Remove ads

Harry Potter and the Skittering Spouse

Reader mode
Hmm… honestly I think I'd be ok with derailing that particular bit of canon and I do have a believable idea that while not exactly canon compliant would make sense. Especially if their canon impact was so minor.

Think I might work that into my next update. Really unchecked dementors are basically an existential threat to human souls and I think it's time they be treated as the horrifying threat they are.
 
Fencer said:
Hmm… honestly I think I'd be ok with derailing that particular bit of canon and I do have a believable idea that while not exactly canon compliant would make sense. Especially if their canon impact was so minor.

Think I might work that into my next update. Really unchecked dementors are basically an existential threat to human souls and I think it's time they be treated as the horrifying threat they are.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They also make a good counter to a certain class of magical object that contains fractured portions of a human's soul, if you catch my drift.

Who needs to cook the horcruxes with fiendfyre when they're already a light snack for dementors?
 
Fencer said:
Hmm… honestly I think I'd be ok with derailing that particular bit of canon and I do have a believable idea that while not exactly canon compliant would make sense. Especially if their canon impact was so minor.

Think I might work that into my next update. Really unchecked dementors are basically an existential threat to human souls and I think it's time they be treated as the horrifying threat they are.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The way they were unleashed on muggle Britain in book 7? They probably killed more people than all of the Death Eaters combined across both wars. They were effectively a self-replicating invisible chemical weapon that started by causing depression, and ended with permanent brain death. Worse, they were breeding, so their rate of soul sucking was increasing.

I'm frankly amazed that alone didn't break the masquerade/statute of secrecy. Regardless, dementors are a deadly threat to even adult wizards (the best defense being 'apparate away before they get too close'), but an existential threat to muggle life across the entirety of Great Britain.

Sure, with heavy nets made from steel cables coupled with thermal vison dementors could be slowed, but gas masks wouldn't stop them, and Hadrian's wall is no longer extant. Even a fully mobilized and aware muggle military would struggle to deal with them since the only real way to stop them is to bury them alive in concrete without getting near them, which the military doesn't exactly have systems in place to do.
 
Midnighter13 said:
The way they were unleashed on muggle Britain in book 7? They probably killed more people than all of the Death Eaters combined across both wars. They were effectively a self-replicating invisible chemical weapon that started by causing depression, and ended with permanent brain death. Worse, they were breeding, so their rate of soul sucking was increasing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Actually, the Muggles never noticed them; you have to have magic or magical items around you to attract them, and that thing they eat, that Wizards call their soul is their magic.

Dementors are, after all, a magical threat/nightmare.

(The above is Snark, not to be taken as a serious theory.)
 
Remove ads
Great Wizarding Baby Boom
  • Apocrypha
    • Not too long after that...

    Harry: WHOEVER IN THE ORDER WHO KEEPS SENDING SONG REQUESTS TO THE WIZARDING WIRELESS FOR THIS OR THIS MUGGLE AMERICAN SONG, MY WIFE SWEARS ON MERLIN'S SPARKLY COCK THAT SHE WILL GIVE YOU PERMANENT ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION

    (As an aside, the latter song was released in 1993. Also would be funny if one of the older witches and wizards know about a certain Marvin Gaye song and have them keep sending song requests to the Wizarding Wireless. Also this post was inspired by a certain anime's R&B song ED, and another song released in 1998 that would TOTALLY be right up the Weasley Twins' alley to tease Harry and Taylor with if it wasn't for time shenanigans.)

    EDIT: FREEK'N YOU WAS ACTUALLY RELEASED IN 1995 HOLY CRAP

    EDIT 2: FUCK THIS, HAVE AN OMAKE

    ***

    Some time, far in the future, during a History of Magic class...

    "To most in the Wizarding World, Fred and George Weasley were known best for being pranksters in school and proprietors of a joke shop in Diagon Alley after school."

    "HOWEVER, their impact on the Wizarding World's history, while rarely mentioned, is very significant... and it all started with a prank they played on former Hogwarts Headmaster, Minister of Magic, and UW97 Ambassador Harry Potter and his lovely wife Taylor Hebert-Potter."

    "Tell me, how many of you know of the great Wizarding Baby Boom?"

    A Slytherin raised his hand.

    "This was what the previous professor called a 'perfect storm', Professor Chiron," he answered after being gestured to stand up.

    "5 points, elaborate."

    "The public reveal of the Dark Lord Voldemort also served to exacerbate this 'prank' of the Weasleys, to the point where even avowed muggle-hating purebloods were affected by what is now known as The Great Wizarding Baby Boom. I do not have the specific figures, but the large amount of children born in the months of February, March and April 1997..."

