anorc-writing

[anorc-writing]

The time someone brain-dumped a prompt on reddit/r/HPFanfiction about my actual story.

Prompts, are actually the lowest-effort form of engagement.

No, sorry, buying merch is the lowest effort form of fandom.

/r/hpfanfiction even recently banned prompts monday-friday, because they were snowing the froup under.

Some months before that, I was wasting some time in reddit, and someone (who's now banned form the froup.) said "What if Harry from Anorc's Not with a halfblood got summoned to another universe like it happens in 0800-rent-a-hero."

Now, I'd pretty much decided not to do anything more in that series, becuase, uh. it's done. And having written 800,000 words in one plotline, I'm burnt out on it. Or so I thought.

And I was all ready to write an oversize reply, and have reddit barf on me, the usual really.

And then I thought... nah. I'll write a short. I mean, I enjoyed 0800-rent-a-hero, such as it is.

I uploaded it to AO3 only today. "Harry Potter and the Don't do that again" at 35k words.

Now it's a novella, and a bit of a gallop in places, but for a stupid prompt, it came out okay.

And there's an Omake in the works where Harry's friends accidentally go to save the wrong Harry from another universe. No guesses who that is. https://archiveofourown.org/works/66124027/chapters/170410138

It's not on FFN because I can't handle getting another ten to twenty "artist" spams in the comments, let alone the PM's.

Oh, and Daphne really, really doesn't cope with Harry being abducted, and neither, it works out, does Cassiopeia.

[anorc-writing]

A Voles progress

The Cassandra Vole story is evolving.

It's now called 'A terrible way to make a family',

and is 12,000 words long. The tone has changed a little.

And it's become one of those 'Oh, they've had quite the rapprochement stories.'

[anorc-writing]

Sometimes, you just get an idea

So I was hanging out on discord, and 'Wake The Dragon' suggested that wouldn't it be funny if Harry Potter and Daphne Greengrass, who appear as a couple in a certain specialty niche of the Harry Potter fandom, (and that particular discord is a sub-set of that fandom)

Set post-war.

The ministry passes one of those stock trope Marriage laws.

Harry is paired with Daphne Greengrass, nonentity.

They decide to elope.

And discover that they have a soul-bond.

Now, that my friend in internet land then called me out as "That's the sort of crack you write", well, it stung a bit.

To make the pain go away, I've written/am writing this fic.

A suitably toxic title "Made for You"

So far it's 51,000 words.

Wake' is suitably amused.

The hard part is getting the tone right. I'm aiming for funny, and to avoid things like soul bonds equating to loads of hot ... hand holding. (Spicy stuff.)

Warning: Will actually contain hand holding. Lots of hand holding.

Using the story as a vehicle to explore 'what could a soul bond really mean in practical terms'

And obviously, to make fun of previous soul bond fics,

[anorc-writing]

Vole-Greengrass

Cassandra Vole and Harry Potter? Any connection?

Cassie Vole is blonde and had green eyes. Ain’t that an odd combination.

Her mother is a blue-eyed blonde. Her name ? Diana Vole.

Well, it is these days.

Let me introduce you to a head-canon you're gonna need to make sense of this. It goes like this: Daphne Greengrass and her family fled Britain after she sat her OWLs. Daphne knew, as she sat exams she'd be leaving the country. And... well a witch can like a good quidditch player, all right.

And Harry was a very good seeker, and the most lurid (and actually untrue, leftover Tom Riddle propaganda) rumours about about parselmouths. Daphne could technically tell people that’s a lie, but that would, as they say, be a little incriminating.

So she leaves Hogwarts in June 1996, pregnant. (The tricky part is how she and Harry get together that year while Harry's doing DA, detentions with Dolores, and then going off to save Sirius.) Astoria got pulled out of third year, and the Greengrasses hid in Europe, after all, Voldemort is actually back.

Vole is the alias the Greengrasses hide under. Voles are under green grass, gettit. From there on it's all pretty simple. Does imply Harry's slightly more cad-like than you might expect, but also, he thought the Greengrasses died in the opening salvos of the war. Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

By the time Daphne gets back to England, Harry's snogging post-war Ginny. He meets Cassandra when he, as an Auror, arrests her for being underage in a pro- broom-racing event. Welcome to absolutely not Cursed Child.

“You can’t charge me with that, I’m underage.” she said. “The most you can do is call my mother.”

