Surprising answer! I would have thought since you are currently writing a 100+ chapter fic that is an AU that you’d be open to canon divergence and reinterpretation of the story. How did you decide to write an AU if you feel so strongly about canon?
Rush is a motorsport AU taking place seven years after the war, so canon events have passed and are relevant and mentioned even across the fic. I mean, I will say that it’s clear that the full title is “Rush | A Harry Potter Motorsport AU”. It’s far, far from the reinterpretation from the canon story, not even my goal since, well, it’s set seven years later after the canon events. Althoughhhhh, it does branch beyond the world of motorsports and expands more on Harry’s return as Head Auror with new challenges and a bigger threat to take down. Having the two coincide is like yin and yang; one can’t live without the other because racing is the motivation for the character and that’s under threat, and racing on its own just can become a lackluster of many different elements without it feeling repetitive, whereas combining the two can add a lot of flavour and personality. That’s what I love about it. It gives the main character that motivation to protect what he loves and it shapes him into a better human being.
Anyway, the reason for writing this AU is because I’m a massive motorsport fan (preferably Porsche) and was inspired by a blog on here who wrote an F1 oneshot and I thought I’d do the same but with sports car racing (IMSA). Turns out, it became a full fledged fanfiction which is still far from being over because there’s so much to give in it (also I’m having a blast). So it’s just my brain combining two of my most beloved things: Harry Potter and Porsche/endurance car racing and see where it goes. I didn’t think it would be 100+ chapters, but again, because there’s just so many ideas I have for it, my brain never shuts off and keeps giving it life and so much passion. Says a lot about how excited I am for it since it’s been going for that long lol. But yeah, that’s the reason why. It’s got nothing to do with dismissing canon. I just wanted to combine the two things I love and seeing how the canon characters react in my own little world which is a blast to write (keeping their core personalities to canon as much as possible).
I’ve even got canon ships like Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione. So the AU part of it is Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Neville decide to get into the Muggle world and find out about racing four years after the war. And Harry being appointed as Head Auror at 18 instead of 26, which in my mind, feel like it’s more appropriate to lead his own fleet while a dark organization’s after him after discovering different ways that the wizarding world never bothered to use. It’s kind of not ideal, given how jobs take forever to appoint one in a bigger lead, but anyway, it’s an AU and that’s where AU comes in lol. Actually, I might just even change that to him being appointed at 19 when he’s almost 20 or even 20. I never thought about this until later lmao. But anyway, other than that it’s centred around post-canon with as much canon as I’ve mentioned. Those two variables are the only divergences.
Sorry, I rambled again 😅
