Responsible Adults

by MaximumPanic

When Voldemort arrived at the Potter cottage in Godric's Hollow that night, he was intending to leave Lily Potter alive as a reward for his servant. Waking up a single mother the next morning, Lily has one goal: to do everything in her power to make sure her son has the best upbringing she can manage. The wizarding world is a strange and dangerous place, but she will protect him.

1. Introduction

If you are not interested in this feel free to skip, the story proper starts next chapter. The purpose of this "chapter" is threefold. Firstly to give you an idea of what sort of story this is, a heads up if it is or isn't for you. Secondly this should act as a cheat sheet for some of the worldbuilding and background. While I aim to flesh out all of these ideas as the story progresses, I don't want to start with info dump after info dump just to give context. Finally I wanted to take a bit to try and explain why I made some of the decisions I did, even if they seem common clichés. Just to clarify, I have no wish to imply that anything that Rowling wrote was 'wrong', just that these are my personal choices for my story. She was writing her story for children and then teenagers. I am writing my own story for myself as an older audience. Note I am taking the 7 books alone to be "canon", although I may take inspiration from other sources. I shall endeavour to avoid changes not justified by the story up to that point, but not always. Note the worldbuilding applies to magical Britain specifically and Europe more generally. Other areas had their own cultures and historical pressures to guide their development, which may or may not be touched upon by themselves.

As a general direction: I am aiming to create a rewrite of the series. Major events should be roughly canon compliant up until the end of book 4, and I have no concrete plans yet for what will happen after that. I intend to investigate what the series could look like if there were some responsible adults (especially Lily), looking out for Harry's welfare. The major points of divergence from canon will be Lily's survival, and a series of smaller changes to make the actions of adult characters more understandable.

Hallowe'en Attack

Probably the most important point, at least for understanding the premise. The only theory of how Harry survived seen in the books is Dumbledore's "Power of Love". Given that a) he wasn't there b) he was giving an explanation sufficient to satisfy a child and c) the entire point is that it was entirely unprecedented/unreproducible, this is not a fact, it is an in-universe theory. The problem is that to make Harry's protection unique implies that no other parent had ever died for or loved their child, Voldemort had slaughtered his way through hundreds of families, but only at the Potters did this happen. There is also no explanation of how this created the scar Horcrux. If just any murder could split the soul and create a Horcrux then this would happen all the time. The most common way this is dealt with in fanfiction is that Lily created/found a particular piece of magic which created this effect. My interpretation is that this had nothing to do with Lily, he just blew himself up. The fact that Voldemort had one Horcrux left to make, and had a dramatic streak that caused him to hunt down the Founder's artefacts to create them from, suggests that he would want to use the death of his prophesied foe to finish the set and cement his immortality. As well as the moral implications, the main justification why the world is not awash with Dark Lords is that dark magic and rituals are fundamentally difficult and dangerous. Voldemort is not omniscient and made some sort of misstep, possibly involving the love of Lily (or James), causing the horcrux creation ritual to backfire, blow up the house and disincorporate him. Just as in canon, the only witnesses were Harry, who was one, and Voldemort, who didn't know what went wrong, so Dumbledore still has to piece together a theory through his own imagination.

Magic

Most magic as shown in Harry Potter is quite boring. Wand movement + incantation = effect. This also provided no explanation as to why some people are better at it than others. In this fic, magic is a naturally chaotic energy that grants the ability to bend reality to your wishes with three components: imagination to picture what you want, willpower to shape the magic, and power to cause the effect. These affect what you can do, how precise and efficient the spell is, and how strong it is. Words, gestures and wands make this easier, but are not technically necessary. Generally the power required for a spell follows similar rules to the real world, move something heavier or faster, heat something hotter etc. For transfigurations, they are time limited, with more power being a greater change or lasting longer. In order to make a permanent change, e.g. a repairing spell, the end state has to be a stable configuration of the original material, so you can change shape or separate mixtures, but cannot turn wood into fish. A partial exception to this is alchemy (lead to gold is technically just a rearrangement of subatomic particles), which is why it is an incredibly difficult and rare skill. This is why you cannot magically create food, any energy you would get out from digesting would have to be at least matched by the magic put in to create it. There is a general principle that if something is already affected by magic then it is harder for more magic or physical effects to affect it, as it has to overpower the original. This means that heavily enchanted/magically rich objects become naturally resilient or even functionally impervious to damage, hence how artefacts such as Slytherin's locket survived so long in perfect condition.

Magic comes from the mind, and so has as many different variations as people's thoughts. Spell books work like cookbooks, where the author explains what works best for them, and it is up to the student to adjust to their own situation, which is why you cannot just read out a spell and it will work the first time. A lot of low level spell creation is just changing the parameters on a standard spell. For example the Lumos spell taught in first year creates a point of light on the end of a wand. With some theory and practice you could change the colour, shape it into a cone like a torch, have it float beside you or evenly light a volume and then stop. As none of these are a sufficiently new spell, and are made for personal use, they are rarely written down, but can be done. I am putting my foot down on time-turners. The concept of magic able to manipulate time and being trivial enough to give to a schoolchild is a can of worms I don't want to go near, especially just for a gimmick for a single chapter in book 3. To do it justice would require effort and focus and taking the story in directions I would rather not. Many fanfictions extrapolate from the Goblet of Fire and unbreakable vow to create general use magically enforced oaths and contracts. In this story that doesn't happen, as even if people knew how they require unique artefacts or specific circumstances.

