Hey, Would You Guys Do Me A Favor And Recommend Your Favourite Severitus Fic But As Found Family Trope

Someone special 🧡💚

girl help the eldritch horrors are organising a pride and prejudice party and making us dance to mirror their forbidden and repressed love. yes there is a michael jackson thriller video reenactment outside trying to get in. no yeah i still want that rare doctor who annual

I hate when I say things like "oh I want an ipod classic but with bluetooth so I can use wireless headphones" and some peanut comes in and replies with "so a smartphone with spotify?" No. I want a 160GB+ rectangular monstrosity where I can download every version of every song I want to it and it does nothing except play music and I don't need a data connection and don't have to pay a subscription to not have ads and don't have popups suggesting terrible AI playlists all over the menus.

Gimme the clicky wheel and song titles like "My Chemical Romance- The Black Parade- Blood (Bonus Track)- secret track- album rip- high quality"

Because alll the reddits with fic recs are down in protest of the reddit APIs or something (godspeed, I don't understand what's happening there but I hope your protest works!)

Does anyone have some HP longfic recs? Can be old or new fics, on any sites, just leave a reply/ reblog addition in the notes!

I'd love some longfics with good!Snape or morally interesting Snape, and I enjoy Runaway Harry stories, but honestly I'll read anything, the last fic I loved for example had Harry literally being a dragon(??) So yeah if it's long and well written hmu! ×overs are cool too!

Best would be links but title+author works too!

Feel free to share, maybe we can create a collection of best HP fics here!

what's the one harry potter pairing u like that u mentioned in the tags of your hinny post?

Anonymous: Can I ask who that minor character you ship with Harry is? For some absurd reason my mind jumped to Stan Shunpike lol but it's probably not him.... Or is it?

Okay, so this is kind of a funny story. Like, my pipeline through hp pairings was a weird one. Like, I used to read a lot of Harry pairings, still do on occasion (some make more sense than others). None of them were ones I would point at and say: "that should've happened in the books"

One day, I was innocently writing a fic (canon divergence of GoF), and it was just for me, for funnsies, never posted it anywhere and not planning to. And I planned to pair Harry with someone there (honestly, I don't remember who because I didn't write the plan down) but when writing, Harry ended up with a different character. And it was so strange to me because that never happened.

Like, how do you write a ship accidentally?

But I did. I wrote Harry into a ship by accident. So I went back to the books to try and figure out why the hell would my subconscious decide that's the way to go.

I'll also preface it by all this being my subjective opinion and I do read other Harry ships in fics, this one just quickly became my favorite to write (and the only one I write). Also, I don't actually think this is a pairing that should've happened in the books, it's place is in fic and that's where I like it.

So, the character I accidentally shipped with Harry is... *drumroll*

Stan Shunpike!

Not really, it's:

Theodore Nott

Now, you might look at the name and go: "Who the fuck is that?"

And you'll be correct. Theo has 0 speaking lines in the entire book series. His name appears twice. He, himself, as a person, only appeared on page, like, 3 times in the background. The scene that gives the most information about him is other characters talking about him. He isn't even present.

That being said, I'm very good at extrapolating a lot of information from very little evidence. So allow me, to walk you through who is Theodore Nott and why I ship him with Harry.

Basic Information

So, let's start with the most basic overview before I pull out the quotes and go any deeper.

We know Theo is a Slytherin student in Harry's year. So he likely shares a dorm with Draco, Blaise, Crabbe, and Goyle.

Theo's father is both at the graveyard at the end of GoF and in the Department of Mysteries at the end of OotP, so we know he is a Death Eater. We also know Thoe's father was one of the first and closest Death Eaters to Voldemort, who waited for him during his interview with Dumbledore in 1967:

“Then if I were to go to the Hog’s Head tonight, I would not find a group of them — Nott, Rosier, Mulciber, Dolohov — awaiting your return? Devoted friends indeed...”

(HBP, page 444)

We also know the Nott family is "as pure-blooded as the Malfoys" according to JKR in an interview. We also know Theo's great-grandfather (maybe? the family relation isn't clear), Cantankerus Nott, is suspected to be the one who wrote the Pure-Blood Dictionary, the book that coined the term "Sacred 28" and made that list (which the Nott family are on).

The name Nott is potentially to be derived from the name Nótt, which is the personification of the night in Norse Mythology. So it has been theorized the Nott family have a Nordic origin. Possible, but it doesn't really matter for this post.

What does, is that he comes from a dark, Death Eater, blood-purist family similar to the Malfoys. Even so, Theo never took the Dark Mark and never joined Voldemort in the books.

