers and drifted downward, spinning in the small flurries of air that bounced off the stone walls. He caught it absentmindedly, and glanced at it again. Determinedly, he folded it and tucked it into his pocket.
Harry remembered Snape’s supposition that he would be invited to become a Wizengamot member soon after he left school with only a trace of bitterness. He could almost hear Snape telling them that they hadn’t waited to invite the hero of the Wizarding World to bolster their reputation. Leaning back against the stone wall, Harry resolved to thwart them and do nothing. It was his mostly good name, and he wasn’t going to let them use it.
~*~
Over the course of the day, Harry did his best to forget about the letter. It wasn’t that difficult. Snape assigned them all to one of two teams and set those teams to fight against each other with non-verbal spells. Padma Patil got a detention for whispering a hex, and Neville got one for muttering profanities at Snape under his breath. By the end of the class, more than half of the students had to troop down to the hospital wing for minor wounds. Hermione, who had managed to blast Zacharias Smith into the wall and knock him unconscious, levitated him through the halls, and Harry nursed a burnt hand from a stray scalding jinx. As he shoved his books into his bag, his hand smarted, and a fierce rush of dislike rose in his chest. He shot Snape a sour look when he rose, his eyes meeting the professor’s own pleased expression. Harry gritted his teeth and left the room.
Madam Pomfrey hefted a canary yellow bucket full of Murtlap essence onto the table next to Harry, muttering darkly, “Melee duels in school, I should make him brew the potions. Sit back down and put your hand back in that bucket, Mr. Potter!” Harry slumped back onto the stool and sank his hand back into the slimy fluid.
“When you sent Smith actually spinning through the air into that wall, and his head went thud,” Ron punched his palm enthusiastically, “I mean, Hermione!” He perched on the table next to Harry’s essence of Murtlap, smiling. Hermione, who was fussing over Smith’s split forehead, barely spared him a glance.
“Leave off, Ron,” Harry said quietly.
Ron peered at one of the beds and the tentacle covered figure within. “That spell you hit Nott with was fantastic, and did you see that Leporidae jinx I hit Parkinson with? Do you think Madam Pomfrey will remember to get rid of the tail?”
Harry gave in, his eyes flicking over to the curtains that Parkinson had insisted be drawn shut to hide her new rabbit ears, cotton ball tail, and soft white fur all over her face. “I’m sure Pansy will remind her if she forgets,” or even if she didn’t.
“Huh, I bet.” For a brief moment, Harry found himself uncomfortably reminded of DA, but he dismissed the comparison. DA had always been much better organized.
“Anyone who isn’t injured, please exit the hospital wing,” Madam Pomfrey bellowed, “or I’ll see to it that you’ll be washing bed pans until the end of the week!”
“Sorry mate,” Ron said ruefully, grinning and hopping off the table.
“Coward,” Hermione jibed, following him out of the room.
“I don’t see you staying to clean bed pans, now do I?” he shot back, leaving the room with her.
After Madam Pomfrey checked his hand and released him from the hospital wing, he had to scramble to Charms, missing lunch entirely. Ron and Hermione saved him a seat somewhere in the middle of the class only a few minutes late, and he sank into it gingerly. Empty desks dotted the classroom, and Harry glanced over at Pansy Parkinson’s desk with a smirk. His stomach rumbled loudly while Flitwick lectured about the Fidelius Charm.
“The Fidelius Charm of course has limited use,” Filitwick squeaked, “as it is an immensely complicated charm to perform. It also requires enormous trust in the chosen Secret-Keeper, who by definition usually holds the spell’s object or objects’ continued existence in their hands.” The color fled from Harry’s face, leaving it a pasty grey. “Likewise, if the Secret-Keeper should die, anyone who had been previously told the secret would become a Secret Keeper in their own right.” By the end of the lesson, Harry didn’t care about missing breakfast and lunch. In fact, he didn’t mind not eating dinner either. His stomach churned, and while Hermione and Ron bickered, he slipped off to the common room to sit on the end of his bed and stare out the window.
When Ron and Hermione made their way with the rest of their housemates to
“Erm, well, I wrote my name on the parchment.” Harry toyed with the sleeve of his shirt.
