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Harry Potter and the Skittering Spouse

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On the basilisk, my headcanon is that the corpse is basically intact due to preservation charms set across the entire Chamber, and that the last movie just wanted to be dramatic.

If you want to be realistic, however, it would probably be an undamaged skeleton wrapped in mostly intact skin, with the soft tissues mostly rotted away or into a sludge. Also, the smell should be such that entering the Chamber is basically an instant vomit spell, without the spell.

If you want Taylor to find out how to animate a basilisk corpse using bugs and spiderweb, go for the skeleton option and give everyone something to really be afraid of!
 
My head cannon for basilisk was that Dumbledore had during the summer between year 2 and 3 had send expedition of elves down the chamber to butcher the basilisk. Selling the parts or using them in alchemical experiments. At least that's how I explain the change in the movies.
 
NoirDetective said:
My head cannon for basilisk was that Dumbledore had during the summer between year 2 and 3 had send expedition of elves down the chamber to butcher the basilisk. Selling the parts or using them in alchemical experiments. At least that's how I explain the change in the movies.
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that is probably the most likely scenario hell prolly started as soon as harry mosied either into or out of Dumbldores office and the Giving of the clothes to Dobbey
 
Fencer said:
yo, lore check and idea bouncing time folks. The Basilisk. What kind of condition was its corpse in when they went to grab fangs in seventh year? dialogue went a little sideways as it tends to when I let the characters run and I need to start considering what Taylor might use to make her new magic resistant costume. Giant spider silk is a given, but for the armored bits? Dragonhide and basilisk hide are the fandom standby. Though I'm not opposed to using bits of giant spider carapace as a homage to her original costume.

Naturally she isn't going to let the others run around without some kind of armor either. Thing I'm considering is that tanning is not a skill in her repertoire and the snakes been dead years so the corpse is probably a no go. Shed snake skin seems to be pretty damn thin... but 60 foot monster snake. if the shed skin is even half an inch thick.... ehh you see why I'm scratching my head.

thoughts?
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I had thought it was in downright excellent condition considering how dank/moldy/bacterial the Chamber was. They didn't mention any smell of rot nor that it had been skeletonized in the books IIRC, so IMO it was likely just as 'fresh' as when he killed it. That would make sense if its venom is as powerful as it is reputed to be and is absorbed into its own internal tissues to any significant level- nothing would be able to consume the flesh/blood without dying so it would need to mummify rather than rot, and doing that in a dank and wet Chamber won't happen any time soon.

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Windborne said:
It'd weigh way too much if it was used without weakening it
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That's why you enchant a magical exoskeleton and just mount plates/swathes of the stuff on the outside of it. Magically move the steel bones of the armor, not the magically-resistant stuff itself.
 
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If Dumbledore sent an expedition to butcher the basilik why not take the venom glands also? So most likely some sort of venom have melted the basilik flesh.
 
Fencer said:
Obviously it's not going to stop an AK because canon says nothing stops the unforgivables
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For this, it should be noted that the killing curse CAN be blocked. Just not by magic shields and it doesn't have a countercurse. Priori Incantatem stopped it, though that is unique.

But more practically? Fawkes blocked one... so using conjuration magic to summon walls would be useful, or directly manipulating the earth.

And Taylor specifically? Since most Wizard magic is "point and click" with slow moving beams/blasts, Taylor could intercept a lot of spells with an insect or two... thousand.
 
Fencer said:
Naturally she isn't going to let the others run around without some kind of armor either. Thing I'm considering is that tanning is not a skill in her repertoire and the snakes been dead years so the corpse is probably a no go. Shed snake skin seems to be pretty damn thin... but 60 foot monster snake. if the shed skin is even half an inch thick.... ehh you see why I'm scratching my head.

thoughts?
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I'd wager that Basilisks are so poisonous that the bacteria that would normally break it down can't survive, leaving it to only suffer enzymatic decay. This would lead to the vast majority of the parts of the Basilisk to still be perfectly usable. The Basilisk hide would still need proper tanning, or the magical equivalent, but would be perfectly fine otherwise; the meat would likely be a total loss; and the blood would be 50/50 on if it was still usable as a potion reagent. The venom would likely be perfectly fine and usable.
 
Amdar210 said:
What's really sad is I agree completely with Taylor. Truly, looking at everything from the outside, it doesn't look like anyone is actually doing anything, and instead hoping someone else solves it for them.

I admit I personally never liked Molly, either. Personally, it just seems like they just want the war to 'go away' and leave it at that.

Anyways, glad to see Taylor off load some stress. I feel for Harry here, being tossed into another situation and then everything else.

