CmptrWz's Random Snippets

Use of Snippets
As a general note: All snippets in this thread can be considered up for adoption, with a couple of basic conditions:
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HP - Binding of the Elves
Harry sighed as Hermione ranted about the treatment of House Elves. Finally, at a point where she stopped to breathe, he interjected. "Hermione, have you asked any elves about this?"

"What?" she replied, blinking.

"Have you asked if any of the elves can tell you about why they're bound to serve wizards?"

There was a pause as she blushed, a significant portion of her rant having been on the lack of information available in books on the subject. "Er, no, I haven't. But I bet they can't tell me anything of worth anyway. Their bindings wouldn't let them, surely?"

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Okay then. Why not ask Dobby?"

"The Great and Powerful Harry Potter called Dobby?" Dobby said as he popped up next to them, startling both of them.

Recovering first, Harry nodded. "Yes. Hermione can't find any books saying why House Elves serve wizards. Can you tell us why they do?"

Dobby nodded vigorously. "Dobby can! House Elves serve wizards because the Goblins bound them to."

Hermione looked like she was going to explode at that, so Harry hurriedly asked his next question before she could get a word in. "And why did they do that?"

"They were tired of cleaning up after creative elves," Dobby explained in an even tone, causing Hermione to blink in confusion. "Creating the Dementors was what they claimed to be the reason, but they'd been looking for a reason ever since elves sank Atlantis. Not that they admitted to that until after they'd tricked a clan of elves into finding a way to bind all elves into service to the wizards."

"What?" Hermione said.

"A bored elf will get depressed or creative. Or both. Dementors happened when a bunch of elves were depressed and had a creative streak. The Goblins thought that binding elves to the wizards would give us something to do, make the wizards complacent, and stop us from getting too creative. No wizard has treated us as badly as the Goblins would since, and most of us like the work."

Harry looked at Hermione, who seemed to have mentally crashed, and shrugged. Hopefully that would be one less crusade on her part. He then looked back at Dobby. "So, are you busy enough to not be bored?"

Dobby nodded his head again. "Dobby is!" He then frowned. "But Winky isn't working. She wants to help a family, not work in the castle, and other elves shun those who aren't fully bound."

Nodding, Harry decided to come back to that later. After things had settled in Hermione's head. "Thank you Dobby."

A week later Harry and Hermione would have an elf each. Dobby was fully bound to Harry and Winky was bound to Hermione, if only to keep either of them from getting 'too bored'.
 
Re: HP - Binding of the Elves

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

That is a unique view of things.
The only thing worse is a drunk, bored, and creative elf.
 
You mean like Winky was?
Winky was depressed and drunk. Not a lot of room for creativity there.

Now if she was creative on top of that... Can you imagine something like a Drunken Dementor? Sounds either hilarious or truly frightening. :)

EDIT: Or would that be Psychedelic Dementor? Hmmm maybe, Dumbledore was said to wear very colorful robes. He was also fixated on Harry. Some authors even posit that he was attempting to suck all the fun and joy out of Harry's life while simultaneously setting him up for Death by Dark Lord.

That's it! I've figured out the plot 👆 some Elf was depressed, drunk, and creative: thus Dumbledore.

It all makes sense now *nods head*
 
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That explains both the idea of the Fae, alien creatures with alien moods and goals that play with mortals mostly for the fun of it, and of Brownies, a subtype of fae that likes to work and do chores. Given that the Brownies were the actual mythological inspiration for the House Elves, and Elf and Fae are often conflated with each other?
 
So... the next question is, why is nobody told about this? If an unbound elf can be a massive catastrophe, then letting them loose without oversight would be quite the offense.
 
So... the next question is, why is nobody told about this? If an unbound elf can be a massive catastrophe, then letting them loose without oversight would be quite the offense.
Who says nobody is told about this? Only rich pureblood wizards get house elves, for the most part, and they know all this already... what? explain all this to a mudblood?
 
