Harry Potter and the Skittering Spouse

While HP is not about coherent world-building, i doubt it's that easy. Because it would mean that everyone who been to DaDA class now armed with most deadly stuff in existence.
Pretty sure that was Barty's intention. Sure, they wouldn't be able to do it in 4th year, but eventually ...

Part of my headcanon is also that experience can substitute for theory/skill. Harry probably hasn't made an in-depth study of the theory behind the Unforgivables, but hell, does he have experience with them ... and he does pull off two out of three in DH, as soon as he really means it.

Now consider Death Eater child rearing ...
 
A couple are talking about raping Hermione and I." A note of cold fury slipped into her voice.

Hermione sucked in a sharp breath.

Hermione immediately exits School Mode and goes into Serious Mode.

Note there is no conflict between Hermione and Taylor in this chapter.

We should tell one of the Professors." Hermione murmured.

Taylor opened her mouth, probably to object, then closed it.

"It would be nice to have them actually deal with a problem for once." I admitted slowly. "And having some back up really would be great."

"It might keep Dumbledore from screaming about me shooting his students. And I might not have to show any new tricks." Taylor admitted

I love the difference.
Harry: Maybe they'll actually handle it!
Taylor: After I and my team handle it, an unimpeachable eyewitness might be handy.

Most critically, though, Taylor's using Harry and friends as backup plus a teacher witness as a way to avoid showing some tricks, to keep more of her hand hidden.

Taylor opened her door and stormed out wearing her new costume of skin tight light grey spider silk and a dragon hide vest. She had left off her mask for some reason. Her hair billowed behind her as she moved like a dark cloud. She had a baton in one hand and a can of pepper spray in the other. A handgun hung from her right hip, and a couple of knives on her left.

Well, if there's one thing Taylor learned during her career as a supervillain, it's

PRESENTATION

Baton and pepper spray to start; knives and gun if she has to continue. The mask is off presumably either so nobody knows it's her, or to highlight the difference between Taylor the unstoppable person pushed by circumstance and Skitter the unstoppable force of nature there to wipe the deck clean. Could be other reasons, too, but this is clearly Taylor in not-very-serious-mode.

she was already hosing them down with her pepper spray. Two seventh year Slytherin's dropped their wands to clutch at their eyes and fell back into the room they came from, tangling themselves with a third.

They open the door and three of the 8 are already out of it.

I kept the shield up, grunting as it flickered from multiple hits.

Hermione caught on immediately and stood behind me before casting over my head and shield.

She caught two of them with stunners. Ron and Nevile got the other two in the same breath.

Harry and Hermione showing teamwork; Harry's power to defend and Hermione's precision to attack. Very nice, no hesitation, no delay.

Not so nice, it wasn't planned in advance; they knew exactly the terrain beforehand.

Taylor: 3
Harry+Hermione: 2
Remaining: 3

Taylor, body slightly obscured by her small swarm, flowed around the spells like water. Though a few she intercepted with her swarm.

There it is; there's the kid-friendly version of Taylor the looks-like-a-Slaughterhouse-9-member that Glenn Chambers showed her.

"Avada Kedavra!" The scream was shrill and harsh.

Interesting that Taylor let it get all the way out; she doesn't need to move her gun to line up the sights with her eyes... but she can also dodge easily, so I can see this.

I have to imagine this was 100% calculated to ward off Albus (or corrupt Ministry people) claiming that Pansy either or both was not, in fact, going to cast Avada Kedavra, or that Pansy would as a student have obviously been incapable of successfully casting it, and thus that shooting her was a horrible, horrible danger-to-the-innocent-student/crime.

Letting Pansy get off a full powered killing curse at a human being (even if a muggle, there were also good wizards in her line of casting) counters all those claims completely... especially with McGonnagal there to witness.

Avad-"

The crack of the gunshot rang out and echoed like thunder in the confined stone hallway

And here's the more normal expectation - wizard/witch loudly announces their intentions, Taylor rotates her gun around, wherever it is, lines up the bugs, and shoots before the first word is out of their mouth.

Her outfit clung tightly to her legs and arms, and her hair practically billowed in her wake as she moved like nothing in the world could even slow her down.

PRESENTATION!!!

I suspect this is half Taylor acting normal, and half Taylor putting on a show for McGonnagal and the kids, because the rep gained afterwards by the stories they tell is going to be insane.