“Yeah, that’s as far as I got too,” Ron heaved an obvious sigh of relief, but Harry ignored it politely. Ron pushed the plate closer to him, and Harry picked it up. The chicken was lukewarm and the potatoes and carrots were cold and dry, but as soon as he too a bite, his stomach remembered that he hadn’t eaten yet that day, and he ate it all. “Actually I put a title on it too.”
Harry laughed, “Yeah, I did the reading though. That counts for something, I guess.” He put his hands in his pockets and his thumbnail caught on the Wizengamot’s invitation. He pulled it out, remembered what it was, and stuffed it back into his pocket.
“What’s that?” Ron queried, catching sight of the shocking purple paper.
“Oh,” Harry took it out again. “A letter from the Wizengamot. They’re inviting me to become a member.”
Ron’s eyes went wide and his curved up in an openmouthed smile. “Wicked!”
“Well, I wasn’t going to say yes,” he mumbled.
“Yeah, well…” Ron began. “What! Why not?” Harry shrugged his shoulders. “You should! Hey, you could make laws, make sure none of the other Death Eaters get off like the Malfoys,” he favored Harry with a sidelong glance, “nominate Dad for a pay raise…”
Harry let his friend trail off. “Yeah, but I don’t like the Wizengamot,” he said quiely. “I don’t want to support them.”
“But if you’re one of them, you can change how they do things!” Ron lept off the bed and paced excitedly, his arms swinging. “You don’t just have to go along with everything they say like most of us!”
Harry lay back against the wall, thinking. “It isn’t that simple,” he said at last, “I’d probably be on the losing side of every vote anyway.”
Ron stopped at the foot of Harry’s bed, energy unabated. “Yeah, but you can speak to them, and nominate what do you call them, dark horses to the Wizengamot who would vote like you!”
Harry made a noncommittal noise as Neville padded into the dormitory in his striped pajamas and greying bunny slippers. Ron smiled seeing them, his eyes misting over.
~*~
The next morning, Hermione met the boys at the bottom of the dormitory stairs. “Guess what Harry got yesterday,” Ron crowed, shoving the letter that he had filched out of Harry’s trouser pocket sometime during the night. Harry groaned softly and kneaded his forehead with his knuckles.
Hermione’s eyes flicked over the words, her mouth drawing into a small “O”. “Oooooh, Harry! This is really really exciting!” Her hands clenched on the letter eagerly, but noticing, she folded the letter again and handed it back to Harry. “Do you know what this means?” Harry was pretty sure he knew what it meant to him, but he had a feeling that Hermione had a very different idea about meaning than he did. He shook his head slowly, blinking behind his glasses. “It means that they’re afraid of you.”
With a small nod, he shoved the letter back into his pocket. “Yeah, I know.
Hermione though, had the bit between her teeth. “They’ll have to listen to you and even sometimes do what you say, because you’re you.”
“Snape says that they invite anyone who becomes too popular,” Harry said quietly.
“It’s what they did for Dumbledore, you know.” Hermione touched her lip thoughtfully, “They even made him Chief Warlock because his criticism of them rang a bit hallow when he was supposedly leading them.”
I never understood,” Ron interrupted, “Why didn’t Dumbledore change more?”
“Well, the Chief warlock can’t do much, can he?” Hermione scathed. “The Wizengamot is ruled by the majority of members, and he was usually in the minority.” Harry nudged Ron with his elbow and Hermione fiddled with a strand of hair, trying to get it unhooked from around her cloak button, “He did a lot though, much more than he could have done outside the Wizengamot.”
From everything Harry heard and was still hearing, that didn’t seem like it would be hard. It was almost impossible to do any good at all outside the Wizengamot. “I wasn’t planning on saying yes to them,” he said definitively, trying to get them to both stop talking about it. “I don’t exactly want them using my name.”
“But you have to, Harry!” Hermione exclaimed, her voice getting higher with each word. “You don’t understand, you could be our spy! You could leak the contents of their secret meetings!” Her cheeks flushed with pleasure, and Harry suddenly found himself remembering with a bit of horror fourth year and S.P.E.W. She had that sort of look in her eye, and Harry was terrified that she had found another cause.
Unfortunately, it seemed Ron had found the same cause. “Hey, you could tell Luna, and she could print them up, and then we’d actually know what’s going on!” He dug around in Harry’s pocket and pulled out the letter again and smoothed it out. Harry pushed him away and tried to snatch the letter back. “You’d have to keep from getting caught, though. Can you be sent to Azkaban for saying what their doing?”