Now, that we have the basic information out of the way, let's look at Theodore as a person.

All the details I could gather from the books

Alright, now we get to the fun part. That is, me going through all the relevant scenes that mention Theodore Nott and actually creating a character psychoanalysis out of basically nothing.

So, the quotes aren't organized in a particular order. I'm just going to explain Theo and then explain why all this makes me ship him with Harry.

“Well, I pity Slughorn’s taste. Maybe he’s going a bit senile. Shame, my father always said he was a good wizard in his day. My father used to be a bit of a favorite of his. Slughorn probably hasn’t heard I’m on the train, or —” “I wouldn’t bank on an invitation,” said Zabini. “He asked me about Nott’s father when I first arrived. They used to be old friends, apparently, but when he heard he’d been caught at the Ministry he didn’t look happy, and Nott didn’t get an invitation, did he? I don’t think Slughorn’s interested in Death Eaters.” Malfoy looked angry, but forced out a singularly humorless laugh.

(HBP, page 150)

This is a part of the conversation between Draco, Pansy, and Blaise, Harry overhears when he is hiding in their compartment at the beginning of HBP. I have a few things to note regarding this scene.

Firstly, throughout this conversation, Pansy, Blaise, and Draco all call each other by their first name. This shows closeness, they are all friendly and familiar enough to use their first names with each other. Theo, though, is referred to as "Nott" by all three in the compartment.

He doesn't actually sit in their compartment which is in itself a sign about how he isn't really friendly with Draco's group. Considering the group is most of his year from his house, Theo is likely very lonely, and it will be apparent from other scenes I bring up later.

Secondly, Theo's father is in Azkaban. We know Draco is bothered about his own father's predicament. He mentions it to Harry and bothers him over it, Theo doesn't though. Theo doesn't seem to be bothered by Harry or his father's incarceration.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the relationship between Theo and his father is not a good one.

(I know some fics like to have Lucius be abusive towards Draco, for some reason. But the books really don't back this up. Lucius loves Draco and Draco adores his father)

Theo, though, Theo seems to be the one with a very strained relationship with his father. Strained enough that he isn't bothered the man is in Azkaban. What I'm saying is that Theo's father likely abuses or mistreats him in some capacity.

If anything more was needed to complete Harry’s happiness, it was Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle’s reactions. He saw them with their heads together later that afternoon in the library, together with a weedy-looking boy Hermione whispered was called Theodore Nott. They looked around at Harry as he browsed the shelves for the book he needed on Partial Vanishment, and Goyle cracked his knuckles threateningly and Malfoy whispered something undoubtedly malevolent to Crabbe. Harry knew perfectly well why they were acting like this: He had named all of their fathers as Death Eaters

(OotP, page 583)

This is a scene at the end of OotP after Draco, Crabbe, Goyle and Theo's fathers were caught at the ministry and sent to Azkaban because they are Death Eaters. There are a few important notes about this scene.

The first, Hermione knows Theo, while Harry and Ron don't really. This means she likely knows him from the classes she takes and Harry and Ron don't — Arithmancy and/or Ancient Runes.

The second, he is sitting with other Death Eater children, but I don't think it's by choice. I mentioned in the previous quote how he isn't close to Draco and his crew. He sits with them here mostly because he doesn't have another choice. Theo doesn't seem to really have any friends, so he sits with the closest people he has to friends — kids he has known since he was young because their fathers were in the same circle.

The other note about this is that Crabbe, Goyle, and Draco are all mentioned as being threatening and malicious towards Harry because they don't like that their fathers are in Azkaban. Theo, though, Theo doesn't threaten Harry, he isn't part of their whisperings. As I mentioned above, he's likely happy his father is in Azkaban.

A pair of blank, white, shining eyes were growing larger through the gloom and a moment later the dragonish face, neck, and then skeletal body of a great, black, winged horse emerged from the darkness. It looked around at the class for a few seconds, swishing its long black tail, then bowed its head and began to tear flesh from the dead cow with its pointed fangs. A great wave of relief broke over Harry. Here at last was proof that he had not imagined these creatures, that they were real: Hagrid knew about them too. He looked eagerly at Ron, but Ron was still staring around into the trees and after a few seconds he whispered, “Why doesn’t Hagrid call again?” Most of the rest of the class were wearing expressions as confused and nervously expectant as Ron’s and were still gazing everywhere but at the horse standing feet from them. There were only two other people who seemed to be able to see them: a stringy Slytherin boy standing just behind Goyle was watching the horse eating with an expression of great distaste on his face, and Neville, whose eyes were following the swishing progress of the long black tail.