More interesting, her hair - long, curly hair - billowed in her wake both when she strode out and after she was done fighting.

Is Hermione going to ask her for hair care tips?

"I, uhh, think I need it as evidence?" He tried.

Auror: "I, uh, need to impound that."

Taylor: "No."

Auror, to himself: Today, my jurisdiction ends here.

I picked it for this specifically because if it got confiscated, I didn't want to lose one of the better guns I'd stolen. But I'd never planned on giving it up without a fight.

Ahahahahaha; tactical all the way through, for both the fight and after.

Note, specifically, there were 8 attackers and 5 bullets in the cylinder... and Taylor disabled 3 with the pepper spray and resulting tangle in the first second or two, leaving... only 5.

When she had 5 bullets in the cylinder (and maybe, or maybe not, a speedloader for reloads).

I'd been an active villain for only a few months and I could stare down rookie cops with body language alone.

PRESENTATION!!!

I kind of want to know what kind of rep she gets with the aurors based on this. I mean, sure, it was just (seventh year, adult) students, but there was an Avada cast plus multiple crucios, so it wasn't a prank.

I'll have to practice my aim." I answered flatly.

The ambiguity here is fantastic.

Was it an unrelated comment?
Did she mean she'd kill the next target instantly on the first shot?
Did she mean she'd deliver a far less severe injury to the next target?

--

Also highly related, Pansy will be fine; the mundane, non-magical, non-dark injury was trivial for wizards/witches to heal.

The Death Eaters are likely going to note this, and likely going to discount how dangerous a gun is.

After all, the gun hit Pansy dead center, and Pansy was just fine; she was no worse off than being hit by any number of midrange spells Aurors/Order members like, and far far better than most of their own Death Eater favorites!

And... spells, mostly, don't care where they hit you. Stunners, jelly-legs, petrification, crucio, Avada, none of them care if they hit you in the head or in the hand. So I don't think most Death Eaters are really going to consider 'what if it hit the brain, or the heart, or the upper spine, or the lung'.

More fools they; they'll find out next time.

"Eight wizards are not a threat?" He asked skeptically.

"I wasn't fighting on my own." I answered. "Besides, those eight didn't seem like much. Others will be more dangerous, I'm sure."

This was great!

Albus is concentrating solely on the wizard/muggle divide; 8 wizards against four wizards (and a muggle), so the muggle is obviously the one in danger.

Taylor is concentrating on the relative danger of each individual as an individual - temperament, training, hesistation or lack thereof, intelligence, cunning, skills, and powers as modified by the particular terrain and circumstances all as a package.

The only option I have is to expel them and leave their fate in the hands of the aurors."

I nodded sharply.

I think Taylor heard this as if, and only if, Albus has no other legal/bureaucratic option available will he protect the students; but in those cases, yes, he will.

Albus, expect many more "no option" scenarios in the future, because Taylor won't leave you any other choice.

She's actually both very good at it, and very very comfortable in those situation (on the 'I cut off all YOUR options but the one I want you to take' side, at least).

Which suited me just fine as Harry and the others finished giving the aurors their statements. I smiled at the group.

"Lunch?" I asked.

"Best plan I've heard today!" Ron responded with good cheer.

Yowsers; even Ron is completely unfazed by a literal life or death battle with guns and killing curses followed by interrogation by Aurors.

He's just hungry!

So how many people are paying close enough attention to understand her rules of engagement?

Ehhh; I think some of what she did was specifically to force Albus into doing what she wanted; no excuses of her murdering/using exessive force/whatever, no causing excessive panic/giving worse opponents than Albus an edge by actual deaths in the school. Some of it, though, yeah, her ROE.


I'm filing that very specifically as part of her previously explicitly stated keeping more of her abilities/tricks/resources secret, which was a specific reason she went along so easily with the 'tell a teacher' idea, specifically to keep more of what she has secret.

If she'd done it alone, yeah, it would have been Acromantulas tugging on silk strings around ankles to drag the ambushers out windows or break their necks or something that instantly ended the danger.
 
Given Snape gave an Unbreakable Vow to guide and protect Draco (has that happened at this point?) and yet he's alive and at Hogwarts? My bet is currently on this.

Snape's vow hasn't triggered.

Either Draco is alive or there is enough wriggle room in those vows that actions beyond your control don't count.