In terms of magical variance between individuals, in canon, not all wizards (or witches) are created equal. Dumbledore, Grindelwald and Voldemort would not have had the reputations they did if it was just practice and skill that separated them from the norm. On the flip side Neville is taunted as being nearly a squib, and Filch reads the Kwickspell pamphlet in hope that he could still cast some magic, despite not being deemed a wizard. This all points to a gradient of magical ability (which will change as you develop, e.g. Neville) rather than a binary magical or not. Raw power is not everything though, as clearer imagination, more focussed will, practice and intelligent spell use can all increase effective efficiency. Depending how you think and how you imagine the results of the spell, different people may have preferences for different spells or branches of magic. This is often influenced by upbringing and experience. For example an ability to visualise something very precisely is required for highly detailed transfiguration, while growing up next to a stream may allow you to cast better aguamenti charms as you have a fundamental understanding of the concept of flowing water.

Magic also has physical and mental effects on living beings. Magic is linked to sentience. Only sentient beings are self aware enough to create spells (innate magical abilities such as basilisk stare and phoenix teleportation don't count). The flip side is that magical creatures and animals which spend a long time around magic (e.g. Mrs Norris) tend to be more intelligent than a mundane equivalent, though they are still animals. At no point was it suggested that Buckbeak was sapient, but he was clever enough that you had to ask, speak respectfully and then bow before being able to ride him. High levels of magic in a body makes the creature magic resistant and generally stronger, more resilient and heal faster. This also applies to a lesser extent for wizards compared to muggles, so bludgers in quidditch are not completely lethal, and for at least those who train for it, it often takes more than one spell to take a witch or wizard down. Also I am handwaving something to do with magic trying to keep children alive after being handed a lethal weapon at eleven, and societal pressure to justify that wizarding children mature quicker. This isn't trying to get around the creepy 'find your soulmate at twelve' problem, but covering my back when I fail to write realistic eleven year olds who are also interesting characters.

Wizarding population

Harry's year at Hogwarts has 40 students, with 20 per class across 2 houses. This is never hinted to be abnormally small, although under average would seem plausible given they were born during the worst part of a civil war. Combining the houses seems standard practice, and in the UK a bit over 20 per class is average, without accounting for the extra dangers of miscast spells and potions accidents, so I find it unlikely that in other years they are that much larger. Assuming everyone lives to 100, unlikely given Neville seems to be the only member of that generation with a single living grandparent, that puts the population at around 4000, or a single village. This is too low to support an interesting society, so I am going to up it to the 10s of thousands minimum. As I can't be bothered to rework Hogwarts to increase its size (more houses/houses split for classes, more teachers, more students etc.) I am sending the extra people to other, less prestigious schools in the British Isles.

Magical nature

One of the premises of the Harry Potter books is that there is a full world of magic which us as 'muggles' never see. Not only is there a small population and a castle hidden in the Highlands, but there is a street in the middle of London, a train platform in Kings Cross, forests full of magical flora and fauna, and a self-sustaining dragon population in Wales alone. Even in the 1990s there was aerial photography, the Land Registry, farming subsidies, hiking holidays and a large RAF training school. Especially in the UK, which is densely populated and land is in high demand and often involves paperwork, I find it implausible that nobody realises that something is wrong. Instead, I propose the concept of 'wizard-space'. Essentially large concentrations of magic, or deliberate enchantments, can warp the world around it so it folds in on itself, into a sort of parallel dimension. This results in effective magical 'pocket worlds' that can only be accessed in specific ways from the mundane world. Due to the difficulty of getting in and out, the warping effect of high magic density on geographic/navigation rules and the dangers of magical flora and fauna, exploring these tends to be the job of highly trained teams of specialists. You can have dozens of breeding pairs of dragons in the Hebrides, because they are not in the same Hebrides that we live on. Property developers and historians don't ask questions about who owns the large, inaccessible street in central London where rental rates are £100s per square meter, as the Leaky Cauldron backs directly onto a standard non-magical property.

Wizarding History

Pretty much the only thing we know is Hogwarts was founded 1000+ years before, and the Statute of Secrecy was enacted at the end of the 17th century, which separated the magical and mundane worlds. If there had been a separate magical society in the Dark Ages then they would have had centuries of population growth without many of the limitations (diseases, famines) of the mundane world. I feel it makes more sense if historically magicals were well integrated into mundane communities, leaving themselves vulnerable to the same problems, and too disparate to make the most of their magic through cooperation. While occasionally a few magical individuals or families may meet up and decide to set something together, it would be very, very rare for them to amass the numbers to be fully self-sustaining over generations, so it would eventually break up or move on or get incorporated into something else. There were a few large scale attempts to bring magicals together within an area, such as Merlin and Camelot, however especially when they could melt back into the mundane population and without more modern transport systems, ruling wizards was like herding cats, so they were notoriously unstable. The mass devastation across Europe caused by successive waves of plagues and the religious wars and unrest through the late Middle Ages forced magicals to reach out to each other to survive. This was eventually codified in the Statute of Secrecy, but that would only have been feasible if the societies had already disconnected. From this point wizarding institutions such as potions ingredient supply chains, hospitals and magical literature had the critical mass of customers to develop properly. This is why the objects used: Hogwarts Express, Knight Bus and the department store containing St Mungo's are so relatively modern.