    "...10 points, and yes, those months provided the largest sudden increase in births in Wizarding Britain based on population size."

    A Hufflepuff raised her hand.

    "This gain was across all socioeconomic segments in the Wizarding World, if I recall correctly, Professor. Pundits of the time called it 'unprecedented', too."

    "10 points, more if anyone can elaborate further."

    A Ravenclaw raised his hand.

    "The baby boom affecting all of Wizarding society was the proverbial first step towards improving muggleborn and pureblood relations," he noted. "Because as Professor Hickenbottom proposed in 'Magic and Society', if a society's members focus more on the things they have in common than how they differ, it leads to more societal unity."

    "...And 10 points across 3 houses. I see a Gryffindor raising her hand in the back."

    "What I don't get, Professor Chiron... how did Muggle music on the Wizarding Wireless, especially from that long ago, affect wizarding society that much?"

    "You're in seventh year, so I suppose it's fair that you are of the age to listen to it. 10 points when you listen to at least one of those songs deemed by other wizarding historians responsible for the Great Wizarding Baby Boom and write an analysis of it... at least one sheet will suffice. And if your parents somehow raise a stink, here's a note that says it's required listening for the 'History of Magic' class, I've had my fair share of wizarding parents still objecting strenuously to this kind of content."
     
    Last edited:
  • Apocrypha
    • Ravenwood240 said:
    Actually, the Muggles never noticed them; you have to have magic or magical items around you to attract them, and that thing they eat, that Wizards call their soul is their magic.

    Dementors are, after all, a magical threat/nightmare.

    (The above is Snark, not to be taken as a serious theory.)
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    So Dudley wasn't in danger of dying as the Dementor was eating his soul?
     
    Well, I thought the topic of forced marriage could be managed gracefully, possibly. It was not.

    It cuold be done in the case of eventuating of mutual attraction in the future. Here we have 'pragmatic'
    consumation, when both partners see that the other one very much not ok with it.
    Taylor is absolutly the person that up to ripping away the parts of herself and allowing/forcing others to do the same for the purposes she sees necessary.
    Harry, thought? He just notes that he doesn't want to force himself on a girl. Nope, he shouldn't have agreed to allow her to do this to herself at all. Because here, it's not necessity, it's combination of fear, convenience and expedience.
    Didn't Taylor headaches disappeared after she brought the topic and her readiness to consumate the marriage? And, if I reading this correctly , they more or less figured options for him visiting his friends with her (it's not like safety would become less of a problem for these visits, if he went there along), and for her to do something useful.
    So, elefant could pretty much remain in the room. Even Taylor needed external pressure of the curse to bring the topic. And Harry somehow condoned mutual rape out of *awkwardness* of returning to it later. Is he drunk again?

    Which is the second problem. How is he ok with drinking, when it's that, as pointed out, what landed them in the mess? Still rolling with it, no apprehension, what other curse he could find for himself or others in that state?
    It also have been largely overlooked, i believe, but they are victims of the situation not to the same extent. One of them was drugged, the other choosed to get drunk on his own. People usually get charged for their actions in the case, for some reason (like if they got talked into driving already being drunk). I'm not seeing canon Harry being ok and initiator of drinking at any point soon after such disaster.

    The third problem emerges if they actually talked each other in this consumation, when they both feel aversion to it. The bandage is ripped off. If they are free from each other to wait upon each other death, as was speculated at the beginning, they are going to proceed to do exactly this. Having had unwanted sex out of necessity does wanders to prevent birth of attraction, I'd say. Another story of Taylor in the potterverse, this time with some mutual respect to him and traumatic memories.
    What OP is going to do with this further? Make the curse force them on each other because of unresolvable sexual tension again and again? Gah, not gracefully handled at all, rather horrible.

    And the last one, the curse particularities itself. They make no sense for the posited purpose. It's not completely clear for me, again, wherther the headache of Taylor is resolved or it is going to come back if Harry , say, refused to change anything for her sake. If it's former, not such a problem as to base their decisions on it (see above). If later , there are going to be plenty of situations without an acceptable outcome.
    Relationship requires small sacrifices from partners in questions they see differently, adjustments of themselves (perhaps, emprovement, perhaps, not) because they value each other more than things sacrificed in the qustion.
    If curse hurts a partner for a sacrifice made by the other one for their sake, it's death sentence.
     
    Last edited:
    Fencer said:
    Hmm… honestly I think I'd be ok with derailing that particular bit of canon and I do have a believable idea that while not exactly canon compliant would make sense. Especially if their canon impact was so minor.