“And I bloody well will” said Harry. “Who’s your mother?”

“Diane Vole,” said the girl.

Harry’s first reflex is to send a Patronus, which goes nowhere, as that’s not her true name.

“Okay, now with less lying?” asked Harry.

“Send her an owl like a normal person.” said Cassie, eyes flashing, hands on her hips. “Trying to show off with your stag conjuration. Clearly compensating for something!”

This, thought Harry, is a more athletic young Pansy Parkinson. (Which absolutely didn’t have Harry thinking about doing nasty things with Pansy Parkinson, wash your brain out. He might have had an odd dream about that, once, but he woke up horrified. Being a teenage boy can be hard.)

Oh, and Daphne's got a bad case of the awkwards. "We had a kid?" "There was a war on and somebody didn't use contraception."

Why is she not a Greengrass?

Daphne and her family never go back to their old name. Astoria does; but she marries Malfoy.

That’s got nothing to do with trying to distance themselves from the Greengrass blood malediction at all. Well, a little bit. And some estate tax evasion. Mostly the latter, but honestly, who can blame them?

Apart from an up-and-coming Auror.

“So my actual father is Harry Potter, OM?” asked Cassiopeia Vole, trying to do a powerful single-eyebrow raise at her mother, who’s always eschewed boyfriends. (As far as her daughter knows. If Daphne had a boyfriend she didn’t bring home to meet her daughter, that’s neither here nor there. Bedsides, they were muggles, and she stayed at their place. That she might have mostly met tall, black-haired men with hazel eyes is erm, a coincidence. She is completely over any childish thing she had about Potter.)

[anorc-writing]

New Story: Harry Potter and the annoying impatient.

It's up on FFN and AO3.

Harry becomes a healer after the war because not being able to help Ron on the Horcrux hunt really played on his mind.

Harry is confronted by a witch who just wants her sister healed; and she'll do anything to ensure that. It's Rated M; full of mature themes, but it's a comedy, a spoof of many Harry Potter fanfics. While also containing some smut, and goings on.

Do check the tags before reading.

FFN: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14433307/1/Healer-Harry-and-the-annoying-impatient

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62386408/chapters/159638746

[anorc-writing]

Why bashing fics annoy me.

I get really fed up with people bashing Ron into the film Ron, or worse ("Moron Weasley"). And not understanding that Harry likes his bossy friend Hermione. (Who is so far from a Mary Sue, it's not funny. JKR accidentally made her a bit of a monster by making her a self-insert.) They're not perfect people, but also, Harry's "a bit moody and stuff."

I really think post-war they could have a great, awkward, complicated coming-of-age story, with a teensy bit of baggage from the war. (And of course, our best girl, Daphne Q. Greengrass. )

In hindsight, long series are utterly horrible to write when you get tired of them; so JKR writing Deathly Hallows and ending with a crap Epilogue is just a writer writing an exit. (And a writer not fond of character-driven writing, really, so not something she'd want to do anyway.)

What? What's all that about Daphne Greengrass?

This is, as they say, the way.

The whole Harry-Ginny thing is so awful in the books, that it's just, well, no. Also, something about abandoning her to the tender mercies of Death Eaters at Hogwarts for a year.

Ginny's two characters badly mashed into one. How does the shy girl obsessed with Harry Potter turn into a fiery cool chick? Well, the secret is, you just write 'and Ginny was a fiery cool chick.' Because Ginny gets a lot of tell not show. (And being possessed for a year is initially traumatic, but then she's just fine. That's of course, because JKR had no idea what horrible gross trauma might do to a young person, so she, like many writers, mostly ignored it. Wrote it, it's there for one chapter, then gone. The one line in the entire series that hints at it, where Harry's complaining after the Department of Mysteries fiasco about having been possessed by Voldemort, Ginny basically said, "uh, that happened to me too." and Harry says, "Oh, I forgot." Now, if Ginny was a real person, with like, feelings, at that point her hero, Harry Potter, is... clearly unable to imagine her point of view, relate to her, and had... literally forgotten her most important, traumatic life event, because he was self-centered.

Now that also makes Harry a teenage boy, but it seemed to me like that would be the death-knell for feelings grown-up Ginny had for Harry Potter. He is, in fact, the protagonist, and knows it. (I'd love to see a writer really deconstruct how bloody annoying protagonists are.)