Harry grabbed the letter and it slipped out of Ron’s hands. “I guess so,” he muttered. “They wouldn’t have a big trial if the punishment weren’t awful”
“You’d just have to keep yourself from getting caught, now don’t you?” Hermione told him briskly, and Harry dearly wished to know if she had any idea how to do that.
“It’s not going to help much, just knowing what’s going on,” Harry whispered, eyes on the floor. “I mean, no one can do anything.”
When he raised his eyes, they met Hermione’s. Fury, faint disgust, and shock flashed through them before they settled on confusion. “If people know what’s going on, they can fight it. If the Wizengamot members knew that what they were saying would show up in the papers, they might be a bit more circumspect in what they do! They hide behind their secrecy and their trial and their Azkaban threats, because they know that if Wizarding
Ron nodded. “I want to see their names splashed across the front page for a change.”
Harry flushed scarlet. “They’ve calmed down for the moment.”
Hermione forced a smile. “Look, you have eight days still to decide. It can wait.” Harry sighed with relief.
~*~
Throughout the day, his housemates and students from each of the houses except for Slytherin congratulated him on the invitation. Harry just stammered and wished they’d go away. Ginny smiled wickedly at him and thanked everyone for him, teasing him at every turn. He let her do it, because it was easier to let her take care of it. Her teasing was easier to stomach than everyone’s praise and encouragement. “I suppose you think I should accept too,” he grumbled, swallowing a mouthful of pumpkin juice.
Ginny leaned back, grabbing onto the bottom of the table. “Well, I, er,” she bit her lip, “actually, no, I don’t. I think you should tell them what they can do with their invitation, actually.”
Harry raised his eyebrows until they started to blend with his hair. “Why?”
Ginny shrugged, pulling herself back up on the bench. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea; they just want you there to make you think you’ll have some say, but none of the other members are really going to listen to you unless you convince them that you’re just the same as they are, and to do that, you’d really become like they are.” She shuddered, shaking her head, talking very quickly. “They’d change you, and ruin you, and you wouldn’t be you anymore, and nothing about them would change at all. It’s better just to speak out against them.”
“But that doesn’t do any good either.”
“It does something, of they wouldn’t care enough to invite you to join!” Ginny’s mouth twisted in a fierce grin. “They’re scared of you saying they’re wrong, so give them what they’re scared of.”
“Why is it,” Harry stopped, wondering how he should say what he wanted to say without sounding like an idiot, or insulting her, which would have been worse. “Well, you and Ron aren’t really…” he trailed off, deciding there wasn’t any way to say it.
“The most political?” She provided diplomatically.
“I just mean that you’re both normal. If you know all of this and think this way, then don’t most people already?”
“Dad’s in the Ministry so Ron and I heard stories, and Hermione’s Hermione.”
Harry decided that probably described Hermione perfectly, because she was miserable unless she was fixing something. She realized too much of what was wrong with the world to be happy with leaving it as it was. “Oh.”
Ginny had a strange small smile on her face that vanished before Harry could comment on it. “The summer before fourth year, well, my fourth year anyway, when we all moved into Grimmauld place, Ron and Hermione were always together trying to figure out what was going on, and Fred and George were busy working on joke stuff, so I spent a lot of time with Sirius, over the Christmas holidays too.” She took a bite of her shepherd’s pie and then another. “He told me about not getting a trial and Crouch almost becoming Minister of Magic. I’m not blind.”
Harry did his best to take what she said calmly, but he flinched anyway. “I know,” he murmured, taking another sip of juice. He swallowed it harshly and grimaced. “Hermione and Ron want me to accept and then leak the goings on to the press, have Luna print the minutes.”
“I know, I heard the three of you talking about it in the common room this morning.” Shaking her head sharply, Ginny shoved a forkful of sliced pear into her mouth. “The Wizengamot would figure out pretty soon it was you spilling their secrets and throw you in Azkaban.”
“I wouldn’t start passing things along right away,” stammered Harry, stung that she thought he’d make it that obvious, and stunned to realize he was arguing for accepting the inviation. “I’d wait a bit first.”