    Think I might work that into my next update. Really unchecked dementors are basically an existential threat to human souls and I think it's time they be treated as the horrifying threat they are.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I believe there's a fic on FFN that's focused on an AU version of Hermione who got sorted Slytherin because of ambition, wherein instead of a house elf liberation crusade she plunges whole-heartedly into researching a way to kill Dementors from the moment she learns about them because they terrify her.

    In the end, I believe Hermione succeeded in performing a ritual to kill all the Dementors, but unfortunately her casting coincided with the Death Eaters breaking out of Azkaban.
     
    Death_Sheep said:
    I believe there's a fic on FFN that's focused on an AU version of Hermione who got sorted Slytherin because of ambition, wherein instead of a house elf liberation crusade she plunges whole-heartedly into researching a way to kill Dementors from the moment she learns about them because they terrify her.

    In the end, I believe Hermione succeeded in performing a ritual to kill all the Dementors, but unfortunately her casting coincided with the Death Eaters breaking out of Azkaban.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Link?
     
    Midnighter13 said:
    I'm frankly amazed that alone didn't break the masquerade/statute of secrecy.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    It's a plot point that is often forgotten, but Dementors, and lots of other magical creatures/beasts/non-humans, are invisible unless you have enough magic. A plain Muggle like Dudley can't see Dementors. This is brought up in the beginning of Book 5 I think, during the attack since Dudley had no clue what the fuck was going on and afterwards it changes Dudley for the better. He actually isn't a giant piece of shit to Harry after that incident because he knows his Cousin risked his own life to save him despite their prior animosity.

    Then there are weird creatures like the Diricawl, AKA the Dodo and yes I mean the "extinct" bird, which teleports away if startled which is why it's not actually extinct in the Potterverse. So yeah the potential for breaking of the Statute of Secrecy wasn't actually a thing from Dementors being seen by Muggles. That said they absolutely killed tons of innocent people in Canon, so it's not like the general public was safe, in fact they were even more screwed because they couldn't see the deadly threat drifting down the neighborhood street and attempt to flee despite it being generally ineffective.

    One final side note is that Squibs can see such magical creatures like Dementors, which is why Filch can be working at Hogwarts despite his lack of ability to use magic.
     
    Windborne said:
    It's a plot point that is often forgotten, but Dementors, and lots of other magical creatures/beasts/non-humans, are invisible unless you have enough magic. A plain Muggle like Dudley can't see Dementors. This is brought up in the beginning of Book 5 I think, during the attack since Dudley had no clue what the fuck was going on and afterwards it changes Dudley for the better. He actually isn't a giant piece of shit to Harry after that incident because he knows his Cousin risked his own life to save him despite their prior animosity.

    Then there are weird creatures like the Diricawl, AKA the Dodo and yes I mean the "extinct" bird, which teleports away if startled which is why it's not actually extinct in the Potterverse. So yeah the potential for breaking of the Statute of Secrecy wasn't actually a thing from Dementors being seen by Muggles. That said they absolutely killed tons of innocent people in Canon, so it's not like the general public was safe, in fact they were even more screwed because they couldn't see the deadly threat drifting down the neighborhood street and attempt to flee despite it being generally ineffective.

    One final side note is that Squibs can see such magical creatures like Dementors, which is why Filch can be working at Hogwarts despite his lack of ability to use magic.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Yes, because a mysterious fog/cold front that causes severe depression and brain death in a large and growing geographic area, but only "kills" people who are outside is incredibly natural. Its not like the dementors don't cause obvious effects that are fully visible even if they themselves are invisible.

    Finding a few hundred to a few thousand comatose people on the street while the area is unnaturally cold and the survivors are obviously suffering from everything from PTSD to severe depression is going to attract some serious attention. Everybody from the police and military to infectious disease experts and psychologists are going to be called in to figure out what the hell is going on and how to prevent it from happening again. And the longer it takes for them to find some sort of cause, the closer they are going to look, and the more esoteric resources they will throw at the issue.

    At some point someone is going to set up a thermal camera in one of the affected areas, and then it will become very clear very quickly that there are tons of anomalous invisible cold spots moving around, and the only people who end up brain dead are those who physically encounter such anomalies. From there, the muggle government would launch investigations into exactly what they hell those things are, and how to get rid of them. All it takes is someone poking one with a stick to figure out there are invisible creatures walking the roads. Cue twilight zone music and the end of the masquerade.
     