Wizarding Society

Given its small size, personal and family connections would matter much more in the magical world than in the mundane. Even for us with orders of magnitude more jobs to choose from, many people's careers are influenced by who they or their family knows already. If everyone else does it, not doing so only hurts your own family, so I feel it is plausible that this leads to groups attempting to 'safeguard' certain industries and skill sets for future generations, leaving newcomers (e.g. muggleborn) as unofficial second class citizens, like many migrant communities in our world. The magical world is so small that publicly publishing magical research will rarely be more profitable than keeping it within family and friends as a trade secret. In addition magic is personal enough that it is often easier to create your own variation. This is why Hermione and Snape are able to design 'new' spells while still in school. It is not that nobody has ever tried to do similar things, but they couldn't find any published instructions for it, so they came up with their own. In wizarding families it was tradition to keep journals documenting interesting stories in your life, as well as any magical innovations you made and inspiration of how to use them. Not only would it help your descendants, but your book in the family library was your legacy.

Repairing, protection and cleaning magic is either explicitly shown or logically exists, and magical artefacts, such as the Founders' heirlooms, seem to naturally last longer than they should. There is also magic for keeping people away from places, and expanding storage containers (Hermione's bag) and even entire living spaces (wizarding tents). Even without house elves' undefined domestic skills, mothballing and storing items, even entire properties, seems trivial. If any of you have had the misfortune to need to clear out the house of a relative who has passed on, imagine what that would be like in a society where people live longer, magical objects are even more likely to be "possibly useful in future", and it is possible to store an infinite amount of stuff in the attic forever. Grimmauld Place is such a mess not because it contains a horde of super-secret Black family treasures, but generations worth of random rubbish which there had never been a need to clear out. This has been made even worse by the attrition of recent wars, which has funnelled the belongings of entire extended families into single individuals. Still, occasionally there is something like the Weasley family clock, or the Potter invisibility cloak which is useful.

This culture of empowerment through your family's legacy of artefacts and knowledge, which you add your own contribution for future generations is central to magical Britain. Nobody can set up a wand shop in Diagon Alley, because they cannot hope to compete with a millennium of development of wand lore and crafting tools by the Ollivander family. This reliance on the past leads the wizarding world to be quite backwards looking, and in extreme cases drifts uncomfortably close to ancestor worship. It is their failure to understand this, or often anger if they do, is a major driver in the tensions between muggle born and raised in society. This is also why the wizarding world has grown slower than the mundane one. Non-inheriting sons would traditionally rely on the main line for access to the legacy, unless they decided to try and strike out and build their own. Too many children could lead to problems, so families would be kept relatively small. Also magic reduced the risks of infant or childhood mortality long before modern medicine did the same, so the culture of fewer children but more investment into each came earlier to the magical world.

As shown by Remus and Snape, it is not unknown for witches and wizards to live on the edges of normal society instead. This may be because they have muggle family (or even a spouse) who they want to stay near, or they didn't find a place in the magical world. While some may keep in limited contact through pre existing connections, most live isolated lives, and are pretty much ignored by everybody.

Note: This does not contradict the section above. The children of magicals have always tended to have magic, creating long term magical dynasties. These developed a culture of their own long before the statute of secrecy. What the statute did was formalise the complete separation, and force wizards to properly organise their own governance and infrastructure. This 'isolationist' subculture became the core of the newly created 'wizarding world' due to the rhetoric of it being the 'true wizarding way' and the practicality of being designed to work without contact with muggles. Hence many traditions and social rules existed long before the statute, but it was only after it that they became generally accepted as magicals reinvented themselves.

On the flip side, there are also some small magical communities that are sufficiently self-sufficient that they have decided that they don't need the Ministry, and exist even further removed from the mundane world. The centaur communities are examples of this. They tend to be situated in particularly deep and complex areas of 'wizard-space', as that is where the most valuable magical natural resources are found. This means that there are an unknown number that have been, accidentally or deliberately, completely isolated from the 'mainstream' wizarding world as nobody knows how to get to them, if their existence is known about at all.

Accents

This is something you are going to have to imagine yourselves, because even if I could write these, I am not masochistic enough to try and keep track of everybody. Magical Britain has been a self-contained community separate from muggle Britain for over three hundred years, so their accents will sound nothing like received pronunciation English. Realistically it is probably an entirely different dialect with the break-off around the time of Shakespearean English, if not earlier not even counting the influences of other languages, but I am too lazy to go that far. What this sounds like is up to you. It could just be a bit like Welsh, or it could sound like a Japanese speaker who was taught English by an Australian with a heavy cold, trying to put on a Russian accent. Let your imagination go wild. The wizarding community is small enough that there is one common 'standard wizarding English', which you will hear most often on the wireless, at the Ministry or amongst the society social circles. Particularly self-sufficient communities, like Hogsmeade, may have their own variations, as may very isolated families like the Gaunts.