We've been over Snape's vow before. IIRC it has two main components: the protection portion and the takeover portion. The protection portion has limits on its applicability and a "best if your ability" clause, so it wouldn't have been triggered by this. The takeover clause says he has to fill in for Draco if it looks like he's going to fail. Depending on the exact wording and authorial interpretation, Draco skipping strait to failure may also skip that clause—it never looked like he was going to fail. He went from all good to prison with no warning or intermediary steps—however, even if it has been triggered it wouldn't force immediate action, since Draco's mission didn't require immediate action. Either way, the vow isn't enough to give us information on Draco's current status.

The more interesting bits are A) how Snape reacted to the news of Draco's death and B) his presence after the ambush, both of which could have at least two possible explanations, with different implications.

His reaction to the news suggests that either he thinks Draco is genuinely dead and that loss hurt him or Draco's death means he definitely has to fulfill the second part of his vow and he really doesn't want to. The thing is, as far as the vow is concerned, I don't think the death does anything the capture didn't already accomplish, so the second explanation seems unlikely. That suggests he genuinely thinks Draco is dead. It's possible that both he and Pansy were left out of the loop on a plan to fake his death, but that also seems unlikely, for a few reasons, which would make this weak evidence for Draco actually being dead.

His presence after the fight could also be explained by him thinking Draco is dead and looking for revenge (which is what Taylor assumes) however that doesn't make much sense. Belatedly joining a student lead ambush isn't a good way to get revenge and wouldn't make much sense for his character. Rather, I suspect where seeing something similar to first year, when the Trio badly misjudged his motivations and actions. Specifically, I suspect he was angry at the Slytherin students, for doing something so stupid, and was on his way to try and stop them from getting skittered and/or sent to Azkaban. Unfortunately, that means this isn't good evidence, either way, for Draco's status. It does mean that he's taking things more seriously and, ironically, they might have been better off going to him for helo with the ambush, rather than McGonagle.

Actually, come to think of it, he has a lot of similarities with Taylor: bullied in school, failed by the administration, joined a villainous org as a result, betrayed said organization when their actions caused an "innocent" to get hurt, and highly competent. If they didn't keep picking fights with each other, and generally assuming the worst, they might actually get along. … Well, maybe not get along, but at least commiserate with each other.

The aurors did a number on her last year. She hasn't fully recovered from that, yet.

When did she fight some aurors?

Is Unforgivables are easiest, from technical part, spell in existence? Like, students are expected to need extended period of time to learn any new spell, but here it seems she picked it up in less than a week?

Torture and Kill are certainly fairly easy. It seems all you need to do is point, say the words, and really really want your target to HURT or DIE.

If I recall correctly, they're actually supposed to be somewhat hard to cast, mostly due to the intensity if the requisite emotions and the amount of power you need. There's a reason most Death Eaters don't use them as a first resort or mainline spell, in fights, despite their utility.

With that said, there's no reason to think Pansy only had the last week to work on them and her reaction to Draco's death was clearly enough to overcome any issues she might have had on the emotional or intent side of things.
 
The most inane thought ran through my head.

That's my wife.
I mean... I completely understand and honestly think her walking out armed to the teeth and ready to make idiots regret their everything is just plain hot.
Mom… actually, she'd have been proud of that.
her mom sounds awesome.
Hermione snorted, Ron laughed. Harry looked like he was seriously considering the idea.
He's learning!
 
Hermione immediately exits School Mode and goes into Serious Mode.

Note there is no conflict between Hermione and Taylor in this chapter.
Makes perfect sense in my eyes. Hermione really cares about rules and regulations, right until they get in the way of protecting her friends. Then all bets are off for Hermione "I set a teacher on fire to protect my friend as a firstie" Granger.

Yowsers; even Ron is completely unfazed by a literal life or death battle with guns and killing curses followed by interrogation by Aurors.

He's just hungry!
Why not? The fight happened, went well, and the opposition wasn't all that competent or terrifying. Compared to running from car/house sized spiders, standing on a broken leg, saying to the crazed murder that he had to go through him to get to Harry, and the running battle against the inner circle Death Eaters, I doubt this little fight ranks all that high on his "shit I have to be terrified about"- list.



When did she fight some aurors?
End of book 5. Umbridge is leading them to do evict Hagrid and when McGonnagal tried to stop them, she gets hit with multiple stunners at the same time. I think Harry and co saw what happened during a exam, but I'm not quite sure about that.
 
