(no subject)
LAST CALL FOR NOMINATIONS!
Thanks to dobbeh who sent in today's Stu!
TITLE: Taking Control
PERPETRATOR: fake a smile
SUE-O-METER:
(bad)
FULL NAME: Harry Potter
SPECIES: Wizard
HAIR: as per canon unless he transforms it for a disguise. "He performed the charms to lengthen his hair to about his shoulders and to color it a dark blond. Then he transfigured a tissue into a bandana which he wore on his head to hide his scar from view."
EYES: green.
MARKINGS:
POSSESSIONS: a "bottomless money bag". He just tells it how much he needs, and it's transferred from his account. Automatically adjusting contact lenses, in clear and brown. A magical furnished trunk that Harry could live in.
ORIGIN: After the events in the Department of Mysteries, Harry vows not to be a "puppet" in Dumbledore's game. Dumbledore even tried to take control of Harry's family vault.
CONNECTIONS TO CANON: Sirius teaches him how to be an animagus through Harry's dreams. He dislikes Ron's attempt to have people stop "pestering" him. Instead of talking about it, he just develops a grudge. He appreciates Hermione's questions about his wellbeing. He tries to be nice to Ginny to get her to help him retrieve potion ingredients for his animagus potion. Ron flips out over this. He is also training wandless magic so he is not detected by the Ministry. At Hogwarts he trains Ginny to become an animagus, as well. They will be paired together. I skipped to the last chapter, because, sadly, I don't have all evening, and in the chapter Harry has a showdown with Dumbledore. In it Dumbledore orders Harry to stop fighting the Death Eaters, which Harry refuses. Then Dumbledore tries to explain his treatment of Harry, including having invisible guards posted at Privet Drive, and telling Harry that he will be watching his movements at Hogwarts, now. Then he has an argument with Hermione about going behind his back and telling Dumbledore what she knows, and that she was worried. She makes a very logical argument, which pig-headed Harry doesn't acknowledge. It ends with Dumbledore and Harry reaching an impasse in Dumbledore's office. Harry has to escape out Dumbledore's window. He uses magic to slow his fall and then turn into a panther to get away. Sadly he did not scream "IT'S MY LIFE!"
SPECIAL ABILITIES Is both an owl and a panther animagus. Can talk to Hedwig this way. Is rather arrogant for his age, as well as "mature".
NOTES: It has 28 chapters and almost 2400 reviews. It's not as ridiculous as some of these rebel!Harry stories, but just very tedious. Harry is rather unlikeable, IMO.
SAMPLE:
As the meal came to a close, Bill hugged his sister again and bid his goodbyes to Harry and Ron. They retired to the common room where Ron convinced Harry and a few others into playing a few games of Exploding Snap. After their fourth or fifth game - Harry had lost count - he left to visit his office. He wanted to ask Ginny if she would like to accompany him, but she was revising with some of her mates, and he did not want to interrupt. Harry climbed out the portrait hole and made his way down the hall. As he came to the first corner, he bumped into Hermione.
"Harry!" she exclaimed and wrapped her arms around him. Harry stiffly returned the hug as she whispered, "I'm glad you're safe." Noticing his tense stance, she let go and took a step back, asking, "What's wrong?"
"I know what you did," Harry stated simply.
Hermione frowned in confusion.
"You went behind my back to Dumbledore," Harry tersely explained.
"I went to the headmaster with my concerns for you, yes," she admitted unrepentantly.
"Suspicions, you mean?" Harry retorted.
"If that is how you choose to phrase it, then yes, my suspicions about you." She sighed and reached a hand out to him before seeming to think better of it and dropping the hand back at her side. "I was worried about you. I still am."
Harry snorted derisively. "Worried about what? That I was training in secret? That you didn't know every little thing I was working on? That you weren't able to spy on me in my office or the Room of Requirement?"
Hermione's mouth dropped open, and Harry scowled. "Did you think I hadn't noticed? How stupid do you think I am?"
"I'm worried for your safety," she answered after finding her voice. "I was worried about just what you felt you needed to keep secret from your best friends. I was worried that you were taking the responsibility of this whole bloody war all onto your own shoulders!"
"Of course, poor Harry can't take care of himself," he rejoined.
"Do you have to turn everything I say into an argument?" Hermione snapped in frustration. "I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, Harry. I just want to help. That's what friends do; they help each other."
