Chapter Text
Harry sleeps in the whole day Friday; he wakes up once in the morning, considers his schedule, and decides to skip. He’s woken a few times by Dobby, who brings him food and coaxes him into eating.
He does the same thing Saturday.
On Sunday, Harry wakes up in the morning and goes to take a shower (before going back to bed) and is cornered by Blaise, who’s like, “you need to take your meds with breakfast”. Harry says something about avoiding Umbridge, but then shrugs and is like, I can’t put off seeing her forever. He ends up joining the Slytherins for breakfast; Daphne is happy about this.
(I wasn’t going to explicitly cover this until later, but Daphne really wants Harry to look strong to get more Slytherin allies, which is a problem because Harry a) cares more about being strong than looking strong and b) thinks if he purposefully acts strong to get allies, he’s doing a disservice to his allies and tricking themselves into ending up in more danger than they realized.)
Hermione comes to sit with him again. Brings him a book on fighting with knives.
There’s probably another confrontation with Umbridge around here somewhere; Harry simply ignores her. He’s found his solution to Umbridge and he’s sticking to it. He ignores Umbridge completely; this includes skipping all of her classes, and the detentions she assigns him for skipping classes. What’s she going to do, give him detention?
He writes to Kreacher and Sirius reassuringly; he has -10 desire to acknowledge weakness, and Surely this whole thing with his magic will blow over soon, right? (Wrong.)
Problems arise that day/the next when he tries to use magic and finds himself still having quite a bit of trouble with it. He calms himself down, tells himself not to worry about it. He focuses on learning knife fighting;
A few days later, Snape pulls him aside. “Potter,” he grits out, “go to Umbridge’s detentions.” Underlying implication: don’t make me have to acknowledge your existence again. It turns out Umbridge can do something worse than just assigning him detention for skipping detention.
The next time Harry gets assigned detention, he goes to it. Writes I will not tell lies. instead of what he’s supposed to write because my boy has bad vision. Totally stoic about the pain. Gets Dobby to cover it up for him bc he doesn’t want Hermione to worry.
Harry skips Umbridge’s class, but goes to her detentions instead. He figures even if he went to class, he would get detention anyway because Umbridge hates him, so just going to detention is more time-efficient. During this next bit, he mostly focuses on knife fighting, because his magic still isn’t working. He does get worried enough that he writes to Kreacher, admitting what’s going on. Kreacher sends him this cool knife that changes sizes based on Harry’s need, and can be summoned back to its holster without Harry using any magic. Harry does a lot of reading on dueling strategy and the fundamentals of magic; he’s filling up his notebook, starting to develop more of a distinct dueling style (although he can’t actually duel rn).
Like a week passes. Daphne pulls him aside, explains that she and Blaise will follow him, that others might too, he just needs to seem stronger. He refuses, doesn’t want to lead other people into battle based on pretenses.
Hermione wants him to teach DADA. He refuses, says he can’t teach without magic.
Blaise wants him to get checked out by a healer. He refuses.
Quinn, commenting on this google doc rn:
Harry says no: the chapter
He’s also having increasing trouble lying. We’ll get back to that. ;)
He’s becoming weirdly strong, fast, eyesight good. Bruises heal almost immediately. He doesn’t notice, though; just knows that his eyesight seems a bit less blurry.
I was thinking that around this time, the Ravenclaw Herbology people from earlier might start getting curious about what exactly Harry always seems to be writing about in that ratty old notebook of his.
Two weeks or so pass; he runs into Mateo Burnet being threatened by an older Gryffindor for hanging out with their younger, Hufflepuff sister. The Gryffindor says something about everyone knowing what Slytherins will do to Hufflepuffs in order to get ahead. Burnet keeps on trying to persuade the Gryffindor that he means no harm, but the Gryffindor’s getting angry, and he draws his wand. Harry pulls Burnet back.
“What are you gonna do, Potter?” the Gryffindor mocks. “Everyone knows that you’ve lost your magic.” He steps in close, presses his wand to Harry’s neck. Harry shoves the Gryffindor’s arm to the side, twisting their wrist, and presses his knifepoint to the Gryffindor’s throat.