(OotP, page 445)

“The only people who can see thestrals,” she said, “are people who have seen death.”

(OotP, page 446)

The stringy Slytherin boy mentioned here is Theo. This scene proves that:

He takes Care of Magical Creatures

He saw someone die

Let's explore the second one for a moment. The fact Theo can see Thestrals means he watched someone die and was old enough to comprehend what he was seeing. We also know Theo's mother is dead. So it's likely the person he watched die was his mother.

I also want to draw attention to Theo's distaste towards Thestrals. He could likely see them carrying the carriages every year since 2nd year, it's not his first time seeing them. But it doesn't stop his displeasure with their sight from showing. Which says something about him. It means he likely recalls his mother and her death whenever he looks at the Thestrals. and these are memories Theo rather not experience.

We don't know how his mother died, but I'd hazard a guess it wasn't natural. After all, wizards have long life spans, they are more durable to illness and injury, and don't usually die from accidents unless very extreme or magical. And there was no epidemic of dragonpox (a disease that does tend to kill wizards) in the time since 1980 and the books. So, she was more likely killed at some point between 1985(ish) and 1991.

“No, I don’t think so, sir. I’m Muggle-born, you see.” Harry saw Malfoy lean close to Nott and whisper something; both of them sniggered, but Slughorn showed no dismay; on the contrary, he beamed and looked from Hermione to Harry, who was sitting next to her.

(HBP, pages 185-186)

First, Theo is an O student in potions since he is in the potions NEWT class, and was probably meant to be there even if Snape was the teacher.

Second, again, Theo doesn't really have friends. He sits next to Draco as the only other Slytherin in the class. Also, they share the circumstances of being sons of Death Eaters currently in Azkaban. Although both of them seem to deal with it quite differently.

Third, Theo joins Draco in making fun of Hermione's blood status, but he does not initiate it. Considering the environment he was raised in and is in, it makes sense he would make fun of it. Whether he's a blood-purist or not, he would want to keep his image considering he doesn't have many allies. Hanging out with Draco is survival, not friendship. They aren't even on a first-name basis with each other.

“Amortentia doesn’t really create love, of course. It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room — oh yes,” he said, nodding gravely at Malfoy and Nott, both of whom were smirking skeptically. “When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love. . . .

(HBP, page 186)

The final quote I have about Theo is from the same potions class as above. Both he and Draco are portrayed here as underestimating amortentia and its potential damage. It makes sense for their upbringing in the Wizarding World, which has no real laws or regulations regarding love potions that are seen as harmless fun more often than not.

I'll add Theo likely didn't witness a healthy romantic relationship. Considering his father is a Death Eater who is likely abusive and may or may not have killed his mother. With this as his reference to a marriage, it's clear why he'd look down on love and love potions.

Why I think Theo and Harry have potential

Okay, so now that we know who Theodore Nott is, let's talk about why I ship him with Harry.

I think Harry, in general, would get along best with a clever partner with the ability to be ruthless (Slytherins or Ron fall into this category). Because Harry isn't some golden savior; he casts unforgivables, and is very willing to poison Umbridge or Crocio Snape if he could get away with it. He needs a partner that won't be horrified by these thoughts.

Also, Theo literally never speaks on page. Even when spoken to, his reactions are silent. I think this quiet and no need to talk, the ability to be comfortable in silence, is something that would be comfortable for Harry. Harry in the books finds himself annoyed with Ron and Hermione's constant banter on occasion, so I think it fits well.

Theo would also be comfortable around Harry without a need to play a certain part. Because Harry wouldn't care about that. He would honestly rather Theo forgo the pure-blood Slytherin act.

I feel like Harry and Theo, have a good potential to understand each other. Theo lost his mother and likely experiences abuse from his father. It makes them very likely to trauma bond over their crap life and shared experience. Two out of three only ones who could see the Thestrals in the entire class.

The other thing I feel they could connect over is being lonely. Harry spent all his childhood until Hogwarts basically being on his own. Theo stayed on his own. Draco at least has his parents, he has other students he's closer to, not that he shares everything with them, but he has some support network. Theo has none. And this is something Harry knows well.

Theo, I think, wouldn't expect anything specific from Harry. He doesn't even interact with him, not to mock him, and not to idolize him, he doesn't care at all. And we know how much Harry appreciates being thought of as Harry and not as the Boy-Who-Lived. Theo would allow Harry to be himself without some mold he wants him to fit in.

