Sometimes when I’m sad I like to imagine what would happen in a crossover universe between Discworld and Harry Potter, and what Granny Weatherwax would make of their style of magic.
But then I think about more important things, like what would have happened if Granny Weatherwax ever met Albus Dumbledore, and I can’t help but feel a whole lot of shit could have been avoided if he’d had a good clip round the ear and a strong talking to about the whole “my hands are tied” bullshit that enabled years of abuse and suffering at the hands of adults in a position of authority over young, vulnerable people.
Like oh, this spell requires the bond of blood to keep him safe, all right. So that just means we’re not going to hold these adults accountable for their torment and abuse? I think the entire fuck not, Albus.
Snape is a double agent who is actually working for the greater good. All right, but that doesn’t stop him from being an absolute fucking shit weasel who shouldn’t be around children until he learns to control himself and works out his issues in a safe and sane manner, what the fuck, Albus.
You have an entire school system that ascribes to ideas of inherent morality when in fact this is a thing that needs to be taught? Well no wonder there’s one house in particular that keeps going off the rails, you keep telling them they’re evil. Tell people something for long enough they’ll start to believe you. There’s nothing wrong with being selfish and cunning, sometimes that’s what it takes to survive. Teach them how to use those traits for good. As strength. My land, my home, my people (not my daughter, you bitch) how dare you try to hurt them. Teach them, Albus, you have to bloody teach them and realize that evil isn’t born. It’s made. In a thousand small deplorable ways. And it starts with treating people like things and I cannot be having with this.
Of course there’s also the other flipside to this thought process, which is imagining Gytha “Nanny” Ogg shouting “watcher Molly” as she thumps Bellatrix Lestrange on the back of the head with a cauldron, and drops her like a fucking stone. Later they’ll sit together and grieve, later there will be time to pick up the pieces and mourn. But for now there are things to fight for, people to keep alive. And people to keep from doing what they shouldn’t ever have to do, so you find a way to do it for them, by hook, crook or blunt force trauma.
And because my head wont let go of this thought:
“You always was a right little miss,” she said, taking a puff from her pipe and resettling her weight with a hefty bounce as the younger witch struggled to get out from under Nanny’s considerable girth. “Giving yourself airs and graces and such. Pretending you was too good to scrub a pot. Well, let me tell you something, Mistress Lestrange, you ain’t fit for nothing no more except maybe a noose. And if I had my way that might be the end of it. But we don’t do things like that no more, we don’t rule by blood.”
“Then you’re weak,” Lestrange shot back, still struggling to claw her way free. “A weak, old woman with nothing left but tricks up your fat sleeve.”
Nanny puffed in silence for a few more moments, then reached up her sleeve. “And your wand, dearie. Walnut is it? With a dragon heartstring core? Very nice, painting it black was a bit much, but you always were fond of your dramatics.”
She pulled out her own wand, holding it out under Bellatrix’s nose, whose face went cross eyed and then wide with panic.
“You know, I’ve only ever heard of Priori Incantatem,” she said, puffing on the end of her pipe until the pit glowed cherry red then white hot and she exhaled smoke like a dragon, “but I wasn’t about to risk it, not in front of all those kiddies. But I reckon now might be a good time…”
Also, for your consideration. Feegles.
“Haul yoo, aye yoo, the great big ugly gangly scunner wi-oot a nose. Can ye sew? Well stitch this.”
Harry watched in consternation as Voldemort staggered back, dropped to the ground like a ton of bricks and lay still.
“That’s it?” he demanded, lowering his wand. “That’s all you had to do?”
Rob
Anybody, perched on his shoulder, looked up at the young wizard out the
corner of the eye, which was to say he looked him in the nostrils.“Weell,”
he said, gesturing towards the chaos that had been unleashed as the
full force of the Nac Mac Feegle was unleashed upon the band of Death
Eaters, primarily by running up the inside of their trousers. “That’s
the thing about the lads. Once they’ve decided tae dae something, they
dae it good and hard.”“But you just headbutted him!”