Interesting that Taylor let it get all the way out; she doesn't need to move her gun to line up the sights with her eyes... but she can also dodge easily, so I can see this.

I have to imagine this was 100% calculated to ward off Albus (or corrupt Ministry people) claiming that Pansy either or both was not, in fact, going to cast Avada Kedavra, or that Pansy would as a student have obviously been incapable of successfully casting it, and thus that shooting her was a horrible, horrible danger-to-the-innocent-student/crime.

Letting Pansy get off a full powered killing curse at a human being (even if a muggle, there were also good wizards in her line of casting) counters all those claims completely... especially with McGonnagal there to witness.

Keep in mind that, while Taylor doesn't need to rely on lining the sights up with her eyes, she is still limited by normal biomechanics, so she can't fire from just any position and expect an accurate shot. Also, considering that both of her hands were full of other weapons before Pansy started casting the spell and she needed to keep dodging she actually got her shot off pretty quickly.

Ahahahahaha; tactical all the way through, for both the fight and after.

Note, specifically, there were 8 attackers and 5 bullets in the cylinder... and Taylor disabled 3 with the pepper spray and resulting tangle in the first second or two, leaving... only 5.

When she had 5 bullets in the cylinder (and maybe, or maybe not, a speedloader for reloads).

I suspect that was a coincidence. Taylor doesn't have PtV, so expecting her pepper spray to fully take out the two combatants she hit, let alone the third they brought down, would be pretty risky. Same for assuming she'd get a mission kill per bullet. I think the more realistic reason she was comfortable with the low bullet count was that she didn't actually expect to need the gun, let alone need it for multiple people, and if she was wrong she both had allies and could retreat to her room, where she probably had more weapons at the ready.

Also highly related, Pansy will be fine; the mundane, non-magical, non-dark injury was trivial for wizards/witches to heal.

The Death Eaters are likely going to note this, and likely going to discount how dangerous a gun is.

After all, the gun hit Pansy dead center, and Pansy was just fine; she was no worse off than being hit by any number of midrange spells Aurors/Order members like, and far far better than most of their own Death Eater favorites!

And... spells, mostly, don't care where they hit you. Stunners, jelly-legs, petrification, crucio, Avada, none of them care if they hit you in the head or in the hand. So I don't think most Death Eaters are really going to consider 'what if it hit the brain, or the heart, or the upper spine, or the lung'.

More fools they; they'll find out next time.

Eh? I mean they probably will underestimate guns, but probably not based on that logic. While the wounds were relatively easy to heal that's in comparison to specific curses. Their treatment still required rushing Pansy to a fully stocked infirmary and she almost bleed out. That is both a lot more serious and a lot more difficult to treat than most of the spells utilized by the Order of the Phoenix and, possibly, the Aurors.

By comparison, a stunner is never going to kill you on its own and can be cured with a simple verify.

With that said, one thing they might not realize is that caliber and type of bullet matter. A larger and/or nastier round could easily make that gut shot fatal.

This was great!

Albus is concentrating solely on the wizard/muggle divide; 8 wizards against four wizards (and a muggle), so the muggle is obviously the one in danger.

Taylor is concentrating on the relative danger of each individual as an individual - temperament, training, hesistation or lack thereof, intelligence, cunning, skills, and powers as modified by the particular terrain and circumstances all as a package.

I think it's more that Albus initially interpreted her statement to mean she, baseline, didn't consider 8 wizards to be a threat (as in, even without factoring in her allies). I suspect that partially due to how he personally assess threats and partially due to viewing Taylor as somewhat arrogant and overly aggressive. He's already seen some of what she can do and heard some of what she's been through, so I doubt he's discounting her abilities just because she's lacks magic.
 
I agree on the 'complicated emotions' thing when Harry thought "That's my wife!"

I suspect that she's going to notice that he's perhaps a little amorous toward her after that? And when she asks why, he says something like "Seeing you prepared for that fight was hot for some reason." Probably feeling ashamed at the thought.

This is one of those where I really like this relationship. If she's ever offered the chance to go back? As long as Voldie is gone? I can see Harry going with her.
 
