Harry Potter

Alright, so you know the prophecy of either Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom being destined to kill Voldemort? If not, a quick refresher:

“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 I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, because (hear me out guys) Voldie and Dumbles were only tracking known children in wizarding world.

That begs the question: What about the children born and raised in the muggle world?

Yes, I know that the prophecy says “born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies”. HEAR ME OUT you might just love it

About the thrice defied thing, that isn’t specific, is it? It isn’t all like “If you have had the Dark Lord at wand point (not like that) your child born at the end of July might be one of the ones to defeat this dude”

So, imagine. I want you to imagine a muggle dropping a coin. Doesn’t seem significant, right? BUT WAIT! Voldemort comes along and slightly slips on the coin, which causes one of his aimed spells to miss its target.

Defied once.

That same muggle sets up a prank for one of their friends, of which Voldie stalks into the building (planning on killing one of his followers hiding in there) and promptly gets hit in the face by some pie.

The expelled half-giant. The young werewolf. The repentant Death Eater.

He protects them and gives them a second chance. All he asks in return is their loyalty.

And, if on occasion he requests that they undertake a certain task, invoking their debt of gratitude - well, that is no more than he is owed.

He once thought to add a certain disowned Black to his collection, but quickly realised his mistake.

Sirius is not an outcast, but a rebel. He knowingly chose his path, and chooses what price he is willing to pay for it. He refuses to be used.

Harry was an outcast due to a childhood filled with abuse and neglect. 

Vernon made him an outcast by dismissing his claims of magic, berating him, locking him in a CLOSET and putting bars on his window, and let’s face it, even though her editor made her cut it out, Jo intended for there to be physical abuse. 

Petunia made him an outcast by enabling and contributing to this abuse, as well as making Harry do dozens of chores while doting on Dudley. 

Dudley made him an outcast by bullying him and threatening any students at school who wanted to be his friends. 

And the rest of the wizarding world made him an outcast when they bullied him for being an outsider.

Harry James Potter became an outcast the moment he was placed with The Dursleys.

Think about it What would Harry have been like if he had grown up in the wizarding world? Or, to put it another way, what would Harry have been like if he had grown up in a world where magic was the norm?

He would have taken magic for granted. He would have been less likely (especially as he got older) to view Dumbledore as a wise mentor and more likely to see him as flawed and capable of bad decisions. He would have seen both the world and Dumbledore as ordinary, with their good points and bad points.

But Dumbledore didn’t need a well-adjusted boy who took magic and the magical world for granted. He needed a child who would love the magical world unstintingly, even irrationally, because it was a haven from neglect and abuse. Even more, he needed a child who feared this world becoming evil and who therefore would not question someone that he saw as the ultimate authority, especially if he believed that obeying that authority would keep the world safe.

Even if obedience meant his own death.

Dumbledore wanted a martyr who would die for the wizarding world, because he believed that Voldemort could not die until Harry did. Which was why he left Harry with the Dursleys and let them neglect and emotionally abuse him for the next ten years.

James was more than “a little too aggressive” in his pursuit of Lily. He relentlessly bullied her best friend, and at one point even tried to use this as leverage to get Lily to date him (he’d stop the torment, if Lily would agree to a date). Lily herself calls him out on how he is a bully, saying he walks down corridors, hexing anyone who annoys him just because he can. When they get together in 7th year, it’s because he supposedly has stopped his bullying ways, but continues to bully Severus in secret behind her back. That is canon. That is said by Sirius and Remus, after Harry saw “Snape’s worst memory” and was appalled at how fucking horrid his father was.

And, why is it that James constantly bullies Severus?

JK herself said: “James always suspected Snape harboured deeper feelings for Lily, which was a factor in James’ behaviour towards Snape.“ 

So. Because Severus Snape was Lily Evans’ best friend, and a guy, James worried that he was a rival for her affections, and from day one targeted him for bullying. Because how dare Severus even think he has the right to talk to her, when obviously James is the one she should pay attention to.

The only character we see not respect Lily’s rejection is James Potter. This is canon. He doesn’t ever take “no” for an answer. He refuses to. He resorts to lying to her in order to finally get her to date him.

Severus Snape, for one, never tried to be anything more to Lily than her friend. We are given no evidence to the contrary. And when she breaks off their friendship, he leaves her alone. We see him bargain for her life, we see him mourn her, but we see nothing to suggest he ever talked to her again after she ended their friendship. He respected her decision, and backed off.

