Harry Potter and the Reworked Universe [HP Rewrite] [Narrative Quest]

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Harry sat next to Draco, mind whirring with possible questions.

Well, okay, first things first: triage. What did Harry need to know the most?

"Um..." he started, clearing his throat before asking, "What's Hogwarts like?"

"Well... it's a school."

...

...

...

Harry gave Draco a flat look.

"Yeah, I didn't explain that right," Draco sighed. "So... well, it's like a muggle school from my understanding, but the non-magical subjects are for the morning classes. Then there's a couple hours of rest, and after that students go to magic classes; general things like Conjuration, Evocation, or Accord and Ritual Crafting."

Harry nodded, "Alright... that's it? Just four subjects?"

"Well, in the third year we pick two extra subjects that are more specialized, but that's optional. There's a lot to learn just within those subjects," Draco explained. "With some fringe exceptions, all magic is some form or variation of those four main branches. That's why the houses are divided according to them."

"The houses? Like your House Malfoy?"

"No, the Hogwarts houses," Draco patiently said. "Griffyndor is the House of those most aligned with Evocation, Ravenclaw for those specializing in Conjuration, Hufflepuff for Rituals, and Slytherin for Accords."

"Right..."

"Are you lost?"

"A little," Harry confessed.

"They'll explain it in more detail at the school," Draco dismissed, waving his hand. "Now, what you need to understand is that Hogwarts isn't about... learning."

"It's not?"

"Well, yes, ideally students should learn enough to hold jobs and junk. If they're not, y'know, already connected. Like me."

"Ah."

"I'm saying I won't have to work a day of my life."

"No, yeah, I got that."

"Because I'm rich and noble."

"I said I got it."

"Good," Draco nodded. "But the thing about the Unspoken World is that it's... pretty tight-knit, I guess I would describe it?"

"I noticed that. Everyone seems to know each other."

"Yes, well... one in ten thousand people have the capacity to be a magician, and of that number only a percentage go on to pursue an education and form a part of the greater Unspoken England. Some choose to never leave the muggle world, or if they do, they gain control of one of the hidden lands in the isles or join a disconnected hidden society."

"Sounds... a little lonely," Harry noted.

"There's a fair bit of overlap between anti-social personalities and the capacity for enormous reality-warping power," Draco shrugged. "In the end, the result is the same. Hogwarts specifically and Unspoken England in general are all best navigated according to whom you know and what favours you are owed."

Harry scratched his chin, thinking. "What happens if you don't know anyone at school? Or... anyone 'important', I suppose?"

"Well... best case scenario, you are ignored and you end up having some ignoble job after school," Draco said, with the tone of someone discussing a fate worse than death. "Wost case... no one is there to help you if you catch someone's ire."

"Hm," said Harry, thinking back to bullies willing to pick on little orphan Harry, and how often Dudley'd had to intercept them. "Noted. So then... how does magical England work?"

"Unspoken England," Draco corrected. "All of England is magical, even if muggles don't know it. The society is what's Unspoken."

"Right."

"As for how it works... well, making friends is important," said Draco. "You should always measure how you'll be percieved for doing something against what benefits you'll get out of doing it."

"Sounds a little hollow," Harry noted. "Don't magicians ever do things just 'cause they believe in them?"

Draco's expression darkened, "Yes. And it tends to backfire horribly."

"Oh."

The young boy took a deep breath, shook his head a bit and continued, "In any case... what you want to do is ally yourself with a Noble House, especially one in good standing. Are you familiar with monarchies?"

Harry's face blanked.

Draco watched him, sighed, and explained, "Right, so... at the bottom there's peasants. At most, they own their own homes, maybe their own business. But all of that is a part of a town, which is ruled by a mayor, which is an elected position."

"Okay," Harry nodded.

"Towns and their surrounding areas are part of a barony, or holding, which is ruled by a Baron. That is an inherited position, as is each one above it, though one can become a Baron through marriage or great accomplishments."

