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Harry Potter and the Skittering Spouse

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that...was some excellent dialogue @Fencer . Well done.

I love seeing a good debate. Even if one side was actually trying to win the debate and the other was just trying to deflect everything, it was perfectly in keeping with the characters. Angry Harry mellowed out by the more angry but also more experienced peer, and a Old Man who has seen too many wars and is dying, but also thinks he is the only one that knows best. *Chef's kiss*
 
I love the Skitter Train's approach to the Stations of Canon: "Oh that's nice, but it's in my way so it's getting WRECKED!"

kaplo_blast said:
Grindelwald could probably get ahold of a publication in Nurmengard, and then gain information about the war and the new power couple.
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Is it wrong I want this to happen and his guards witness him go into a rant on Dumbledore's stupidity and "Did he learn nothing from our fight and the first war against Voldemort?" Since Grindewald seems to have been a more effective general and leader than Albus I can see him pointing lots of stuff out that's appearing in the comments.
 
parnary said:
Ya know, if I had to ship warlord-era skitter with a teenage wizard going to a magic school and trying to save the world by stopping an evil Lich…. I'd have picked Zorian Kazinski, I had a whole fic planned out, but now you've really shaken my faith in that with how good these two are for each other.
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I'd totally read that. Not enough Mother of Learning fanfic.
 
Warer said:
I'd totally read that. Not enough Mother of Learning fanfic.
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Yeah, I've only ever seen two that I can remember, and the first one (HP crossover) died before Zorian could even get to Hogwarts proper as a 7th(?) year, while the other one (Conference Call- a multicrossover fic with characters telepathically 'calling' one another) ran for a bit longer but died several years ago.
 
kklusmeier said:
Yeah, I've only ever seen two that I can remember, and the first one (HP crossover) died before Zorian could even get to Hogwarts proper as a 7th(?) year, while the other one (Conference Call- a multicrossover fic with characters telepathically 'calling' one another) ran for a bit longer but died several years ago.
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Patriarch is on a03, the initial characterization isn't great, Zorian's political skills are very poor, but the story itself is fantastic
 
a well done chapter.

And a very believable canon dumbledore, which is the problem the man greatest crime was conceiving people across 3 separate conflicts, to fight these wars like a police action.

When one side is using lethal force and worse and the only is limited to stunners at best, there is no way you can win.

Dumbledore is trying to stop a school yard fight while "stop" Tom winning a war was never his goal. The actual books are pretty horrifying on their own. Tom runs the county and is running sham trails and consentration camps yet no mention of death toll is brought up.

in the end Draco, who minded controlled other students, poisoned a professor by mistake and who knows what else… just gets to walk free? Disgusting
 
Fencer said:
Catching her up on Dumbledore's lesson hadn't taken long. She then summarized the entire thing rather glibly.

"So he's the product of a failed baby entrapment, the result of rape, and his mother was an abused idiot, and rapist. How exactly is any of this meant to be important to us now?"
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I'm failing to remember - was any of that useful in canon?

The relevance of Riddle Manor is one seemingly missed takeaway from the lore here, but they already knew the Riddle name came from a non-magical father I think?
Fencer said:
"Should have sent Hedwig to the ministry instead of to Moody then." My lip twitched upwards. "I could swear she is smarter than a couple of my old enemies."
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Don't insult the bird with faint praise, Taylor.
Fencer said:
The school might not be primed to blow, yet, but it only takes one idiot to start something."
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Sometimes they don't even need to be an idiot, as you may have noticed...
 
kklusmeier said:
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.
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I mostly agree, but for context, I'm not sure how the person I was replying to feels about it.

FictionPack said:
At the end of the war he and Narcissa got official pardons due to helping assassinate Riddle via keeping Harry alive.
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Which appears to be basically the same, in context, as just walking free, since we aren't told that they got sued (pardons don't prevent civil suits in a lot of cases, though I'm not clear on whether that applies to the Wizarding British courts).
 
I get that Dumbledore bashing is popular, but the man is tired, not incompetent. The man has more titles than most boxers. I hate rapidly changing points of view, but I do think a small interlude with Albus's point of view might be necessary.
 
TheManW/oAPlan said:
I get that Dumbledore bashing is popular, but the man is tired, not incompetent. The man has more titles than most boxers. I hate rapidly changing points of view, but I do think a small interlude with Albus's point of view might be necessary.
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That would require figuring out what his internal rationalization is in more detail, which might be quite difficult? And honestly potentially way more bashing than him looking bad from outside perspectives.


There's a pretty good 'yes, he genuinely is incompetent' read of the canon plot, I think. There's lots of justifications, but fundamentally he almost never is seen to do something that actually works, unless you credit him for putting Harry in death ground from which Harry then fights to victory. Which is questionably creditable.

Trying to think of actual Dumbledore victories, the top thing coming to mind is 'turned around Malfoy's ouster in book 2'...
 