This whole thing makes him realize that he needs to be able to use magic/be stronger to protect people like them. He writes to Sirius admitting his issue, agrees to go to Blaise’s healer/magical specialist.
The healer is immediately like “what the FUCK how are you ALIVE”.
Heads up, this is gonna be a whole lotta of worldbuilding BS.
Basically… when Harry pushed his magic trying that spell even when he was magically exhausted, it popped the membrane he had around his magical core. (I think someone actually guessed this a while ago, so kudos to whoever that was!)
In my little AU, I figure that magic is stored in a sort of core, which has a membrane around it, and it’s released through either a) leaking out through the membrane, which is semi-permeable, or b) being released through specific channels that wizards and witches develop through practice. Magic that’s channeled is more controlled, but it takes more conscious work, whereas magic that comes through the membrane is wilder—think accidental magic. The magic that keeps wizards and witches’ immune systems going and supplements their bodies also comes through the membrane.
The issue is that Harry’s been requiring a whole lot more magic to do things like maintain his immune system, heal his injuries, and keep him running when he doesn’t have a lot of food in him. I mean, in the past couple of years he’s made his body deal with everything from basilisk venom to a lack of food to literally the Cruciatus Curse. In order to cope with everything, his entire magical system has adapted; his membrane is all stretched out and much more permeable, and his whole body is basically being held together by the magical version of shoestrings and gum.
Hence how his system was in a position where pushing himself a little too hard with that one last spell could just POP his core.
Now that his magic isn’t gathered up in a core anymore, his magic ends up spending its time enhancing his body instead of being available to be used for spellwork. This is obviously a problem—but not to worry, it’s fixable! Harry has to just do two things. First of all, he has take care of himself decently well, since otherwise his magic will divert from doing magic things and will instead focus on shoring up Harry’s lack of self-care. Secondly, Harry needs to meditate so he can work on gathering his magic where his core should be. Luckily, Dobby can help with at least the second one of these things, since Dobby has experience with adjustments in how magic works.
Quinn when we were brainstorming this:
harry, taking a nap: can i do spells yet
harry, drinking water: are you happy yet can i finally cast spells
harry, eating a balanced dinner: goddammit how am i supposed to defeat voldemort if my magic is like a feral cat i have to tempt closer to myself with tasty food
Anyway, it’s still going to take a little while for Harry to adjust.
Now that that worldbuilding stuff is covered, back to the plot! There are two separate plot threads that I would have had happening basically simultaneously; I’ll cover them individually, though.
PLOT THREAD NUMBER ONE: Burnet has become super loyal to Harry in the wake of Harry’s ~heroism~, and he starts pushing back against Umbridge. This leads to Umbridge using the Blood Quill on Burnet. Harry has been going to his detentions and also getting the Quill used on him, but he didn’t really care that much. Having a cute little first year experience the same thing hits WAY different, though.
When talking to Burnet about this, Burnet looks at Harry’s “I will not tell lies” scar and asks, “Does writing a promise out in blood like that affect you?”
Cue Harry realizing that the reason he’s been having trouble lies recently is because, between him literally writing a promise out in blood, and his own genuine resolve to tell the truth about Cedric’s death, he’s worked powerful blood magic. He literally cannot tell lies.
Burnet points out that blood magic is super illegal; Harry “I warded my bed with blood” Potter is like “hm. Well, I don’t care how I get Umbridge in trouble, as long as I can get Umbridge in trouble.”
Cue him arranging an interview about this whole thing with Xenophilius.
Harry is like, “so anyway, Umbridge was using blood magic,” in the tone of a prosecutor trying to get a mafia boss sent to jail for tax fraud.
Xenophilius: you’re coming to me…because this is blood magic? Not because it’s a fucking compulsion… you literally cannot lie… this is illegal bc it’s a fucking violation of your rights…
(it’s basically like this.)
Harry: hm. I didn’t think anyone would… care about that?