Her fork chimed loudly as she set it down. “It doesn’t matter,” she retorted solemnly. “You could wait years if you wanted to, but you can’t act inconspicuous at all.” She grinned at him, “It’s not a bad thing that you’re so honest. There are people who can deceive people for years, and spy on them and manipulate them, but you’re just not one of them, Harry. It’s a good thing, most of the time, really it is.”
“I would lie,” he muttered.
She laughed and pulled a face. “I know how you lie Harry, no one would believe you.”
“Are you saying I can’t keep secrets?” he demanded indignantly.
“You can keep secrets if no one looks at you to closely.”
“If no one spies on me you mean?” he gasped furiously, leaning away from her.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” Ginny snapped, recovering quickly, “and you know it.”
“Then what exactly did you mean?” he hissed, stabbing into his broccoli viciously.
When you have a secret, everyone knows it!” she shouted. “Your face screams it, and when you bother to deny it, it only makes it more obvious.” Unspoken, Ginny remembered somewhat wistfully, somewhat jealously, all of the times Harry, Ron, and Hermione had skulked around uncovering their mysteries, their eagerness, fear, and naked curiosity plain on their faces and in the way they carried themselves throughout the school. Harry wasn’t afraid or eager to have secrets anymore, she thought sadly. They just made him unhappy.
Harry rolled his shoulders inward and hunched over his plate and didn’t answer when Ginny shot to her feet and told him that she had to go to detention with Snape again. His silence drew from her an odd look, and he realized uncomfortably that the one person best suited for spying on and manipulating the Wizengamot as the one she had to serve detention with five evenings a week. Suddenly less insulted, he smiled wryly and wished her luck.
“Huh,” she shot back with a grin, “I need more than that with Snape.”
~*~
When Ginny returned to the common room, it was with a scowl and a smudge on her face, which turned out to be dried pig’s blood. “He had me feeding Red Caps,” she hissed by way of explanation. “I almost lost my fingers.” She sank down into an armchair beside Harry, “He gave me another week’s detention, too.”
“What did you do?” asked Harry nervously, with the sinking feeling that she would be stuck in detention with Snape for the rest of the year, and possibly the next as well.
Hermione stumbled into the common room after her own detention with Filch, her hands red and chapped, eyes bleary. As Ginny answered, she slumped into the chair on the other side of Ron from Harry. “I swore at it when it bit me,” she shrugged, showing him a lived gash on her index finger. “He’s lucky I didn’t hex the thing.”
“And he gave you a week’s detention just for that? I’d like to see him not swear when a great ugly Red Cap latches onto his finger!” Ron raged from Harry’s other side.
“I’m sure he just likes having the free labor you provide,” Hermione commented, amused. Ginny just snorted.
Ron poked Harry’s arm. “Did you think anymore about the Wizengamot?”
Harry shrugged his shoulders and wondered if Ron would count the tense half debate half fight he had with Ginny as thinking about it. “Yeah, a bit.”
“And?” he urged impatiently.
“I’m not going to accept.”
“Oh but you have to, Harry!” Hermione gasped, leaning forward in her chair to face him around Ron’s body. Harry shrugged again, not wanting to talk to her about it.
Ginny glanced at him before rising to her feet and marching over to face her brother and Hermione. Lowering herself down to perch on the armrest of Ron’s chair, she favored both of them with a nasty look. “He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to.”
He sprang to his feet as soon as they started to yell about things that could get him sent to Azkaban, and grabbed Ginny’s arm. “If you’re going to shout,” he pleaded, trying to sound sensible, “could you wait until you’re no in the common room anymore?”
Hermione cleared her throat, chagrinned, but Ginny flushed to the roots of her orange hair, remembering another row in the common room. The three bolted up the stairs to the seventh year boy’s dormitory, by mutual agreement choosing to have an argument. Harry followed close behind them, shutting the door safely once they were all inside. Ginny cast a silencing charm on the door for good measure before she repeated, “He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to.”
Deciding he was adequately defended, Harry scooped up his nightclothes and slipped into the boy’s showers, but he didn’t turn on the water. Instead, he pressed his ear to the doorway and listened. “Ginny,” Hermione began, “It’s not your fight, It’s Harry’s.” Harry found he had to agree, but he didn’t mind Ginny fighting it for him instead.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t want to have it, and I don’t think you should keep pushing it on him!” Harry peered though the keyhole to see Ginny sitting cross legged on his bed. “He doesn’t want to join, and I agree with him!”