The fact Theo never becomes a Death Eater, even though he was in Draco's year and his father was a Death Eater before Lucius (and in better standing than Lucius with Voldemort) is so interesting. It's somewhat surprising Theo wasn't marked. It means he didn't want to be. It means that Theo Nott didn't want to torture and kill muggleborns or blood traitors, or anyone really. And he didn't want to swear his allegiance to Voldemort. This is just a fascinating fact to me and something I enjoy considering. What life experience made him come to that conclusion? Was it just his dislike of his father that pushed him away? Could he have been another Sirius Black (Gryffindor in a Slytherin family) under slightly different circumstances? I mean, Voldemort likely wouldn't force him to become a Death Eater, but would his father? I don't know what at all went down there, but I like that potential story.

We also know he wasn't part of Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad, even though some minor Slytherins were mentioned to be part of it. He just seems to be an actually decent guy (I don't care what Cursed Child says about him, I know he's there but I avoided almost anything to do with Cursed Child so I barely know the plot).

Finally, this is a character Harry doesn't have as much drama to get over with. Yes, sometimes I want to read overcoming drama between characters before it becomes a romance, but sometimes I want something chiller than that. And Theo is a really chill, safe, Slytherin option for Harry.

Aziraphale needs time to contextualise. This is the angel that said 6,000 years is too fast. Pulling them far apart and forcing Aziraphale to deal with his relationship with heaven head on will give him the the opportunity to ACTIVELY CHOOSE Crowley. Crowley made his choice long ago, Aziraphale has always been the one trying to catch up. Season 3 will be Aziraphale finally choosing his side. AKA, being at Crowleys’s side 💙

Both

“their miracle was so big bc crowley used to be an archangel” have u considered that aziraphale and crowley love each other so much that their love alone could move the tides just by staring at the ocean for too long. have u considered that they did the miracle not really to protect gabriel but to protect what they had, what they’d built with each other. and that was them barely even trying

Plot Bunnies, Plot Chickens, Etc.

As a lot of people aren’t familiar with plot creatures, I thought I’d shed some light on the members of the mental menagerie…

The Plot Bunny - Story ideas that come bounding in and start multiplying.

The Plot Chicken - They squawk, flap around, and shit everywhere, but when you actually need to do something with them, they scatter.

The Plot Sloth - Takes its sweet goddamned time turning into something useful.

The Plot Mule - When you mash two plots together and get something cool, but you can’t get a sequel out of it to save your life.

The Plot Cat - Lazy little bastards who take up your headspace, scare away all the other plot bunnies, but won’t actually do anything except lay there.

The Plottweiler - Barks loudly and viciously so you can’t ignore it, distracts you from everything else you want to write, but leaves you too paralyzed with fear to actually put words down.

The Plot Squirrel - Cute, distracting, full of nuts, and just TRY to keep up with that train of thought.

The Plot Bedbug - Shows up during the night, chews on you so you can’t sleep, and disappears in the daylight.

The Plot Tick - Burrows in, bleeds you dry, and leaves you with the creepy-crawlies. Mostly preys on horror writers.

The Plotroach - Totally unappealing, but so tenacious they’ll survive anything until you finally give up and write them.

What Plot Creatures have you encountered?

fight club (kinda), but it’s hogwarts

severus snape saw himself as a realist, honestly. the other hogwarts staff members saw him as way too pessimistic, but, frankly, he believed they were just too optimistic.

severus was shocked at how intently the rest of the professors truly believed that the declining animosity amongst the student body was a secret, unanimous agreement of inter-house unity.

severus, of course, knew otherwise. being, shockingly, the youngest member of staff had its perks, you see.

the room of requirement wasn’t the well-kept secret that the other staff members believed- knowing of its existence but not it’s location. the room was used widely by students in severus’ time in hogwarts, primarily as a duelling room- where students settled their quarrels with an audience, away from the watchful eyes of their professors or even just practiced duelling for fun.

having, naturally, been challenged to countless duels during his time in hogwarts, severus recognised the decline in aggression between the houses for what it really was- this well-kept secret has been passed down from parents to students again once more.

severus knew that these duels should be running along proper duelling etiquette, but he also knew that any curse bar the killing curse was free game. if someone could heal it, or cast the counter-curse, you could use it. if not, you couldn’t. simple as that. most students have the common decency not to use the remaining unforgivable curses- but the key word was most.