I wonder if a bored and drunk Winky, decided that a creative way to help her poor Mr.Crouch to become relevant in the wider wizarding world was to insure his old enemy Volde. made a successful comeback. Helping Junior spell Potter's name to come out of the cup, nudging the dragon's tail to just miss Potter. Making sure Dobby could easily find the Gilliweed. Poor little Master didn't have the magic to make it through the wards, so she had to use some elf magic to enchant the cup. Stupid rat man couldn't stir a pack of ramen right, Winky will have to make that potion... after all, Winky is a good and proper House Elf.
 
Who says nobody is told about this? Only rich pureblood wizards get house elves, for the most part, and they know all this already... what? explain all this to a mudblood?

Rich pureblood wizards... and the entire staff and student body of Hogwarts. Not to mention that if you can learn what's going on just by asking a local elf, it'd be written down, like, all over the place.

Plus 'let's not have any more Dementors, and not pull another Atlantis' should sort of be public info along the lines of 'don't let the nuclear plant melt down'. Even if few people will ever be in a position where this advice might matter, it's the kind of info that gets around even if it wasn't a good idea to spread intentionally.
 
Rich pureblood wizards... and the entire staff and student body of Hogwarts. Not to mention that if you can learn what's going on just by asking a local elf, it'd be written down, like, all over the place.

Plus 'let's not have any more Dementors, and not pull another Atlantis' should sort of be public info along the lines of 'don't let the nuclear plant melt down'. Even if few people will ever be in a position where this advice might matter, it's the kind of info that gets around even if it wasn't a good idea to spread intentionally.
Its possible wizards have forgotten about it. After all most wizards like to consider themselves superior to other races even magical ones and this info would contradict that idea.
 
Its possible wizards have forgotten about it. After all most wizards like to consider themselves superior to other races even magical ones and this info would contradict that idea.

Sure, and somehow never recorded it in any of the literature. Despite 'books about all sorts of esoteric topics' being one of the core features of the world. Right up until the next time someone asks why they've got this slavery thing going on (with the constant influx of foreign-born students, that'll be next Tuesday), somebody asks an elf, and whups, turns out they're magical rogue WMDs when let off the chain.

Eh, suppose it's just a snicker snippet, doesn't need to much thought put into it.
 
Worse yet: a bored marine.

I bet with the right mix of glamours and confundus, they could get Winky enlisted...

If merely bored and creative elves led to the sinking of Atlantis and the creation of Dementors, what would happen if you had a bored, creative, drunk AND marine elf? Regular bored marines are bad enough!
 
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Sure, and somehow never recorded it in any of the literature. Despite 'books about all sorts of esoteric topics' being one of the core features of the world. Right up until the next time someone asks why they've got this slavery thing going on (with the constant influx of foreign-born students, that'll be next Tuesday), somebody asks an elf, and whups, turns out they're magical rogue WMDs when let off the chain.

Eh, suppose it's just a snicker snippet, doesn't need to much thought put into it.
Are you somehow suggesting that HOUSE-ELVES of all things, sunk Atlantis and created Dementers? What kind of depraved mudblood are you?

edit: To be clear the above is the typical pureblood responce to such a claim. Purebloods have been rewriting thier history for 300 years to remove things they don't like. Like facts that show they are not the ubermensch.
 
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Purebloods have been rewriting thier history for 300 years to remove things they don't like. Like facts that show they are not the ubermensch.

If the 'blood purist' faction had sufficient control over Hogwarts and the rest of Wizarding Britain to successfully censor such information- and actively keep it so, in the face of House Elves just telling anyone who asks- then Hermione would not have been allowed to attend Hogwarts in the first place.
 
If the 'blood purist' faction had sufficient control over Hogwarts and the rest of Wizarding Britain to successfully censor such information- and actively keep it so, in the face of House Elves just telling anyone who asks- then Hermione would not have been allowed to attend Hogwarts in the first place.
That was always an issue with JKRs world. The purebloods control the Ministry, the Wizengamot, basically the entire government, with one or two minor exceptions.

Aside from Dumbles, no one stands up to them.

Why haven't they changed everything to suit themselves? Why, it's almost like it was a children's story, and kids don't give a damn about politics.
 
