BookwormByNight - Ao3

Listen....I get why "cold, apathetic, unemotional TMRJ, learning about feelings from the 'How to Emote For Dummies' " book, stereotype is so popular, but in my HC, Tom's a feral, dramatic, little shit, frightened at how emotional he is. He would love to be a cold, distant, unattached, Spock like individual but he isn't.

Guys can't you see he's glass pretending to be stone? Glass is razor sharp yes, can cut you till you bleed to death, absolutely. But so fragile and breakable too. That's probably his biggest secret- how in need of validation and support he really is.

Unemotional my foot. Which unemotional person you know curses a teaching position just because he was denied for the same? Which detached individual carries cold, venomous rage against his father for leaving his mother for 15 years, and as soon as he's legally able to use magic, goes and kills him?

Tom admittedly has low reservoir of empathy and nil moral filter. But that doesn't make him unemotional.

The emotions he experiences probably ranges from incandescent rage to seething resentment, but negative emotions= still emotions.

We are witnessing a Harry renaissance happening in real time everybody. People are at last waking up to the fact that Harry was in fact, an intelligent, competent and smart wizard (how shocking when it really shouldn't be).

Hi 👋

Yeah, I'm familiar with the theory that the Dursleys were affected by the Horcrux in Harry, I don't think that's the case. We don't see anyone else being mean to Harry for no apparent reason. Ron and Hermione spend just as much if not more time around him and they never seem affected by any Horcrux magic.

The Dursleys are just bad people. Bad people I can understand the motivations of, but bad people nonetheless.

The text literally explains to us what Petunia's deal is. She's jealous:

“You knew?” said Harry. “You knew I’m a — a wizard?” “Knew!” shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. “Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that — that school — and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was — a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!”

(PS, 41)

Vernon is an all-around unpleasant guy who likes it when things are normal. He loves his family in his own way, but he's incredibly intolerant of anything he doesn't consider the epitome of normal.

As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn’t bear people who dressed in funny clothes — the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren’t young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him!

(PS, 6)

Dudley is more complicated, he was a child, with his very shitty parents who were the worst possible rule models for him, you can easily understand why he turned out the way he did. We also see he is capable of growth:

“I don’t think you’re a waste of space.” If Harry had not seen Dudley’s lips move, he might not have believed it. As it was, he stared at Dudley for several seconds before accepting that it must have been his cousin who had spoken for one thing. Dudley had turned red. Harry was embarrassed and astonished himself. “Well . . . er . . . thanks, Dudley.” [...] “But he hasn’t said thank you at all!” said Hestia indignantly. “He only said he didn’t think Harry was a waste of space!” “Yeah, but coming from Dudley that’s like ’I love you,”’ said Harry, torn between annoyance and a desire to laugh as Aunt Petunia continued to clutch at Dudley as if he had just saved Harry from a burning building

(DH, 40)

The fact Dudley’s treatment of Harry changed over the years and he became a better person thanks to knowing Harry proves the Horcrux didn't affect the Dursleys' behavior towards him. After all, if it did, Dudley wouldn't improve like this.

But the main reason I oppose the Horcrux made the Dursleys bad theory, though, is a narrative one.

I mean, shrugging all of the Dursleys' abuse of Harry to magical nonsense cheapens it. It gives them an excuse and basically absolves them. It means Dudley and his parents don't need to change, they're fine, it's just evil magic affecting their brains. It makes Dudley's small turnaround at the end worthless.

And worse than that, in my opinion, is how it makes Harry the cause of his own misery. I think it sends the completely wrong message to say that the abused kid is causing their own abuse by a magical halo that makes people evil to him. Like, that idea in itself is something I find incredibly vile.

Like, child abuse is awful, children in these environments often think there is a reason they are treated that way. That there's something they can do to make their treatment better. To make their guardians like them...

But there isn't. It was never their fault and the treatment isn't fair. There is no justification or reason that makes it okay.