So, it might be a surprise, but I don't think Ginny bashing is particularly cool either. I might argue that book 1-2 Ginny is dead by the beginning of book 3, but post-Chamber Ginny is just a girl who wants to play professional quidditch. And why not; she's been flying since she could steal a broom at night. As a fanfic writer, I have to get Ginny out of the way so I can ship Harry with Daphne Greengras, but apart from that, she's just a person.

If Harry is taken from her by plot devices like marriage contacts, she's angry, and won't let go without a fight; fair enough actually.

And if she decided she'd had enough of Harry, well, she doesn't care post-Hogwarts. (And I've got a short where she works out that post-Battle-of-Hogwarts Harry is most plausibly Tom Riddle, playing a long con, and dumps him like last weeks fish-heads. That short is the starter for many of my postwar fics.)

And if I've had too much coffee, I'll take the terrible fanfic that is 'cursed child' and turn it into a postwar Harry/Ginny marriage, and eventual breakup, because if CC is canon, they're destined to break up.

Enough bashing already.

So, anyway, you might wonder why Daphne Greengrass (or not , of you've read my writings.) I'll ignore your (and mine) misgivings and dump some exposition here.

We need a character Harry hasn't already had a negative interaction with. And as Harry is someone who could 'have been great in Slytherin' and will, literally, use any means to achieve his ends... Slytherin girls might get him a bit better than other ones.

Daphne Greengrass exists, (and from the classlist) is in Slytherin, pureblood and Harry has never been rude to her face. (That's actually quite a short list of girls at Hogwarts that he's not either been identified as 'The Heir of Slyterin' by, (all of Hufflepuff) Disliked for bullying Luna, or at least letting it slide (All of Ravenclaw.) Or in dorms with, so they've seen him at his least appealing, with only two friends (All of Gryffindor.)

And he's from the wrong side of the tracks, (though actually at least conceptually rich before that thing with his bank) and she's got a posh name. Yeah, lets do a romance.

See, it makes perfect sense.

Daphne Greengrass, gorgeous, should be a model.

<Please imagine a record scratch sound effect here.>

If she was that pretty, she'd be mentioned in the books.

She'd got to be dressing really frumpily if she's got a model-like figure! (Oh god, 'She's all that' flashbacks. ((It's a film about teenagers made in the 1980s and it aged like spoiled milk.))) And Daphne can't have a model-like face... there is a girl that's not Ginny who's really pretty at Hogwarts, and it's Cho Chang. And Harry dated her. (It was a disaster. Harry's got a type. Pretty. Ginny's so pretty, Blaise Zabini mentions it.)

We'll leave the concept of post-Hogwarts glow-ups on the table, as it were.

[anorc-writing]

The Christmas Special

I finally wrote a Christmas special.

To be blunt, hitting a fixed month for a releasable fic is harder than it looks.

Harry Potter and the Horrible Romantic Christmas

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14420278/1/Horrible-Romantic-Christmas

or

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61270360/chapters/156591742

It’s a Christmas story. Get the most annoying commercial Christmas song you can find, put it on repeat, grab some hot chocolate and get ready to… well nothing good’s happening. Though some little kids do put on a Christmas play, so there’s that.

It's a parody of a Hallmark christmas romance.

Now for the warnings...

ontent warning: Makes reference to the play that shall not be named. Not Macbeth, the other one (CC). Content warning: Alcohol abuse. Content warning: Divorce. Content warning: Mental illness. Content warning: Past suicidal ideation. Content warning: Hallmark Christmas film tropes!!!

Not much actual smut. No lemon scenes.

[AN: If you were expecting a Hallmark film, Sir, this is a Wendy’s.] [AN2: If you’re a retail worker and the dulcet tones of Mariah Carey et al have you wanting to die, well, sorry.]

[anorc-writing]

Wozzat then?

Is there a 'Hogwarts accent'? Canonically Harry's a great one for Erm.

Lets play… literary analysis!

Harry goes home to Surrey to the Dursleys every summer. At no point does Dudley punch his head in for sounding posh.

(Fair call though that Dudders goes to Smeltings, so he's learning a second accent anyway.)

Q.E.D. Harry keeps a mostly SSBE accent as is apparently typical of Surrey.

Glottal stops on trialing T's etc.

Uses UM as a filler. If he was more contemporary, he'd be using 'like' but we can assume that Hogwarts would knock that out of him.

He's not near enough to Crawley and the estuary to have a noticeable estuary accent.