“Aye, weill,” Rob said, feeling as though the lad wasn’t quite grasping the practicality of the situation, “he might be a bloody great dark bigjob wizard, but he cannae cast a spell wi-oot a heid.”
Ok but the one I want to see is Dolores Umbridge vs Munstrum Ridcully, becuase that would be the Petty Academic Slapfight of doom.
Because Ridcully, for all his faults, probably understands that the actual learning of magic relies on a certain degree of both freedom and madness and sometimes explosions.
And Umbridge would crawl right up his skin with her concept of a “Defense Against The Dark Arts” Course, and in the middle of a lecture on recent runes, would go on a “tangent” on the history of various dark wizards and the means by which they were defeated and here Why Don’t We Have A Practical Outside, The Weather Is Nice (The weather is not nice. It’s Scotland. In Late November.) But everyone is really curious to see the old man actually take his wand out for once, only to discover that that’s not a wand at all, that’s a Burleigh & Stronginthearm and they’re all going to pass it around and whoever shoots the weathervane off the top of Ravenclaw tower gets 50 points. Hannah Abbot puts a bolt through Umbridge’s window, taking out a kitten plate and gets 100 points.
Fred and George turn the third floor corridor into a Swamp and Umbridge is pleased to hear Ridcully bellowing at the Weasley boys about “BLOODY INSONSIDERATE, NEVER HAVE I EVER MET SUCH WRETCHEDLY-” but the second she’s around the corner it changes to “-brilliant young men, how much is this setup you have here? That potions-master could do with some aggravated moisturizing. Speaking of moisturizing, what would it take to get you two gentlemen to work on the faculty baths? Disgustingly substandard, nowhere to put your nail trimmings-”
Ridcully would like the students there too, I think. Especially the Slytherins, because he’s perfectly aware how important being a cunning bastard and willing to get your hands dirty or bloody if needed is, especially in the world of Magical Academia. They’re socially intelligent and disenchanted with the system, not Evil, Albus. The Malfoy boy would be a lot less trouble if he had something to do besides practicing subject’s he’s bored with. Fratricide, perhaps. I’m kidding Albus! (he’s only sort of kidding. Maybe not murder. Just turn him into a toad and keep him as a familair in a bowl on the mantlepiece.)
He’d be so mad about the Chamber of secrets though. Potter! A Basilisk! Why didn’t you bring the head back up it’d be magnificent hanging over the great hall.
Oh I see.
Well why didn’t you go BACK? Perfectly good potion ingredients going to waste, doesn’t that brooding mop of a potions master teach you anything about looti- er, collecting spell components?I forgot I wrote this haha, and I’m glad @gallusrostromegalus made it better.
Okay but feagles and house elves tho
Obeyin’ the hag is one thing, but any hag that’d that inna worth the title
(Dobby takes it up first, under his breath: “no lords and no masters”)
Havelock Vetenari is not a man to “Go Spare”, and certainly not without good cause but that shambling mountain of paperwork and prejudice they call “The Ministry Of Magic” is several thousand good reasons. He doesn’t even WANT to take over this disaster but he can’t rest so long as it continues to exist.
But. He’s better than that. Why waste time in pointless rage when there are things he can actually do to fix this?
“Mr. Lipvig.” He says, conversationally. “Did you know that the currency conversion rates haven’t changed since Gringotts was founded? Seventeen silver sickles to a gold galleon since the 1100’s”
He doesn’t really need to say anything else. Moist blinks a few times, then gradually begins to vibrate as every instinct he possess is called to the forefront.
“They’re just down the street if you wanted to see their facilities-”
Moist’s chair actually spins with the force of his rapid departure.“
Tag: Harry Potter
so voldemort is technically a lich, right? splitting your soul and putting bits of it in objects, those are phylacteries, and he’s a lich, and also a really bad one because he split himself up way too much and also dumped part of his soul into a literal child, what the hell tom.
anyway i can’t get out of my head a scenario in which the kiddos are eating dinner in the great hall and suddenly there’s a raven on the headmaster’s table. and then a second. and then a third, and a fourth, and then there’s a handsome man in a long cowled robe striding in through doors that certainly did not open for him. he stops at the eagle-eyed podium and says, in the worst british accent that britain has ever seen, “are you dumbledore?”
and dumbledore says “yes.”
and the man nods and says. “excellent. i’ve been told you know one thomas riddle?”
there’s a pause this time. then, “yes.”
