Harry Potter and the Skittering Spouse

The 'Power he knows not', in this particular case, could end up to legitimately be argued as love, depending on how things develop.

Alternately: Marriage. Mutual respect. Understanding. Trust. Planet-sized supercomputers.

Any of that bunch.
Alternatively it could also just be 'an American'. 😆
"Ofcourse the American's answer is more guns and not negotiating with terrorists."

The not being able to get Fawkes killed bit was pure gold!

While Taylor is building her new rep I kinda hope she takes ques from 'first ladies', because that is essentially what she and Harry are. Dumbledore is being pushed out as irrelevant, and Harry will be the Commander in Chief of the 'Light'(Read: Sane People) with Taylor as the Woman Behind the Man Who Lived.
I also really hope they spread the name Tom Marvolo Riddle and the term Lich to everybody.
 
Last edited:
Dumbledore actually has the same control freak tendencies that Taylor has. He just had to have his fingers in every pie and be involved in every little thing, and no one should question him or try to tell him to do anything differently.

He's seeing himself in her.
Taylor also seemed to notice that as well in this chapter. Though she actually had people she listened to, kept informed, and actually worked with.

What I'm curious about is how Dumbledore will try to keep moving his plans forward? If Taylor and Harry keep wrecking his "delicate balancing act" will he decide to be more proactive, or continue to act subtly and restrained?

I suppose it depends on what his actual endgame plan is. If all he cares about is finding/destroying the horcruxes and setting up Harry's self-sacrifice, then all his other plans are just side objectives that he can discard if need be.
 
With Dumbledore's withholding information and plans, there's also another factor that has to be considered in HBP.

Dumbledore is dying. Even if he isn't assassinated by Death Eaters, he's on borrowed time and he knows it. And when the curse on that ring finally offs him, every bit of intelligence that he kept to himself is lost forever, and every plan that the intended executors haven't been fully briefed on becomes useless.

He may be Leader of the Light today, but everyone can see that there is a not-too-distant tomorrow when he won't be, and he has not enacted any sort of transition to make sure that his successor will be able to hit the ground running. Failing to do that in a war when the top man being a casualty is always a possibility is foolish. Not doing it when the top man is already terminally ill is outright idiocy.
 
I am excited to see all the war outfits and codenames Taylor and Harry's army gets.
Which btw, that needs a rebranding. DA is no longer applicable in it's original meaning.

Weaver is confirmed, Harry might just go by Grim, but wait until Luna steps onto the battlefield dressed as a giant turnip and calling herself Dirigible.
 
With Dumbledore's withholding information and plans, there's also another factor that has to be considered in HBP.

Dumbledore is dying. Even if he isn't assassinated by Death Eaters, he's on borrowed time and he knows it. And when the curse on that ring finally offs him, every bit of intelligence that he kept to himself is lost forever, and every plan that the intended executors haven't been fully briefed on becomes useless.

He may be Leader of the Light today, but everyone can see that there is a not-too-distant tomorrow when he won't be, and he has not enacted any sort of transition to make sure that his successor will be able to hit the ground running. Failing to do that in a war when the top man being a casualty is always a possibility is foolish. Not doing it when the top man is already terminally ill is outright idiocy.
A big part of the problem with Dumbledore is that he believes that he understands the prophecy and that Harry is therefore guaranteed to take down Voldemort in some manner.

Thus he's basically ignoring that whole aspect of the conflict because as far as he is concerned, it will sort itself out, so he's focused entirely on maneuvering things into position to deal with the aftermath of that. He's also very worried that Harry will be a repeat of Voldemort and Grindelwald and turn 'dark', so he's more focused on making sure that doesn't happen than he is on trying to make sure Harry actually succeeds.

And then oops he gets himself hit with an incurable death curse in a moment of weakness.


So now Dumbledore is trying to salvage his elaborate and over-complicated plans with the knowledge that he's not actually going to be around to oversee everything in the aftermath, and right in the middle of all this chaos suddenly a pair of teenagers are knocking over dominoes and throwing said plans into even more chaos.

Unsurprisingly, Dumbledore finds this to be very upsetting and in typical human fashion he's focusing on the source of the upset rather than taking a step back and realizing that there isn't anything useful to salvage from his plans, and that he does not in fact possess the power to shield the children from the consequences of their actions anymore. (Dumbledore is a huge believer in children having the opportunities to make mistakes without suffering severe long-term consequences for such, even when realistically they absolutely should. It's why he's so obsessed with protecting Malfoy; he feels that Malfoy has made what should have been a minor error in judgement normal for a child and will now have the rest of his life destroyed because of that, which in Dumbledore's mind is a truly horrible thing indeed.)