1- There is absolutely no evidence in canon that James ‘relentlessly’ pursued Lily. That is fanon. Sure fanon has that trope about James repetitively asking Lily out and almost stalking her. In canon we only see James ever ask Lily out ONCE. In Snape’s worst memory. The rest of the time we see Snape having to tell Lily that James fancies her and there is no evidence she even knew about it before that, then we have Lily actively defend the maradaurs to Snape asking him why he was so obessed with them :

(DH, The Prince’s tale, p540 bloomsburry edition )

“… thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying. “Best friends?” “We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging around with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him Sev? He’s creepy! D'you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?” Lily ha reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all -” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny -” “What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape. His colour rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed to hold in his resentment. “What’s Potter to do with anything?” said Lily. “They sneak out at night. There’s something weird about that Lupin. Where does he keep going?” “He’s ill,” said Lily. “They say he’s ill -” “Every month at the full moon?” said Snape. “I know your theory,” said Lily, and she sounded cold “Why are you so obsessed with them, anyway? Why do you care what they’re doing at night?” “I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.” The intensity of his gaze made her blush; “They don’t use Dark Magic, though”.

Now, what does this scene tells you. First for someone who supposedly didn’t give as good as he got and was only the helpless victim of James, we learn that : 1- Lily doesn’t understand why he is so obsessed with them and can’t see the resemblance between the marauders and the very real, blood supremacist, dark magic using bullies that Snape was hanging out with and found funny. 2- Snape was very clearly trying to out Remus and actively trying to prove his case; so please do tell me, if this isn’t reason enough for James to hate Snape then what is? Not only did Snape actively try back when he was 15, but he DID out Remus years later because he couldn’t let go of the past when Remus was being nothing but cordial with him.

2- Which brings me to my next point, the idea that Snape was an innocent victim and not a bully himself is utter bullshit.

Let’s look at another excerpt from the books shall we:

(DH, The Prince’s tale, p542, Blommsburry edition)

“I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just -” “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?” He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. “I can’t pretend any more. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.” “No – listen, I didn’t mean -” “- to call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

Now what does this tells us? This tells us that unlike what the Snape apologists often love to pretend, Snape wasn’t an inactive by stander in the wannabe-death eaters sessions of muggleborns bullying. He actively took part in it, he actively threw slurs at them. Lily herself mention that and Snape doesn’t deny any of it.

Not only that but we also know that Snape invented Levicorpus, which we later see James use, how do you think James learned it if not because he had it used against him? We even see Snape use Sectusempra on James; Sectusempra, aka the spell capable of cutting someone open and leave them to bleed to death. This is the kind of experimentation Snape did with Dark Magic, so spare me if I don’t buy the “poor innocent Snape” narrative. He was a bully at school, going after muggleborn with his band of magical equivalent to the Hitler youth. But aside from that, please do tell me more about how Snape was innocent and never gave as much as he got when even LILY calls him out on his bullying of Muggleborns and admitted herself that she couldn’t excuse him anymore.

“Severus Snape, for one, never tried to be anything more to Lily than her friend. We are given no evidence to the contrary. And when she breaks off their friendship, he leaves her alone. We see him bargain for her life, we see him mourn her, but we see nothing to suggest he ever talked to her again after she ended their friendship. He respected her decision, and backed off.”

Excuse me? We should admire him because he backed off after HE threw a slur at her and still tried to talk to her when she didn’t want to, even saying he would sleep in front of the common room if she refused to have that talk?

And above all, we should think Snape is such a great guy because he bargained for her life? WHAT? Snape - may I remind you - was the reason why her life was even in danger to start with! Snape is the one who sold a BABY’S LIFE to Voldemort without second thoughts and only backed off when he realized that the baby in question was Lily’s. And not only that but he only partly backed off because he didn’t give a shit about what would happen to Harry and James, AKA the man she loved and HER SON. Dumbledore himself called him out on it:

“You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. “You do not care, then about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?”

I genuinely cannot believe my eyes that some people are trying to paint this as a selfless act on Snape’s part. If it had been Neville he would have let him die without blinking, just like he was ready to let Harry die, a ONE YEAR OLD BOY and the son of the woman he claimed to love. I do not doubt that he loved her, but his love was entirely and completely selfish and none of what he did was for her. He did what he did for himself and to feel better about what he had caused. Snape was not a good person. Snape was bad guy who did the right thing for the wrong reasons. All his life he remained the same bitter bullying douchebag, he bullied kids as a gorwn ass man, he never got over it unlike James.

The point of Snape isn’t “good is not nice”, the point of Snape is “you don’t have to be a good person to do the right thing”. “Good is not nice” is in fact the point of James. Was James an immature “toerag” (as Lily colourfully put it) when he was 15? Sure he was, but his heart was always at the right place which is something we cannot say of Snape. And he grew out of it, which is another thing we cannot say of Snape.