TheManW/oAPlan said:
but the man is tired, not incompetent.
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If he's tired, why doesn't he bring someone in he can offload some of his responsibilities on? He's had three full-time jobs for at least 15 years at this point; why doesn't he step back from one or more of them? Post-Voldie's reveal, he's got at least some of his political capital back, so if he wants to stick to making sure that Tom's sympathizers don't push their agenda in the Wizengamot, just hand the Headmaster post to Minerva and stick with his job as Chief Warlock. He's been headmaster of Hogwarts for decades; if there isn't anybody who can take up some of his slack, at some point the responsibility for that comes back on him.
 
parnary said:
Ya know, if I had to ship warlord-era skitter with a teenage wizard going to a magic school and trying to save the world by stopping an evil Lich…. I'd have picked Zorian Kazinski, I had a whole fic planned out, but now you've really shaken my faith in that with how good these two are for each other.
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That's "Everyone out of the multiverse" level. Warlord Skitter plus Zorian is a good way to get in a scrap with Hell and Heaven on top of all of the other problems Zorian had originally. With QA getting unshackled and joining the fray because fuck it, she's gonna get her some DATA.
 
Zoolimar said:
That's "Everyone out of the multiverse" level. Warlord Skitter plus Zorian is a good way to get in a scrap with Hell and Heaven on top of all of the other problems Zorian had originally. With QA getting unshackled and joining the fray because fuck it, she's gonna get her some DATA.
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I assume there's warlord skitter time loop fics somewhere, but I think I haven't actually seen any? Peggy Sue, some, but not full time loop.
 
Dumbledore is like always, trying to give unworthy people a second chance.

He's been showing Harry what Tom's life was like in order to get Harry to see that Tom deserves a second chance too. Unfortunately, at this point, Moldyshorts would be more than happy to run Albus through with the Gryphindor sword, just for shits and giggles, and not even give the falling corpse a second glance. Tom doesn't want redemption, he wants power, any way he can get it.
 
Dumbledore simply does not trust anyone else to do the positions he holds. He always claims to have faith and trust in others, but basically the only person he shows any actual results for is Snape.
 
Recently caught up to this brilliant fic. The pairing I never knew I needed.
All the kudos for taking a ridiculous crack-fic prompt (Harry gets shitfaced in Las Vegas and wakes up married) and playing it straight to incredible effect!
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Fencer said:
"Is the reason you have a phoenix just the fact that it's the only pet you can't permanently kill through negligence?"
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Yikes. That must have hit a lot harder than Taylor intended. Pretty close to poking at Dumbledore's equivalent of trigger trauma.
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Overall I like seeing a fairly canon Dumbledore get called called on his bullshit. Though I agree that another confrontation will lead to the issue being pretty much argued to death.
I'm looking forward to a different approach from either of them following some other event. I like how you haven't characterised Dumbledore as a complete fool, just a pseudo pacifist stuck in an ivory tower with nobody qualified to give him a reality check. (I like that he seems to have picked up on Taylor's conflict drive to an extent)
That means that there's real hope for him seriously reevaluating things, especially if the plot/Taylor provides some sort of catalyst or forces him to self reflect.
Hell, with memory charms and contracts, consulting someone about the feasibility of a plan isn't even much of a risk:
"...Once again, thank you for agreeing to be obliviated after this. So Minerva, now that you've heard everything what do you think about the little treasure hunt ice set up, followed by Harry's hopefully temporary suicide?"
*SLAP*
 
Aineko said:
I'm failing to remember - was any of that useful in canon?
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Not that part of the memories. What was important was the idea that the locket and ring were rightfully his. An idea that would carry over to the rest of the founder's items and the reason he chose them to defile with his soul.
Not that understanding Voldemort's psychology isn't useful; it's just that canon never really leveraged it openly (Dumbledore may have leveraged it by posthumously arranging for the Battle of Hogwarts and predicting that Voldemort wouldn't trust Nagini's safety to anyone else).
 
TheManW/oAPlan said:
man is tired, not incompetent
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Problem number 1 here is that he adult and authority in children \ YA novel. He has to give space for protags to act. So he either incompetent or malicious to put children in danger and not solve everything, given amount of tools he has.
He also a "wise mentor" figure. They usually die\left behind early for a reason.

Dd would be fine if he was just powerful, but he also presented as wise and all-knowing. In theoretical from scratch rewrite, i would not "all according to keikaku" route, but instead present him as insanely busy to make real plans and basically thinks he uses Batman Gambits, but because [circumstances] it, mostly fails, and kids have place to act and it becomes more like Indy Ploy. Dumbles convince everyone involved that it's was Xanatos Speed Chess entire time [it was not].

kaplo_blast said:
What was important was the idea that the locket and ring were rightfully his. An idea that would carry over to the rest of the founder's items and the reason he chose them to defile with his soul.
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This has major "this meeting could have been a email" vibe.
 
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Stahor said:
This has major "this meeting could have been a email" vibe.
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More like, "This series of meetings spread out over several months could have been a single email". Especially since the most important bit - the assignment to get Harry to get Slughorn to talk about his discussions with a young T. M. Riddle about Horcruces didn't come until the end of the series of meetings.
 
this has been one of the best HP fanfic I have been reading these years... man is this written so well.

belated Happy holidays to anyone.

Taylor will put in the mask once again and now train a group of teenagers with attitude to battle the evil organization... suits included...
 
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