Thanks for the chapter!
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I mean, it's been played out in fanfiction a Great many times before you know that the order doesn't do enough for stopping lord Voldemort and you know honestly, it is quite frustrating you know because it's not like they didn't know that he's back they just wanted to hide away and pretend that he is the threat doesn't exist, but it does exist and that's the problem it's sort of like how you know when Hitler was first rising the power during World War II before World War II he a millionaire he he sees several territories of land in like the nations of the world like I just kind of said OK you can have this land, but don't take any more, and everything will be hunky-dory, except he wasn't satisfied with that, and he took more, and eventually went to actual war against the nations of out of the world, so like if someone had just stopped him sooner then things could've changed but you know that's just speculation and there's nothing we can really do about it similarly I'm sure there are a lot of other things going on in the background of the Harry Potter world to prevent people from just you know running around and killing all the death eaters or you know just feeding them whatever whoever I don't know I mean it's just a really fucked up situation there
 
xbox432 said:
For this, it should be noted that the killing curse CAN be blocked. Just not by magic shields and it doesn't have a countercurse. Priori Incantatem stopped it, though that is unique.

But more practically? Fawkes blocked one... so using conjuration magic to summon walls would be useful, or directly manipulating the earth.

And Taylor specifically? Since most Wizard magic is "point and click" with slow moving beams/blasts, Taylor could intercept a lot of spells with an insect or two... thousand.
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Well yes Taylor is going to be annoying as hell to hit with most combat spells blasting curses and fire will be more effective possibly cutters and drilling/piercing spells depending on how you interpret them, but most curses jinxes and charms will get intercepted before they get close by virtue of the swarm. Body armor is for direct hits. And the only reason I go with dragon hide not working to stop the unblock able 3 is the armor would be in direct contact with her. If I really stretched credibility I could probably justify it tanking a single AK before either disintegrating or looses the magic that makes it spell resistant but that would be a hard sell given canon is so damnably absolute about them being unblock able.
 
Fencer said:
The primary goal of the armor is going to be the same as police or military. Give the person wearing it a chance to take a hit and not die from it.
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This is actually a bit of a problem in the wizarding vs traditional armor. Because while normal armor says you put the most protection on center mass and the head because those are vital and you can survive having your arm cut, stabbed or shot much better, when it comes to magic combat. Well. From a stunner all the way up to the unforgivables, getting hit in the pinky toe is just as effective as the torso. A bullet proof vest is really only a defense against something that hits it directly, and unless it's also enchanted, silk everything else is really only a defense against things like direct cutting charms.

Personally, if basilisk material is in any way a good defense against magic, I'd rather try to make a shield out of some larger scales and literally block things than wearing it and hoping that the kind of spells it can block actually hit the area it's covering. An invulnerable chest piece is somewhat less useful as armor when a nicked elbow is instant defeat. Still useful, to be fair, most people will aim at center mass anyway, but for the same amount of material I would much rather a small wall held in front of me. Especially when physical interception has actually proven to be the one thing that definitely works against AK.

Edit: Ninja's by the author, on the very topic lol.
 
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zadcap said:
This is actually a bit of a problem in the wizarding vs traditional armor. Because while normal armor says you put the most protection on center mass and the head because those are vital and you can survive having your arm cut, stabbed or shot much better, when it comes to magic combat. Well. From a stunner all the way up to the unforgivables, getting hit in the pinky toe is just as effective as the torso. A bullet proof vest is really only a defense against something that hits it directly, and unless it's also enchanted, silk everything else is really only a defense against things like direct cutting charms.

Personally, if basilisk material is in any way a good defense against magic, I'd rather try to make a shield out of some larger scales and literally block things than wearing it and hoping that the kind of spells it can block actually hit the area it's covering. An invulnerable chest piece is somewhat less useful as armor when a nicked elbow is instant defeat. Still useful, to be fair, most people will aim at center mass anyway, but for the same amount of material I would much rather a small wall held in front of me. Especially when physical interception has actually proven to be the one thing that definitely works against AK.

Edit: Ninja's by the author, on the very topic lol.
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You're not wrong. a lot of spells will hit equally hard no matter where they hit. But cutters piercers and similar do effect the area they hit instead of the whole body. Something Taylor is only starting to understand. And to be fair arms and legs are not the major target area that the torso is.

You have a point.

This is one of those things that can be argued either direction and both stances have points. But Taylor made her first costume armored and I think it would take more than a few extra pounds of heavy leather to get her to ditch the idea of moderate extra defense that costs her nothing in terms of mobility.
 