The fact that James bullied Snape isn’t the only thing we know of him. We also know that James welcomed Sirius in his home when the later had nowhere to go, we know that James accepted Remus for who he was and became an Animagus to help him, we know that James befriended three outcasts without caring about how uncool they were, from what family they came from or what disease they had to deal with, we know that James was ALWAYS disgusted with pure blood supremacy as evidenced by his reaction when Snape calls Lily the m-blood in front of him. We know that when Snape was busy joining the Death Eaters fresh out of school, James was joining the Order and fighting against Voldemort from the start (a war that as a pure blood he could have stayed entirely out of). We know he defied Voldemort three times and lived to tell the tale, we know that he died throwing himself between Voldemort and his wife and child without even a wand to try to give them time to escape. James was a good person who wasn’t always nice and grew out of his bullying way.

Every characters aside from Snape always describe the Marauders as this generation Fred and George (who by the way also did a number of questionable things, such as shoving Montague in the vanishing cabinet, feeding Dudley their toffees or turning Neville into a bird). Were they always nice? No. Did they bully Snape?  Yes. Where they still good people? Yes. James included.

“ “And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it,“said Lupin.

“Even Snape?” said Harry.      

“Well,“said Lupin slowly,“Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn’t really expect James to take that lying down, could you?“  ” - OOTP

Dudley, age 14 and realizing his mother’s Loving-but-Ill-advised cooking is setting him up for some serious health problems, and that he’s tall enough to look his dad in the eye now, so his previous rationale of “If he’s hitting Harry he’s not Hitting Me” doesn’t hold up now, and goes full Eye of The Tiger to cope.

This means Sirus gets dragged along on a lot of Parent-avoiding “Walkies”

So many that one evening after a fight Dudley is trying to round up Harry and Sirius for a cooldown run and Sirius groans “Oh you’re big lads you can jog to the tesco on your own.” from the couch There’s a hot moment of silence.

“He’s a Magic Dog.” Says Harry.

“What do you mean your dog is a 40-year-old man?” “What do you mean your Dad’s BFF?” “What do you mean convicted criminal?” What do you mean WIZARD HITLER WANTS YOUR HIDE??” “..Shit I gotta up my workout routine.” “You’re not gonna punch Voldermort out Dudley.” “Not with these wimpy biceps I won’t.”

Shit’s getting increasingly tense in the house so when Ron announces they have tickets to the Quidditch World Cup Harry has to ask “Hey, can Dudley come too?”

Dudley might be short on wizarding skills but one thing he’s learned at Fancy rich boy School is the art of Schmooze.  They meet Corneilus Fudge and Dudley charms the hell out of him. Fudge doesn’t even realize he’s not a Wizard.   Harry tries to impress upon him the ‘VOLDERMORT’S ALIVE WITH A CULT DIPSHIT” upon him and nearly ends up in tears before Dudley takes his arm and whispers “Let me Handle This.”

Thirty minutes later Corneilus is organizing a Task Force of Aurors. 

“What the fuck do they teach you there?” asks Harry. “Oh, buttering egos, Trigonometry, grift, the usual.” “What’s Trigonometry?” Asks Ron, walking with them on a field trip through Muggle London for Nandos.  Dudley’s Uncle “Gerald White” is supervising them it’s fine. Dudley stares for a moment. “You guys… are learning math, along with your Divination and Transmorfigication and whatsits, right?” There is an awkward silence. Even Sirius considers morphing back into a dog to avoid this conversation. “Oh for fucks sake.” Sighs Dudley, texting Hermionie to see if she brought her Muggle textbooks along.

(She Did)

“What’s trigonometry?” some pureblood at the World Cup asks him. “It’s a variant of arithmancy,” says Harry, who’s become somewhat adept at bullshitting translations between magical and muggle things when the incentive was avoiding Aunt Marge’s wrath.

Nobody’s ever heard of trigonometry except for one elderly pureblood witch, who had heard it mentioned once back in school by a classmate who went on to become a famous name in advanced and extremely theoretical arithmancy.

Everybody loses no time in agreeing that trigonometry must be this tremendously advanced arithmancy specialization and Dudley Dursley must be an absolute arithmancy prodigy to the point where even the arithmancy buffs don’t want to risk making themselves look stupid by asking him about his research.

OBVIOUSLY Dudley goes to some extremely foreign wizarding school with an advanced research program available. There can’t be many of them with an advanced “trigonometry” program like that, so nobody asks which school it is because what if there’s only one of them and they look stupid for not knowing about it?