"We have different ideas of what exactly constitutes help," Harry replied. "Rather than help me in what I've been doing, you'd deter me and, when that failed to work, run off to the professors for my own good. I think I'm perfectly capable of deciding what's good for me, thank you."
"And if you found me doing something you could not agree with, what would you do?" Hermione demanded. "Encourage me along and offer a helping hand? Or would you try to convince me to your way of thinking? Would you try to stop me?"
Harry opened his mouth to fire off a retort but thought better of it and paused, trying to imagine such a scenario. "That would depend," he admitted. "If you were doing something to hurt yourself or someone else, then yes I would try to convince you to stop. If that failed, I might have to try to stop you myself."
"So how is that different than this situation?" Hermione asked. "What gives you the right to interfere but nobody else?"
"I'm not trying to hurt anybody," Harry responded in exasperation. "I can't believe you'd think I would."
"Of course I don't think that, but for all I know what you were doing had the potential to hurt you. Given your actions last night - running off and fighting Death Eaters on your own - I can't say my suspicions were far off the mark," Hermione returned triumphantly.
Harry narrowed his eyes. "It's not as if I'm going out and picking fights. In case you hadn't noticed, we're at war. Only it's not being fought on battle fields but in homes and schools. Would you have rather I had just left Ginny to Voldemort? Would you really want me to have to watch as Voldemort tortured her over and over again, knowing I could have done something?"
"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that you were able to save Ginny, but don't you see how dangerous it was? We're still students," she protested. "You should have gone straight to Professor Dumbledore and let him and the Order handle things. If nothing else, you should not have gone alone. What if something had happened to you? Then both you and Ginny would be lost, and we would have had no clue where to even start looking for you."
"And what would the Order have done?" Harry demanded. "Called a meeting? By the time they even decided what they were going to do, it would have been too late."
"You could have come to me or Ron," she returned. "We've always stood with you in the past. Why won't you let us now?"
"Do you think you're prepared to face down Death Eaters?" Harry snapped. "Can you stand up to three, four, five or even more at a time? Can you defeat even one in a straight duel? Yes, you were with me last June in the Ministry, and we were all out of our league. If those Death Eaters had taken us seriously, we'd all be dead. It was only their arrogance and a whole lot of luck that kept us alive."
"Isn't that what we've all been training for?" she asked. "What else is the HA for but teaching us how to fight and survive the Death Eaters?"
"The HA is to give you a fighting chance - to give you and your families a chance to escape an attack," Harry fired back. "Do you honestly think a few hours a week is enough to prepare you to actually fight in this war? Don't be naïve, Hermione."
"But you're ready?" she questioned. "You're a student just like the rest of us. What makes you so special?"
Harry bit back the reply he wanted to give. It all came back to that stupid prophecy, but he was not prepared to share that with her. She may have made some decent arguments, but the fact remained that she chose to go behind his back to Dumbledore, and she would do so again in a heartbeat. He would not give his trust to her when she so obviously did not trust his judgment enough to make his own decisions. "What makes me special is a lot of hard work. What makes me special are the reflexes gained from a hard life. What makes me special is the fact that I'm not content to just sit around and pretend like nothing is wrong. There is a war going on, and we're losing. The Ministry is a joke. The Order is only reactionary. They do nothing to try to stop Voldemort or the Death Eaters, only try to minimize the damage. That's not good enough for me."
"And you call me naïve," Hermione retorted. "You think you can make a difference in the war on your own, Harry? A war is not fought by one man. You can't do this alone. Stop pushing us away. Let us help you. Let me help you. We'll go to Dumbledore and talk things through."
Harry emitted a harsh laugh. "What do you think Dumbledore will do? It's already clear he has no plans to help prepare us for the war. He would have us simply waste our time on childish pursuits in this castle while the country crumbles around us. We would leave Hogwarts wholly unprepared for what would face us. We might manage to survive a few attacks, but that is all we would manage - to survive from one attack to the next. I respect the man for what he has accomplished, but he has lost sight of what is important. Forced to choose between giving us the tools we need to survive or preserving our innocence, he chooses the route that will lead us all to our deaths. He would rather we have a couple more years as children than take what little time we have to help prepare us for this war, and you and so many others would blindly follow him."
Hermione was shaking her head fervently. "No, you're wrong," she insisted. "This isn't just anybody you're talking about. What makes you think you know better than the man who is considered by most to be the wisest wizard in the British Wizarding World?"
