The seventh trumpet

harry didn't see the system as in need of dismantling. he just thought the people in charge were at fault and must be replaced. he saw issues in the system not as systemic flaws, but as specific to the people in power 

his ambition to become an auror was not out of the blue, either. he started talking about it in goblet of fire. an adult he respected (fake moody) praised him (a rare occurence), and he took it to heart forever and ever. he seized on the idea of becoming an auror and never thought of anything else he'd like to do, later justifying it as the best way to survive. 

lack of passion and motivation is a symptom of his clinical depression. no wonder he seized on the first idea provided, never doing any more research, never hunting down jobs and exploring his options. being an auror was fine. it was a cool job. he'd take it. 

and no wonder he didn't consider doing something just for the sake of enjoyment, like a career in quidditch or teaching. would that even cross his mind? 

harry had intense survivor’s guilt, spent the first eleven years of his life being treated as subhuman, some thing whose wants and needs were irrelevant. then he went on to become a martyr, burdened by saving the wizarding world. of course everything harry did was about increasing his odds of survival. he was just trying to stay alive, make it through each day.

BUT. when the role of an auror was offered up to him on a silver platter by scrimgeour, he refused because he disagreed with what the ministry was doing. he didn't want to be used. and he had a new purpose at this point, no longer had the time or need to be trained as an auror to survive.

but after saving the wizarding world, when those in charge were replaced, he now got to be part of the system, and he didn't see this as a problem. harry was not the anti-government hero people like to think. he hated the government that tormented him, but just like with house elves, he didn't think this meant the system itself was unsustainable. he would not become an auror when the ministry was doing things he disapproved of. but when the incompetent or corrupt leaders were replaced by people he knew and respected? he absolutely would.

Harry's psychology (as the OP rightly pointed out, influenced by his harrowing childhood and by what reads very much like clinical depression) does not, in his particular case, lend itself to a life of post-war quiet or untroubled stillness. That simply isn't where his character's internal compass points. His version of a normal life is not the absence of conflict. And this is something that makes itself felt even beyond what he can consciously regulate. It seems rooted in his internal configuration.

What he seeks, then, isn't peace as passive tranquility, but control and self-direction.

The ability to choose his path without himself or those he loves being ensnared by structurally inherited violence. And within his individual framework, becoming a Head Auror is a continuation of his past, yet reconstituted under his own authority. Not a renunciation of what he once was, nor an attempt to overwrite the self forged in conflict, but rather a reconfiguration of that same self in the absence of war.

Tomarry (Jennifer’s Body AU): Part 2

Harry canonically thinks Tom is more attractive with long-ish hair oh I’m winning so hard rn.

I love you Harry Potter I don’t know how you were so oblivious when in every scene Tom was mentioned, you could not help yourself but to proclaim how dashing and handsome he was compared to the rest of his peers.

And also probably a weird question but um apart from hp fandom, are you aware that even other fandoms intervene and hate/criticise Harry ? How do you feel about that and how do you keep yourself away ? I know its usually the loudest parts being stirred up on the internet and there are millions of fans who i'm sure doesn't feel that way, and all these fan wars are deliberately fuelled by content creators for profit, still it bothers me and annoys me more than it should.

Did I comment that? I usually say that a certain corner of my fandom (the Tomarrymort fandom) tends to understand Harry for who he truly is in canon. But if you take the time to really sift through his tag, you'll come across some posts that are genuinely insightful and detailed. The fandom as a whole is pretty much a russian roulette when it comes to Harry takes. You have to know exactly who to follow… lol.

And yeah, low-stakes haters. There is nothing unusual about them. Harry Potter is a globally famous, long-standing work written for a broad audience. If you consider how many other stories have been shaped in its wake, and how many people have engaged with it over the years, admiration and backlash are bound to grow side by side. And Rowling's public controversies only amplify that... and inevitably reflecting back onto Harry, since he carries the symbolic weight of the narrative as its protagonist.

In our fandom, Tom Riddle is a romanticized character. Even in dark and macabre fics, his most unattractive qualities aren’t really showcased, and when they are, they’re usually portrayed pretty favorably. Now obviously there’s nothing wrong with reinventing and redefining characters—imo, you definitely should. But just for a bit of fun, I put together a list of less-than-sexy canonical traits that make him more dynamic, complicated, and interesting to read imo. (Inspired by this post.) 