Harry kept nodding.

"A handful of baronies make up a County, which is ruled by a Count."

"Makes sense."

"A Viscount rules a collection of weaker Counts."

"Sure."

"Earls, like my parents, rule over roughly 8 or less counties, depending on size and power of said territories."

"Uh-huh."

"Then a Duke rules over three or so Earldoms, depending on the same factors."

"Okay."

"And a Prince controls one quarter of the Dukedoms, while the King rules the entire Kingdom."

"Right, and the Prince is the King's son?"

"No, that's muggle nonsense. Prince is a status, which stays in a family line, same as King. A King or Queen's child is simply a Monarch-in-Training. A Prince can, however, challenge for the position of King once per decade, but only one family at a time can do it so the four Princely families have to coordinate, which is usually done with tourneys, duels and other various types of competitions."

Harry nodded again. His eyes were getting a bit glossy, but Draco kept explaining enthusiastically.

"It's also forbidden for the Princely families to marry between each other, but every rank below them can, and in fact can mix between statuses, which leads to a lot of negotiations for resources, secrets and magic items. There's also a lot of spy games, which are very fun. One time I negotiated a treaty with a Barony, and..."

Harry kept nodding.

"... have I lost you somewhere along the way?"

"A while back yes," Harry admitted. "I think I'll just pretend to know what's going on and hope that I actually learn it along the way."

"Does that usually work for you?"

"It's how I got through school so far."

Draco looked at him, then shrugged. "Fair enough."

"So... you mentioned resources. Are Magicians going around diggins stuff out of the earth and trading in minerals and clothes?"

"God, no! We have businesses for that; if a House wants any of that it can just buy a few businesses and have them work directly for them. Noble Houses trade in pacts, stars and like I said, magic items."

"Huh. And what level is House Malfoy at?"

"Well..." Draco's expression darkened again as he looked away. "We used to be Princes..."

... hm. Harry might've stuck his foot in his mouth on this one.

Change of topic, activate!

"What do magician kids do for fun, anyway?"

"Huh?" Draco asked, snapped out of his brooding by the non-sequitor.

"Like... are there magical video games?"

"Video... those are those moving pictures that only do one thing, right?" Malfoy asked. "How do you play games with them?"

Okay, so maybe Harry could blow his mind by showing him the NES later. But for now... "So what do you play?"

"Well... a lot of noble children are encouraged to read a lot of history, learn an art or trade of some kind. Really become cultured," Draco explained, somewhat awkwardly. "I myself am on my way to master the violin."

"And that's fun?"

"... not really."

Harry snorted. "Alright. Sports?"

"I don't really like to run around..." Draco confessed.

"There are no magic sports?"

"Well, a few centuries back there was this stupid idea called Quidditch, but the rules made no sense and people kept dying, so the whole concept was scrapped pretty thoroughly."

"People died playing this? What did it involve?"

"Flying around at a few kilometers per hour on brittle pieces of wood while people threw literal iron balls at your head. And the games didn't end until a small flying object was caught, so some games could stretch on for days, weeks or even months on end."

Harry looked at Draco, gobsmacked.

"... common sense isn't very common in the Unspoken World, I'm afraid," he said, blushing a bit. "I think we make up for it by having access to warping reality, though."

"... yeah, sure," Harry shrugged. "So magician children just... get bored."

"We're encouraged to make our own fun," Draco insisted. "I've found a great joy in discovering what notes to play to make the sprites my father studies move in certain patterns."

"Right," Harry said, skeptically. "Maybe some day you can come over and my cousin and I can show you something that is... y'know. Actually fun."

Draco blinked, but he smiled a bit as he said, "Bold words, Mr..."

He paused, flushed a little and said, "Um, what was your surname again? I don't think you mentioned it to me."

Harry looked towards the other families. They were ignoring them, and there weren't any workers around...

[][DRACO] Tell Him: What's the harm in one person knowing?