“do you have a moment?”
he does. and so does mcgonagall, and also snape, and before they adjourn to the headmaster’s space this man looks out over the sea of confused and awestruck upturned faces and picks out a boy with bright green eyes and a scar and says, “what’s your name?”
“harry,” says the boy.
“harry,” the man repeats, and his voice is almost gentle, because this boy reminds him of another little boy he knows, one who has also seen far too much for his age. “my name’s kravitz. would you come with us?”
he does. hermione and ron don’t let him go alone. and instead of harry’s horcrux being the last to go, it’s the first; part of being a reaper is dealing with souls, and prying a parasitic soul from a young, clean one is easy work. important work. after that day, harry’s scar never hurts again.
anyway what i’m saying is: reaper trio cross-country road trip along magical britain to find and destroy the horcruxes, and then voldemort. because that is, technically, their job.
kravitz, staring at the new assignment scroll: er.
lup, snatching scroll from kravitz: what is it lemme se— oh boy
barry, leaning over lup, with professional interest: hm. uh, well this is a disgrace to the profession. this is uh, some real amateur work, boy, this is a real hack job we’re comin’ in to fix. Like uh, the whole splitting the soul into seven—
kravitz, taking the scroll back, incredulous: seven?!
lup: you gotta admire the tenacity, skeletor.
kravitz, even more incredulous: why seven!!
barry, getting real academic for a moment, taking the scroll and scanning it: well, some people want reassurance about you know, sustaining things. But it’s a lot easier to just have backup bodies. This is kind of….actually this is kind of creative?
kravitz: no!!!!!
barry: oh wait nevermind he stuck part of it in a kid?? Jeez. That’s gross as all hell.
One day, you get a knock on your door. When you open it, you see the protagonist from your favorite book standing there, wide-eyed. “I know you won’t believe me,” they say, “but you’re the main character of my favorite book. I know how it ends and I’m here to change it.”
“Oh thank god, my life is really spiraling out of control lately” you say, relieved
Harry Potter pulls out a handgun “I think you misunderstand the point of this visit”
I accidentally found this Umbridge and Miss Trunchbull photo shoot, and it’s terrifying
dark children’s literature, show me the forbidden butch & femme couple
um this was originally going to be based off this post but then i decided to add some text and it all sort of spiraled out of control. no regrets bye.
controversial: dumbledore would’ve made the right decision taking the 1991-1992 house cup away from slytherin even if harry and co. hadn’t saved the school and stopped voldemort from returning to power
Can I ask why? Genuinely curious here
Slytherin students didn’t have better academic performance and they certainly didn’t have better behavior than the other houses. What they did have was a head of house who would award his own students points for almost no reason while handing out penalties to other houses like candy. If Draco Malfoy answered a question correctly in potions, he’d be awarded ten points, while Hermione giving the same answer would lose ten points for being a know-it-all.
That’s the thing, the game was rigged in Slytherin’s favor. Snape set his own house up to win, through absolutely no merit of their own, seven years in a row with no penalty. Meanwhile Dumbledore is made out to be the one who “just hands victory to his own house” after four members of his house put their lives on the line to save the school from a genocidal mass-murderer.
Gryffindor deserved the house cup because their students saved the school, but even if they didn’t, Slytherin should have had it taken away from them because they didn’t earn it.
I can’t even condemn Dumbledore for letting Slytherin believe they’d won, sit in a green-and-silver dining hall, and then changing it when he announced they’d actually lost, because after seven years of cheating, it’s not enough for them to just lose. If they’d just lost, they’d think they were cheated out of something that’s rightfully theirs. Allowing them to believe they’d just once again been handed an award they didn’t deserve, and then giving it directly to the house that actually did something to deserve it, teaches a valuable lesson.