Harry does not read for fun, so he isn't going to develop a substantially larger casual English vocabulary.

He may have a technical vocabulary but JKR never really did that much of that kind of world-building.

Obviously can pronounce some wonky Latin.

And in an amusing digression, Hermione Granger is probably not from Crawley as some fans think; and even if she was, given her parent are both Dentists, she's a dedicated RP speaker, and I'd suspect she might have hard consonants at the end of words. And obviously, reads voraciously, so will have developed a large vocabulary. ERmione don' sound like dat.

One thing that's missing in the series, which suggests there is a Hogwarts accent, is that Ron and the Weaselys don't have a Devon accent. Even though they live in Ottery St Mary, I mean, Catchpole.

(And they don't go to the Tar Barrel night either, because they're always at Hogwarts.)

That suggests that Molly and Arthur have 'Hogwarts accents.'

Malfoy is one of the few sneerers and Drawlers.

And most entertainingly, Snape doesn't have a midlands accent. Even though he's from Cokeworth and was poor as muck. Aunt Petunia has adopted an accent that's not midlands, again, she was from Cokeworth. and finally, Lily Evans, Head girl, prefect, Harry's mum…. not a midlands accent. That is mild evidence that the Evanses are either middle-class and self-conciously speak only RP, or put it all behind them.

To be blunt, this is the bit of the canon that doesn't work the best.

[anorc-writing]

Deconstructing Daphne Greengrass

Ice Queen. Borderline sociopath.

Rich girl with a a heart of gold.

Well, in the last 20 years or so there have been many, many Daphne Greengrasses in fanfic.

And I'd just like to say, my name is An Orc, and I'm here to burn it all down. And yes, I'm aware that I've written tropey Daphne Greengrass fics.

But also, I've written, and continue to write fics where Daphne isn't quite as much of a paint-by-numbers love interest.

Though I've got a fic that deconstructs that too in the works, because of course I do. (Healer Harry and the annoying impatient. Maybe coming late 2025)

Before I dive into the details, I'll lay out some basic ground rules. Don't worry, I'll explain where this goeth eventually. Oh, and we're going to use snippets from Cursed Child, because nothing in life is totally worthless. Not even bad fanfic. (Dr Hadley on Youtube has a great vlog about Daphne, and has written Daphne into fanfic, so if you wanted background, go watch that. He's also quite funny.)

Daphne's Blonde.

Daphne's got blue eyes.

Daphne's a girl.

Daphne isn't a genderbent Draco Malfoy. There's no point in doing that.

Has a little sister called Astoria.

There's a blood malediction that's going to kill Astoria.

Daphne has at least a passing resemblance to 'Anonymous Slytherin girl extra' in the film "Order of the Phoenix"' (Who isn't that anonymous, and apparently at least at some point found the whole Daphne Greengrass phenomenon all rather funny.)

The ship is called Haphne, and it's Harry Potter and Daphne Greengrass.

Daphne Greengrass canonically has an OWL Practical just before Hermione Granger in Order of the Phoenix, the book. She never appears before or after in canon.

Daphne was in Slytherin house and is a pureblood. (That's in the Hogwarts 40, ephemera from JKR that she used in planning. Shame she didn't do some remedial maths beforehand too.)

Epilogue? What Epilogue. EWE is the fan movement that simply rejects JKR's epilogue as well, trash. I'm signed up unless I'm not.

Now, those are the things I regard as 'immutable' parts of a given OC called Daphne Greengrass. And I'm a book reader, who happened to see the films first, so I don't much care what mess various directors made of the setting.

So, first off, I'll lampshade #1 by saying that Daphne is blonde, for some value of bleach. (I have an old female friend who there's only one person alive that remembers her actual natural hair colour, and well, the extra wasn't a natural blonde either, so there you go.) And while that sounds silly, it gives Daphne some... dare we say, character. Why does Daphne change her hair colour? (It's mousy brown, honestly, she just wanted not to look less plain.)

Blue eyes at #2, because she has to have eyes, and they need a colour. Blue is, if you missed it, a colour. (And there's a sodding U in it. Get over it, Americans.) And the "Book of Names" that researched all the names in the Hogwarts original 40 list from JKR, put the Greengrass surname in Norfolk, and they're probably Saxons. So Daphne has blue eyes. And may be from Norfolk.

It would be weird for a boy to be called Daphne, so that explains #3.