HP - Going Back...
Harry had failed, killed in his sleep by an unknown agent the night before they were going to return to Hogwarts for the last of Riddle's horcruxes. Of course, being Harry Potter meant that he'd been interrupted on his way to the afterlife, told little to nothing beyond the fact that Riddle had pissed off both sides with his soul anchors and that they were going to send him back to ensure Riddle's demise. Harry would keep his current knowledge and his magical core would retain the power it had when he'd died, but he would get no other knowledge or gifts. Not even the removal of the bit of Riddle's soul that sat in his scar.

Worse, he couldn't even choose when he was sent back to, and he'd woken up on his seventh birthday for some kind of unexplained magical reason. Years before he was likely able to so much as contact the magical world safely, let alone do anything. It was almost maddening, most of his mental focus having to go into not killing the Dursleys as they mistreated him. Well, that and remembering just what his routine was supposed to be, since it'd been quite a while from his point of view.

His day changed drastically from the norm, any norm, around noon. There was a mighty crash, as though thousands of panes of glass were breaking, that Vernon didn't seem to be able to hear. Petunia had heard something, but obviously to nowhere near the same degree as Harry had. Ten seconds later three men in fully concealing black cloaks apparated into the room, stunning the Dursleys before anyone could so much as take a breath to attempt to yell at them.

Harry then had to mentally apologize to one of the three, as she pulled back the hood of her cloak. "Good day, Mister Potter. Sorry about the delay, but the absolutely horrid wards on this property held us up."

Blinking, Harry nodded to acknowledge that statement, incredibly confused about what was going on as this hadn't happened on his seventh birthday. "What?"

"My apologies, but we should have at most half an hour before the monitoring devices on the ward alert the one who placed it." She then waved her wand over him, scowled as he lit up like a Christmas tree, then cast a dozen spells faster than he could follow to negate most of the lights. A parchment had appeared listing things as well, though he couldn't see what it said.

"Removing the tracking is probably going to bring someone down on us faster," one of the other two said.

"We're going to need a Fidelius anyway," the woman said. "It'll take at least a week to safely remove the blood trace."

"Damn."

Harry's fight or flight instinct had, during that conversation, finally started to get into gear and he looked for a way out. The three unknowns were between him and the only good exits, and before he got further than noting that a scarf was thrown at him. A moment later he felt the familiar pull of a portkey and mentally swore.

Ten minutes later he was in a very nice looking apartment with the three unknowns, who had thrown up a fidelius with Harry himself as one of two secret keepers. Apparently it wouldn't hold for more than six months cast that way, so one of the men said, but they only needed a week or two.

"Sorry about all of that," the woman said once she had the secret that 'the safehouse is in apartment seven'. "I'm Florence, and your primary contact while we figure things out."

"Figure what out?" Harry asked, doing his best to ignore the spike of pain in his head.

"Why you came back in time outside of a closed loop, of course. There are only six known methods of doing so, four of which we can rule out by you appearing back in an existing body instead of bringing your future body with you. The final two require incredible sacrifices, usually only performed by the truly desperate, and if you did either of those then we're going to have to ensure that you had an actual good reason for doing so. Or, I suppose, that you interrupted someone else doing so and just got caught up in the ritual."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Though he did find himself thinking about the post-death meeting he'd had, which sounded nothing like anything she was talking about.

There was a pause as Florence rolled her eyes, but one of the men swore under his breath. Florence turned back to him. "What?"

The man pointed at Harry. "He's got no shields to speak of, and he honestly has no clue what you're talking about." He then bowed slightly to Harry. "Sorry for the invasion of your privacy, I'll ensure that the 500 galleon reparation for unauthorized legilimency on an innocent is paid by the end of the week."

"If he has no clue then how the hell did he get here? Sleeping through someone else doing the ritual on him?"

"As far as the kid is concerned, he died and was sent back. Worse is why, we've got soul anchors to find and dispose of."

That had the other man and Florence swearing as well.