Anyway, if we’re going to criticize Dumbledore’s abilities as a school administrator for anything, it’s how unchecked he left Snape’s treatment of his students. Even putting aside the emotional and physical abuse he inflicted on his students, there should have been some provision in place to prevent his abuse of the points system before he had a chance to hand it to his own students for ONE year, let alone seven.
There should have been a provision that the current holder of the house cup is ineligible for participation in the next year’s competition. There should be an upper limit on how many points you can take away from another house’s students, and how many points you can give to your own students. Students should be able to appeal unfair penalties to the headmaster.
Point is, Slytherin shouldn’t get an award just because their head-of-house refuses to play fair
I never thought of it like this before. Thank you so much, OP
j.k.r. needs like one close friend to sit her down and go: “okay, but, go over this with me again. you decided the evil snake your dark wizard kept as a pet and vessel of his fragmented horrific soul – the one that has to be murdered in order to defeat the evil wizard – is in fact….an asian woman who was cursed to eventually become a beast and monster in her own body. am i getting this right? the asian woman turns into a snake because her bloodline is cursed and then she becomes the pet of a white supremacist with magic. you invented a body curse specifically for turning women into monsters and your first thought was not like, subversion of fairy tale misogyny but….to add a layer of racism? just trying to understand here.”
Filch has a doctorate in art conservation and has definitely read Hogwarts A History
Actaully speaking of PoA, can we fuckin talk about Filch and his art credentials?
The portrait of the fat lady gets slashed and Dumbledore hands her off to Filch to get restored?
AND FILCH DOES IT, AND DOES IT WELL?
The next time we see her there is NO mention of anything like, oh she’s back but you can kinda see where she was cut… NO. She comes back in PEAK CONDITION.
Restored by Filch, who *has no magic.*
He restored this however many hundreds of year old painting *by hand.*
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH SKILL MUST HAVE BEEN INVOLVED HERE?
This 100% changes the character of Filch. Like I’ve only ever seen him portrayed as this kind of head janitor kind of character, movies style, but like. Why? Why would Hogwarts need that if it’s full of house elves? According to Harry Oblivious Potter, probably cause Dumbledore felt bad and gave him a shitty job but one he could at least do and still be in the wizarding world.
WRONG. It’s cause that’s not his actual job.
Listen.
Dung bomb goes off in a classroom? Long night for the house elves.
Dung bomb goes off in a 300 year old suit of armor? Long six to eight weeks for Argus Filch.
Fanged frisbee tears up an irreplaceable tapestry?
Filch.
Peeves draws dicks on a portrait of the founders?
Filch.
All these damn kids in and out of here every day acting like dumbasses and blowing stuff up when it’s already bad enough they keep tracking dirt and *breathing* all over everything?
Filch.
Now how about, how does Filch know all the secret passages? A combination of things. Probably paintings told him about some. You spend weeks restoring a portrait of someone who helped build the place which lives and moves and speaks in their voice and you’re bound to at least talk a bit, if not learn a few things. But many he probably found on his own, either by wit or by study- he’s gotta be entrenched in tr history of this place. If Binns hadn’t come back as a ghost Filch could probably teach history of magic in his place.
He keeps the place in order such that generations next will still have it, and said generations next show him no god damn respect for that. He’s bitter for a lot of excellent reasons.
This post just made my morning.
@wizardlogic @poplitealqueen curse and bless you for this post because I – I never noticed that detail. I NEVER NOTICED THAT DETAIL BUT NOW THAT YOU POINTED IT OUT
“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH SKILL MUST HAVE BEEN INVOLVED HERE?