Besides, Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is giving him the time of day like he’s someone really important, so, yeah.

Oh, yeah, he’s definitely the type of absent-minded brilliance that forgets his wand regularly, head in the clouds with all those theorems.

Dudley actually takes up computer programming at Smeltings. He tried it out because he likes video games, and then sort of fell in love with the process, the building something up out of lines of code, the thrill of success when it works. The awestruck reactions of wizards who see a couple of his notebooks when he sits there scribbling out code on a spiralbound notebook with a ballpoint pen is almost tangible.

The ballpoints and the notebooks take some suspicion for their muggleness until Harry points out that you don’t need to pay attention to how much ink is left and when you need to dip it, so it’s perfect for somebody who might want to scribble out whole pages of that stuff without noticing whether they’ve run out of ink, and the notebooks have pages so you could remember where something is. Pretty soon quill-tipped ballpoints are all the rage and spiralbound parchment stacks are being sold in all the stores.

Somebody asks Dudley about his family history. “Oh, they’ve all been like me,” he says, “as far back as anybody remembers” and he means not-a-wizard, but everybody thinks the opposite.

His father is blustery and yells and prone to explosive bursts of anger, he says, and his mother is obsessed with cleanliness and etiquette, and everyone is perfectly happy to never suggest they’d like to meet them.

Once Dudley figures out that everyone thinks he’s a wizard, he and Harry have a solid laugh over it and Harry teaches Dudley what he’d need to know to continue the deception. Fred and George are brought into the equation and provide him with lots of cool tricks and such so that he can appear to do some small bits of magic now and again.

He eventually marries Daphne Greengrass, who knows about his muggleness at that point and loves the idea of getting one over on her overly bloodpurist parents without them ever knowing about it. Harry and Sirius quietly gift them Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, and the assumption that Dudley has the sort of money that buys a historic Pureblood property as a starter home goes round and round.

“all the pureblood dipshits tithed thier land and holdings to Voldemort so when Harry kills him, all the assets go to him and now he owns half of wizarding UK.”

- Dumbledore contacts Lupin before Harry attends Hogwarts and has him learn sign language and hires him as an interpreter for Harry during classes

- Snape: “are you listening to me potter?”

Harry, speaking to the best of his ability: “to be fair I can’t listen to anyone, however I was, in fact, paying attention”

-Hermione tirelessly helping Harry with speech and pronunciation so he can get spells right

-Ron aggressively trying to learn sign language to communicate with Harry and he’s so embarrassed he can’t get the hang of it at first but Harry thinks it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for him because what are friends??

-Draco, mouthing: “I hate you”

Harry, misreading hate as date: “If you wanted a date you should have said something sooner.”

-Harry signing rude things at Umbridge.

Umbridge: “What did he say!?”

Lupin: “he said you’re charming.”

-The entire Weasley family learning basic sign language for whenever Harry is with them, making him feel more at home since the Dursley’s never made a decent effort with it.

- McGonagall aware of Harry’s condition from observation at the Dursley’s prepared and learned sign language and signs when she can during her class, allowing Lupin the occasional break.

McGonagall: “You’re not sneaky Mr. Weasley; I very well know what you just signed.”

- Voldemort monologuing in sign language

Harry: “I’m sorry I don’t understand, I’m blind.”

Harry: *closes his eyes*

- Dumbledore contacts Lupin before Harry attends Hogwarts and has him learn sign language and hires him as an interpreter for Harry during classes

- Snape: “are you listening to me potter?”

Harry, speaking to the best of his ability: “to be fair I can’t listen to anyone, however I was, in fact, paying attention”

-Hermione tirelessly helping Harry with speech and pronunciation so he can get spells right

-Ron aggressively trying to learn sign language to communicate with Harry and he’s so embarrassed he can’t get the hang of it at first but Harry thinks it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for him because what are friends??

-Draco, mouthing: “I hate you”

Harry, misreading hate as date: “If you wanted a date you should have said something sooner.”

-Harry signing rude things at Umbridge.

Umbridge: “What did he say!?”

Lupin: “he said you’re charming.”

-The entire Weasley family learning basic sign language for whenever Harry is with them, making him feel more at home since the Dursley’s never made a decent effort with it.

- McGonagall aware of Harry’s condition from observation at the Dursley’s prepared and learned sign language and signs when she can during her class, allowing Lupin the occasional break.

McGonagall: “You’re not sneaky Mr. Weasley; I very well know what you just signed.”

- Voldemort monologuing in sign language

Harry: “I’m sorry I don’t understand, I’m blind.”

Harry: *closes his eyes*