Hermione widened her eyes and stared at her, trying to convey the gravity of the situation as she spoke. “Don’t you see why this is so important, why he has to join? If their meetings aren’t secret anymore, they might actually care about what ordinary witches and wizards think!” Ginny folded her arms with a scowl, but Hermione continued on, undeterred. “Besides, we lost Dumbledore, and if we don’t have someone in the Wizengamot who cares about people, we risk losing what he worked for just through stagnation!”
Ginny laughed scornfully. “Harry’s no Dumbledore, and no one in the Wizengaomot is going to listen to a word he says about keeping Dumbledore’s laws unless they were going to keep them anyway. Besides, the moment he stars talking to the press, they’ll send him straight to Azkaban, and then where will the cause for transparency and justice be?”
Resting against the canopy post, Ron blinked. “They can’t send him to Azkaban, the only reason they’re inviting him to join in the first place is that he’s too popular.”
Before she answered, Ginny let herself fall back against Harry’s bed. “Don’t you remember when the whole school thought he was Slytherin’s heir, or when most of the Wizarding World thought he was a self-obsessed maniac? It’s easier to invite him in than to make him look like a nutter again, but if he makes problems again, they’ll be happy to before they ship him off to Azkaban.”
“He can lie,” Hermione shot back, “He managed to keep Snape a secret at Hogwarts of all places for months!”
Ginny mulled that over. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought that anyone, much less Harry could have kept a secret for that long at Hogwarts. “He’ll need more than months, won’t he?” Hermione arched an eyebrow smugly, seeing the argument for the week thing that it was, but Ginny drove onwards. “That’s not the point anyway. Harry’s not good at fighting in secret and smiling at people he doesn’t trust or think are good people. He needs to fight in the open, call people out, be direct. If he did manage to politely manipulate the Wizengamot, it would destroy him.” She pushed herself up into a sitting position, glaring sullenly at both of them before marching stiffly out of the room. Hermione followed awkwardly a few moments later. Harry shucked his clothes and twisted the shower knob.
~*~
When Harry stepped dripping back into the dormitory, Ron was sitting on his bed, his Transfiguration text book propped up on his knees, frantically scribbling an essay. He waved his quill lackadaisically at Harry as he padded out, barefooted, giving into the restlessness gathering in the pit of his stomach and the arteries of his legs. Outside the tower, he shivered from the chill that hung around the castle hall even in the middle of the summer. With his damp hair and bare feet, in the middle of the spring, the corridor was icy. For a moment, he thought about going back for a cloak, but the Fat Lady had disappeared. His feet carried him to a stairway, and as he neared the bottom, the staircase started to move. He sat on the bottom step, his feet singing gently in the empty air. Just before the staircase slid into its new place, he curled his legs up, out of the way.
It didn’t surprise Harry too much to realize he was standing in front of Snape’s office door. He swallowed convulsively and turned around to head back to the security of the tower. As he turned however, the door swung open, and Snape furrowed his brow, staring straight at him. “What are you doing here, Potter?”
“N-nothing” he stuttered, stepping backwards, ready to run.
Snape’s eyes moved up and down over his body, taking in his snitch covered vermilion pajamas with a smirk. “Really,” but he caught Harry’s wrist, twisting it cruelly.
Harry tried to yank it out of Snape’s grip, but it wouldn’t budge. Finally in desperation, Harry burst out, “I wanted your advice.”
“I’m flattered,” he sneered, “now get back to your dormitory.” Yet he still hadn’t let go of Harry’s wrist.
“Yeah, well, I figure whatever you tell me to do, I’ll know that I should do the opposite.” He jerked his arm again, but instead of letting him go, Snape dragged him into his office and shut the door behind him.
“Ask your advice,” he snarled, shoving Harry into a chair in front of his desk.
Harry rubbed his newly liberated wrist gingerly. So unprepared was Harry that the words tumbled from his mouth. “The Wizengamot invited me to join.”
“Of course they did,” Snape smirked again. “None of them are fools, no matter how much they act like it. Deny them.”
Harry ignored him. “Ron and Hermione want me to join and leak the goings on to the press, and well, try to talk people into doing the right thing.”
Snape’s lip curled. “You don’t have the remotest idea about what the right thing is, Potter. Anyone willing to trust the Wizarding World’s government to your good intentions is an idiot.”