“
YES, OP. YES I DO, BECAUSE MY MOM LITERALLY RESTORES PAINTINGS FOR A LIVING! Oil paintings are one of her specialties and this kind of repair is absolutely possible but it takes YEARS of skill and a SUPER steady hand and a GOOD EYE to do holy shit my ENTIRE VIEW OF FILCH IS UPTURNED TOPSY TURVY DERVY UPSIDEFUCKINGDOWN NOW
From what I recall:
– Slashed, you say? okay, so, if it was a “clean” cut with nothing actually missing, he would likely carefully line it back up but you have to PATCH THE BACK – which takes care and skill and KNOWLEDGE of how to do it right. Also, longer slashes (as might happen with a knife, which I think was the case here) are obviously trickier to line up, requiring more dexterity
– You patch it (if you’re doing it properly) from behind, with another piece of canvas, because canvas is good and sturdy there’s a reason we paint on it but doesn’t that mean he has scraps of the stuff just?? lying around?? or at least somebody got him some asap
– I don’t know what adhesive is used for this if it’s a SMALL slash, but depending on the size, it might be easier to “line the canvas” which means LITERALLY adhering it the original, delicate canvas to a new one with HOT MELTED WAX, which has to be melted ~just so~ so that you’re not damaging the paint (I think it might be a special wax, too, idk, I might be seeing mom tomorrow and ask?? I’ll ask about whether this is also used for the smaller patches if I can remember)
– okay but here’s the tricky part. You’ve gotten it lined up. You’ve patched it. But in order to really and truly HIDE the former tear……..you need to likely do a tiny bit of INPAINTING
– fun fact: this is what it sounds like. You’re painting in the missing parts or messed up parts.
-This means Filch has to have a GOOD eye for color and pattern, and STEADY hand with a brush, because the tear is NOT noticeable.
– he likely also has a good knowledge of the ingredients of oil paint and how to mix/thin/thicken them properly!! FILCH HAS ART TRAINING. LITERALLY. HE’S BEEN TRAINED IN THIS. HE HAS TO BE.
– SIDEBAR: We know (thanks to Colin Creevey’s babbling in Book 2) that Wizarding Photographs move because during the development process, you use some sort of potion to magic it. I would lay good money that there’s something similar that gets added to oil paints, possibly enchanted linseed oil or something, something that would be in the BASE of the paint, since it’s found in all the colors of the magical paintings. He knows how to mix this in, he’s gotta, otherwise this poor woman would have like, a glitch in her painting, right? That’s my headcanon there.
– OH OH I FORGOT!! you never ever EVER want to “match the dirt” on an antique painting you want to match the actual original colors as best you can, so HE HAS TO STRIP THE ORIGINAL VARNISH AND ANY DIRT ON OR UNDER IT BEFORE HE INPAINTS
– THIS IS AN EXTREMELY LONG, DELICATE PROCESS USING OFTEN-NASTY CHEMICAL SOLVENTS. You do it goddamn inch by inch!! with like, Q-tops and cotton balls!! Alternatively, you can use your own spit with Q-tips and Cotton Balls, because spit is the most gentle solvent of all (there’s your Gross Handy Art Restoration Fact of the Day), but either way, jesus, this is a LONG process, it’s EXTREMELY tedious and a lot of really REALLY careful work. Like. My mom, and any decent restorer, will tend to charge HUNDREDS for most restorations, or thousands of dollars for particularly large ones. She charges by one of several Difficulty levels, plus by the square inch because, yeah….that’s a lot of labor. how fucking. big is this painting again???
– then there’s the revarnishing step, because you gotta PROTECT the future painting. or rather, there’s TWO varnishing steps, IIRC because you don’t really want your retouch work to directly lay on the original if you can help it, apaprently? you want it to be removable if you fuck it up or need to redo the repair at any point, apparently?? or something like that. My mom, at least, always does a layer of varnish (tedious in its own right, brushed on carefully to avoid bubbles or streaks) lets it dry for I want to say a day or two it could be longer (I’ll try to remember to ask) and THEN only THEN does she do the inpainting. which you ALSO varnish over. and let dry.
so uh, this might be another case of Jo REALLY getting her timelines awful messy because there’s no fucking way that think took under a few days to fix?? I think we’re looking at over a week MINIMUM, if Filch was really going at it, and that is my not-quite-professional opinion, it might actually be longer
I’m not saying the only way we can reconcile this is by Filch using a time turner to take the painting back in time and start work on it before the fucking school year even starts, but I AM saying that’s one of the only plausible ways I can see that painting getting repaired WITHOUT MAGIC that quickly
but my god, that man must have a really good artistic eye. and like.
it just occurred to me. he’s a squib. he couldn’t get a proper magical education at someplace like Hogwarts, since he cant’ do Charms or Transfigurations or the like, so like?? did he?? go to like a muggle college or something?? did he go to literal art school?? how did that mesh with the magical components of the paintings and other art he might be working on??