1. He’s a compulsive thief — and not only when he wants something for a specific purpose. His character is constructed around pathological emptiness and longing for esteem (rooted in childhood poverty and neglect). When he steals from the other orphans, it’s not because he has any grand plans for these items—he wants to have these things simply so that they cannot. 

As he gets older, this “magpie-like tendency” evolves into the defining flaw of his Horcrux ambition. Had he chosen simple, unassuming objects, he could have been invincible. But the language used to describe him — “hungry” (CoS) and “vacant” with “empty hands” (DH) — shows that there’s something more to this error than mere stupidity or ego or blind ambition. It’s about the conflict between spiritual/emotional needs and material desire, where he is Rowling’s hollow and grandiose foil to Harry’s prevailing moral goodness. 

2. He is shamelessly parasitic. There are three strong literal cases of this (1) Quirrell; (2) snakes and critters in Albania ; and (3) Harry himself. But then it doesn’t end there. He physically depends on Wormtail to wean him like an infant using the ‘milk’ of a Maledictus to whom he later knowingly consigned a piece of his soul. 

Yes, Dumbledore does say that Tom Riddle is a highly self-sufficient and independent child—this obsession with autonomy, however, is more of a self-delusion than a reality. He is the most dependent character in the series. He rends himself so many times, his soul itself is unstable without reliance on bodies both inanimate and conscience. And he doesn’t mind this because his obsession with self-reliance is about detaching from that which he considers weak—human love and friendship. Coerced servitude and allegiance, on the other hand, are qualities he values immensely. 

3. The child Tom Riddle is not sophisticated. This is actually the only fandom habit that does annoy me personally. Really often kid!Riddle is given this rich and colorful vocabulary and aristocratic bearing. This change completely misrepresents his class origins and is pretty inconsistent with his behavior in HBP. Take his line to Dumbledore for example: “I don’t need you. I’m used to doing things for myself, I go round London on my own all the time.” He does not say: “I don’t require your company. I often walk through the city on my own.” And yet I can promise you, you will encounter a lot of that bloated, hyper-mature dialogue in fics. 



Now sure, if you change his upbringing, this becomes irrelevant. Just note the subtle and powerful difference between a child who, unrefined, has an advanced grasp of manipulation and coercion – and – a child who mysteriously sounds like the Queen even though he’s a poor orphan raised in working-class 1930s London. 

4. He has poor impulse control. I’ve gotten into arguments about this one but hear me out. Riddle is undoubtedly intelligent, strategic, and cautious… However, he is not rational. Dumbledore is rational. He relies on impersonal calculations to plot and ploy. Riddle does not. He acts on desire and satisfaction, and calculates maximum efficiency of these things so that he can achieve his only goal: material immanence and domination. 

It was not rational of him to slaughter his family; it was not rational of him to unleash the Basilisk; it was not rational of him to strike Harry with the Elder Wand. He did these things to satisfy an immediate thrill – to get revenge, to acquire the admiration of his thug gang, to kill Harry. He doesn’t anticipate the consequences of his actions and therefore makes foolish errors that even an ordinary and unexceptional person would be capable of avoiding. 



(Notably, deficient fear conditioning is one of the defining qualities of criminal psychopathy.) 

5. He is kind of funny? Far from being humorless and austere, we can gather from a few moments in the text that Riddle/Voldemort has a subtle and vindictive sense of humor. He tells Wormtail that he’d be used for a task that many of his followers would give their “right hands to perform” (GoF). He mocks the Blacks for having their blood mixed with a werewolf and everyone laughs at them (DH). He also laughs hysterically at his own cruelty at many points, such as during Ginny’s manipulation (CoS). 

I’d like to make a case for it.

My UK friends, correct me if I’m wrong, but didnt Tom Riddle grow up in a poorer part of London? Wouldn’t this mean he’d have a different dialect to his accent? Now imagine Tom Riddle getting made fun of for this and for the lack of education. He’s sorted into Slytherin. He has ambition in spades. I’ve always believed that Tom Riddle would have worked his ASS off to get rid of his old self.

Tom is also bit of a peacock. He would absolutely expand his vocabulary, alter the way he spoke, get rid of a working class accent to shake off the chains of his previous life. He’d use it to appear better than others. We see some of this higher class speaking in Chamber of Secret.