    Midnighter13 said:
    Snip
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I mean yes that's true, but that requires that the regular people survive being near them when they aren't "controlled" to report such things, which was implied to be pretty unlikely without magical aid. Autopsies wouldn't necessarily show the needed clues for people to start to wonder. And Humans really do like having visual proof of stuff, we take stuff like germs for granted now, but you'd be laughed out of town at best a few hundred years back.

    Not sure if it was purely limited to Fanon since I haven't read the later books in years due to my distaste for them, but I know I've seen in other Fics that the Order and DMLE was run ragged trying to keep the Muggle population from being munched on by those roaming packs of Dementors. Tactically speaking letting them roam free is a brilliant move by Voldemort, because they are such an existential threat that the other side has to respond and react in order to preserve lives or they'd lose the trust of the public in the case of the DMLE or moral and ethical high ground for the Order. Dementors can't be killed easily, if at all, so even without their numbers growing they'd be a major force multiplier. I wouldn't be surprised to see such tactics be employed here in this Fic, because like I said it's a pretty slick move.
     
    Last edited:
    Windborne said:
    I mean yes that's true, but that requires that the regular people survive being near them when they aren't "controlled" to report such things, which was implied to be pretty unlikely without magical aid. Autopsies wouldn't necessarily show the needed clues for people to start to wonder. And Humans really do like having visual proof of stuff, we take stuff like germs for granted now, but you'd be laughed out of town at best a few hundred years back.

    Not sure if it was purely limited to Fanon since I haven't read the later books in years due to my distaste for them, but I know I've seen in other Fics that the Order and DMLE was run ragged trying to keep the Muggle population from being munched on by those roaming packs of Dementors. Tactically speaking letting them roam free is a brilliant move by Voldemort, because they are such an existential threat that the other side has to respond and react in order to preserve lives or they'd lose the trust of the public in the case of the DMLE or moral and ethical high ground for the Order. Dementors can't be killed easily, if at all, so even without their numbers growing they'd be a major force multiplier. I wouldn't be surprised to see such tactics be employed here in this Fic, because like I said it's a pretty slick move.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    We know from book 3 that a group of dementors can induce depression even from the better part of a mile away in sufficient numbers. We also know that they have to get close enough to physically kiss someone in order to permanently render them braindead. That means in any dementor attack on a muggle settlement, a lot of muggles will survive simply by being inside buildings or cars with locked doors at the time of the attack. Sure, they might wish they were dead, and have to deal with life-long psychological trauma with no obvious source, but they will live. So unless the DMLE and Order can erase the dementor's aftereffects on the survivors as well as vanish all the Kissed and erase any memory of the dead, someone is going to report some weird nonsense that gets attention. Even if it gets covered up as a chemical weapon attack or something, you run into the problem that the muggle government is going to be on the hook for stopping the next one.

    Dementors are terrifying (literally) but they are not all powerful. Physical barriers can stop them (especially if they can't fly like in the books), which means simply getting in a car and locking the door means you will live. Heck, even a gas mask might be enough as long as they can't pull it off your head. You may get surrounded and traumatized into insanity, but you will live and will not be Kissed. I can't see a way for the wizards to cover up such attacks on muggle towns and villages. Maybe one or two could be concealed as terror attacks using chemical weapons, but even that's dubious. Dozens of attacks, across the country? Especially moving in an obvious pattern out from the initial attack sites? All with symptoms and casualty patterns that don't match any known chemical weapon? I think covering that up will quickly spiral into impossibility unless the DMLE can trap and portkey the dementors back to Azkaban quickly.

    Also, recall that people who are Kissed are still physically alive. They won't be going to morgues, they will be going to hospitals by the hundreds where doctors and psychologists are going to try and figure out what is wrong with them. Some might die of exposure before they are recovered, but most of the 'fatalities' will 'live' as far as the muggles are concerned.
     
    Last edited:
    You know, I would read a fic about the Dementors devastating a chunk of London and triggering Article 5 and all the consequences therein. Would be an interesting way for Voldy to lose, by accidentally starting a war with the mundane population of the world.
     
    I'm not sure the secrecy would be upheld in a "dementors run rampant" scenario. Sure maybe the Ministry would reflexively cover it up... But all of the muggleborn and halfbloods would know pretty quickly what was going on. And they are likely to have family members or friends on the non-magical side at risk. The odds that none of them would talk seem low.

    There is also the international angle. The Statute is an international affair. If it breaks in the UK it breaks everywhere. Rampaging dementors would be something the whole magical world would realize is a massive menace to their secrecy. It would make an intervention extremely likely IMO. Probably including making a point out of everyone behind it.
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top