Harry tried to stand up, but Snape was in the way. “I don’t think you’d trust the government to anyone but yourself,” he shot back. “You think everyone’s an idiot.”
Severus gritted his teeth and refrained from saying that nearly everyone was an idiot. “You have neither the intelligence nor the ruthlessness necessary to manipulate the Wizengamot into acting in the best interests of the Wizarding World even were you to have the faintest notion of what the best interests of the Wizarding World were!”
“I think I have some idea,” Harry hissed, affronted, “real trials, less corruption, elections, and big newspapers that aren’t Ministry puppets.”
“Did Granger give you a list?” he sneered. “I stand corrected.”
Harry shook his head sharply. If anyone had given him a list, it was Snape, right after the Malfoys’ trial. “Hermione didn’t give me anything.”
“Precisely how would you go about attaining your worthy goals?” Snape spat, cutting Harry off as he opened his mouth. “Would you lie, and smile, and make friends with people you think are worse than dragon dung?” His lips twitched up into a frightening smile and Harry shuddered, leaning back in the chair. Snape stepped back, peering at him self-satisfied out of heavy lidded eyes. “I could be wrong, you did show commendable mercilessness by siring me.”
Harry found his feet with a start, gripping the armrests and pushing himself up. “I didn’t expect-“
Snape cut him off again, a peculiar ugly look on his face. “But once you had done so, you went out of your way to see that everything unfolded in my life the way it did.”
Harry strode toward him until he stood next to the door, baffled as to why he hadn’t bolted as soon as Snape had let him up. He turned the doorknob, and the door swung outwards. “You know why I left you there,” he hissed back. “You can’t have wanted to come with me.”
“I’m talking of something far worse than leaving me to my particular,” he paused with a sneer “childhood situation.” Harry slipped out the door, but stopped, still holding the door handle, mesmerized. “You left me to my fate knowing exactly what I would do, that I would spy on Dumbedore and Trelawney and pass the half of the prophesy that I heard on to the Dark Lord. You knew that he would hear that prophesy and assume the child it spoke of was you, and that he would kill the Potters because of it.” He smiled nastily and Harry cringed backwards, unable to leave. “Your direct actions led to your parents’ deaths, Potter; you had as much a hand in it as I or the Dark Lord had.”
Harry gasped and released the doorknob, and Snape pulled the door closed with a harsh click.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-15 02:58 am (UTC)But in order for the original timeline to have existed, we must posit some Harry-prime who initially cast the glamour on Severus and pushed Eileen at Tobias. And the because this is a time loop, Harry IS the Harry-prime that made those choices. Thus, even if altering the timeline would have created a paradox and destroyed the universe, if Harry had chosen a different course of action, those would have been the actions he had to take to prevent the paradox.
Actually, it's the Potions and Snitches reviews I've been reading. I haven't worked through all the LJ ones yet. As to Ginny, she pings on my radar as 'Popular Highschool Girl'. So, while I'm currently tempted to drown her, I think she's growing out of it.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-15 03:55 am (UTC)Harry's time travel in my fic (and more importantly Harry and Hermione's time travel in POA, which is canon where I am not) has some interesting ramifications as far as the fate/free will question is concerned. Since all time travel in the HP canon (and my fic) is closed loop (non-paradoxical) time travel, and since Hermione and Harry had to make conscious decisions to act as they did that had as much freedom about them as ordinary choices, it begs the question, are those decisions different in some way from ordinary decisions, or are all decisions in the HP universe lacking some element of freedom? JKR resolves some of this (or makes it worse) for us by suggesting that small paradoxes have occurred (time travelers killing their older or younger selves by mistake), but it means, as you said, that there has to be a "prime" version of the time traveler who did not create a paradox, who therefore set up the situation in which the paradox could occur.
Ginny is a "popular high school girl" in the way you're suggesting, because she was in part a "lady James Potter". That will become important in the last chapter. I never had much use for that sort of person either, but she is growing up and becoming more... human. The thing is, I neither write her as a Mary-Sue nor as a she-demon, which is how most writers seem to portray her. Also, she comes with a lot of baggage from the people who just can't stand that particular canon ship, as I'm sure you know. I think it's interesting that the P&S reviews tend to be Harry sympathizer/Snape Sympathizer divided (it is the favorite haunt of "nice snape" whereas my LJ reviews tend to be like Ginny/hate Ginny divided.
