In my twenties (a long, long time ago), I was described by an older and wiser acquaintance as being 'Always irreverent, but never irrelevant', and that's a tag I'll hang onto until the end of my days because that sums up the way I interface with the world better than anything else I've ever heard... you have been warned. ;)

In case anyone hasn't worked it out yet, I don't write Disney Princess Stories, so if anyone's looking for that style of story, you'll have to look elsewhere, and I certainly won't change the way I write because people keep whining about it. There's plenty of G rated fanfiction on the site (which seems a tad ridiculous to me, given that most on this site are at least teenagers and many are chronologically at least much older than that), but you won't find it here. My stories are generally rated 'T' because that's the mental age group I write for.

For that matter, nearly the entire world accepts and lives with the fact that a certain amount of 'language' is in common usage, so I won't be writing to cater for the infinitesimally small percentage of the world's population who have an issue with that. If any 'language' usage other than what you, personally, approve of is a problem for you, please look elsewhere for something to read, as my stories won't cater for you.

While on language, I grew up writing the Queen's English, and I dare say that will continue as long as I write. People can either accept that or look elsewhere.

I've also had to point out numerous times in just about every one of the forty odd stories that I've ever written here that my stories are fiction, not real life! So no, what I write will not match the history books in any world but my own, deal with it people.

I was originally only interested in writing Chuck stories for the most part, but then I branched out into Harry Potter stories, and I may branch out further.

Though I must admit that the ridiculous reactions I've gotten from some fanatics who think that it's their right, if not their duty, to abuse anyone who writes anything other than what THEY want to see has tempered that urge to write more than a few times over the years.

Many people on here are great, a few especially so (don't worry, I won't out you for apparently liking the tripe I write, but you know who you are ;) and it's them I write for, and myself.

Anyway, what I write is a bit out there for most people, and I'm OK with that, just glad that some apparently like seeing a different spin on some of the characters we (or at least I) love.

Some may have noticed that the story bush has been 'pruned'.

Basically, I've gotten rid of the ones which no longer (or never have) 'work' for me or the people who read them, because there's little point trying to continue something when I don't agree with where it was going and no point in leaving something up that no-one ever liked.

I've decided that I like the structure I came up with for the 'Other Harry Potter' World and will be using that for most of my AU HP stories from here on in, so to avoid having to repeat the description in each story, please refer below.

Common Mercenary Wizards were bribed with land and titles for Hereditary Knighthoods or Feudal Baronies in Britain if they were powerful enough make it worth giving them those incentives to come to Britain and fight in the Norman Invasion, and this practice became more common in later wars because it worked so well.

In the Thirteenth Century, the High Wizards Council, working in conjunction with the Regional Wizards Councils, came the decision that too many Wizards' lives were being lost in Wizarding feuds declared over Feudal Barons claiming the Noble title of 'Baron' rather than their proper title of 'Lord of the Barony' after this practice became widespread with the Norman Invasion, so changes were written into the Magical Laws for all Baronies to be accepted as 'Noble' in Magical Britain and therefore have the right to claim the title of 'Baron'. This quickly became common practice in many countries across Magical Europe, because the Mundane Kings could get away with buying powerful Wizards' allegiance with Feudal Baronies, but giving out 'proper' Noble Baronies willy-nilly would cause problems with the existing Nobility….

Definitions for 'Minor' Houses were added into the Magical Laws in the Twelfth Century for the holders of Hereditary Knighthoods and Feudal Baronies, effectively making them what was to become the Landed Gentry of Magical Britain. After the Feudal Baronies were transmuted to 'Noble' titles in Magical Britain though, Minor Houses were identified as being the Houses of those with Hereditary Knighthoods as their primary titles, just as 'Noble' Houses were for ones with Baronies and 'Most Noble' Houses belonged to ones with Earldoms.

The titles held and the seniority of their Houses (Houses without age qualifiers were officially created after the establishment of the Wizengamot…. Ancient Houses which were officially created between the Norman Invasion and the Wizengamot's establishment, and Most Ancient Houses which officially dated back to before the Norman Invasion) determined their Houses' place in the Wizarding House Hierarchy of Magical Britain.