Xenophilius: *literally having a mental breakdown*
There’s a huge political clusterfuck, and Umbridge gets replaced—with another Ministry lackey, but one who’s just generally incompetent instead of dangerous, and who lets Harry skip class as much as he likes.
PLOT THREAD NUMBER TWO: A lot of this is only revealed through Kreacher POV, because my boy Kreacher has been SCHEMING.
So, a while back, when Burnet first got attacked, Harry sent a letter to Sirius revealing that he can’t use his magic. Cue Sirius freaking the fuck out, because Harry is stuck with a bunch of Slytherins, without any working magic.
Kreacher, who heard about Harry’s lack of magic a while ago, is like. Hm :). He leaves a book where Sirius can see it—a book talking about how much safety and protection Heirs of the House of Black are afforded. Sirius reads it, and decides to try to make Harry the Heir of the House of Black, totally sure the whole while this is His Own Idea.
In reality, Kreacher has been low-key wanting Harry to become Heir Black for a while—and so has the Black Family Magic. When Kreacher said “the books wouldn’t let you read them if the family magic didn’t like you” he fucking meant it. Something about Harry’s blazing, feral, ruthless magic fucking delights the Black Family Magic. It probably helps that Harry is deadset on killing Voldemort—essentially, on fulfilling the dying wishes of Regulus Black, who was the last real Heir of the House of Black since Sirius got disowned. (I figure with Sirius it’s like…the Black Family Magic tolerates him, but only barely, and only because Regulus isn’t around.) Either way, the point is, both Kreacher and the Black Family Magic are eager to have Harry get properly adopted.
Becoming the Black Heir is a fair bit more complicated of a process than Sirius realizes—he became the Heir as a baby, and of course he wasn’t there when Regulus became the new Heir in his place.
Basically…Harry gets to like. Commune with the Black Family dead for a bit, and if they accept him, he becomes Heir.
Me, when me and Quinn were brainstorming this:
so the Black Family Magics are sort of like. feeling him out like "young Sirius WHAT are you doing giving us this funny little scrappy not-a-Black halfbl—"
Harry's ruthlessness registers "—wait..."
Harry's respect for the family registers "wAIT"
Harry's very Black-characteristic deep desire to fuck up One Dude in particular registers "...actually, we will accept No One Else.”
Also me when me and Quinn were brainstorming this:
fucking mr. Murder Black (this was before the constellation names) "I like him bc he seems like he really wants to kill that Voldemort guy :)"
everyone:
Mr. Murder Black: "I like a ruthless heir"
Mrs. Vela Black, tired: we know
And then me and Quinn started talking about like. What if Sirius wasn’t actually the Black Family Council’s preferred heir, they just picked him because they knew his parents would probably kill him/disown him if he didn’t… what if actually they’ve had a whole string of subpar shitty heirs and they get Harry and just go finally some GOOD FUCKING FOOD—
Me and Quinn ALSO talked about like. What if Harry can communicate with the Black Family Council through the Heir Ring,,, and they try to set him up with Blaise,,, blessed concepts.
Quinn:
harry backreading his 324 unread messages from the black family:
Anyway…sorry it’s just this was one of my favorite concepts of the whole fic! I had this one sitting in my back pocket since like September, before I got mad fucking busy, and sometimes on cold, sad nights as I sat with my homework I daydreamed about getting to write Harry being matchmade by long-dead Black family members.
Sorry, this is getting out of hand. Let me take a break.
Alright, I’m back.
So Harry just became Black Heir, right? Lucius Malfoy is NOT happy with this, because he wanted DRACO to become Black Heir—even though they took him to try become heir as a kid, and the Black Family Magic was like, “for fuck’s sakes we still have SOME standards!”
(Draco is way too soft. The Black Family Magic likes ruthless people.)
Anyway, so the point is, Malfoy Senior is PISSED. He wants Draco to contest Harry’s heirship—but Draco refuses. Not only did Harry spare him, Draco still remembers how Harry stuck his neck out for Mateo Burnet, twice. Draco has grown to genuinely respect Harry, in his own gittish, stuck-up Malfoy way, and he doesn’t want to take away Harry’s Black Heirship when everyone knows his magic is on the fritz.