"Dumbledore is a wise man," Harry conceded. "It would be foolish to dismiss what he says out of hand, but that does not mean that you should blindly follow what he says. You pride yourself on being intelligent; it's time you start using that intelligence for more than just academics. You have only one year left at Hogwarts, then what? How will you survive the war? Have you even given thought to how you will survive the summer? Or are you placing your trust in Dumbledore and the Order to ensure your safety? Then again, they've done such a wonderful job protecting us from life-threatening situations in the past."
"So that's it then?" Hermione questioned. "Dumbledore and the Order make a few mistakes and you abandon them? They may not be perfect, but they've kept you alive this long, haven't they?"
"I've not abandoned anyone," Harry stated, shaking his head. "The only thing the Order has done to keep any of us alive is when they showed up in the Department of Mysteries last year. They spent the last two summers guarding outside Privet Drive when it is supposedly the safest place for me to be. Why? If Dumbledore's magnificent blood wards fail, what is one Order member going to do to protect me? They guard Privet Drive not to keep Death Eaters out but to keep me in. Rather than explain the situation to me and ask that I remain, they post a guard to ensure it. They treat me like some child acting out against authority." Unspoken, Harry added, They treat me like a weapon.
"So to prove you are not a child acting out against them, you act out against them?" Hermione asked in obvious disapproval.
"Think of my actions what you will," Harry commented with a sigh. "I do not have to answer to you, Hermione, when my actions do not affect you."
"But they do affect me," Hermione insisted pleadingly, grabbing onto his arm as he moved to walk past her. "Can't you see, Harry? I love you like a brother, and I could not bear to lose you. Please, you have to listen to me."
"You've been like a sister to me since I entered the Wizarding World," Harry agreed. "And while I recognise that anything that happens to me would affect you, I cannot let fear rule my life. If I am to die, at least I will die knowing that I have done all I can. I can die without regrets. Better than to place my trust in the Order to keep me safe and die wishing I had only stepped out from their shadow and moved to take responsibility for my own life."
Looking directly into her eyes, Harry placed his hand over hers where she still gripped his arm. "I am sorry, Hermione, but my mind is made up. I would ask that you respect my decision, but I know that you will do what you think is right, as I do the same. Keep in mind, though, that this is my life, not yours." With that, he pried her hand off his arm and continued on to his office.
Thanks to dobbeh who sent in today's Stu!
TITLE: Taking Control
PERPETRATOR: fake a smile
SUE-O-METER:
(bad)
FULL NAME: Harry Potter
SPECIES: Wizard
HAIR: as per canon unless he transforms it for a disguise. "He performed the charms to lengthen his hair to about his shoulders and to color it a dark blond. Then he transfigured a tissue into a bandana which he wore on his head to hide his scar from view."
EYES: green.
MARKINGS:
POSSESSIONS: a "bottomless money bag". He just tells it how much he needs, and it's transferred from his account. Automatically adjusting contact lenses, in clear and brown. A magical furnished trunk that Harry could live in.
ORIGIN: After the events in the Department of Mysteries, Harry vows not to be a "puppet" in Dumbledore's game. Dumbledore even tried to take control of Harry's family vault.
CONNECTIONS TO CANON: Sirius teaches him how to be an animagus through Harry's dreams. He dislikes Ron's attempt to have people stop "pestering" him. Instead of talking about it, he just develops a grudge. He appreciates Hermione's questions about his wellbeing. He tries to be nice to Ginny to get her to help him retrieve potion ingredients for his animagus potion. Ron flips out over this. He is also training wandless magic so he is not detected by the Ministry. At Hogwarts he trains Ginny to become an animagus, as well. They will be paired together. I skipped to the last chapter, because, sadly, I don't have all evening, and in the chapter Harry has a showdown with Dumbledore. In it Dumbledore orders Harry to stop fighting the Death Eaters, which Harry refuses. Then Dumbledore tries to explain his treatment of Harry, including having invisible guards posted at Privet Drive, and telling Harry that he will be watching his movements at Hogwarts, now. Then he has an argument with Hermione about going behind his back and telling Dumbledore what she knows, and that she was worried. She makes a very logical argument, which pig-headed Harry doesn't acknowledge. It ends with Dumbledore and Harry reaching an impasse in Dumbledore's office. Harry has to escape out Dumbledore's window. He uses magic to slow his fall and then turn into a panther to get away. Sadly he did not scream "IT'S MY LIFE!"