Like why are we casting a charm every time we want to know what time it is? Just look at a clock! Or a watch! How annoying would it be to cast a charm when you could just like...turn your head...

In fact, I'd argue it's canon breaking. We see multiple examples of wizards coming of age and immediately start using magic for everything, to a great inconvenience to everyone around them. Harry trying to summon his glasses (admittedly only inconveniences himself), Fred and George trying to avoid carrying a casserole and their trunks (the latter injuring Ginny), etc. Imagine Hogwarts if every lesson, students would just summon their school books. They'd crash in the corridors, knock people on the heads and shoulders and stomachs etc etc.

I think fandom spells like "tempus" disregard the hypocrisy of the wizarding world. Magic users are sooooo annoyed by Muggles but they adapt Muggle inventions all the time--the Weasley family clock, The Knight Bus, "spello" tape, wacky elevators, etc.

I don't know why it still sticks out to me, but there was a scene in either the first or second Fantastic Beasts movie, and they were like, setting the table for dinner, and it was all "magical" and "fantastical" in they way they levitated all the food and cutlery and whatnot, and it really annoyed me! The filmmakers were like, "Look! Look! They use MAGIC to do stuff that us real people would have to do by hand!" It got SUCH a big eye roll from me because it assumes that Muggles should be jealous of witches rather than the inverse that the magical world has to borrow ideas from Muggles and then adapt them rather than having an original idea themselves.

Anyway, I think there's a lot of stuff that magic can do, and sure, there's probably a spell that tells times, but...what a weird step take as a writer to make someone cast that type of spell. Clocks are world-building. Watches are world-building.

If it only matters what time it is and not the world-building, you can just say, "It was eight o'clock." We don't have to see HOW the character found out the time--as readers, we can assume there's a clock or watch somewhere. And if there IS NOT a clock or watch available, that's actually notable!

As I write this, I'm realizing this is a probably filtering thing. Emerging writers (and sometimes also experienced writers, cough cough) have this tendency to write something like:

"Harry saw on the alarm clock that it was half-past seven."

vs.

"According to the alarm clock, it was half-past seven."

The first example shows Harry + Harry seeing something + the reader finding out what Harry is seeing--that's filtering. What we see is filtered through Harry before it gets to us.

The second example makes the reader and Harry experience something at the same time. It immerses the reader. It also demonstrates trust in the reader since we can trust the reader understands that Harry is looking at a clock even if we don't explicitly say so. The first example, however, reminds the reader that we are not Harry and we are seeing through his eyes. It can break the flow and immersion of the narration if used too frequently or inappropriately.

Okay, so what does "tempus" have to do with this? It demonstrates that the author wants to tell the audience what time it is, but does it without considering characterization, the overall world, and/or without trusting the reader. If tempus is a completely ordinary spell, you still do NOT need to tell the reader it was used UNLESS it is pertinent to the story (plot/characterization/world-building).

Let's say that the tempus spell really does exist but we know that watches ALSO exist. Turning your wrist or looking at a clock is still faster than casting a spell--AND, you can't even cast that spell outside of school until you're seventeen. (If you're home from Hogwarts, you're not gonna wake up on a Saturday morning in August, wonder if it's early enough to sleep another hour, go downstairs, find your mom, ask her to cast a time spell, and then go back to bed if it's only six o'clock.)

Okay, so we know that clocks and watches exist and are more energy and time efficient in actually telling the time. Okay. So if someone is CHOOSING TO USE A TIME SPELL, it should indicate SOMETHING. Maybe the person's watch is broken (this actually happens to Harry in GoF). Maybe they woke up in a dark room with no clocks. Maybe their beloved heirloom watch is missing. Maybe the pale patch of skin where the watch usually is makes the character suddenly very sad and in order to shake the feeling, they tell themselves they don't need a watch anyway because they can use magic to tell the time... Sure.