So… Malfoy Senior gets this refusal and gets PISSED all over again. The next letter he sends Draco is cursed.
Harry is like >:(. He makes a deal with Dobby and has Dobby use his elven magic-eating abilities to eat the curse, thus saving Draco. Not only that, but I was thinking he also offers that Draco and Narcissa can stay in Grimmauld Place, if need be.
Quinn’s commentary:
god narcissa and sirius reunion and it's like. stiff as hell. "i love what you've done with the place :)" "don't fucking lie to me :)"
Something else I said, later, since we were talking about Narcissa and Sirius at Grimmauld Place:
Sirius: he's a Gryffindor!
Narcissa, glancing over to where Harry is talking to Draco about the best nasty little tricks to add to the wards: about that
(Eventually, Harry and Draco get to have a fun frenemy I’m-gonna-kill-you-but-no-one-else-can-be-mean-to-you-except-me type sibling relationship.)
But all of that is later. Right now, Harry saving Draco, giving him sanctuary… it makes the Slytherins, as a group, sit up and take notice.
As a whole, they have two potential interpretations of Harry’s actions to choose from:
1) it’s a family matter
Potter is the Black heir, Draco and Narcissa are technically Blacks, the whole fight was over Potter being the Black heir. Of course he's going to provide shelter to his family, that's his Duty.
It’s good that Potter is doing his duty, but more importantly, other Slytherins won’t be able to get in on that.
Quinn, 200 iq, literal genius: what if they tried to though? Families in the Wizarding World are super connected…
Me, immediately jumping to Slytherin first years committing fraud to get access to Big Brother Harry:
some little eleven year old muggleborn Slytherin named Leo: I have a constellation name!! clearly I'm a Black!! adopt me now [bright green gun emoji]
…but I digress. Either way, most Slytherins would not be able to get protection, if this interpretation is correct.
2) Harry protects his followers, even if they became his followers through him beating them in a duel
Harry beat Draco in a duel and as a result Draco backed him up. this fucked Draco over; despite disliking him (a lot) Harry helped him his family out way more than strictly necessary bc he considers what happened to Draco like. his responsibility/knows on some level it's bc of him (in the Slytherins' minds
(fyi I would say that interpretation two is actually closer to what happened? like Harry feels obligated bc Draco got hurt bc of him, he wasn't even considering family ties. but probably more Slytherins would believe interpretation one)
Anyway,,, the important thing is that… if interpretation two is correct all Slytherins need to do to get that sweet sweet Harry Potter protection is duel him and lose.
…do you see how this gets very ridiculous, and very fun, very fast?
Sometimes I get the impression that people think I choose how to plot things based on like. Logic. That is entirely false. I choose how to plot things based on what will be the most fun. I come up with funny ideas and then I figure out how to make the plot justify them.
You might also be interested to know, Harry dueling basically the entirety of Slytherin so that they can feel justified in following him because half of Slytherin is emotionally repressed? That was in my plans since practically the very beginning.
Like… here is a snippet of the original PS outline/plot notes from after I resigned myself to continuing this fic because it was gnawing at my brain too much:
-purebloods are stuck in fancy formal dueling mindset where you like. Try to show off how powerful your magic is, you know? Whereas harry’s mindset is like. Win at all costs.
-equal opportunity bully destroyer harry: call an eleven year old evil because of being in slytherin? Get wrecked. Call a muggleborn a slur? Get wrecked part two electric boogaloo. genuinely apologize change your behavior? Join fight club
-harry pulling some dude up after a duel
The dude: how,,, do you do that?
Harry: :) you haven’t heard?
-once you’ve been defeated, your issue is settled and you’ve proved your honor, so it’s not humbling to apologize/accept help
-harry duels like 90% of slytherin, towards the end it’s literally just to join the dueling club
-at the start everyone’s like. Okay ik he won against [long list of ppl] but clearly I will win against him unlike THOSE losers
Harry, nodding absently: can I pencil you in for three o’clock?