Lily grew up in an undefined industrial midlands/northern town, and therefore would have an accent to go with it. I could imagine Snape and Petunia training themselves to speak 'properly', but not Lily. Although she has spent a lot of time around other magicals, so, especially for words referring to magic and incantations, some wizarding accent has probably rubbed off on her. Harry is more of a mixture, as his main influences are his mother and born-and-raised magicals, so he is a complete blend of the two.

Religion

This is not a topic I want to have much, if any, relevance in the fic, but having brainstormed on how Ireland is happily a part of the magical British Isles forced me to touch on it. The Catholic Church must have known about the magical world as it long predates magicals going into hiding and the Fat Friar existed. I am running that logistically and ideologically (even with magical members, it was still primarily a muggle institution) the isolationist families opted out of the Catholic episcopal structure and instead saw to their own spiritual needs. While the theological creed was mostly the same, with possibly a few differences due to their perspective, they were pretty much ignored by the church as long as they didn't cause any trouble. During the period leading up to the Statue of Secrecy, much of the rhetoric in the forming wizarding communities held the Catholic Church to be one of the major causes of the problems they were trying to get away from. This, along with the lack of magical clergy (difficult to go through both magical and ecclesiastic schools) and the decentralised nature of magical communities, meant that magical communities shunned organised religion. Spiritual health became a private concern to be taken care of in your own home. A combination of indifference, neo-pagan revivals ('traditions of our ancestors' etc.) and the mercurial nature of magic mean that nowadays many families and institutions will have their own low-key mix of rituals and traditions that nobody really talks about. Leaving your church (or equivalent) behind as you is yet another barrier for muggle-raised moving fully into the wizarding world. If in doubt assume a similar pattern applies to other places and organised religions, or feel free to speculate yourself.

Magical Travel

There are four main forms of magical travel: apparition, portkeys, floo network and brooms. The most common of these is the floo, because anyone can use it both for travel and communication. All it requires is getting the Ministry to install it in your fireplace and buying a pot of floo powder. You can 'lock' your floo like you would your door when you are not using it, to stop someone wandering into your home whenever, or your children sneaking out, but the Ministry can unlock it if they deem it necessary. For this reason more paranoid people may put their own spells and wards on the fireplace and their floo connection, but doing this properly is difficult. Even if you don't have a connection in your own house, all magical communities have at least one pub or equivalent with a public use floo. Apparition is the most convenient form of travel. Depending on the power of the witch/wizard they can normally travel a hundred miles or so in a single jump. Dumbledore's bouncing around the country in book 6 is Dumbledore being Dumbledore. This is magically taxing and disorientating, so apparating in combat is rarely a viable strategy. While most Hogwarts graduates are capable of apparition across reasonable distances, many who go to the other schools can't, which is why it isn't used by everyone always.

Portkeys act as pre-set apparition. They are difficult to make, and doing so is only legal for the Ministry and certain important individuals (e.g. Dumbledore). This means that they are expensive, and so are primarily used for transporting bulk goods and international travel where it is the only option. Even then for very large groups/distances often alternative methods are preferred, hence the carriage and the ship in book 4. In Britain brooms are basically a poor man's apparition. They are used by people who need more flexibility than the floo network, but can't, or would rather not, apparate. Travelling (i.e. not sports) brooms have charms built in so muggles can't spot them. Brooms, carpets or whatever else the local equivalent is are more common worldwide, where distances are often too large to apparate. Magical national boundaries have the ability to detect, and potentially block magical travel across them, otherwise the entire concept of magical countries falls apart.

Politics

I know this is a cliché, but let me explain why. The characterisation of Fudge is of a parody politician, concerned about popularity and nothing else. This suggests that he was answerable to some group which had the ability to strip him of power, either through regular elections or by actively sacking him. Yet in book 5, he suddenly had absolute power, able to control the press, arrange a kangaroo court, and have Umbridge literally torture children at Hogwarts. Note that my reading of the Harry Potter wiki suggests that outside of undefined elections, which are never mentioned, let alone seen, there is no check whatsoever on the Minister for Magic. This is not a sustainable form of government.

Lucius and Draco Malfoy act like quintessential entitled aristocrats (at least without Voldemort around), and are treated as such. Lucius walks away with a slap on the wrist after threatening the families of the other Hogwarts governors during book 2, and had Buckbeak sentenced to death to prove a point in 3. This implies there is an aristocratic class which has sufficient power to make themselves untouchable. The way that the Weasley's describe the Malfoys is that 'everyone knows' they were Death Eaters. In countries liberated from Nazi Germany after WWII, people were hunted down and murdered for being rumoured collaborators. Lucius and many others committed atrocities that would have given the Gestapo a bad name, so the only way I see he could have walked free was if the general populace had no say in government.

While this is the way every fanfic is done, the only way I can justify this is that there is a small political class which holds power over the ministry. They sit on the Wizengamot, which functions as a combined high court and parliament, so any new laws have to be approved by them. Many of the seats are inherited, and there is an informal ranking system, where the oldest families are offered more respect, especially from those that come from cadet lines. I am going with the 'Lord' and 'Lady' titles, because I feel they would have given themselves a fancy name of some description, and making one up just confuses things. However, like in all politics, actual power is getting other people to do what you want, and is decided at a personal level by what secrets you know, wealth, ambition, ideology and charisma among other factors, regardless of your nominal status. The events of the books imply that the 'pureblood supremacy' faction is firmly in control, but if that was always the case, then there would have been no Death Eaters, because why overthrow the system you already own. I am assuming that their opposing faction was targeted during the war, and with so many families wiped out or ruined, had never recovered. Note that while there are some, like Lucius, for whom politics is a full time job, the Wizengamot doesn't meet that often (there is not that much law-making to do for a small community) so most members have their own careers.