It is very common for the kind of person that makes elaborate plans to, when the table gets flipped and everything goes to shit, waste huge amounts of time and effort attempting to make the plans work anyway in a form of sunk cost fallacy. Even though he knows intellectually that one of the key foundations of his plans (the fact that he will be around to see them through) has been destroyed, he's invested so much time and effort into the plans that he's still trying to figure out a way to make them work anyway, and he does not appreciate a couple of teenagers with less than a tenth of his experience trying to tell him he's wrong, especially when they're right.
 
Last edited:
Bloody hell. Dumbledore would be so much more sympathetic and understandable if he weren't the headmaster of a fucking school. If he were just a politician and an administrator I could at least get where he's coming from. But despite arguably being the least important of his many hats, being Headmaster of Hogwarts tops the list in terms of priorities; it has to. The children have to come first. If he wanted to focus on big-picture he should have gotten someone else to take the post.
He doesn't trust anyone else to do that, along with 'being a schoolmaster' being the thing he most wants to do.
 
He doesn't trust anyone else to do that, along with 'being a schoolmaster' being the thing he most wants to do.
Yeah, Dumbledore has a whole obsession with protecting children from their mistakes, due to his own past experience with Grindelwald and Riddle, which fundamentally compromises his judgement in certain regards when it comes to his job as headmaster.
 
Children not being held accountable for their actions is kinda what started all this in the first place.

Well that, WW2, and prejudicial adults.
 
Honestly, I know he isn't likely to appear in the story and I have no idea how he'd find out about her, but I'd love to see what Grindelwald would think of Taylor if he did come across information on her.
 
Honestly, I really would like a mini chapter with QA's thoughts on the whole magic thing.

"How are you so certain my plans are flawed if you don't know them?"

"That should be self evident. You didn't account for random chance having Malfoy caught, nevermind us catching him. He's an idiot, there were good chances someone would have spotted his brand. Heck, there were good chances he'd brag about it! Oh and how well did it work for Sirius to trust in you by the way? The answer is Ten years in Azkaban good. "
 
Children not being held accountable for their actions is kinda what started all this in the first place.

Well that, WW2, and prejudicial adults.
It's not that he doesn't think they should be held accountable, it's that he doesn't think they should suffer severe long-term consequences.

Dumbledore is of the opinion that a teenager should not be able to ruin their life from making a single stupid decision. Which is not actually an entirely unreasonable opinion to have, within limits, but Dumbledore doesn't really think there should be any limits, or if he does his limits are way further than most people would consider to be reasonable.
 
Last edited:
I'm looking forward to the DA meeting where Taylor will be appearing as Weaver. Harry is gunna see the swarm on and around taylor writhing and undulating atop the Armor of Skitter 2.0 (which given the fact that this Taylor/Weaver never saw PRT Image and got beaten with the you are a horror of the godless universe stick making weaver's costume more image friendly is prolly gonna be horrifying) and go "you told me you were a terrifying supervillian warlord, I believed you... Now I know what that means".
 
It's not that he doesn't think they should be held accountable, it's that he doesn't think they should suffer severe long-term consequences.
My post wasn't Dumbledore specific.
I was referring more to the Blood Purists(Gaunts), and the orphanage Riddle grew up in, as well as in part the Wizarding World's abysmal lack of a child care system creating the current landscape and the creation of their own boogeyman.
 
Honestly, I know he isn't likely to appear in the story and I have no idea how he'd find out about her, but I'd love to see what Grindelwald would think of Taylor if he did come across information on her.
PHO Interlude Letters to the Editor of various Wizarding Publications Interlude time? Like I'd imagine Witch Weekly (and the Prophet, unfortunately) would have a bit to say about Wizarding Britain's (re-appointed) favorite son getting trapped in marriage to some no name American. If Sirius could get his hands on a paper in Azkaban (yes I know Fudge gave it to him, but I imagine it wasn't the first time Padfoot got it), then Grindelwald could probably get ahold of a publication in Nurmengard, and then gain information about the war and the new power couple.
 
Taylor could go full Hamilton. Have her swarm write tons of letters and documents then use Harry and Luna to publish them to the British wizarding community at large.
 
It's not that he doesn't think they should be held accountable, it's that he doesn't think they should suffer severe long-term consequences.

Dumbledore is of the opinion that a teenager should not be able to ruin their life from making a single stupid decision. Which is not actually an entirely unreasonable opinion to have, within limits, but Dumbledore doesn't really think there should be any limits, or if he does his limits are way further than most people would consider to be reasonable.

I mean the real answer is that he's poorly written.

But ignoring that and being more fun with it!

Dumbles- which autocorrect keeps turning into Fumbles- had a tiny oops with his brother when they were young and this resulted in the death of their sister(I had to look up the specifics). And their sister had previously killed their mother. And the sister was supposedly mentally damaged in some way by muggle children of their acquaintance.

