natural hater

By which I mean, Harry is not inherently a good person.

If you think Harry could never be as bad as Tom, never kill, never be cruel or evil then you fundamentally misunderstand his character and the story. The whole point of Harry is not that he is naturally or easily good, the point of him is that he chooses to be good. For that choice to be meaningful, it actually has to be a choice, meaning that he must then have the capacity and ability for evil as much as Tom does.

If Harry is naturally more "good" than Tom no matter what awful things Tom inflicts on him, if he is just too pure and incorruptible, then he is not really Harry. Harry is corruptible, Harry could've turned out like Tom. That's why they're so similar, that's why Harry relates to Tom. That's why he worries about turning out like him. Not because he finds Tom's choices unfathomably evil, but because he understands them.

If Harry was raised the way Tom was, he wouldn't necessarily turn out much different. If he was isolated and neglected and terrified in the same away, with no friends, no loving parents, no adults to support him, then their similarities would be impossible to ignore.

And if you want to show that Harry is choosing to be good and not just a natural born bleeding heart saint you need to make that clear, you need let him be cruel and selfish and violent sometimes, you need to show him falling before he chooses to stand up.

So much of this fandom feels the need to make Harry completely unlike himself. Going to immense lengths to make him nicer, kinder, more forgiving, more emotional, more stupid, more naive, more trusting, more and more of what he isn't in order to show that he is different from Tom. When the whole point of their connection, and Harry's eventual understanding of Tom Riddle, is their similarities, not their differences. Harry knows Tom because he knows himself, and imo, this desperation to make Harry as unlike Tom as possible is holding us back from some truly great exploration of their relationship.

Not everything needs to be opposites, just because Tom is bad doesn't mean Harry is incapable of murder or lying or torture. He shows us in canon he is capable of all that without any remorse. Two characters can have similar traits that present differently. They can both lie and be suspicious and clever at the same time. In fact, that increases the suspense and tension between them!

Honestly, I suspect this unspoken rule of opposites is heterosexual in origin. But for the record, Harry is not whatever Tom isn't, and neither is Tom simply what Harry lacks, they are complex characters with many shared traits and behaviours (deceitful, suspicious, resourceful, intelligent, stubborn).

jump into the fog

Harry Potter/Tom Riddle. Rated E. Chapters 1/?. For @tomegamort

summary:

Rookie Auror Harry Potter is sure that acting as Minister for Magic Tom Riddle's security detail for the day will wind up being yet another boring assignment. He couldn't be more wrong.

After being dosed by a mysterious political enemy, Harry and Tom's suppressants are over ridden—forcing them into simultaneous heat and rut. The best course of action, they decide, is to go through it together.

a) laid into one of the people he respected most in the world (and the only authority figure in his life offering him help in one of the most desperate situations he’d ever been in) for leaving his pregnant wife, going “man, you’re inhibited by your own self-loathing and fear? That’s rough. That really sucks. But you know what trumps that? RESPONSIBILITY. You brought a child into the world. You’re a father now. You’re scared? Walk it off. Walk it off AAAAAALLLL THE WAY BACK HOME. And say hi to Tonks for me.”

or

Just like I did with another post, I decided to make my own bringing up the same points, because I think they’re relevant enough to stand on their own. So I genuinely don’t understand where this idea comes from —that Harry was manipulated by Dumbledore from the very beginning, that he should never have trusted him — and from these ideas, people somehow jump to the conclusion that Harry was Dumbledore’s puppet the entire time, caught in some political game between him and Voldemort, while ignoring Voldemort being Harry’s equal, something confirmed in the books:

“He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him,” said Dumbledore. “And notice this, Harry. He chose, not the pureblood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you

OotP

Why did Voldemort pick Harry and not Neville?

JK Rowling: Dumbledore explains this in 'Order of the Phoenix'. Voldemort identified more with the half-blood boy and therefore decided he must be the greater risk.

Reinforced by the author herself.

‘The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…’

And the quote above was even pointed out in an article on the official Harry Potter site that literally says: 7 times that Professor Trelawney actually got it right.

It’s worth noting that the same quote explicitly says “The one,” which refers to Harry himself, not to him as a tool for another character, or even for those who stood by him and helped him along the way. I’ve seen people try to lean on the idea of collectivity and the lesson on friendship of the series to argue otherwise, as if the core of the saga didn’t begin with Harry and Voldemort being marked as equals. It’s not about a collective standing above the individual and diluting the protagonist’s agency; it’s about how that very collective forms and organizes itself around him.

So, it doesn’t make sense for a series called Harry Potter to have its own protagonist reduced to being groomed into Dumbledore’s puppet. Harry didn’t even trust Dumbledore with everything, and he spent a good part of the series trying to hide things from him. Like in GoF, when he never told him about his dreams or the pain in his scar. In HBP, he fully disagrees with Dumbledore about Draco and Snape, proving he doesn’t always trust his judgments. He also sees Hermione as the one who trusts Dumbledore’s authority the most. Even if they share similar values, Harry literally grew up wary of Dumbledore’s secrecy, and he wasn’t one to be restrained when it came to pursuing things on his terms.

Harry has immense respect for him, not just because he believes in his intentions — in the cause behind them — but because there’s an almost paternal bond there. So why is that framed as blind trust? Their relationship is more complex than that!

It’s always about reducing things into easily digestible concepts— the same way people take the good vs evil framework, rendered as Harry (the hero) = pure and naive, Voldemort (the villain) = impure and heartless. And that’s the same logic here, because Dumbledore is a manipulative – “impure” – figure, Harry is then positioned against him, cast as the “pure” counterpart and automatically reduced to a passive lamb. All the nuance gets ignored, as if actions could only exist in a single, illogical dimension.

That kind of interpretation fails to account for Harry Potter himself.

Harry was a soldier— DA’s leader, carrying out a mission he believed in, just as much as Dumbledore did. And he had plenty of personal reasons for it; to end the war that had defined his entire life, and to make sure no one else had to die for something that was always meant to end with him. His sacrifice was a choice — one he had the courage and honor to make himself. Again, like a soldier, like a hero — not because he was being manipulated by Dumbledore.

Gimme one sec searching something real quick

Moment of truth....

while “writers write for themselves first and foremost” and “fanfic reading is a form of self care and no reader should feel pressured to kudos or comment on the fic they read” are both true, kudos and positive comments are still so appreciated. and as a fellow writer, I can tell for a fact that while I do write for myself and my own enjoyment, seeing lovely comments from my readers always motivates me to write more and write faster.

unfortunately some people choose to avoid ongoing fics because they either want to wait for the whole thing to get posted first or they’re afraid writers will abandon the works and leave those works unfinished. but the thing is that if you want long, multi-chapter fics, letting writers know you love and appreciate their hard works by giving them kudos and commenting nice things on their ongoing fics will almost definitely always motivate writers to write. and also, writing can be hard. I know writers who pull all-nighters doing researches on their fics. I know writers who put so much time, effort and dedication into their fics. the fics they allow people to read for free. please let them know you love and appreciate their works if you can, especially with the raise of bots (it can be super discouraging for a writer to see that the only comments their fics get are from bots and scam).

Dead on the inside.

What started as anatomy practice, obviously turned into whatever Tom this is.

Voldemort's snakey visage? All parseltongue related, except the red eyes.

I want Harry who one day notices his pupils turning into thin slits when he looks into the mirror, who tastes the bitter poison filling his mouth but never harms him. His tongue feels weird in his mouth with its changing shape, but he can smell the people around him, their lies that taste all wrong. He finds his first patch of soft shimmering scales two weeks after Voldemort died and the magic of not-dying that he was exposed to accelerated the process.