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Date: 2008-09-15 09:01 pm (UTC)On the time travel thing, that's why I keep being thrown by the reviewers that seem to say that Severus has no call to be angry at Harry since Harry was just trying to prevent a paradox. If Harry had to do it because he'd already done it, then if it hadn't done it he wouldn't have had to. Harry still somewhere along the way was responsible for choosing that course of action, if he had free will. If he didn't have free will, that would seem to negate free will for the whole of the time-loop and probably the whole of the Harry Potter universe, and then no-one is responsible for anything.
This is actually a problem IRL, given that just about every bit of physics coming down the pike tells us that the universe is deterministic. I happen to be in a field where I can expect a Fate vs. Free Will debate at least once a semester (I <3 academia). What I take way from those debates is even given the (increasingly likely) probabilty that we do not have free will, we should choose to behave as though we have free will, because only if we have free will can we make that choice. I think that can be applied to your story. Snape is right hold Harry accountable for his actions, because if Harry isn't accountable for his actions, then Severus isn't accountable for blaming him.
On a more down to earth note, Harry shows none of the creativity getting around the paradox here that he showed in PoA. At the very least he could have left a note saying anti-venon and drought of living death on such and such a date would be a good idea (ala Marty McFly ^_^). But he is so focused on getting back to his own time to off Voldemort, that he doesn't even try to think up any non-paradox causing alternatives.
Ah, the shipping wars. :) I was aware of them periferally (mostly via fandom wank) but I made a point to keep away from HP fandom until I'd read DH. I wanted to form my own opinion before others' were thrust upon me. I'm liking reading through all the fic now, but I'm also have meta enjoyment coming from seeing how fandom perseptions have changed with each additional book.
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Date: 2008-09-16 01:42 am (UTC)Ah, but since it's a closed loop (harry's actions in the past causing him to go back into the past in the first place) there is no necessary Harry prime. the Harry prime postulation is only necessary in the case of paradox. without paradox, this merely becomes a chicken and egg phenomenon. Since Snape's being alive and the way he was led to Harry's survival several times and to Harry's traveling to the past, Harry could not have traveled to the past in the first place if the past hadn't happened the way it did.
I rely mostly on a Descartian style free will proof. I think therefore I am (I think therefore I have consciousness at least) I am conscious of making difficult decisions that I agonize over, therefore I have choice, mostly.
I think most of the creativity that was displayed avoiding paradox in POA was Hermione's. For most of it she leads him around by the nose reminding him that he can't do something because it will cause a paradox. His one spark of brilliance was when he showed himself to his previous self to cast the Patronus.
Don't get me started on Back to the Future. No pretense at avoiding paradox, open loop wish fulfillment time travel.
Really, you'd think that as a mostly Gen writer who sticks to Canon ships, I'd be relatively safe. Actually, I waited until after book seven to start writing fanfic because I hated seeing stories suddenly become AU after the release of each book.
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Date: 2008-09-16 02:49 am (UTC)Ah! But Descartes' proof only applies to consciousness, not free will, and we can be conscious of things that are not true.
Looking over the passage, I think you're right it was mostly Hermione being clever. But it does serve as an example that there are workarounds, so Harry not even trying to think one up is a strike against him. It's thoughtless, not malicious, but still...
Actually, the canon seems to have the time travel thing work on some schrodinger's cat sort of method. As long as the time travel does not change what the time traveler perceived prior to the date of travel, there is no paradox. Like in PoA, even though they all thought Buckbeak had been killed, they hadn't actually witnessed it, so they could still rescue him in the timeloop.
At any rate, canon apparently finds the timeline robust enough that handing over a time travel device to a 13-year-old so she can take extra classes is considered acceptable.
I find the evolution of the Severus Snape interpretation to be pretty interesting. The idea he was a rich pampered pure-blood is pretty pervasive up through the release of book six. Snape Manor is everywhere. Up until book five, he was typically seen as Draco Malfoy grown up. And Sirius got a huge fannish overhaul with book 5. Up until then, he's most commonly written as a halfblood from a progressive middle class family. And of course he's picked on by that rich arrogant jerk Snape.
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Date: 2008-09-16 03:25 am (UTC)See, I always defined consciousness as a series of choices. We chose what we think about on an at least unconscious level, so without choice, there is no consciousness.