-Slytherins: never expected harry potter to be the best dada teacher i’ve had at hogwarts but there you go
-harry doesn’t even realize he’s teaching dada a lot of the time, he’s just like. These r normal skills.
-what the slytherins think of as dada: basic self defense spells, how to deal with dark creatures
What harry thinks of that: oh, basic life skills
What harry thinks of as dada: how to fight for your life against multiple highly skilled opponents
What the slytherins think of that: distant screaming
Anyway. I was less sure about how things would go after that bit. I had some vague thoughts that Kreacher would explain about the horcrux after Harry being Black Heir, and that Harry could clear Sirius’ name via trial only to end up with Voldemort kidnapping him and dragging him down to the DOM as a way of still having the prophecy revealed but… there wasn’t a super set ending? It was mostly just vague thoughts. I wanted to let things develop naturally.
Since I don’t have a lot else to say in terms of the general plot, I’m going to answer other questions you guys asked in the comments.
This first one is one I actually answered in the comments already, but I figured I would repost it here, since some of you guys may not have seen it.
Q: cassie oh peia is it true that blaise and harry was a pairing or simply a rumor 👀
A: delighted that this is the first question that I got asked!!! truly peak.
yes, they were going to eventually become a pairing, after the SLOWEST of burns. Harry was going to be super oblivious, even as things got progressively gayer, and I wasn't gonna comment on it because it's an unreliable narrator fic (like literally all of my fanfictions, I have a problem) and also because I'm evil >:). and then eventually he was going to realize (I didn't HOW figured out specifically it was more like. amorphous but yeah) and he was gonna be like "oh my god oh fuck Blaise is gonna D I E if he dates me" and then Blaise was like "oh you know. we could just. wait until Voldemort's dead (cuz I know you'll succeed cuz I'm a supportive potential-bf)" and then yeah.
oh, also! I thought it would be super hilarious to have a whole lot of buildup in terms of long. does is Blaise/Harry??? and then have Harry at some point realize he thinks Blaise is hot, go "hm yeah I guess I'm bi, that like, checks out" and immediately move on. I just think it would be funny!!! my man is too busy with Voldemort to have a whole other existential crisis over being gay! he's like "oh no he's hot! moving on"
A little bit of added commentary—Quinn was a HUGE enabler when it came to Blaise and Harry. Like. the most enabling of enablers….
Quinn just commented “:3cccc”… HOW MANY Cs DO YOU NEED??? How much smugger must you get… we get it, you made PS extra gay…
Q: If it isn’t too much, do you mind explaining how PS would have ended and the character arcs you had in mind for the characters you had as Harry’s support system?
A: Like I said, I don’t really know how PS would have ended, only how it would have continued. It would have been a happy ending, but I can’t say I’m sure about much more than that.
As for supporting characters… I had plans to have Ron and Hermione integrate with Harry’s Slytherin allies eventually. Hermione and Blaise were going to become allies in fighting Harry’s dumbassery, and Daphne and Ron were going to end up being chess buddies—although Quinn joked that it would need to be correspondence chess.
Quinn has some more commentary on this, specifically on Blaise’ emotional arc:
The thing about Blaise is that his internal narrative is all rationality. He’s decided that he’s the coolest guy, and that he definitely thinks through all the choices he could make before he makes them, no blind spots here.
And then he meets Harry and it’s kind of a whack in the face that he had dozens upon dozens of blind spots — the man doesn’t know the first bit of wizarding etiquette or even how to calm down, and yet Blaise keeps finding himself respecting Harry. So that’s the initial emotional conflict, the one that makes Blaise go “hm. I should invest some energy into Harry, even if it loses me social points in Slytherin, because I want to make more rational and effective decisions.”
And then he starts spending real time with Harry and it’s like. Oh. Oh no. He smells nice. And he’s got a good eye for when someone’s being rude to the first-years versus rude to their friends. And for all his Gryffindor-ish inability to stand by, he doesn’t do it in clueless or unprepared ways. He’s rough around the edges, sure, but he’s got so much raw potential. Blaise starts looking at Harry and seeing someone who could be someone. Who could be great.