[][DRACO] Don't Tell Him: Make some excuse or just straight up tell him you can't say your name.

Before Draco can react, he got called to have his clothes fitted. After that, the two boys didn't get another chance to talk.


Walking out of Ollivander's, only mildly traumatized, Harry inspected the new wooden ring decorating his right middle finger.


The green sand/glass/whatever it was around it was, in Garrick's words, purely decorative and meant to match his eyes.

Wrapped under the decoration, however, were the much more important and vital heartstrings of the beating heart that Harry had chosen.

Pulsing pieces that he could've sworn he could still feel beating around his finger when he focused.

And speaking of hearts, a warm feeling stirred in his when he looked down at his new implement. The knowledge that his mother once had a ring much like this one once decorating her own hand...

He felt a bit closer to her, in some unspoken way.

Smiling for a second before memories of a spider-like person re-entered his brain, Harry left.

But not without asking himself a question. Hagrid had explained, in a low mutter as they walked to the bookstore, that Ollivander chose to become that in pursuit of better carrying out his job.

Was that the same impulse that drove Harry's mother to "give away" parts of herself?

Was it possible that he would one day feel the same impulse?


Harry didn't really think before acting.

His hand reached out for it, and the light caught the green band around his ring in an odd way, reflecting.

Before his eyes, almost too quick to notice, dozens of small flickers of flame burst into existance around Harry's hand. These flames balled up into themselves, and promptly grew spindly arms and legs.

Harry barely had time to question if he'd lost his mind before these little sprites dashed forward through the air, multiplying on the way until there at least a hundred of them, all of which hit the shelves at the same time with enough force to send it smashing back into place, promptly dislodging the blonde girl from the shelves.

Still moving without thinking, his new black longcoat flaring behind him as he rushed, Harry managed to catch her before she did more than stumble a bit, landing in his arms.

She was a bit heavy, but Aunt Petunia had nailed into Harry's brain that he should never, ever say that to someone, so instead he tried to grin reassuringly as he asked, "Are you alright?"

The blonde girl looked at him.

She kept looking at him for a while.

Her face started to get a bit red.

Was she sick? Harry made to check on her temperature before she promptly scrambled out of his arms, yelled her thanks at him, then ran out of the store as fast as her little legs would carry her.

Harry stood there, clueless and confused.

Hagrid just started chuckling and patting himself on the back for recommending the coat.

[Harry gained the trait: Prince Charming! He's still just a kid, but puberty's looking like an easy ride if he keeps rescuing people.]

[Harry gained the trait: Oblivious! Practically obligatory in male protagonists, unfortunately.]


In the end, Harry and Hagrid wound up sitting in a private balcony at an ice cream shop called Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour, which for some ungodly reason offered flavours such as Sentient Slime, Troll Mucus, Horror Incarnate, Sapient Slime, The Slow But Inevitable Realization That Your Grandmother is Racist, Autumn Chill, Muddy Water, Defeat, The Feet, and worst of all: Mint Chocolate.

[][ICE-CREAM] Write-in Your Order: Feel free to get wacky with it.

Hagrid himself ordered Rocky Road, which also had the consistency of a rocky road because magicians just have to put whimsy into everything even if it's a bad idea, apparently.

"So..." Hagrid said, scraping his plastic spoon uselessly against his rock ice cream. "I owe you some answers, and now that we've some privacy... what do you want to know?"

[][HAGRID] Write-in Five Topics to Question Hagrid About: [e.g.: Why You Couldn't Tell People Your Name, Why Does Everything Have Whimsy, More About the Unspoken World (be specific), More About Hogwarts, Magic, Your Parents, etc.]

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Author's Note: I know the ring in the picture isn't holly, but instead walnut, but frankly holly is a lame-looking material. So let's just say magic holly trees are, like, darker 'cause of wizard junk.

Shoutout to @TheFat1, who taught me the system of nobility which I just straight-up stole from his campaign. I would've asked for permission but, like, I didn't want to. So forgiveness it is instead.