I think JKR intended to imply that the time travel, because it occurred in a continuous loop, had always happened and would have always happened, so what Herminone, Ron, and Harry were assuming was happening the first time around never had happened and never would have happened. Dumbledore obviously saw Buckbeak rescued the first time around, or he wouldn't have suggested his rescue in the first place.
Also, as I said before, apparently paradox has happened before in the Harry Potter universe without ripping apart the continuum.
I was always a heretic with regards to Snape, because to me the fact that he worked for a living meant he wasn't born to money, or if he had been, he had lost it. Since I thought he was too smart to have lost it, I assumed he was born into something other than wealth. His graying underpants in book five clinched it for me. Mind, I was betting on a once wealthy pureblood family that had lost the money a few generations back but kept the arrogance. I figured if there had been a manor, it would have been sold before Snape's birth. I gloated for months when it turned out he was poor, even if I did get it wrong about his blood. Truth be told, I never thought about Sirius' family before book five, except to decide his childhood was probably unhappy.
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Date: 2008-09-16 04:05 am (UTC)Certainly Harry was trying to do the right thing. I just don't get the people that say that therefore Severus has no right to be ticked.
I think it was the thing in book one where Dumbledore said that James and Severus interacted like Draco and Harry that did it. Harry must be like James, so Snape equals Malfoy, thus Snape was an arrogant rich pureblood. QED. Now there are more holes in that argument than in a chain-link fence, but I'm pretty sure that's where it came from.
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Date: 2008-09-16 04:25 am (UTC)I firmly support Snape's right to be ticked. I certainly would be. of course, his previous assertion a few chapters back that Harry had arranged things deliberately to spite him is equally untrue, and Snape should stick to being infuriated because of the results of Harry's typical thoughtlessness and not imagined personal motivations. I also see why Harry feels defensive about his actions. I also thoroughly don't understand the "Harry is evilevilevil!!!! in your fic" people.
I suppose, and I suppose my avoiding that interpretation was solely the result of his speech to Harry's first Potions class. He wormed his way into my heart with a love of academia. In defense of that interpretation, JKR deliberately set up the belief that James and Harry resembled each other in more than looks in both Harry and her readers, as a set up to tear it down yes, but she did set it up.
Coming back to an earlier conversation, Dumbledore's "much like you and Mister Malfoy" (not an exact quote, I hope, or my mind is more harry Potter saturated than I feared) comment was pretty carefully crafted to further the wedge on Harry's end between Harry and Snape.
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Date: 2008-09-16 05:15 am (UTC)Yes, Harry is definitely not evil. Thoughtless does not equal evil. But he certainly does himself no favors when he 'defends' himself by saying "I knew exactly what I was sending you into". Still, Snape's claim that Harry did it all just to spite him is unfair. In my experience though, sometimes the only thing that stems the tide of rage is getting the target of that anger equally upset. The way I've been reading it, Severus finds Harry's (relatively) calm defence of his actions in the face Snape's anger to be the most infuriating thing of all, and is thus deliberately trying to get a rise out of him, fair be damned.
One of the things I find most impressive about JKR is that she does the "Snape looks evil! Oh, wait. He's good" thing over and over in the books, and there was STILL a raging debate about his good/evil status up through book seven. Of course, that may be a comment on the audience rather than the author :)
Hmmm, was that post 157 or 158 in The Thread To End All Threads?
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Date: 2008-09-16 05:30 am (UTC)My grandmother and I got into a screaming fight over that. I gloated for days.
173, I'm sure of it.
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Date: 2008-09-16 06:20 pm (UTC)And that last sentence is a lot more applicable to the fic than I had originally intended. :)
Yeah, the good/evil Snape thing was great conversation fodder for those two years. A random person had about a 50% chance of having read the books. More if I knew them. I worked a good number of people around from "He killed Dumbledore: he must be evil" to "Why, of course he's on the side of the light!"
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Date: 2008-09-16 07:27 pm (UTC)*Snerk* indeed.
I used the "Snape is good" test for a while to see if someone was worth hanging out with.
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Date: 2008-09-17 11:05 pm (UTC)Uh, looks like I've run out of things to say at the moment. Probably a good thing considering the length of this thread.
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Date: 2008-09-18 01:32 am (UTC)