Fencer said:
given canon is so damnably absolute about them being unblock able.
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Actually... it's that they can't be blocked *by shield spells*. In the Voldemort vs Dumbledore fight in the Ministry... In the books (the movies really screwed up this fight scene...), Dumbledore uses several tactics to block an AK without having to dodge it. The one that jumps to mind immediately was him summoning a slab of stone to block an AK (I think the stone exploded when hit with the AK), I think he also had conjured/transfigured animals jump in the path of them (seriously, that fight was epic in the books).
 
Okay, to review magical conflict in Harry Potter, let's start with the known weapons. Wizards use wands. Goblins use swords and spears. Centaurs use bows. Giants use clubs. House elves directly use magic. Dragons breathe fire. Beyond that everyone uses tooth, claw, and scale to fight.

For defense, wizards use enchanted robes and light armor. Goblins use metal armor. Centaurs have light leather armor.

The principles of combat are distance, direction, speed, force, and awareness.

The three casting branches of Harry Potter are charms, transfiguration, and hexes. Charms changes the traits of an object. Transfiguration changes the form of an object. Hexes interact with the target.

Notably, charms and transfiguration both interact with the field of battle rather than directly with the enemy. Therefore the wizard field of battle would be as follows. First, use transfiguration to give yourself an advantageous position. Second, charm the field to make the field chaotic and antagonistic for your enemy. Three, use hexes to finish off your opponent. The wizard battle style favors prepared defense.

Goblins wear armor and use swords and spears. They also dig intricate tunnels. Therefore their expected order of battle is to use tunnel combat tactics for defense. Elite heavy armor troops for offense. Magical armor to block the charms and hexes, blades and shields to block the transfigured conjurations. It is openly questionable how they would handle ground manipulating magics.

Centaurs keep range and fire arrows. For plains warfare, this strategy was dominant, see the popularity of kiting tactics in current games. Goblin troops can't reach them, or be hurt by them. Wizards can't reach them, but can block their path if they can see them, hence they switched to the forest instead of the plains.

Giants swing big club and magic does squat. Nuf said.

Dragons fly, breathe fire, and chow down. Nuf said.

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To properly wargame wizarding Britain, Death Eaters vs Harry Potter's Army, you need identify friend and foe, identify and prepare field of battle, muster and train troops.

Combat roles are:
spies to determine friend and foe
scouts to locate field of battle
engineers to prepare field
troops to fire hexes

The canon fields of battle are usually Hogwarts castle, Diagon Alley, The ministry of magic, someone's house. The only hard target in that group is Hogwarts castle. Homes are softly prepared. Diagon Alley and the ministry are porous complex urban environments that allow for easy entry, exit, and poor sightlines. Hence, everyone gets into little hex parties with each other at short range since no one got to prepare the field.

Therefore, knowing that battles occur with little warning, recommendation is to adopt goblin battle tactics: heavy armor shock troops with melee weapons. Get in close and gut them. Provide one time use shield to block curse and move fast. Armor only needs to block non 3U curses, those are what the shield is for.

No sightlines or range advantage makes kiting useless, running away a lot increases chance of stumbling on charmed or transfigured trap.

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Most of the story is spy battles. Who is friend? Who is foe? Are we sure? Can we flip them? What's their plan?

If that's not the conflict you want to write about, then you need watchtowers with comms to call in heavy troops to fight death eater raiding parties.
 
Fencer said:
Obviously it's not going to stop an AK because canon says nothing stops the unforgivables. But then it's not like body armor is meant to stop direct hits from RPG's so it's still not a bad call.
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rdmcmains said:
Also, Dumbledore blocked at least one with part of the statue in the MoM's atrium.
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I started reading an interesting story, basic premise Harry didn't know about the scarcrux cause not- yet- dead- Tom killed Snape instead of leaving him to die. One dimensional and temporal jump later he gets to live a life free from the burdens of bwl.... yeah right.

He uses the avis spell to no sell the killing curse.

 
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Fencer said:
The primary goal of the armor is going to be the same as police or military. Give the person wearing it a chance to take a hit and not die from it. Still better to not get hit. Secondary goal is to protect against shrapnel. Fairly regular in story for spells to destroy physical objects even if the spell isn't a blasting curse. Knife proof sleeves and pants are the difference between cuts and bruises if little bits of stone or wood go flying at significant speeds.
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Shrapnel penetrating your non-vital areas isn't that big a deal, but anything that goes into your head, or your chest, or abdomen has a chance to be lethal. Some statistics I looked at implied that a simple helmet roughly double a soldiers chances of survival when in a shrapnel heavy environment.

Then, look at what modern armor protects, the chest (where the heart and aorta are), usually the abdomen (even more tasty major blood vessels, the liver, and the crotch (major branching blood vessels that go into the legs).

