Sometimes when I’m sad I like to imagine what would happen in a crossover universe between Discworld and Harry Potter, and what Granny Weatherwax would make of their style of magic.
But then I think about more important things, like what would have happened if Granny Weatherwax ever met Albus Dumbledore, and I can’t help but feel a whole lot of shit could have been avoided if he’d had a good clip round the ear and a strong talking to about the whole “my hands are tied” bullshit that enabled years of abuse and suffering at the hands of adults in a position of authority over young, vulnerable people.
Like oh, this spell requires the bond of blood to keep him safe, all right. So that just means we’re not going to hold these adults accountable for their torment and abuse? I think the entire fuck not, Albus.
Snape is a double agent who is actually working for the greater good. All right, but that doesn’t stop him from being an absolute fucking shit weasel who shouldn’t be around children until he learns to control himself and works out his issues in a safe and sane manner, what the fuck, Albus.
You have an entire school system that ascribes to ideas of inherent morality when in fact this is a thing that needs to be taught? Well no wonder there’s one house in particular that keeps going off the rails, you keep telling them they’re evil. Tell people something for long enough they’ll start to believe you. There’s nothing wrong with being selfish and cunning, sometimes that’s what it takes to survive. Teach them how to use those traits for good. As strength. My land, my home, my people (not my daughter, you bitch) how dare you try to hurt them. Teach them, Albus, you have to bloody teach them and realize that evil isn’t born. It’s made. In a thousand small deplorable ways. And it starts with treating people like things and I cannot be having with this.
Of course there’s also the other flipside to this thought process, which is imagining Gytha “Nanny” Ogg shouting “watcher Molly” as she thumps Bellatrix Lestrange on the back of the head with a cauldron, and drops her like a fucking stone. Later they’ll sit together and grieve, later there will be time to pick up the pieces and mourn. But for now there are things to fight for, people to keep alive. And people to keep from doing what they shouldn’t ever have to do, so you find a way to do it for them, by hook, crook or blunt force trauma.
And because my head wont let go of this thought:
“You always was a right little miss,” she said, taking a puff from her pipe and resettling her weight with a hefty bounce as the younger witch struggled to get out from under Nanny’s considerable girth. “Giving yourself airs and graces and such. Pretending you was too good to scrub a pot. Well, let me tell you something, Mistress Lestrange, you ain’t fit for nothing no more except maybe a noose. And if I had my way that might be the end of it. But we don’t do things like that no more, we don’t rule by blood.”
“Then you’re weak,” Lestrange shot back, still struggling to claw her way free. “A weak, old woman with nothing left but tricks up your fat sleeve.”
Nanny puffed in silence for a few more moments, then reached up her sleeve. “And your wand, dearie. Walnut is it? With a dragon heartstring core? Very nice, painting it black was a bit much, but you always were fond of your dramatics.”
She pulled out her own wand, holding it out under Bellatrix’s nose, whose face went cross eyed and then wide with panic.
“You know, I’ve only ever heard of Priori Incantatem,” she said, puffing on the end of her pipe until the pit glowed cherry red then white hot and she exhaled smoke like a dragon, “but I wasn’t about to risk it, not in front of all those kiddies. But I reckon now might be a good time…”
Also, for your consideration. Feegles.
“Haul yoo, aye yoo, the great big ugly gangly scunner wi-oot a nose. Can yesew? Well stitch this.”
Harry watched in consternation as Voldemort staggered back, dropped to the ground like a ton of bricks and lay still.
“That’s it?” he demanded, lowering his wand. “That’s all you had to do?”
Rob
Anybody, perched on his shoulder, looked up at the young wizard out the
corner of the eye, which was to say he looked him in the nostrils.
“Weell,”
he said, gesturing towards the chaos that had been unleashed as the
full force of the Nac Mac Feegle was unleashed upon the band of Death
Eaters, primarily by running up the inside of their trousers. “That’s
the thing about the lads. Once they’ve decided tae dae something, they
dae it good and hard.”
“But you just headbutted him!”
“Aye, weill,” Rob said, feeling as though the lad wasn’t quite grasping the practicality of the situation, “he might be a bloody great dark bigjob wizard, but he cannae cast a spell wi-oot a heid.”
Ok but the one I want to see is Dolores Umbridge vs Munstrum Ridcully, becuase that would be the Petty Academic Slapfight of doom.
Because Ridcully, for all his faults, probably understands that the actual learning of magic relies on a certain degree of both freedom and madness and sometimes explosions.
And Umbridge would crawl right up his skin with her concept of a “Defense Against The Dark Arts” Course, and in the middle of a lecture on recent runes, would go on a “tangent” on the history of various dark wizards and the means by which they were defeated and here Why Don’t We Have A Practical Outside, The Weather Is Nice (The weather is not nice. It’s Scotland. In Late November.) But everyone is really curious to see the old man actually take his wand out for once, only to discover that that’s not a wand at all, that’s a Burleigh & Stronginthearm and they’re all going to pass it around and whoever shoots the weathervane off the top of Ravenclaw tower gets 50 points. Hannah Abbot puts a bolt through Umbridge’s window, taking out a kitten plate and gets 100 points.
