Current Mood:  creative
( incandescens, this one's for you. Hat-tip to Mike for sending the image that inspired this madness.) My friends send me the most pleasantly amusing things. In this case, its a lovely massaged image of Harry Potter and his pod of freaks from an alternate world in which goth is the new black ... or something like that. But these things give me pause to think, and this is a bad thing to be thinking about. In fact, it made me wish I wrote Potterverse fanfic, because then I might could do this setting premise justice: Lord Potter and the Blood-Spilled Prince In this "what if?" alternaverse, Harry Potter is born to wizarding parents and during the ongoing attempt to subdue the wizarding world. Lord Voldemort attempts to destroy the Boy Who Lived ... giving rise to the inevitable nickname. Burned with the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead which itches and twitches at the most inconvenient times, Harry is shipped off to live with the Dursleys. Its at this point that the universe diverges. In response to the Dursleys' ongoing abuse and eternal disdain, Potter learns to cope not by becoming a limp dishrag of a door-mat, but fuels an immense internal hatred of those who would opress him and draws in emotionally on himself, fueling random supernatural outbursts which aren't directly attributable to Harry and which correspond to very traditional haunting phenomenon. The night before Potter is spirited away to Hogwart's, the Durleys attempt to have Harry exorcised ... with nearly fatal results as the poltergeist and pyromantic activity crescendos. Arriving at Hogwart's and feeling freer than he has in years, Harry makes the immediate friendship of Hermione, muggle-blood daughter of dentists who's decided the best rebellion she can make against the established wizarding order is to simultaneously embrace her muggle-heritage and out-sorcerer even the most hardcore of her classmates, and Ron Weasley, whose family of wizards has emasculated him for years for not being the best, or brightest, or strongest, leaving him finally to turn to only belief in himself for support. Inevitably, Potter, Granger, and Ron are sorted by the Hat into Slytherin House, because of their slyness, ambition, or aggressive drive. Draco Malfoy, child of Death Eaters and all too aware of the machinations of Voldemort's historic plans and brutality, turns his back on the service of the One Who Must Not Be Named and is sorted to Hufflepuff, along with Crab and Goyle, though it's a near thing. Draco maintains his utter arrogance and disdain for muggle-blood, even while clinging to the steady loyalty of his friends and housemates. Voldemort's continued awareness of Potter and his friends, plus the prophecies which precede him, convinces Riddle that the boy must be eliminated before Potter usurps Tom's place at the head of the Death Eaters, and possibly the entire wizarding world if Voldemort is as successful as he dreams. For Harry's part, its enough to revel in the freedoms of Slytherin to explore the darker aspects of potions and black sorcery, but it is Ron who finds a certain calling in the Dark Arts, rapidly outpacing even Hermione in the nocturnal aspects of the Ars Magicae. Granger throws herself, body and soul, into the most arcane and mind-warping of researches in an attempt to shock and appall others with her recklessness, but despite her exceedingly precise machinations, it is Ron who begins to incite whispers and outright fear among the House when he passes, which both angers and excites the girl. The toll on Granger's mind mounts as she reaches for ever more excessively abstracted places, fighting both with Ron and for his attention. Dumbledore recognizes the inherent danger represented by Potter and company, but sees the necessity of forging such a powerful weapon against the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters. Betting on Potter's self-involvement to keep him from actually replacing Riddle or taking over the world, he sets Malfoy and his company at direct odds with Potter and his to monitor Potter's progress and act as a continual reminder that things could have been different. Draco is only too happy to oppose Harry, and the rest of Hufflepuff are disturbed at their exemplar's clear antagonism and elitism, but buoyed by the fact that he leads them to success and even moral victory more often than not. The rest, I leave up to you ... | 