Dumbledore

While it is very easy to make Dumbledore a cartoon villain, I want to go for a more realistic approach. The basic principle is he is famous for defeating Grindelwald, and holding off Voldemort, teaching and discovering the 12 uses of dragon's blood. At no point is it suggested that he is a politician, general or administrator. Yes, the wizarding world heaped on him various titles and positions, but he doesn't mean he knows how to use that power. As the saying goes "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

On the one hand he is a magical and academic powerhouse, with contacts all over the world and near universal respect. On the other he seems to suffer from a crippling need for control and arrogance. This is not totally unjustified, as I wouldn't trust most of the wizarding populace to tie their own shoelaces. Decades of ruling over Hogwarts as his personal fiefdom, and never being questioned means he feels a need to do everything himself. Case in point, he got himself killed going after the ring Horcrux alone, when he had the likes of Alastor Moody and trained cursebreaker Bill Weasley on call. He also is entitled to his own opinions and goals, even if they don't align with Harry's. Many stories paint him as evil for being willing to sacrifice Harry to destroy Voldemort, when from his perspective that is objectively the correct choice, as how was he to know about the superpowered soul bond and Death's personal laser cannon, or whatever else bullshit Harry pulls out of his arse.

However, he is in no way perfect either. While most of what happens to Harry can be hand waved as limited options and lesser evils, magical Britain was handed to him to reshape as he saw fit. He had his reputation, political offices and control over the education of generations of the country's ruling elite, yet the country and the school are still dysfunctional messes. Essentially he genuinely wants to see the country safe from Voldemort, help those he sees are worthy of it, and generally pursue his own priorities, which may or may not have anything to do with those of the Potter family.

Snape

The character of a double agent smothering himself in lies and teetering on the edge of destruction to bring down the psychotic Dark Lord from the inside has limitless potential. When done properly fanfics which develop Snape can be excellent. I, however, am sticking to canon. The fact that straight out of school he is accepted into Voldemort's inner circle within a few years despite having no wealth or family prestige, and then invited back despite over a decade under Dumbledore, shows a dedication and enthusiasm to the cause that must rival Bellatrix. Yes he turns against him in the end, but that is entirely for personal reasons over Lily, and he never seems to regret the torture, rape and murder that he must have at least helped to carry out. His reaction when he finds out the Potters are being targeted is not 'I must protect her and her family', it is asking Voldemort 'kill her husband and son in front of her then turn her over to me'. That has gone far beyond creepy stalker to out and out Incel (if you don't know what this is, google at your own risk). Just because he happens to be on the same side does not make him a good person. At the end of book 1 Dumbledore tells Harry that James saving Snape's life is the reason he tries so hard to keep Harry alive. Yes he is probably partly deflecting so he doesn't discuss the personal motivations of a teacher with his twelve year old student, but he still cheerfully implies that if it wasn't for that, Snape would have let an eleven year only boy for whom he has responsibility for as a teacher die in front of him at school and not lost any sleep.

While there is not enough shown of classes to make a judgement on his teaching style, and Harry's classes probably aren't representative, if at least three quarters of the students dislike to actively hate him, they are going to underperform. Even if everyone going through his class produced perfect notes and was able to ace the exams, they would still have no passion for the subject. Not only would that encourage people to drop it as quickly as possible, but it would stifle the thirst for knowledge and improvement outside of class that Snape himself had and annotated his book with, allowing Harry to become top of the class in book 6. (Also if Snape already knew all of that, then why did he not teach it?). Given that the potions industry is logically one of the largest and most important in the magical world, and the qualifications are prerequisites for other professions such as Auror and probably Healer, how much damage has this done to society? Before anyone tries to claim that Harry is biased/brings out the worst in him, may I point to the boggart lesson in book 3, Snape is literally Neville's worst fear and nobody thinks this is odd.

While several authors try to justify Snape by playing up the implied bullying the Marauders subjected him to, all that we are told about it is a couple of isolated events from Snape's perspective. Given that this is the same petty, vicious man-child who lied through his teeth to try and get Sirius executed at the end of book 3 while letting the man who was actually responsible for Lily's death run free, forgive me if I take this with a pinch of salt. I assume that if by his sixth year Snape had taught himself, if not developed, a dark magic cutting curse he gave at least as good as he got.

Lily

In canon she is pretty much a complete unknown. We have a few stories from Sirius and Remus and the teachers about James, but other than Harry's eyes, the only person who was willing to talk about her was Slughorn. We know that she was friends with Snape, and defended him against the Marauders for many years, at least verbally. She was a bright student who became Head Girl (although we don't know enough about Hogwarts education to say what precisely that means) and eventually reevaluated James sufficiently to marry him. While this suggests that by the time Harry was born they greatly liked each other, there is no reason to assume it was some sort of True Love Dictated By Fate.