Pretty sure that canonically, Narcissa wasn't Marked. It'd depend on who she most blames for Draco's death, I think. I know there's one fic on QQ where after Draco is killed because of Umbridge, Narcissa gets juiced up on secret Black family rituals and potions before storming the Ministry and reducing Umbridge to a greasy smear on the floor.
Can you PM me that fic, I need to download it into my veins.
 
4 stunners nearly killed McGonagall in this story and in canon a single stunner to the heart from Molly Weasley stopped Bellatrix's heart and killed her.

Fair, but at the same time we also see a lot of people take stunners and it not being a big deal. To me this reads as one part inconsistent world-building/writing and one part exceptional circumstances (four, likely powerful, stunners hitting an elderly woman in quick succession or an overpowered stunner in a desperate situation) making a normally non-lethal option less so. A, rather apt, comparison would be the difference between tasering someone, in general, and repeatedly tasering an octogenarian with a pace maker. Tasers aren't toys, and they can be dangerous, but you wouldn't normally expect them to cause heart attacks and if you had to pick between getting hit by a taser and most other weapons, you'd probably want the taser.

The fuck you say? She cast a stunner and it killed her??

Of course not. You can't have a good guy reaching for an intentionally lethal spell in their moment of righteous, motherly, fury! It would have tainted her moral purity!
 
Technically Bellatrix killed Sirius with a stunner. Odd choice of spell on her part.
And part of the reason I think Narcissa might break with Voldemort over Draco's death.

In Canon, the insane sister, second only to Voldemort in a fight, used an easily blockable, harmless spell in a serious fight to get something Voldemort wanted. Given her other actions, before and after the ministry fight, it's decidedly odd.

Then, when it appeared Voldemort had won, Narcissa betrayed him, for her child.

Twice, Black raised children put family over other loyalties. Even Andromeda left the family...
For her (apparently) One True Love, given she never remarried after his death. That would make Ted family.

Be interesting to see if this pattern continues.
 
And part of the reason I think Narcissa might break with Voldemort over Draco's death.

In Canon, the insane sister, second only to Voldemort in a fight, used an easily blockable, harmless spell in a serious fight to get something Voldemort wanted. Given her other actions, before and after the ministry fight, it's decidedly odd.

Then, when it appeared Voldemort had won, Narcissa betrayed him, for her child.

Twice, Black raised children put family over other loyalties. Even Andromeda left the family...
For her (apparently) One True Love, given she never remarried after his death. That would make Ted family.

Be interesting to see if this pattern continues.

Huh. That just made me realize that, at least in the movies, Bellatrix is the one who initially demanded an unbreakable vow from Snape and read out the conditions (it's not clear who decided on the wording, but she might have done that as well). She also displays doubt in Riddle's judgment in the preceding scene, so she's not 100% blindly loyal to him.

When you put all of that together, if Riddle really ordered Draco's death then Narcissa might not be the only Black sister he needs to worry about.

Also, unrelated, but I just re-watched that scene and the phrasing of the third clause (the takeover one) was "should he fail", meaning it's definitely in effect and it's the exact phrasing of Voldemort's orders that's important now.
 
While I despise Lucius he did have ONE redeeming quality in both the movies and books, he was COMPLETELY DEDICATED to his family.

Sure he was a true believer in the pureblood agenda and Voldemort but once he realized it was putting his family in danger he tried to get them out of it.

So I can see Draco's death breaking his loyalty to his master... and he will likely make it as messy as he can for his ex-master even if it kills him if he can get his wife to safety.
 
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When you put all of that together, if Riddle really ordered Draco's death then Narcissa might not be the only Black sister he needs to worry about.
It'd be neat to see Narcissa, Bellatrix, and Andromeda plot together as sisters.
Following a Dark Lord has utterly destroyed the Black family. The only direct heir left is Nymphodora, and then Harry indirectly, his grandmother was a Black and Sirius left him every.

It also destroyed the Malfoys and Lestranges. Only Andromeda, the one who left it all, has a happy family now.
 
"That makes them better parents then my Dad." I offered flatly.

Really dislike this line alot of people forget that Danny actually tried to pull Taylor out of Winslow but was being stopped by the school system due to author fiat and the fact Taylor wasn't willing to actually discuss the bullying and cooperate.

(Also that Taylor has close to 0 negative things to say about her father in the entirety of the story)

Either than that very good chapter loved the battle in the hallways and Harry being whipped by our Queen of the Swarm.
 
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