Great, undead squid. That's all we need.
A Brief Summary of Every Harry Potter Fanfiction Ever Written
In Which There is Another Boy-Who-Lived and Thus Everyone is Out of Character
"HARRY JAMES POTTER! GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!" James Potter screamed, stomping his foot. Nearly half a dozen house elves flittered around him, trying to clean up the massive quantities of spit flying from their master's enraged mouth.

Harry bit his lip and peered through the doorway at the top of the stairs. Foam was trailing down his father's face, forming a long, frothy beard that resembled Dumbledore's to some extent. His mother knelt in the corner, comforting his brother—whose name had originally been Larry Bubba Potter, but was changed to Gabriel Nathaniel James Sirius Remus Messiah Savior Gryffindor Merlin Potter after he defeated the Dark Lord—while he wailed on and on about the injustice of tripping over his shoelace.

"YOU!" James screeched, striding forward to backhand Harry across the face. Harry fell back, hitting his head on the stairs, and the house elves tsked, worried about having more blood and guts to clean up. "YOU MADE OUR PRECIOUS GABY TRIP OVER HIS SHOELACE!"

Harry stared at his own feet, which were wrapped in thin, dirty rags because precious Gaby's worn out trainers were too good for the likes of him. He wasn't sure how he could've made Larr—er, Gabriel trip, considering he was on the other side of the house writing a thesis on the creation of Wolfsbane while practicing his wandless magic, but his father seemed adamant. Harry supposed it was one of those things he, at the age of six, was just too young to understand. Like how La—er, Gabriel, had defeated Voldemort, considering he was at their neighbor's house at the time, busy drawing all over himself with a pair of Supah Permanent Markers™, while Voldemort had come right up to Harry and cast a violent green spell at his head. But Dumbledore saw the blue and orange squiggles all over Gabriel's face and declared it was a Sign—even after they had washed off two weeks later. Fortunately Lily, who had some artistic ability, redrew them, and all was well for everyone not named Harry.

Another backhand brought Harry out of his memories. "YOU'RE THE MOST UNGRATEFUL LITTLE SNOTNOSED TOERAG ON THIS BLOODY PLANET!" James screeched. "WE GIVE YOU MOLDY BREAD EVERY TWO WEEKS, EVEN LET YOU SLEEP IN OUR OWN BASEMENT, FOR MERLIN'S SAKE, AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY US!!!!?!?!?!!!??!?!?"

"Calm down, darling," Lily murmured, putting one hand on James' shoulder. "Don't let an ungrateful little snotnosed toerag like thatdrive you to use excessive punctuation."

James took a deep breath and nodded. "You're right, dear. We'll just disown him and throw him out onto the streets."

"Sounds like a plan," Lily agreed. Larr—Gabriel began to whine for dinner. Lily scooped him into her arms and strolled towards the kitchen, while James disowned Harry and threw him out onto the freezing, icy streets.

Harry spent the next two weeks eating Dead Rat and sleeping behind the garbage cans of muggle London. He was bored at first, until he discovered that he was a natural animagus, a metamorphmagus, a parseltongue and a fire elemental—and good thing too, or he would have frozen to death the first night. He was talking to his new snake friend Silisinidi, and warming them both with his fire magic, when Severus Snape happened to walk by. Because Snape spends a lot of time in muggle London.

"Gah!" said Snape. "You're Harry Potter! I hate your father and your mother and your brother and—" Snape started to say "you," but then Harry looked up, still shivering slightly despite the fire magic, with big, tear-filled green eyes, and Snape decided to throw his own cloak around the boy's shoulders, hug him, love him and raise him as his own after binding them forever with a blood-adoption ritual. Because Snape knew the ancient, complicated, only-found-in-one-book-on-the-entire-planet blood-adoption ritual by heart, just in case something like this ever happened.

Harry was very happy living with his new dad. Snape might have brewed concoctions of questionable legality, and might have tested them on the muggle postman before Oblivating him, and might have practiced random Dark Curses on passers-by when they went out to eat, and might have been a Death Eater, but he loved Harry and Harry loved him too. Silisinidi stayed with them and hissed "awww" at the appropriate moments.

They lived in a mansion—because before Book Six came out, Snape was very, very rich, despite being a schoolteacher, and he wasn't about to give that up when the fic was AU anyway—and Harry wasn't wearing rags on his feet anymore. In fact, he had brand-new shoes and books and clothes and toys and state-of-the-art potions equipment and a Nimbus and his own whirlpool-jacuzzi bathtub.