I do absolutely believe that, after the initial shock of his first meeting with Dumbledore, Tom was working his ass off to mold himself into someone who could rise up in wizarding society.

Before that, he was definitely rough around the edges… Although I will say that, in the brief scene we see him in at 11, while he isn’t particularly sophisticated in speech (and definitely not in manner), neither does he show any obvious Cockney dialect markers that we see with other characters such as Stan Shunpike, for example. This tells me that while he IS undeniably impulsive and poorly self-regulated in many regards, he does have at least *some* ability to mask, even then, before he enters the wizarding world… And even in the extremely emotionally charged situation of learning he is a wizard for the first time, that there are others like him, and that he will soon have an opportunity to leave his current environment.

In such a situation, I think most of us would be at least somewhat dysregulated, so I infer from that, that by 11, he has already started practicing polishing his speech, perhaps by emulating books or more sophisticated visitors to the orphanage, even if he has not yet perfected it.

I personally think Voldemort is more complicated than this. I mean, I talked in the past about how I don't think he really wanted to live forever, and while, he would have loved to study magic, Tom can't be a recluse (hence why he returned from his world tour eventually).

I think Tom Riddle is someone who is desperate for human connection. I think, one of the things that hampers him the most is actually his need for recognition. his desire that others would know how great he is. He absolutely has an ego and thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread, but he wants everyone to know it too.

But his pride is a weird one. Like, Tom thinks he is the best, but he still considers himself not enough. He has a unique mix of self-hatred, a lot of pride and ego, and a huge dose of general spite that makes his mind fascinating, but also a hazard to everyone around him.

And I think, choosing Founders Artefacts wasn't for pride reasons or for Wizarding History (I think he cares about Magical Theory way more than any other area of magic, but I digress), but for sentimentality reasons (Dumbledore is correct about this assessment). Like Harry, Hogwarts was Tom's first and only home:

“I believe he had several reasons, though he confided none of them to Professor Dippet,” said Dumbledore. “Firstly, and very importantly, Voldemort was, I believe, more attached to this school than he has ever been to a person. Hogwarts was where he had been happiest; the first and only place he had felt at home.” Harry felt slightly uncomfortable at these words, for this was exactly how he felt about Hogwarts too.

(HBP)

I mean, if we look at all the items he chose as Horcruxes the only common denominator is that they were all sentimental to him:

The Diary - something very personal to him that has no historical relevance. Hell, it's a muggle diary that I headcanon he found after WWII reached Britain and that the diary, like him, was a survivor.

The Gaunt Ring - Tom didn't know this was the resurrection stone, all he knew it as was a family ring of a line that lost all it's relevance. It was made into a Horcrux because it's a reminder of his family.

The Cup - a reminder of Hogwarts, his first home.

The Locket - both a reminder of Hogwarts and his family. I think the locket was his favorite Horcrux, hence why he went to all this effort to make proper protections for it while he didn't for the others. I think he cared about what this one represented the most.

The Diadem - again a memory of Hogwarts, but also his own pride. How he found a magical artifact thought to be lost. And he placed it in a similarly prideful location — a room at Hogwarts he thought only he knew about.

Nagini - a snake he felt affection towards, this one was made as a prize for her because he liked her, no other reason.

Most of the Horcruxes didn't have unique hiding spots. I mean, the Gaunt Shack, really? Lucius Malfoy's study (the diary) hardly even counts as a hiding spot. Both the Locket's cave and the Room of Requirement are places that are sentimental for Tom personally. Places that remind him of his own accomplishments. they aren't special for any grand historical reason, they are special for Tom as a person.

So, all in all, I think Tom is much more sentimental than he is prideful. I mean, he is both, but his pride is hampered by perfectionism and self-hate much more than most read him as. Like, part of his ego is that he is unwilling to think less of himself because he hates himself and he hates that he hates himself. Like, I don't think my reading of Tom Riddle is a super popular one, but it's the only one I think makes sense.

tom is very much foolish, and impulsive, and prone to fits of melodrama that leave him worse off than he'd have been if he'd left well enough alone.

this kid can't plan for shit. he failed to anticipate that killing myrtle warren with a giant monster would result in the school where he lives, and wanted to live in over the summer, being shut down.

he's an idiot, but i say that with affection.