The best indicator of her actual personality is probably the people she chose to spend time with. While she did eventually part ways with Snape, the fact that it took years for them to separate despite the difficulties of the house system and the civil war, implies that they got on well as individuals. From the notes in his year 6 textbook, we learn that at school Snape was constantly redesigning the recipes they were set and designing new magic. The marauders, who Lily eventually married into, managed to self-study the animagus transformation and create the map, while also being compared to the Weasley twins, who set up a thriving joke shop at seventeen in the middle of a war. My interpretation is that she is an incredibly inquisitive and driven person, who is never satisfied with the standard answer. The achievements of those around her and her non-magical background have given her a need to push the limits of what magic can achieve.

However it is important to note that this is what she is like up to her death in canon, or the start of this story. While you will have to read on and see, the events of the story will affect her character in various ways, so this is the starting point, not the end result.

Hogwarts

I am not going to rework Hogwarts too much, because otherwise you lose the point of this being fanfiction (also I am lazy). Even being based on old fashioned English boarding school stereotypes, it is barely functioning. The pastoral care is non-existent. The teachers step in if they happen to walk in on a major altercation in public, but at no point, despite being unwanted at home and systematically bullied/ostracised at multiple times, does McGonagall sit him down to ask if he is alright, or homesick, or keeping up with the workload. This may partly be explained by the small number of teachers and their insane workload. With Dumbledore in his office at all times, Binns a ghost, Trelawney in her tower and the other 'non-core' teachers at best just name dropped, there are functionally six members of staff to keep the place running, one of which is Filch and another the defence professor of the year, who even if not incompetent, has no idea what they are doing. Also bear in mind there is one teacher per subject, so the heads of houses all have to plan, teach and mark at least twelve classes at once, as well as patrolling the halls all night and at random times during the day as the plot demands. The only way this works is if the students spend much of the school day out of class with nothing to do, and more homework doesn't help, because it still has to be marked. My attempt to acknowledge this problem is to say that some students stay on for a year as teaching assistants for some subjects. They help with marking and oversee practice classes, especially with the younger years. My timetables still don't give the teachers enough time to do all they need, but at least it is better. If elective subjects clash, just assume that there may be more than one class for it, or nobody takes that particular combination. It is still possible to take OWLs without taking timetabled lessons in that subject, especially if you take them at the Department of Magical Education along with the home-schooled children. No timeturners required.

There may also be some 'ghost' students turning up at points to pad out the crowds at events for dramatic effect, but who never reached the classroom. With about 300 students Harry should really be able to recognise, and probably name, all the students at least in the years close to him and given the size of the castle they must usually be quite spread out. I apologise in advance if I do this.

I have assumed Hogwarts starts always on the 2nd September (train on the 1st) regardless of the day of the week. The first term is (about) 14 weeks, then four weeks for Christmas, 11 week term, 4 weeks for Easter then a final 10 weeks. This finishes off term at the end of June/beginning of July. This doesn't completely match the British public schools, but Hogwarts was founded over a millennium ago and the name 'public school', let alone their current format, postdates the Statute of Secrecy by over a century, so I can't see how they could have influenced each other in universe.

Quidditch

The sport as Rowling writes it is designed for a single protagonist, not real life. There are effectively two separate games, with the actual team game by the chasers made nearly irrelevant by the seekers whom they have no way of influencing. Given that catching the snitch but losing the match is apparently very rare, most of what happens on the pitch is utterly pointless. It also makes little sense to have a game that has such an arbitrary length, from seconds to potentially days. I don't intend to make Quidditch a major part of the plot, but I still feel wizards deserve something a bit more exciting to watch. The snitch is invisible for a couple of minutes after being released, to give it time to move about, but then is quite easy to see, and anyone can point it out. It is harder to catch, however, so reaching it first does not guarantee you will catch it. It is released after every five goals by either side, and one of the four chasers then tags out to become seeker. Catching the snitch awards 20 points. The bludgers don't hit as hard, charmed so they might bruise a bit, but not break bones or cause concussion, at least at school level. If a bludger hits you, your robes are charmed black for five seconds and you are not allowed to touch a ball for that time, keepers are exempt. Chasers are not allowed to hold the quaffle for more than five seconds, and like basketball to tackle you must go for the ball, and not the player, although jostling tends to be allowed. Games last a fixed time, say 90 mins. You are allowed two substitutes and there is a half-time break.

Hogwarts Quidditch season starts about the late October and finishes about late May rather than having the last match pretty much the day before everyone gets home after exams. Each team plays the others twice, so there are twelve matches every other weekend.

I am running that flying a broom is an active use of magic, so skilled fliers need high amounts of magical power and control. Otherwise matches would almost be decided at the start by the brooms the players were riding on. In addition a correlation between speed on a broom and magical ability can be seen in canon as at least three of the four triwizard champions played seeker.

Prejudice

These are general societal prejudices. The beliefs of individuals will vary greatly from this. Also many people rarely or never interact with the groups they are prejudiced against, rather considering them a nebulous entity they will talk down without really thinking through what they are saying. If challenged on this they may be receptive to re-evaluating their beliefs, even if completely shedding them may take significant time and effort. We all have our own prejudices from our upbringing and experiences, and that doesn't make us bad people, it is how we react when they are pointed out to us that matters.