Minor Houses made up the lowest tier of Magical Britain's Wizarding House Hierarchy, while Most Noble and Most Ancient Houses were the top tier of the Hierarchy. A Houses' standing within its own tier was determined by the number of titles at each tier the House held and its wealth and official establishment date. Druid Clans officially rank below Minor Houses, Druids who were repected enough to be offered a place on the Druids or Wizards Councils were recognised by having their families elevated to Druid Clans, with them as Laird. Then came Wizarding Families without titles, with their standing determined by their wealth and how far back the Family was officially established. Muggle-Born and others who haven't formally registered their family names are classed as 'Unassociated' and therefore at the bottom of the official standings in Magical Britain... And while foreign Witches and Wizards' place in their own country's Wizarding House Hierarchy was supposed to be honoured, most British Wizards generally treated foreigners as below them, no matter what the standing of their own House or Family was, which did nothing to improve Magical Britain's reputation of being nothing but a pack of uncultured peasants.

Making all Baronies 'Noble' put a stop to Baronies being purchased in Magical Britain, so the only options open to those who wanted to elevate their Houses to Noble rank were being awarded a Barony by the King, marrying into a Noble House or claiming a Noble title by right of conquest.

The Hereditary Knight and Feudal Baron titles granted to bribe Mercenary Wizards to fight in the Normal Invasion and later wars were the reason the 'proper' Wizard Nobles who had come to Britain and established themselves in the British Court manipulated their peers to get their help in blackmailing the Mundane Kings of Britain into ordering that the High Wizards Council and regional Wizard Councils of Magical Britain be replaced by the Wizengamot (made up of Wizengamot Courts of Fifty Three seats each for the North, South and West Countries plus Ten Officers of the Wizengamot to bring the total to Thirteen Squared, almost One Percent of the Witches and Wizards of Magical Britain at the time, with most matters being handled by One Wizengamot Court made up of members from each of the Three Courts and Officers of the Wizengamot, and the full Wizengamot generally only meeting on the Summer and Winter Solstices and Spring and Autumn Equinoxes) as the ruling body of Magical Britain in the early Sixteenth Century (making it a requirement to be at least a Hereditary Knight to hold a seat in the Wizengamot)... Because they were sure that with all the titled Mercenary Wizards in their pockets they'd have the numbers to easily take over Magical Britain and Lord it over the natives (without having to do it by force of arms as it was done in Mundane Britain).

However, what they didn't know, because with the exception of the dozen or so 'true' Druid Lords, Druids generally identified themselves as Lairds of Druid Clans or Heads of Druid Families, the Kings of Britain had also been making some Lairds of Druid Clans or Heads of Druid Families Feudal Barons or Hereditary Knights and elevating 'true' Druid Barons to Earls to garner their support since Merlin's time…. And the weightings applied for titles (One vote for a Hereditary Knighthood, Two for a Barony and Four for an Earldom) and seniority (a factor of One for Houses officially created after the establishment of the Wizengamot, Two for Ancient Houses, and Three for Most Ancient Houses) which were written into the Wizengamot Charter…. Along with Ancient Druid Clans (their own or Vassal Clans) adding one vote and Most Ancient Druid Clans adding two to the House's total... Meant that the more established Druid Houses (the majority of which were Most Ancient Houses) were able to offset the numeric superiority of the newer Noble and Minor Houses….

I'm also going to go with a general rule that with the relatively small gene pool of Magicals in Western Europe and Britannia over the past three millennia, in-breeding (intentional or otherwise) is an established problem. This has caused fewer magical births as a general rule and given the high incidence of twins in canon, I'm going to take this as a rule of Magic to try and stop Magicals dying out, even if only one baby survives, then the family is less likely to die out, if both survive, they're twins (normally fraternal).

And one incident in the 'Seventies where Severus Snape was shown to be not wearing clothes under his Hogwarts robes (the only reference I've ever seen to this in canon) does not make it a universal rule that no-one ever wore clothes under their robes! He may have been getting his only set of clothes washed or had his clothes stolen by bullies like Luna Lovegood often did that day. I find the repeated insistance that students never wore clothes under their robes to be ridiculous.

Men wearing trewes, breeches or kilts and blouses or jerkins under their outer robes or cloaks was common practice in Britain before Roman times, and the fair sex commonly wore undershifts and the like from before the Middle Ages. Even if Magical Britain was a Century behind the Mundane World as it was often portrayed, they wouldn't have remained stuck in the dress standards of thousands of years ago. For that matter, skimpy underclothes were largely an invention of the Twentieth Century, so even if it was undergarments rather than 'proper' clothes that were on display in the Nineteenth Century and earlier, they still would have been largely covered.