Considering the state of wizarding health care, something like a perforated intestine is probably not going to be a big deal, though it would be a recipe for a slow and horrible death before anti-biotics. But a hit to the brain or major blood vessel will probably kill you before the doctor even gets a chance to look at you.

So would expect any armor Taylor develops would start by covering the head, follow up with the chest and crotch, and the concentrate on getting a proper medical program done up.

I don't think any of the DA training Harry did dealt with things like (medically) stabilizing your partner until you could get them to a medic at all, so would expect a lot of unnecessary deaths to things like getting a major bleed and no one knowing what to do. IRL, the hemostatic would dressings didn't really see much use until ~2005 or so, but Taylor should be familiar with them, and the wizards might be able to come up with something.
 
xbox432 said:
And while they are unsavory options, giant and troll skin have similar effects. But again, that's just being devils advocate. I doubt Taylor would want to wear sapient humanoid skin.
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[jk] *Insert (possibly tasteless) joke about internet trolls and sapience here* [/jk]
Fencer said:
Honestly given how magic lets animals laugh at the square cube law… ok the biggest offense there are the spiders
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So is the Goliath Bird-eater (you can look it up yourself, I'm not getting a link) proof that magic is real?
 
Fencer said:
If I really stretched credibility I could probably justify it tanking a single AK before either disintegrating or looses the magic that makes it spell resistant but that would be a hard sell given canon is so damnably absolute about them being unblock able.
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Considering the AK seems to blow inanimate objects up, you could just say it blocks one shot but explodes anyway so it's not really that helpful.
 
In this case the fanon grimderp basilisk trench coat might be better. Covers more, and isn't skintight. It'd protect from stunners and the like as just her head would be uncovered.
 
Tbh, you don't need specialised armour at all to deal with the shrapnel. The Weasley Twins make a precedent for enchanting defensive spells into objects (Shield Hats). If you enchant Salvio Hexia and Imperturbable Charm into literally anything you are wearing you will bounce the physical shrapnel and most stray Hexes away and muffle (but not silence so you can still communicate through the charm) sound giving you a stealth bonus on top of that.

Tbh normal robes can probably repel a lot if you just layer AoE defensive enchantments like that on them. If you use Basilisk hide as a base, just enchant the thread, buckles, buttons etc instead of the hide and you should be able to stop nearly anything and deal with shrapnel. I mean off the top of my head any of the spells Protego Horribilis, Protego Maxima, Fianto Duri, Repello Inimicum, Protego Totalum, Salvio Hexia, the Imperturbable Charm and the Stealth Sensoring Spell are all possibilities to look into enchanting onto robes. While a lot of those are out of reach for Harry and co to cast or enchant atm, I'm sure there are allies you can tap or people you can pay to make it happen.
 
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Raved Thrad said:
I'm rather surprised it was Ginny, rather than Hermione, who attempted to try and sabotage Taylor. Unless, of course, it was Little Miss Know-It-All all along, using Ginny as her mouthpiece or pawn.
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Hermione can keep her mouth shut and as she proved time and time again in the books, rules and laws are easily ignored, if whatever she is doing is important enough. She wouldn't start a fight between Taylor and Mrs Weasley for no gain, especially if Harry was ng to be hurt by it.

Ginny, on the other hand, is hot headed and impulsive, and wants Harry for herself.
 
Raved Thrad said:
I'm rather surprised it was Ginny, rather than Hermione, who attempted to try and sabotage Taylor. Unless, of course, it was Little Miss Know-It-All all along, using Ginny as her mouthpiece or pawn.
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As I stated a few pages back, Hermione will always* choose Harry over everything else be it rules or laws, or friends and family. She always has Harry's back, even if it's to protect him from himself like in Year 3 with the Firebolt. Taylor hasn't directly tried to hurt Harry, in fact she's been incredibly helpful and supportive since she isn't really obligated to stick around if she didn't want to. Taylor trying to get along with Harry, to make their relationship work and to be true partners is most likely endearing her to Hermione quite a bit. No Hermione wouldn't antagonize Taylor needlessly by talking to Molly, not without a very good reason that she hasn't had yet and likely never will.

Nah this is just Ginny being a jealous bitch who doesn't understand that Harry is forever beyond her grasp. Honestly fuck Ginny, she never did anything to earn Harry's affection.

*= There is the sole exception to this with the entire clusterfuck around the Half Blood Prince book in Year 6 which never made a lick of sense and was obviously added to the plot incredibly ham handedly by Rowling and thus can be discounted as an illogical characterization that somehow got past the editors. As I said in the other post there are reasons why most Fics discount it as some bizarre series of events perpetrated by potions of some kind being used on Hermione and Harry.
 
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