The obvious prejudice in the Harry Potter universe is over magic. Wizards and witches are at the top of the pile, followed by squibs and magical creatures, with muggles out of sight, out of mind at the bottom. Within the magically capable humans, there is further differentiation, with the oldest families with the largest legacies on top. In the middle are families like the Weasleys, pureblood unwanted extra children or otherwise fallen on hard times, who set up on their own without any inheritance of note. At the bottom are half-bloods and muggleborn without any history in the wizarding world to speak of, and who may often live in the mundane world. While there is nothing as overt as laws specifically targeting certain groups, like in our world, discrimination can come in many forms. As most businesses are family run, they are free to employ and promote as they will, and are often biased towards friends and relatives. In the ministry, it is notable that Arthur Weasley is head of a department which regularly deals with muggles, despite not knowing anything about them and what little he does is viewed as an eccentric hobby by his wife. Also I am running with the idea that muggleborn children are random, with potentially various factors such as if your siblings have magic (the 'descended from squibs' idea carries the implication of some sort of historical ur-witch/wizard, which I don't like). This means that the growth of the mundane population of the UK over time, especially over the last few generations, has led to a proportionate increase in the numbers of muggleborn. When Hogwarts was founded, the population of the UK was about 30 times smaller (source: Wikipedia), so there may have been only a few muggleborn in the school at any one time rather than multiple every year nowadays. This has only fuelled the sense of threat the pureblood supremacists feel. Also most of the generation now in power lived through at least one of the world wars, and so are very jumpy over anything they consider a threat to the statute of secrecy, such as muggle families told about magic.

Reading between the lines suggests there is also discrimination against witches. Partly this is because the implication is, unless stated otherwise, life is modelled after real life historical British, and this would include sexism. In addition, we only see three women in positions of power: Millicent Bagnold, Amelia Bones and Umbridge. We know nothing of the first, and the latter two didn't seem to marry or have children, devoting themselves entirely to their careers. Among the Death Eaters, Bellatrix is the exception that proves the rule, and Narcissa is mostly ignored. It is even shown that everybody wants to tell Harry about James, but nobody has any stories of Lily except Slughorn. Finally the general attitude to 'love' (read: date rape) potions and romance and the happy family feels very paternalistic. For all these reasons I feel it is justified to show that witches have to work against gender based prejudice, despite magic nominally being an equaliser.

Goblins

Treatment of goblins varies wildly within fanfiction, partly as they are mostly ignored in canon, so given the state of the rest of the wizarding world, they are one of the best options for a sympathetic faction. There are three main points from the books about goblins: they run Gringotts bank, they are banned from using wands, and they deal with the ministry through the Goblin Liaison Office. The last point suggests that they are not ruled by the ministry, and so presumably have their own leadership, governance and public institutions, as if they were another wizarding nation. The ban against wands must be an international (or at least European) rule, to be enforceable, and reading between the lines I think it more that wands are not sold to goblins, or the method for making them taught, than dawn raids to search for illicit wands. My interpretation is that goblins, being lower in number than witches and wizards and less influenced by the mundane world, set their own national boundaries. Gringotts functions as a commercial enclave within magical Britain, and so follows rules in return for being allowed to do business. The main goblin settlements and civilisation are underground and are unknown to the wizarding world except for valued Gringotts employees, as they have nothing to do with each other. I have never understood why people assume Gringotts is the goblin race, it is a bank, and also why would a culture that lives underground decide to put everything underneath a tidal river (central London) when they could go anywhere else?

For the role of Gringotts: Unless you have reason to believe that your house is not secure, such as Bellatrix, or her allies after she was incarcerated, worried about ministry raids, I don't see why you would use a vault to store items. Presumably you own magical artefacts with the intention to use them, or at least show them off, which you can't do if they are locked away by goblins. So while this service is provided, most people just use Gringotts as a bank. Individuals and businesses have accounts containing cash deposits. For large or regular payments, such as salaries or bulk orders, contracts are signed and submitted to Gringotts to transfer the amount from one account to another once the conditions are fulfilled (time, receipt of delivery etc.). As the bank keeps track of the balance of each account, they act as a guarantee that the payment can and will be made, and without people needing to hand over bags of galleons in public. The magical economy is small enough that every galleon in your account is a physical coin in your vault. This job is handed over to another race so as to minimize problems of conflict of interest within the highly nepotistic community. Witches and wizards don't have the concept of 'stocks and shares', as they don't have the scale for it to be worth the effort. If a wealthy individual wishes to invest in a business, then they would draw up a specific contract for that case with whichever terms both sides agreed to. For some reason many fanfiction authors see the word 'bank' and think Gringotts must also act as an investment bank and wealth manager. Even in our world where some retail (highstreet) banks do this as well, they are run as completely separate businesses. In this fic Gringotts just stores things and mediates transactions, rather than running the whole wizarding economy.