SPECIAL ABILITIES Is both an owl and a panther animagus. Can talk to Hedwig this way. Is rather arrogant for his age, as well as "mature".
NOTES: It has 28 chapters and almost 2400 reviews. It's not as ridiculous as some of these rebel!Harry stories, but just very tedious. Harry is rather unlikeable, IMO.
SAMPLE:
As the meal came to a close, Bill hugged his sister again and bid his goodbyes to Harry and Ron. They retired to the common room where Ron convinced Harry and a few others into playing a few games of Exploding Snap. After their fourth or fifth game - Harry had lost count - he left to visit his office. He wanted to ask Ginny if she would like to accompany him, but she was revising with some of her mates, and he did not want to interrupt. Harry climbed out the portrait hole and made his way down the hall. As he came to the first corner, he bumped into Hermione.
"Harry!" she exclaimed and wrapped her arms around him. Harry stiffly returned the hug as she whispered, "I'm glad you're safe." Noticing his tense stance, she let go and took a step back, asking, "What's wrong?"
"I know what you did," Harry stated simply.
Hermione frowned in confusion.
"You went behind my back to Dumbledore," Harry tersely explained.
"I went to the headmaster with my concerns for you, yes," she admitted unrepentantly.
"Suspicions, you mean?" Harry retorted.
"If that is how you choose to phrase it, then yes, my suspicions about you." She sighed and reached a hand out to him before seeming to think better of it and dropping the hand back at her side. "I was worried about you. I still am."
Harry snorted derisively. "Worried about what? That I was training in secret? That you didn't know every little thing I was working on? That you weren't able to spy on me in my office or the Room of Requirement?"
Hermione's mouth dropped open, and Harry scowled. "Did you think I hadn't noticed? How stupid do you think I am?"
"I'm worried for your safety," she answered after finding her voice. "I was worried about just what you felt you needed to keep secret from your best friends. I was worried that you were taking the responsibility of this whole bloody war all onto your own shoulders!"
"Of course, poor Harry can't take care of himself," he rejoined.
"Do you have to turn everything I say into an argument?" Hermione snapped in frustration. "I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, Harry. I just want to help. That's what friends do; they help each other."
"We have different ideas of what exactly constitutes help," Harry replied. "Rather than help me in what I've been doing, you'd deter me and, when that failed to work, run off to the professors for my own good. I think I'm perfectly capable of deciding what's good for me, thank you."
"And if you found me doing something you could not agree with, what would you do?" Hermione demanded. "Encourage me along and offer a helping hand? Or would you try to convince me to your way of thinking? Would you try to stop me?"
Harry opened his mouth to fire off a retort but thought better of it and paused, trying to imagine such a scenario. "That would depend," he admitted. "If you were doing something to hurt yourself or someone else, then yes I would try to convince you to stop. If that failed, I might have to try to stop you myself."
"So how is that different than this situation?" Hermione asked. "What gives you the right to interfere but nobody else?"
"I'm not trying to hurt anybody," Harry responded in exasperation. "I can't believe you'd think I would."
"Of course I don't think that, but for all I know what you were doing had the potential to hurt you. Given your actions last night - running off and fighting Death Eaters on your own - I can't say my suspicions were far off the mark," Hermione returned triumphantly.
Harry narrowed his eyes. "It's not as if I'm going out and picking fights. In case you hadn't noticed, we're at war. Only it's not being fought on battle fields but in homes and schools. Would you have rather I had just left Ginny to Voldemort? Would you really want me to have to watch as Voldemort tortured her over and over again, knowing I could have done something?"
"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that you were able to save Ginny, but don't you see how dangerous it was? We're still students," she protested. "You should have gone straight to Professor Dumbledore and let him and the Order handle things. If nothing else, you should not have gone alone. What if something had happened to you? Then both you and Ginny would be lost, and we would have had no clue where to even start looking for you."
"And what would the Order have done?" Harry demanded. "Called a meeting? By the time they even decided what they were going to do, it would have been too late."
"You could have come to me or Ron," she returned. "We've always stood with you in the past. Why won't you let us now?"
"Do you think you're prepared to face down Death Eaters?" Harry snapped. "Can you stand up to three, four, five or even more at a time? Can you defeat even one in a straight duel? Yes, you were with me last June in the Ministry, and we were all out of our league. If those Death Eaters had taken us seriously, we'd all be dead. It was only their arrogance and a whole lot of luck that kept us alive."