The other thing about Blaise is that he’s seen his mother marry half a dozen men and inherit millions of Galleons. He knows that there’s no shame in being the support behind the throne, and his ambition is starting to stir. Harry could be great and Blaise wants to make him that way, even if it means holding his hand when he shivers awake from a nightmare, even when it means unsubtly throwing an arm around his shoulders to keep him from fleeing his three-quarters full breakfast plate.
But — Harry’s fighting a British fight. And Blaise, for all he goes to Hogwarts, has far more continental ties than he does Scottish or English ones. Throwing his lot in with Harry means throwing those ties away.
Blaise has his ambition, yes, but he could find someone back in Italy with an established House and a real bloodline, who already knows that silverware goes from the outside in and you hold your white wine glass by the stem. He’s rational. He can’t figure out why something in him coils in disgust at the thought.
So he falls into it, at first, trying very hard not to analyze the steps he’s taking, until one day Harry looks up at him with a gleam in his eye. And Blaise tilts his head, because he knows most of Harry’s expressions but not that one, and Harry does a lilting little laugh and pulls his head down and — oh. Something he couldn’t learn from his mother. Something worth the connections he has on the continent, and if this goes well they’ll come running back to him anyway. Blaise’s smile splits his face, and Harry’s does too, and they’d never be like that in public, but they’ve long since given up being embarrassed to be vulnerable around one another.
Blaise starts out thinking that he’ll be the one to make Harry someone strong enough to defeat Voldemort and win plaudits and elevate both their statuses, and he never really abandons that goal. He just stops lying to himself about why he wanted it in the first place.
Q: I thought the world-building about the background of elves was really interesting. [this wasn’t a question but it reminded me of something, so]
EDIT: I got another question later [“The background on the house elves is extremely interesting actually and I would like to know if the Information was going to be used for something further in the plot and how PS would have ended”] that’s pretty similar; I’m just going to figure between the elaboration on Dobby’s role and this answer, that covers it; I can’t really think of anything else to add.
A: Thank you! I had a lot of fun with that.
I was actually going to eventually reveal that Kreacher has been using a strategy similar to Dobby’s—not in that Kreacher’s a free elf, but as in, in the absence of a wizard, he’s been devouring ambient magic from Grimmauld Place. Unlike with Dobby, this is fully consensual—prior to his death, Regulus did a lot of research into house elves (hence the house-elf proof wards) and figured out a way that Kreacher could live on, even if all of the Blacks died. At the time, Kreacher wasn’t exactly delighted at the idea at the time, but after Regulus’ death, Kreacher felt that it was necessary that he live on in order to fill Regulus’ last request.
Q: I would love to hear a rough idea of where you thought this story might have ended up or if you don't want to write that all down maybe one surprise or interesting thing you had thought to include that you won't be putting down on paper now.
A: I was going to eventually reveal that Theodore Nott was also a victim of the Cruciatus Curse—at the hands of his Death Eater father. This was vaguely hinted at here and there in terms of like. Mentioning that he’s very quiet and withdrawn, especially after the summers, and there was this one subtle mention of his hand trembling—he has nerve damage just like Harry does.
Also, this isn’t really a surprise, but I guess another little tidbit is that I had been planning to have the DA be open to Slytherins as well in this AU, which ofc makes the Slytherins go 0.0 because they wouldn’t have expected that from him. Harry would make them swear not to use what he taught them against him/people on his side, which he figured is just Basic Common Sense, and which in actuality means he’s basically bribing the Slytherins with sweet sweet dueling ability in return for their allyship or at least neutrality…
Additionally, Harry’s dueling style was going to become increasingly distinct; I wanted Harry to end up essentially minting a whole new school of thought in terms of dueling. I’ve seen a lot of fics where Harry beats people around him by being super powerful, but I’ve always felt like it was more interesting to have him beat his opponents by having a different, unexpected approach—and I felt like him developing a new dueling style would be realistic, since he’s incorporating muggle ideas in dueling, something which the almost-entirely-pureblood duelists of the past would never have done.
Q: I'm curious if you'd planned to have Daphne queer or not.