Werewolves

Rowling herself is terrible at defining this. All the information we have is in two examples, Lupin and Greyback. When we meet Lupin he is seen to be full of self loathing over his condition and worn down by the stress of the transformations. Note however, that he would also probably suffering from trauma from Greyback's attack which he links to his condition, survivor's guilt, betrayal by a friend and probably several other unresolved issues from going undercover in a magically enhanced terrorism campaign/civil war, twelve years of isolation and stress from starting teaching/meeting Harry/Sirius' escape. All of this is compounded by an awareness of wizarding attitudes of werewolves, and first hand knowledge of why it can be justified and possible guilt over how much effort his parents, teachers and friends went to to accommodate his condition. Frankly, if you take a step back and look at how shit Remus' life had been, if lycanthropy had significant psychological effects then he wouldn't be even functioning. Also bear in mind that he seemed to get through seven years of Hogwarts, a boarding school away from his family and surrounded by other children, with only 3/4 people ever realising his secret. All of his life up to, and after one single event in book 3 his curse is never relevant (except for angst reasons). This suggests that much of Lupin's hardship is self-imposed and may not be much to do with the curse, and that it doesn't really affect day to day life.

The other example is Greyback, who was probably a psychopath regardless, and the curse just gives him an excuse. I feel using him as a typical werewolf would be like using Bellatrix Lestrange as a typical witch. While there are many (but even then not all) werewolves around who fought for Voldemort (they were an oppressed underclass and he promised changes, I can't blame them too much), he is the only one that is mentioned or seems to be an enthusiastic minion. The very fact that he appears at all is because he is exceptional, and therefore cannot be used as a template for others.

With werewolves as a group, they seem to conform to general ghettoised second class citizen behaviour. Society expectations tend to be self reinforcing. Lupin is special for getting education at Hogwarts, so any turned as children (which Greyback specialised in) were uneducated. If you are expected to have criminal tendencies, legitimate jobs are harder to come by, so you may be forced to crime. Also you are more likely to be suspected, found guilty and given harsher sentences whether you did it or not, which validates public perception. Again like Lupin, if there were any additional major tendencies for werewolves to be intrinsically violent, then that combined with the sheer horror of a werewolf attack, which is taught in schools, and all of the mundane social prejudice and the fact that some fought for Voldemort, then they probably would just have been exterminated, rather than tolerated.

One last fun point. The phases of the moon are related to, but not in sync with, the solar and lunar day-night cycle. Half of full moons will be in the day, and half will be when the moon is below the horizon. Depending how generous you are with the term 'full', as it is a continuous cycle not discrete stages, you could have two short full moons in the sky hours later (depending on latitude and season), or it could skip a month. Whatever set of rules you use (how long does it last, can it be day, does it have to be in the sky), this makes the transformation far more unpredictable than is usually depicted.

In this story, because Lupin has Lily and Harry supporting him and needing support, he is psychologically in a far better place. I will try to keep track of the full moons, if they are relevant, and they will probably affect him close before and after the actual transformation, but otherwise he will be a normal human being. In terms of powers during the rest of the month: it makes sense that he may have slightly better senses, like an animagus might, just for fun. The fact that he is a regular wizard who is also carrying a powerful curse (complete automatic human transfiguration is no joke) means his body is a bit more magical than most wizards, so he is slightly tougher and heals faster.

Potter Family

While JKR has since expanded on the Potters, none of that is in the books, so it is inspiration, not canon. I refuse to believe that even wizards would name their children Fleamont or Euphemia, and if Harry's great grandfather did invent a potion for styling hair, then why would James' have been notoriously messy? Instead I am running with the fanfiction staple of Charlus and Dorea (neé Black). It just makes more sense to me that James was so receptive to Sirius despite his family reputation and Sirius going to live with the Potters if they were extended family.

I am not going to do 'oh the Potters are actually magical royalty who own Hogwarts', or any of that rubbish. However, I am still going to give the family some wealth and prestige, as this gives Harry more agency, and so should make the story more fun. This is also true to canon. Harry is described as inheriting a large fortune and while much of the Deathly Hallows background is deliberately obscure, Harry inheriting the cloak implies deep wizarding roots through at least part of his family. As Harry is young though, and Lily is only a Potter by marriage, there will be little access to his inheritance for a while. On the political front, however much influence his ancestors had, they are all dead. Any political power will have to be built from the ground up, and frankly the 'Boy-Who-Lived' title will be more important for that than what his grandparents did decades ago.

House Elves

Again this is an area which is very much left up to individual interpretation. We see three examples of a single elf bonded to a wealthy family: Winky, Dobby and Kreacher. This suggests that they are very rare, and are capable of upkeep large buildings (Malfoy manor, Grimmauld Place) single handed. The ministry of magic does not seem to have any, but that could just be that they are not seen, and magical maintenance deals with magical problems, not the general cleaning. However Hogwarts apparently has over a hundred, despite having no discernible income or wealth. I am going to rule that as well as the rarity and expense (probably including taxes to keep them exclusive), house elves require a large amount of magic to sustain themselves. This means that a single household can only really support one or two house elves at most. The exception is places like Hogwarts, which have a high environmental magic density and hundreds of inhabitants. So Harry won't be pulling dozens of 'Potter elves' out of a hat.

Shipping

I frankly find the fanfiction community's obsession with pairing (or grouping) up every character like they are on a bingo card slightly disturbing, even when they aren't young children. I have no plans for romance to be a large part of this story at all, and I won't have teenagers getting married and pregnant while still in school. Even for people who are interested and looking, the events of the plot should mean that it is not a priority. If the story ends up leading that way, then so be it, but I will try and keep it realistic, as in people's relationships develop slowly over time, and will probably be kept in the background.