"Isn't that what we've all been training for?" she asked. "What else is the HA for but teaching us how to fight and survive the Death Eaters?"
"The HA is to give you a fighting chance - to give you and your families a chance to escape an attack," Harry fired back. "Do you honestly think a few hours a week is enough to prepare you to actually fight in this war? Don't be naïve, Hermione."
"But you're ready?" she questioned. "You're a student just like the rest of us. What makes you so special?"
Harry bit back the reply he wanted to give. It all came back to that stupid prophecy, but he was not prepared to share that with her. She may have made some decent arguments, but the fact remained that she chose to go behind his back to Dumbledore, and she would do so again in a heartbeat. He would not give his trust to her when she so obviously did not trust his judgment enough to make his own decisions. "What makes me special is a lot of hard work. What makes me special are the reflexes gained from a hard life. What makes me special is the fact that I'm not content to just sit around and pretend like nothing is wrong. There is a war going on, and we're losing. The Ministry is a joke. The Order is only reactionary. They do nothing to try to stop Voldemort or the Death Eaters, only try to minimize the damage. That's not good enough for me."
"And you call me naïve," Hermione retorted. "You think you can make a difference in the war on your own, Harry? A war is not fought by one man. You can't do this alone. Stop pushing us away. Let us help you. Let me help you. We'll go to Dumbledore and talk things through."
Harry emitted a harsh laugh. "What do you think Dumbledore will do? It's already clear he has no plans to help prepare us for the war. He would have us simply waste our time on childish pursuits in this castle while the country crumbles around us. We would leave Hogwarts wholly unprepared for what would face us. We might manage to survive a few attacks, but that is all we would manage - to survive from one attack to the next. I respect the man for what he has accomplished, but he has lost sight of what is important. Forced to choose between giving us the tools we need to survive or preserving our innocence, he chooses the route that will lead us all to our deaths. He would rather we have a couple more years as children than take what little time we have to help prepare us for this war, and you and so many others would blindly follow him."
Hermione was shaking her head fervently. "No, you're wrong," she insisted. "This isn't just anybody you're talking about. What makes you think you know better than the man who is considered by most to be the wisest wizard in the British Wizarding World?"
"Dumbledore is a wise man," Harry conceded. "It would be foolish to dismiss what he says out of hand, but that does not mean that you should blindly follow what he says. You pride yourself on being intelligent; it's time you start using that intelligence for more than just academics. You have only one year left at Hogwarts, then what? How will you survive the war? Have you even given thought to how you will survive the summer? Or are you placing your trust in Dumbledore and the Order to ensure your safety? Then again, they've done such a wonderful job protecting us from life-threatening situations in the past."
"So that's it then?" Hermione questioned. "Dumbledore and the Order make a few mistakes and you abandon them? They may not be perfect, but they've kept you alive this long, haven't they?"
"I've not abandoned anyone," Harry stated, shaking his head. "The only thing the Order has done to keep any of us alive is when they showed up in the Department of Mysteries last year. They spent the last two summers guarding outside Privet Drive when it is supposedly the safest place for me to be. Why? If Dumbledore's magnificent blood wards fail, what is one Order member going to do to protect me? They guard Privet Drive not to keep Death Eaters out but to keep me in. Rather than explain the situation to me and ask that I remain, they post a guard to ensure it. They treat me like some child acting out against authority." Unspoken, Harry added, They treat me like a weapon.
"So to prove you are not a child acting out against them, you act out against them?" Hermione asked in obvious disapproval.
"Think of my actions what you will," Harry commented with a sigh. "I do not have to answer to you, Hermione, when my actions do not affect you."
"But they do affect me," Hermione insisted pleadingly, grabbing onto his arm as he moved to walk past her. "Can't you see, Harry? I love you like a brother, and I could not bear to lose you. Please, you have to listen to me."
"You've been like a sister to me since I entered the Wizarding World," Harry agreed. "And while I recognise that anything that happens to me would affect you, I cannot let fear rule my life. If I am to die, at least I will die knowing that I have done all I can. I can die without regrets. Better than to place my trust in the Order to keep me safe and die wishing I had only stepped out from their shadow and moved to take responsibility for my own life."
Looking directly into her eyes, Harry placed his hand over hers where she still gripped his arm. "I am sorry, Hermione, but my mind is made up. I would ask that you respect my decision, but I know that you will do what you think is right, as I do the same. Keep in mind, though, that this is my life, not yours." With that, he pried her hand off his arm and continued on to his office.