A: I never really thought about this much, to be honest? But I can’t really envision Daphne as being attracted to men. I could see her as ace, or maybe a lesbian, but I really can’t picture her (or at least PS!Daphne) romantically involved with a man.
This is only tangentially related, but Daphne would have never ended up in any sort of maternal role, either. I proposed having her act sort of maternal once, and Quinn (rightfully) shot that shit down immediately. We decided to have Blaise be the mother hen instead, which was objectively far, far better, and I feel like is much more true to Daphne’s character. Hermione and Blaise and even Ron are mother hens; Daphne is more the sort to (with appropriate Slytherin subtlety) poke Harry with a stick and try to get him to duel someone again so he’ll look super impressive. She’s sly and clever and ambitious, not maternal.
Q: Would Sirius have ever found out about Regulus' last act, or Harry idolising him?
A: Hm. This is another one of those things I didn’t actually think about that much. I didn’t make any plans on this subject, but knowing who I am and the types of tropes and events that make me go *chefs kiss*, yeah, he would have found out eventually. Don’t ask me how he would have reacted though, because I’m honestly not sure.
Q: Would Snape have stopped ignoring Harry (for better or worse)?
A: This is something I have thought about! But… that doesn’t mean I have a definitive answer.
When I was first plotting things out, I was going to have Snape ignore Harry for basically the entire year, until being forced into acknowledging existence against his will. I was going to have Harry get Sirius a trial, and have Sirius gain custody of Harry, only for Dumbledore to inform him at the last minute that he was going to have back to the Dursleys anyway. Cue Harry going, “fuck this shit” and barricading himself in his dorm room, complete with like five layers of wards and a bed leaned against the door.
By this point, the Slytherins would have realized how abusive Harry’s family was, and would like him enough to care, a lot. I was thinking that they would try to reason with Snape, only to have Snape dismiss their evidence because of his huge James Potter sized blind spot. The original planned ending for PS was here, with the Slytherins turning against Snape; it was supposed to be a whole ~symbolic~ thing, with Snape representing the old model of what a Slytherin is, and the Slytherins turning against Snape representing them turning against that old model.
But… as I kept on writing, I got more and more :/ about this ending. This was early in my plotting; there’s a lot that I plotted out, only to discard as the story evolved in a different direction. For instance, in early plotting, I was considering having Regulus Black secretly still be alive! There was going to be this whole thing where Slytherins got alumni mentors, and Harry got Regulus Black, and everyone was like “well, sucks to be you, since he’s dead” but then Regulus also found out and secretly corresponded with Harry anyway because like, he’s trying to kill the Dark Lord! What’s not to like!
…I have a lot more I could say about that whole original plan with Regulus. If any of you guys are interested, I can explain that more in the comments (I'm not going to post another chapter just for explaining my weird, aborted conspiracy-sounding plan to have Secretly-Not-Dead!Regulus feature in PS).
Q: This is a great story though so I'm really curious on how you were going to end it, the misunderstandings Harry has about people's opinion about him, and about Blaise and Harry. Though seeing the first comment is about them, I guess you don't have to answer that.
A: The only thing that hasn’t really already been covered is how the misunderstandings would be resolved. I didn’t have that plotted out specifically… but it would probably basically go something like this: A) Harry being really oblivious and B) Daphne and Blaise eventually hammering their, and the other Slytherins’ respect for him through his thick head with immense time, effort and dedication. As for people outside of Slytherin… the whole thing with the Blood Quill and the reveal that Harry literally cannot lie would have caused the school as a whole to respect Harry a lot more—not that Harry would have trusted any “well, I believe you now” types.
...
I think between the plot summary and these answers, I covered everything, but if you have any more questions I can answer them in the comments—I’ll probably disenable commenting in a few days, though. I ended up getting some nasty comments, as expected, and while I decided to just delete them and turn off guest commenting since I felt like you guys deserved to be able to express yourselves regardless of trolls, I also don’t want to keep on moderating these comments indefinitely.
Speaking of comments, I just wanted to thank you guys for how respectful and understanding you’ve all been on the whole. <3 <3 <3