AU Meme

[hungrytiger11]

This sounds fun:

Take any one of the fandoms you know I write/rec/read AND give me a type of AU (space opera AU, pirate AU, superhero AU, etc) or another time period (Ancient Rome, Regency England, etc). I will then explain the gist of the story I would write for that AUUm, if you are unsure what fandoms I know, you can look at my tags. Or just

Comments

Not quite mermaids, but....close?

[hungrytiger11]

I'd make my AU maruders' era with Lily as the main character. She is a human who lives in seaside town where fishing is the main industry. Her best friend is the bookish, awkward Severus. Severus is brilliant but can be caustic and he wants to be scientist. He's the type to lecture on the important of putting aside emotions for scientific progress etc. When he becomes really busy to the point where Lily hardly gets to see him outside of class, she assumes he is working for money for college and studying for entrance exams. Around this time three boys move into town to join their small school. They are stand-offish and intriguing, but being partnered in Bio lab with one of them, James, leads to the start of a friendship and crush...or so Lily thinks until she catches James and his two friends bullying her friend Severus. She's furious and tells them off. Later, when she and Severus have regrouped to lick their proverbial wounds at an old childhood hangout, she asks what they were bullying her about. Rather than answer directly, he tells her there's something he needs to show her tomorrow.

Turns out he needed to show her is way off in nature- quite the hike. He eventually digs up a crate and inside the crate... is what looks like bloodied and rotting seal meat. Severus excitedly starts to inform her that he has caught a selkie and wants to figure out how they change in order to manufacture the changes himself. Lily is disturbed and scared at what Severus is saying, and they argue, ending in her stuck miles from anywhere alone. James sees her hours later trekking back along the coastline. Since she wasn't quite sure where she was, she made for the shoreline, thinking to follow it back to her town. On the coast, James hears her fantastic tale, and then does her one better- shows her that selkies are real. James, Sirius and Peter are all selkies too, but able to change at will since their sealskins have not been stolen. He informs her the boy in the meatlocker must be their friend Remus, whom they all braved the land in search of. Lily is convinced to pretend to make up with Severus in order to find out where Remus is, and what Severus has found out about the change.

I feel this is mean to poor Remus, but I'd probably make this take a few months. During the time Lily falls in love with James and maybe gets pregnant. Severus gets people interested in buying rights to his invention to use biochemestry to shapechange. Also, they all graduate high school. Eventually, they find and free Remus, who can know change at will again. James is forced to leave (I don't understand this part of selkie myth well, but things seem very clear on the whole Only-see-your-love-once-in-seven-years thing...) and Lily dies (in childbirth or at one of Snape's buyers' hands?) and poor little baby Harry grows up, unknowing of his genetic/magically background and I'd leave the story with a sad, but hopeful ending, knowing James will be back in sevenish years....

Re: Not quite mermaids, but....close?

[skylar_inari]

I love this. XD; It's messy and I really really like Severus' role in the story as, well, basically a mad scientist. XD XD XD And ow, poor Harry! And poor James when he comes back and finds out!

As Harry would be half-selkie, what do you think that would mean for him in terms of transforming? *curious*

(And yay for not just writing Peter out! He gets such a bad representation in fic that I'm all YAY about that!)

Re: Not quite mermaids, but....close?

[hungrytiger11]

Peter is definitely part of the group! I feel like I had a larger role in mind for him (I decided on the story earlier and write it down later...) that involved who Snape's potential buyer was etc. but maybe in this one he will be purely good and helpful.

Also, Snape would totally be a mad scientist in a regular, non-magic world. Possibly one who sang on a blog and stalked a red-headed girl named Penny Lily the Laundromat girl.

Harry would eventually be found years later in an orphanage... (James' search is hampered by having to return to the sea for seven years etc.) and is told he can either reject his selkie magic and be a pure human or he can embrace it, but then must live by those rule (ie having to return to the sea for seven years after making contact with humans weirdness...) Only instead of Hagrid as a selkie it'd be James telling him....