It had turned out that the three were Unspeakables of the Department of Mysteries, and one thing the department did was track all time travel. Most methods created a stable time loop as a side effect of the way they functioned, magic itself ensuring that you couldn't change the past. But there were other methods that allowed changing of the past, usually used in an attempt to take over the world before anyone knew you were going to be a threat or to stop someone who was trying to take over the world.

Harry's arrival had been spotted immediately, only for the protections on the Dursley's house to slow the Unspeakables down in getting to him. Florence was pissed at the blood tracker and his general health, they were all pissed that Riddle had created horcruxes, and another Unspeakable that introduced himself as David had been gleeful upon finding out that he finally got to use the ritual that would remove a soul fragment from a living thing without harming said living thing.

That had hurt worse than any Cruciatus curse had, knocked him out for a full week, and for some reason had caused him to be unable to speak or write in anything other than parseltongue. They ended up needing to teach him some of the mind arts just to help him get enough control of his magic to shut down the ability, just happy that he was still able to read and understand English. It was only after that had been accomplished that he was able to properly share the rest of what he knew about the horcruxes.

By Harry's eighth birthday the Unspeakables had acquired everything other than the diary, which was proving to be difficult to get their hands on. They knew what Malfoy had done with it in the original timeline, but couldn't depend on him being that predictable. Nor did they want to risk the diary taking control of anyone before they could track it down. It was Harry, just after finishing his cake, who brought up the possible answer.

"Does anyone think that Malfoy wants Riddle to return to take over leadership again? And if not, would he hand the diary over to prevent it?"

It turned out that the answer was that nobody thought that Malfoy wanted to stop being the de facto leader of the dark and that he was, in fact, willing to give up the diary once informed that it was a soul anchor. Followed by checking his entire family into Saint Mungo's to be treated for exposure to an unknown soul anchor, something that Harry hadn't realized was part of the treatment he'd been getting for malnourishment. Though Harry's was less severe for a number of reasons.

Sadly for Lucius, he was denied his status as the leader of the dark by Riddle's mark. When the diary was unceremoniously thrown through the veil, being the only intentional anchor that hadn't been an important artifact of some kind, the dark mark drained every last one of his followers dry attempting to prevent Riddle's final passing. It didn't kill them, but magically they were all left as less than squibs. Overnight the British magical world changed, far too many purebloods suddenly losing their magic. Others, like Peter Pettigrew, were found in compromising positions. Of course, the discovery of Peter led to the freeing of Sirius, something the Unspeakables had been having trouble arranging, which had led to a very happy Harry.

Dumbledore's actions, both in imprisoning Sirius without a trial and in placing Harry with the Dursleys without proper care and checkups, had led to him being arrested. He was able to get out of being imprisoned, but he lost all of his positions. McGonagall, luckily unaware of the man's crimes before his arrest, ended up becoming the next Hogwarts Headmistress. She named Flitwick as her deputy and fired Trewlany before returning to searching for a replacement potions instructor.

Harry ended up moving in with Sirius, who bought a muggle home as an extra middle finger to his recently-deceased mother. It was only when Harry started attending school again that he found out that the new house was two blocks away from the Grangers. Running into Hermione being bullied for her bookish ways infuriated him. Nobody in the school could explain what had happened, but Hermione and her parents got an early introduction to magic as a result of it.

The future was certainly going to go very differently, and it wasn't until his third year at Hogwarts that Harry realized why no additional 'gifts' were given when he was sent back. They hadn't been needed, after all, as the act of sending him back had ensured that everything was put into motion without needing anything else to help out.
 
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Actually competent Department of Mysteries - Time Magic division and Department of Mysteries - Soul Magic division is awesome. I mean, I don't like it when people write Unspeakables as "Aurors but better", but if they are researching these very dangerous topics then they likely have methods to detect other people messing with these very dangerous topics, and probably intervene when those dangerous topics come up. They would have a Warding and Cursebreaking division, who could get through whatever wards were holding soul anchors should the need arise. They would have a Soul Magic division, which would not only deal with Soul Anchors and the Veil but also things like
Homenum Revelio, the human-presence-detection charm. And they are known to have a Time Magic division, who worked with Time Turners among other things.
 
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