DO WIZARDS HAVE AN ART SCHOOL???
ARE ALL WIZARD ARTISTS SELF-TAUGHT??
WAS LEONARDO A WIZARD?? WAS HE SQUIB??? IS THAT WHY HE INVENTED FLYING MACHINE CONCEPTS, BECAUSE HE COULDN”T USE A BROOM?????????I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE BEEN OBSESSING OVER HOW THERE CANNOT POSSIBLY BE ONLY ONE AMERICAN WIZARDING SCHOOL WHEN I COULD HAVE QUESTIONED HOW THEY FUCK THEY HAVE MAGNIFICENT ENCHANTED ART AND TAPESTRIES WITHOUT HAVING WIZARD ART SCHOOLS
and
……….fffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck now i want to fic this??? a little??
@vorpalgirl You made an already brilliant post even more brilliant.
@̼̙̌͡V̛O͏ͫ́R̮͟P̏A̺̼ͮL̛͉G̷̗͐͐͞I͚R̮L̴ͤ͟͡ ̳̋͋Ι͡Y̢҉̠ͫ́O͒́U҉̓ ͜Mͣ̓͝A̵̖̺̭͊D̠̝̙ͥE̻͒ ̨̧̰͔̈
A̵N̷̶̗ ̷̝͊͢͞A̵̹̔͡L͇͓͗ͥͥR̴̘̣͠E҉̜̠͕̀A͉D̋̿Y̞̅̇ ̤̏̋B͏̴̑͗R̫̮I̵͕̽L̛̲̒̕L̨͍̀I̍Ả̴͑͗̐N̙͌̎̀͠T̯͍͡ ̟̔͏P̷͈̄O̰͚҉҉ṠT̴̺ ̀͏̛̩͢
E̶̲̽̓͘V̳҉͉ͪ̃E̠͝͝ΙŃ̽ ̨̙̌͜͜M̢̀̇O̺͠R͕̄̂̌͒Ȇ҉͍ ͉̝͖B̺̰̣R̘͕̻̃I͔L̩̞̰̓̕Lͥ́I̶ͮ́͞A̵Ι̖̕N̴̸ͤT̕ ̕
^EVILHAIKU^bot^2.
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I want to see a fanfic where Harry hatches a basilisk.
I want to see a fanfic where he looks up “magical snakes” as soon as he gets to Hogwarts because that thing at the zoo always bugged him, and so the Trio works out that it’s a basilisk immediately after the first petrification in Second Year. But they don’t know how it’s getting around or where it is or anything, so Harry is just like WELP SET A BASILISK TO FIND A BASILISK while Hermione and Ron are like HARRY NO.
I want to see a fanfic where Harry sticks a chicken egg under a toad and makes all these plans about how he’ll talk to his huge deadly snake and get it eye-blinkers and shit so it doesn’t kill people and make sure it’s not too aggressive, and somehow it never occurs to his twelve-year old brain that the chicken egg has a total volume of about four tablespoons and he is not going to get the giant King of Serpents he is expecting.
I want to see a fanfic where it finally breaks out of the shell and Harry finds himself with a bb!basilisk too smol to even have the murder-eyes yet, who can only petrify someone for about half an hour before the effect wears off. She eats spiders and gets tired very easily and demands that he wear a hood she can curl up in and sleep.
(She is also the same vivid green as his eyes and already hideously venomous, but doesn’t like using her fangs because she says they get cold and give her brain freeze when she unsheathes them.)