Two years later Harry, under a glamour, had successfully set the N.E.W.T.S. and received O's in twenty-nine subjects. After another year and a half he gained Masteries in Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Healing. Because Snape had lots of time to school him in these subjects, despite having a full-time job, and understood perfectly all the subtle complexities of raising an abused child genius.

When Harry was eleven, he got his Hogwarts letter. He and Snape couldn't decide whether he should attend as a student, stay home, or apply for the Defense job. Their loyal house elf Weirdy pointed out that staying home wasn't a valid option, as it wouldn't advance the plot. They discussed the remaining options while playing a game of one-on-one Quidditch, and finally concluded that Harry should attend as a student, at least at first, because a Sorting Scene would be too good to pass up.


AND NOW, A MUSICAL INTERLUDE.

We are pleased to present this one and only performance of...

Just Because You Wrote a Bloody Haiku in Second Grade Doesn't Mean You Can Rhyme the Sorting, Be-atch!

"I am the sorting hat

mcgonagals a cat

I don't use punctuation

Much too your irritation

Use words like brave and loyal,

Or smart and hair-of-oil

Why do I even bother

Too many fics of potter

Have real bad sorting songs

Real, REAL bad sorting songs

Makes me wanna cry

Somewhere deep inside

-insert random, totally pointless lyrics from a band that writes about the tragedy of human existence here-

I'd use the word clichéd

But its to advanced, I'm 'fraid

I gots a reputation

Cause I don't feel obligation

To use spell check or rhymezone

So my grammer makes you all moan

Cause I'm the sorting hat

Snape looks like a bat

I'm the sorting hat

It ends where it ends at

Sorting hat, yeah, yeah,

sorting hat.

Merlin, I need a Firewhisky."

THIS CONCLUDES OUR MUSICAL INTERLUDE.

Thank you! And now, back to the OOCness.


"I read about that in Hogwarts, A History," whispered the bushy-haired girl on Harry's left. McGonagall called her name and as she stepped up to be sorted, Harry took comfort in knowing that some things never changed.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat cried.

A few minutes later—after Malfoy, Draco had become a Slytherin and Mary, Sue had been escorted from the premises—McGonagall called: "Potter, Gabriel Nathaniel James Sirius Remus Messiah Savior Gryffindor Merlin!"

The crowd tittered.

"SQUIB!" shouted the hat.

The tittering increased exponentially. Albus Dumbledore rose calmly from his chair and strode over to the hat, murmured into the folds where its ear should have been, and held up a wand already fizzling with Avada Kedavra green sparks.

"—or else," Harry heard Dumbledore whisper before returning to his seat.

"COUGH, COUGH, MY SINUSES, COUGH, MUST BE ACTING UP AGAIN, HEH, HEH," the hat boomed. "PERHAPS YOU MISHEARD ME. I SAID... GRYFFINDOR!"

Gryffindor cheered. Slytherin booed. Hufflepuff clapped politely. Ravenclaw was fed up with the nonsense and had already left for a more logically-driven fic—something novel-length with drama, a tight plot and oodles of character development, no doubt. Who needs them anyway? Losers.

"The Snape Formerly Known as Potter, Harry!"

There was approximately three-quarters of as much tittering as before. Not that anyone could tell, as the Ravenclaws were the only ones inane enough to study something as pointlessly muggle as basic arithmetic. Harry clambered up the stool and perched unsteadily, holding the brim of the hat in one hand.

"Hmmm…" said the hat. "You certainly have the makings of a good protagonist. I think I'll put you in with your adoptive father. You certainly don't want to go in with your brother, and Ravenclaw's not really an option anymore—and Slytherin suits you better than Hufflepuff, at least in canon."

Okay, thanks, thought Harry. But can I ask, since you're the wisest character convenient at the moment, do you know where we're going with this?

"Not really," the hat replied. "You should wind up being better at everything than your brother, beat him in Quidditch once or twice, and then the plot will either languish as a perpetual WIP or Voldie'll out you as the real Boy-Who-Lived and turn this into something novel-length with drama, a tight plot and oodles of character development."

But then we'd have to listen to the Ravenclaws.

"You're right, maybe it's just better to leave things be," the hat declared. "This is boring me anyhow. SLYTH—"

And the fic froze in time, forever unfinished, just as it was getting to the good part. Unless I decide to do a sequel. The End.