By minimizing the various ways that the kids in his care mutilate, rape, and harass each other, and ignoring the occasional murder (Tom was such a scamp), all under the guise of kids just being kids, Dumbles can forgive his sister. And he can forgive HIMSELF.

Sure his sister was maimed by some kids, and Dumbles himself killed her- but Dumbles was just a kid! Kids do that! He should know, he was a teacher, and they were killing each other in the bathrooms back then! And they haven't changed now that he's in charge, either! Look at those little rascals tossing each other around without underpants, locking one another into interdimensional spaces, drugging, cursing, and mutilating one another…

Just kid stuff, all of it! Just hijinks! Most of them live through it.

Dumbles was fine. Killing his mother was kid stuff. Killing his sister was just kid stuff. He was just… a kid.

Just a kid. It's all kid stuff, right?

Fumbles wasn't evil, what he did to her wasn't wrong. He's… a good guy. He's a good guy, he was just a kid back then. Right?
 
I mean the real answer is that he's poorly written.

But ignoring that and being more fun with it!

Dumbles- which autocorrect keeps turning into Fumbles- had a tiny oops with his brother when they were young and this resulted in the death of their sister(I had to look up the specifics). And their sister had previously killed their mother. And the sister was supposedly mentally damaged in some way by muggle children of their acquaintance.

By minimizing the various ways that the kids in his care mutilate, rape, and harass each other, and ignoring the occasional murder (Tom was such a scamp), all under the guise of kids just being kids, Dumbles can forgive his sister. And he can forgive HIMSELF.

Sure his sister was maimed by some kids, and Dumbles himself killed her- but Dumbles was just a kid! Kids do that! He should know, he was a teacher, and they were killing each other in the bathrooms back then! And they haven't changed now that he's in charge, either! Look at those little rascals tossing each other around without underpants, locking one another into interdimensional spaces, drugging, cursing, and mutilating one another…

Just kid stuff, all of it! Just hijinks! Most of them live through it.

Dumbles was fine. Killing his mother was kid stuff. Killing his sister was just kid stuff. He was just… a kid.

Just a kid. It's all kid stuff, right?

Fumbles wasn't evil, what he did to her wasn't wrong. He's… a good guy. He's a good guy, he was just a kid back then. Right?
One caveat. He believes that he was evil, or at least on the road to it, back then, and therefore he must believe that every child, no matter how evil his actions, can change.

Or else... maybe he never really stopped being evil.

It's not about believing he himself is good, it's a matter of believing evil people can change. What he ignores is that those people have to first be both willing and able to change.
 
One caveat. He believes that he was evil, or at least on the road to it, back then, and therefore he must believe that every child, no matter how evil his actions, can change.

Or else... maybe he never really stopped being evil.

It's not about believing he himself is good, it's a matter of believing evil people can change. What he ignores is that those people have to first be both willing and able to change.
I like that as well- anything is forgivable, no matter how many murders, as long as you were just a kid and can change.

But yeah. Creeeeeepy dude is creepy
 
As for Dumbledore, maybe after thinking for a bit Dumbledore will realize that he's made mistakes by not trusting his allies enough. The guy isn't stupid, and I think he's been knocked off balance enough by now to really comprehend that he needs to change. Probably not going to be enough to completely turn around his relationship with Taylor before he dies, but it should help. Taylor being so forthcoming about people like Bonesaw and Coil will really help cement that some people truly are evil. Even if we as readers know Riley was Mastered, Taylor doesn't know that.

No way. After this conversation Dumbledore has firmly slotted Taylor under the 'traumatized veteran' header the same as Moody and will give her suggestions the same degree of consideration he gives Moody's violent suggestions- none. Maybe if she hadn't opened up about Bonesaw and Coil I could see him giving her more consideration as a 'troubled teen' but he'd still ignore her suggestions since he's older and wiser and clearly knows more than the troubled teen. Harry is stuck under the 'my boy' category, although he's likely moving more into the 'troubled teen' category as Taylor influences him. Dumbledore likely thinks Taylor is a terrible influence on Harry, turning him from a 'good boy' into a 'troubled teen' while totally ignoring that the only thing Taylor has done to Harry is provided him with constructive support for his ideas and goals and an outside perspective on the situation.

"How are you so certain that your plans are flawless?"

"That's an awfully high bar to hold yourself to, even assuming enough arrogance to think you are capable of making a truly flawless plan to begin with."

He doesn't trust anyone else to do that, along with 'being a schoolmaster' being the thing he most wants to do.

I'm gonna be honest, considering the seeming malice of politicians in the Wizarding World I am very happy Dumbles held onto that position with an iron grip. If he hadn't the muggleborns would have stopped being accepted years ago when Malfoy managed to maneuver a puppet into the headmasters' seat, and there likely would have been changes in the curriculum to focus on Muggles as a problem that requires a 'final solution' instead of a separate but equal culture with some major negative aspects.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top