I just… I really want Harry with a haughty, demanding, arrogant danger noodle who has an overinflated sense of her own importance, views Hedwig as a TERRIFYING MENACE because she isn’t big enough to eat owls yet and keeps up a steady stream of insults hissed in Harry’s ear whenever she’s near someone who has a Dark Mark (which she can sense at close range). And who is basically useless as a familiar because she refuses to slither across anything other than sun-warmed stones or Harry, hasn’t got a very powerful gaze yet and doesn’t like biting people.
(Except snake-arm-people. She finds snake-arm-people confusing and annoying, and would probably make an exception on the no-biting thing where they’re concerned.)
I mean there are obviously a lot of factors influencing snake growth rate but if we assume basilisks just get stupidhuge because they grow their whole lives and are immortal, this snake is probably going to be at least 8 feet long by Deathly Hallows, which is a significant and intimidating chunk of scaly muscle that is intelligent enough to do what it is told. Like, you know, hey, bite this necklace.
So I mean by like his fourth year it’s going to be pretty hard to hide this snake that is nearly as long as he is tall and it’s not going to do much for his reputation that the Boy Who Lived has a pet fucking basilisk but holy damn does it make book seven a whole hell of a lot shorter.
I feel like I should write this
can you just imagine him ron and hermione coming up with increasingly ridiculous excuses trying to hide their pet baby basilisk in the dorms (hagrid would be so proud). how long do you think it’d take before harry’s pet basilisk is just a really badly hidden secret between all of gryffindor? and the ensuring antics of the entire house as they try to keep mcgonagall from finding out? (she knows something is up, but even just thinking of what could be big enough the entire house is trying to keep it from her makes her want to break out the firewhiskey)
ron gets the idea to try and practices parseltongue with baby basilisk since he hears harry talking in his sleep with it all the time anyway (and ngl, baby basilisk is kind of adorable and eats all the spiders in the dorm so he doesn’t have to deal with them, he’s pretty smitten once she hatches), and as soon as hermione overhears him trying it, she’s dragging him and harry to the library because, well, parseltongue is a language, why can’t they learn it? so it’s the two of them alternating between hissing at harry and hissing at the basilisk and harry is trying so hard not to laugh because 90% of what they’re saying is utter nonsense and the basilisk doesn’t even bother, because she likes these two humans but wow are they dumb, that’s not how words work.
What about once the basilisk gets a bit big the eyes start being an issue and after Ron accidentally gets petrified one evening and it sticks until he misses History of Magic the next morning (he isn’t complaining and Binns sure as hell didn’t notice but if it’s Transfiguration next time there will be a Problem) they have to find a way of dealing with the eyes because one of these days there will be enough power for the permanent kind.
So after a lot of false starts with, like, goggles and shit, Hermione appears with a stack of advanced transfiguration books and the beginnings of a plan to give it eyelids or at least nictitating membranes that the petrification can’t pass through, but even with her being super smart it’s a few years beyond her abilities.
And then Harry sets eyes on the invisibility cloak and says “if you can’t see the eyes, they can’t petrify you.” Well a snake in a cloak doesn’t work too well, but Hermione has heard of the Disillusionment Charm, and that would also solve nearly all of their problems keeping a snake hidden in the dormitory.
So Sibilance Gloriana Theophania Sunstone (she didn’t quite completely name herself, she and Harry had a little conversation about what she likes and what human names mean and also she’s like a six-year-old in snake years so she is named after hissing, two queens, and her favorite thing to sleep on) is now the Invisible Snake of Gryffindor.
Out of necessity, her existence ends up being shared with a few people, either because they’ve tripped over her (Neville, Oliver, Parvati), they’ve accidentally been petrified by her (Neville, Fred), or their twin has found out about her and shared (George).
Fred and George are very keen to have an invisible house snake, and are brilliant at finding new spells to help out: she gains the ability to crawl up the walls like they’re more floor, to levitate and slither in midair, and to fill her venom sacs with substances other than venom; it is extremely rare that she wants to actually kill anything besides dinner, and it is so much more enjoyable to be able to bite people and use her fangs as a delivery system for itching powder or the line of nondrinkable potions Fred and George are in the process of inventing.