severus could tell the rest of the staff, but where was the fun in that? all students present at a duel, not just the duellers, likely will have taken a vow of silence so it couldn’t be revealed to staff. multiple students with a solid grasp of healing would be present at each duel. different nights held different year groups. it was surprisingly well-organised.

most importantly, though, it severely lessened the amount of detentions severus had to give out.

maybe it truly was a good thing, severus mused, as he rounded a corner in the dungeons on his way to his next class. double potions with the slytherin and gryffindor fifth years.

there had miraculously been a slight improvement in inter-house relations between the two usually feuding houses. it seemed that this duelling had sparked a grudging respect and severus had noticed a steady decline in the amount of his students in the hospital wing for gryffindor-related incidents.

severus had also noticed an obvious distance between potter (potter-black, he amended in his head) and granger and weasley since that demented sorting hat had demanded his resorting at the beginning of the year. the combination of potter-black’s change of legal name, his sorting into slytherin, his certain involvement in illicit duelling (which granger was very against- her loud protests outside his classroom was half the reason severus worked it out) and his close friendship with nott and zabini (and shocking civility with malfoy) had certainly spelled the end of the golden trio.

severus heard the chattering outside his classroom abruptly stop, and he swiftly disillusioned himself despite not being in sight yet.

“heir theodore nott. i, hermione jean granger, challenge you to a wizard’s duel at 8pm tonight on the grounds of the horrific injustice you and your housemates are doing by corrupting one hadrian potter-black to your dark magic ways. i nominate ronald weasley as my second.”

oh merlin, severus thought. out of all the students granger could pick a duel with, she goes for the death eater’s son who reads dark arts books like they’re bedtime stories.

“and what’s in it for the winner?” came nott’s voice.

“if i win, you stay away from harry. if you win, i- i’ll leave harry alone,” granger said.

“granger,” severus recognised potter-black’s sharp tone, “renounce it. you can’t duel.”

“what, harry? you think a mudblood like me can’t handle myself against one of your new death eater friends?”

“get your head out of your arse, granger,” zabini chimed in, “that’s not what hadrian’s saying and you know it. you hate the duels because the dark arts aren’t off limits, yet you want to duel someone who can wield dark spells when you have no duelling experience? you’ll get hurt, hadrian’s trying to stop that from happening.”

“sounds like a threat, zabini. you won’t scare me. nott, do you agree?”

there was a pause, and severus was sure he could hear a harshly whispered warning to nott from potter-black. similarly, he could hear weasley pleading with granger not to go through with this. severus imagined the latter was down to his fear of potentially having to duel nott himself.

“i, heir theodore tyr nott, formally accept hermione jean granger’s challenge to a wizarding duel tonight at 8pm on the grounds that she needs to mind her own sodding business. i nominate hadrian potter-black as my second.”

severus felt a rare twang of pity for granger, as he recognised the barely suppressed glee in nott’s voice- clearly, he had been itching for something like this for a while. whatever happened tonight would not be pretty, and, as he cancelled his disillusionment spell and set off towards his classroom, severus decided he would brew some quick speciality healing potions to send up to poppy in the hospital wing as a little gift.

for the first time in all his years of teaching, severus almost wished someone would create a disaster in this classroom. that way he could throw out as many detentions as remotely possible, and hopefully prevent this disastrous duel.

he was almost tempted to ruin granger and nott’s potions himself as an excuse to punish them, despite the fact granger was competent in potions and nott was top of the class, but he soon scrapped that idea upon remembering exactly what kind of father nott senior was. young theodore, as terrifying and powerful as he may be, would not survive a summer with his father if he failed even one potions class.

severus sighed to himself as he stalked around the classroom towards its end, pretending not to hear the furious whispers or see the rapid hand gestures that potter-black was directing to nott beside him or nott’s hands held up in innocence as he swore he wouldn’t try to kill granger. severus also really ignored the quick kiss nott pressed to potter-black’s cheek when he was focusing on the gryffindor side of the classroom, and he also ignored the way potter-black stopped his protests and settled for merely glaring at the boy beside him.

he did, however, deduct fifteen points from gryffindor after weasley’s hands shook hard enough for him to mess up his potion to the point of the cauldron melting through the table.

severus sighed to himself, as the last of the class left the room. he wouldn’t say he had ever been particularly impressed with potter-black in potions, but he did have to admit- he had never seen a functional draught of peace brewed with quite so much aggression.

he shook his head as he readied himself for his next class, telling himself that whatever happened in that duel tonight was not his business to stop. he was, however, quite eager to see just how it would turn out.

oh, to be a fly on the wall of the room of requirement.