"[H]arry grows up to be [a] super handsome boy who is raised by his welty parents in [P]otter [M]anor." –budigamjasraj, summary to "Hogwarts Rewritten"

As Harry Potter idly paced the grounds of his family estate, the groundskeeper's three daughters watched him rapturously from beneath an elm tree near the Manor. "Ginny Weasley's such a lucky girl, isn't she?" said Clytie dreamily.

Livvie groaned. "Oh, Clytie, don't, please," she said. "The way he looked at her at the festival last week? If he looked at me that way, I'd follow him to the ends of the earth."

"I'd follow him to the ends of the earth even if he never looked at me," said Asphodel stoutly. "Just being near him would be thrill enough."

The curtain of a nearby Manor window rustled softly, and Lily Potter, looking out, let a soft smile stir the mass of raw crimson welts that covered her once-comely face. It hadn't been easy for her and James, sacrificing their own natural beauty in order that their son might be beautiful above the sons of men – but, if it inspired this sort of reaction in his female peers, it had plainly been worth it.

"Go, my little Adonis,"she whispered. "Steal their hearts; lead them to deliverance; do your welty parents proud."


"Can you believe someone wants 100 black locus plants in their [sic] yard?" –Severus .OC*, "Annie"

"What's with all the bizarre fern-things out on your lawn, Tom?" Acte Posener enquired.

"They're locus plants," said Tom Riddle proudly. "The new Herbology mistress at Hogwarts put me onto them, and that new girlfriend of Snape's delivered and transplanted them just this morning. By casting a simple spell while touching their leaves, one can store any property of oneself externally in them: strength, beauty, youth, intelligence… or," he added pointedly, "even life."

Acte raised an eyebrow. "A-ha," she said. "So now, if anybody wanted to kill you, he'd have to first take out every single component shrub in your little jungle outside."

"Exactly!" said Tom with a sigh. "At last I can sleep soundly, knowing that my glorious and irreplaceable existence isn't going to be snuffed out by some freak accident or vengeful relative of that Myrtle girl's! And I don't even have to shred off little bits of my soul and stick them in my mother's jewelry – which means I really should have held off on doing that," he added meditatively, "but, you know, c'est la vie."

"Mm," said Acte. "So why are they black? Does being an external locus of human vitality require some sort of super-absorptive photosynthetic catalyst?"

A slight shadow passed over Tom's face. "Well, no," he said. "That's just something all the plants spontaneously did, when I imbued them with a portion of my life." He scowled. "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's an editorializing vegetable."


"'Don't waste time swaddling then,' snapped her mother, motioning her out the door." –DarylDixon'sgirl1985, "The Danger of the Woods"

Her mother was right, Pansy knew. It rested with her, by getting Snape's letter to the Dark Lord, to prevent a major victory for the Order of the Phoenix; she couldn't afford to let her inveterate weakness for wrapping babies tightly in linen strips delay her. She had to keep moving, keep her mind on her task, drive all distractions out of her…

Then she turned a corner of the path, and an old lady in ragged robes leapt up from the stump where she had been sitting next to an outsized perambulator. "Oh, praise the Lord!" she exclaimed in a creaking voice. "I was just hoping some young lady would come along to help me, and here you are!"

Pansy gulped. "Ma'am, I don't have much time," she said. "I have to deliver a letter to…"

"Oh, this won't take long," said the lady. "It's just that I have these four babies here –" and she turned the pram to reveal them "– who won't stop squirming and poking each other with their little knees and elbows. And I have plenty of swaddling clothes, but my old arms just aren't up to getting them as tight as the little darlings need – but surely a strapping young lady like you oughtn't to have any trouble. You won't let me down, will you?"

Pansy licked her lips, and Snape's letter trembled in her hand as she struggled against the temptation. Then, abruptly, her will broke, and she lunged for the pram with the vehemence of a thing possessed – and Nymphadora Tonks, beneath her elderly disguise, smiled in quiet triumph.


"There is also a rumor that the Blacks are looking to offer a betrothal contract to the Abbots in a couple years." –Bobmin356, "Tournament Woes"

"You see the advantages, surely," Violeta Black urged the three robed and bearded men who sat before her in her parlour. "With my daughters' dowries added to your illustrious offices, you would be in a position of power and influence equal to any in the wizarding world. Think of all the good you could do, all the lives you could improve; surely, you won't give all that up rather than be the teeniest bit flexible?"

Abbot Stevius of Slagar shared a surreptitious, long-suffering look with his fellow Benedictine eminences. "Mrs Black," he said, "I don't think you quite grasp the idea here. In the course of attaining to the great wizarding abbacies, my brothers and I have of necessity vowed to forsake the knowledge of women, the better to dedicate ourselves wholly to God. That is the whole point of…"

"Oh, I know that," said Violeta, waving an impatient hand. "But surely your Pope can finagle something to get you out of that. Here, just look at these pictures of my girls," and she withdrew a sheaf of photographs from under her robes. "How can any red-blooded man let some silly vow keep him from that? (–Come on, girls, do your stuff,)" she added in an undertone.

Obligingly, the photographic Narcissas and Bellatrices went into their best coquettish simpers. The Abbots took one look at these, and then, as one man, rose sharply from the chaise. "Forgive us, Mrs Black," said Stevius, "but we really must be going."


*See first footnote of chapter 39.