By the time the dueling club rolls around, she’s about three feet long and plump on rats and spiders and mice. She bites Lockhart when Snape sends him flying, and Snape ends up taking over the dueling club entirely while Lockhart hurries to the hospital wing with a set of massive boils on his ankle.
When Draco summons the snake with Serpensortia, Harry squeaks with delight and grabs the snake, hissing at it in greeting, and so the whole school learns Harry Potter is a parselmouth by means of an adorable scene with a very friendly, cuddly snake, which doesn’t strike anyone as particularly Dark Lordly at all.
The new snake, of course, can detect the presence of Sibilance, and Sibilance is delighted to have a serpent companion, so they’re happily engaged in conversation as Harry, Ron, and Hermione return to the dormitories. This scene of adorable domestic bliss is interrupted when they get up to Harry’s dorm room with one more snake than usual, and Ron’s pet rat Scabbers suddenly turns into a man and runs shrieking down the stairs.
(Harry has explained Scabbers to Sibilance back when Sibilance was smaller than Scabbers, and she has never attempted to eat him. The new snake, however, has not received this conversation and it’s a very different thing hanging around with a snake who you watched come out of the egg than meeting one that’s several times your size from the get-go. Absent introductions, the new snake assumes it’s dinnertime and Peter Pettigrew, faced with something very like what the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets would look like from Harry’s perspective, decides discovery is a slight improvement on dying and drops his animagus form.)
It is Peter Pettigrew’s poor luck to run into the Entrance Hall just in time to meet Severus Snape, who can put two and two together as well as most people and who is, easily, one of the fastest duelists Hogwarts has seen in recent decades.
Pettigrew’s capture and interrogation result in the release and exoneration of Sirius Black, who has one conversation with Harry, one conversation with Albus, and one conversation with Vernon and Petunia Dursley; the deal they all come to is that after precisely two weeks at Number Four, Privet Drive, during which time Vernon and Petunia will be scrupulously polite, Harry will go and live with his godfather.
Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore agree that a snake is an acceptable pet, and the new snake takes the name Hex, quite a bit of delight in the spells Sibilance has had adapted for her, and the unofficial position of Gryffindor house mascot.
There is widespread interest in learning Parseltongue, and with Harry translating, a number of students take time to learn at least some basic words. Chief among these is Ginny Weasley, who is desperate for someone else safe to confide in about the blank spaces in her memory.
It is Sibilance, not Hex, that finds out about the diary, sneaking down from Hermione’s dorm looking for spiders (really, where have they all gone to?) in time to overhear Ginny crying as she writes in a book that really, really reeks of dark magic.
She bites the book, of course, and then there’s an awful mess and Ginny furious and distressed that the diary, and with it, her friend Tom, are no more. It takes some doing for Sibilance to explain her existence, the nature of the book, and what was likely happening to Ginny; eventually Harry has to be tracked down to translate.
With Tom Riddle gone, they all speculate on the Chamber of Secrets and it’s Ginny with the suggestion that Moaning Myrtle might be the one who died last time the monster was released. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Sibilance, Hex, Ginny, Fred, George, and Neville all head to the bathroom, and from there to the Chamber, where they stand with their eyes closed while Sibilance calls out the massive basilisk.
It’s a long, interesting conversation, and it ends with several spells cast, promises made, and a fascinating comedy of errors as they sneak an invisible basilisk out of the Chamber, through the school, out the main doors, and into the Forbidden Forest where its newfound flying, climbing, and poison-switching abilities will enable it to joyously predate upon the acromantula colony for decades to come.
They all get detentions over the matter when they are caught sneaking back in, less for the Forbidden Forest trip and more for McGonagall’s near heart attack at hearing the whole thing, but there are no more petrifications, the affected students are eventually awoken, and Gryffindor wins the Quidditch Cup, much to Oliver’s joy.
Hex and Sibilance enjoy warming themselves curled up on the fireplace hearth until Sibilance gets too big, and eventually Snape discovers her existence by tripping over her, but that’s another story.
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