Fred and George turn the third floor corridor into a Swamp and Umbridge is pleased to hear Ridcully bellowing at the Weasley boys about “BLOODY INSONSIDERATE, NEVER HAVE I EVER MET SUCH WRETCHEDLY-” but the second she’s around the corner it changes to “-brilliant young men, how much is this setup you have here? That potions-master could do with some aggravated moisturizing. Speaking of moisturizing, what would it take to get you two gentlemen to work on the faculty baths? Disgustingly substandard, nowhere to put your nail trimmings-”
Ridcully would like the students there too, I think. Especially the Slytherins, because he’s perfectly aware how important being a cunning bastard and willing to get your hands dirty or bloody if needed is, especially in the world of Magical Academia. They’re socially intelligent and disenchanted with the system, not Evil, Albus. The Malfoy boy would be a lot less trouble if he had something to do besides practicing subject’s he’s bored with. Fratricide, perhaps. I’m kidding Albus! (he’s only sort of kidding. Maybe not murder. Just turn him into a toad and keep him as a familair in a bowl on the mantlepiece.)
He’d be so mad about the Chamber of secrets though. Potter! A Basilisk! Why didn’t you bring the head back up it’d be magnificent hanging over the great hall. Oh I see. Well why didn’t you go BACK? Perfectly good potion ingredients going to waste, doesn’t that brooding mop of a potions master teach you anything about looti- er, collecting spell components?
I forgot I wrote this haha, and I’m glad @gallusrostromegalus made it better.
Okay but feagles and house elves tho
Obeyin’ the hag is one thing, but any hag that’d that inna worth the title
(Dobby takes it up first, under his breath: “no lords and no masters”)
Havelock Vetenari is not a man to “Go Spare”, and certainly not without good cause but that shambling mountain of paperwork and prejudice they call “The Ministry Of Magic” is several thousand good reasons. He doesn’t even WANT to take over this disaster but he can’t rest so long as it continues to exist.
But. He’s better than that. Why waste time in pointless rage when there are things he can actually do to fix this?
“Mr. Lipvig.” He says, conversationally. “Did you know that the currency conversion rates haven’t changed since Gringotts was founded? Seventeen silver sickles to a gold galleon since the 1100’s”
He doesn’t really need to say anything else. Moist blinks a few times, then gradually begins to vibrate as every instinct he possess is called to the forefront.
“They’re just down the street if you wanted to see their facilities-”
Moist’s chair actually spins with the force of his rapid departure.“
Death, tho. Death and Voldemort. Death and Albus. Death and Minerva having a chess match over somebody’s life.
Voldemort telling Harry, in the graveyard at their duel, “Bow to Death, Harry,” and Harry looking around and responding, “Where it he?” (Or maybe he’s actually there, and Voldemort is treated to the sight of Harry turning and bowing off to three o’clock.
Molly Weasley giving Nanny Ogg such a scolding over her treatment of her daughters-in-law and implying she doesn’t deserve grandchildren if she treats their mothers like that. Nanny sulks hard enough to set things on fire for several days and then discreetly goes around asking her sons the names of the women they married. It’s clipped and resentful at first but she grows into it.
Vetinari looking over the magical system of government with the occasional raised eyebrow or bewildered blink, and deciding that this looks like an excellent challenge. “Minister Fudge, I think you should resign.” “Why, you—” *raised eyebrow* “that is—” *curious look* “I mean—” *silence* “What—” *tilted head* “I, yes, sir, I believe that to be the best course of action, thank you for the advice.” “Capital.”
Umbridge isn’t so easily gotten rid of, and Vetinari spends perhaps three minutes listening to her ideas of law and order, rules and punishment, virtue and government, and then “Madam, if you are not interested in assisting me in helping this government achieve my goals, by all means, depart through that door and you will never hear from me again.”
Umbridge has no genre-savviness whatsoever, and goes through the door without looking first. There is a whooshing sound, and a scream, and several unpleasant, wet-sounding noises from somewhere down a few floors.
THAT WAS UNPLEASANT
“I thought it fitting.”
SHE LIKED CATS
“Only the painted kind, in fact. I’m told she views the real thing as inconvenient and messy.”
Okay but now I want a story about Miss Honey teaching DADA
wait now I want a story about Matilda teaching DADA
“Do you know what the first defence spell I ever learned was?” The new professor has her hair pinned up in a bun, but loosely. A friendly kind of bun. The kind you might have with tea.
“Was it obliviate?” one of the Gryffindors muttered, to general tittering. Everyone heard stories about poor old Lockhart.
Professor Wormwood smiled. Some of the Slytherins noticed that although it was a kind smile, it wasn’t particularly a NICE one. They sat straighter in their seats.
“It was not,” said the professor. “It was Wingardium Leviosa.”
Everyone also heard stories about Harry Potter’s time at Hogwarts, of course. A Hufflepuff waved their hand about. “Did you use it on a club and make a troll fall down?”
“Your opponent?”
“A curtain to cover their eyes?”
“Poison to slip in their drink?”
Professor Wormwood’s eyebrows inched upward with every guess, and the corners of her mouth trembled a little as though she wanted to laugh. “None of those, no. In fact, I used it on a piece of chalk.”
“Did you–”
“No physical harm was done,” Professor Wormwood said firmly. “In fact, much was prevented. No, I simply write a message. The lesson to be learned, my students, is that the art of defense is not confined to clumsily aiming works at one another in the hopes that someone will eventually fall down. That is the very last resort. First I will teach you how to avoid being attacked at all, and then to divert potential attacks with the power of the mind, and ONLY THEN, my young savages, will you learn about how to duel with spells of violence.”
tora42's nonsensne 