Number four, well, the point of a female OC is to ship Harry with her. Seriously. JKR can't write romantic relationships at all convincingly, so Harry ended up with a lump of wood in a red wig. (And that's not picking on Bonnie Wright -- she can act, and has done so since quite well. Cloves et al are hacks, which doesn't help.) Having a Slytherin, and a Pureblood girl means she's literally from the other side of the tracks. (In keeping with the tiny tatters of CC we can regard as 'not shit', Greengrasses are far more politically moderate than Malfoys.) We never really got to see how the Slytherin Purebloods lived, and this lets us go wild.

Badly written Regency romances are a fandom trope. I'm no less guilty, but that's just, like, an opinion.

There's a legend that JKR intended the Non Nazi Slytherin Students to come back from Hogsmeade with Horace Slughorn, when he leads the people of Hogsmdade as reinforcements in the battle of Hogwarts. As a writer, the setup is all there in the text, but, alas, the last three books (at least) have shoddy editing due to the massive amounts of gold they were making. So she left it out, and that leaves the implication that they're all Nazis. Literally 'Evil House.' Which is far too simplistic a view, and my god you did a personality test on eleven year olds, and now a quarter are Death Eaters. To coin a phrase, Bad Rowling, No. Being ambitious isn't evil. (And having met, over the course of many years, some quite evil people who were not ambitious, there's Death Eaters in Hufflepuff. Sooo many Death Eaters in Hufflepuff.) So Rowling left that out. I'm actually okay with the idea that the Slytherins that weren't evil hid in their dorms and common room during the Battle of Hogwarts. They'd had rubbish Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers for at least five years out of the last seven, so most of even the Seventh years were sitting ducks; just like Voldemort intended. That DADA curse is 'preparation of the battle-space,' as was making sure Snape was a bastard to Potions students. Less Aurors, less Healers. A nation weak, ready to be taken over.

Number five, having Daphne have a sister, family etc, well, there are great 'Daphne Greengrass is a penniless orphan' fics, but I'm trying to parody what's there, so she'd better have a family. And that lets Harry meet a magical family that aren't the Weasleys. That would make two families he's met. In total. (And I can lampshade the ever-loving putty out of Harry having a tiny circle of friends.)

Number six, the blood malediction, possibly a Greengrass family curse, is free conflict, so what's not to love. Also, it means there's a real risk Daphne herself may be at risk of snuffing it. And a mystery for Harry to solve. If only to discover why that Greengrass girl's trying to break into the restricted section.

(Oh, and I just had a sodding plot bunny.)

Number seven, there's a running theme in fan wish-fulfillment that Daphne Greengrass must be gorgeous. The only thing is, that surely, we'd see that mentioned in the books. Ginny Weasley is gorgeous, Cho Chang is gorgeous. And Harry's possibly a tiny bit superficial. I generally regard this is just cringeful, and I love trying to squeeze sense from the world-building. If a girl was really pretty, she'd be mentioned in the book, right? (Ignoring that JKR didn't make enough characters for the roll size she wanted for Hogwarts etc etc.) In a way, (it's called parodic deconstruction, I think?) so Daphne must either be... good looking but not stand out, or she had a glow-up after school. She's also not atrociously ugly -- she's unremarkable. I parody this in one of my worse stories with Daphne literally having a magical glow-up, courtesy of her mum. A middle ground is that like the reference face from the films, she's pretty, but horsey from some angles. Fans who've met said person in ... person say actually she is gorgeous, so there's that. That further lends weight to the 'otherwise unremarkable girl' angle, where she might age into her looks, but at Hogwarts, is... shy. (Oh god, terrible Hughes films flashbacks.)

Number eight, shipping. I ship so hard I have my own harbor. In real life, actually yes. So I'm quite prepared to have fics where Daphne shock, Horror, isn't with Harry. (I've got one (not quite released yet) where he... brace yourselves... becomes friends with her post-war. And that's all. A friend. (I'll do the screwing it up in a sequel, because I am an orc. Torturing people is our thing.)

Or... is gay. Because that's a thing, folks. Some people are. It just happens. Not going to try and take on all that crap, but hey, have a gay Daphne story. She stays gay, because that's how people tend to work.

Number nine: There's a fixed point in time in canon where Daphne Greengrass exists, and did her OWL Charms Practical at the same time as Hermione. That leaves the question open if she was even at Hogwarts in Harry's sixth year. Given the reappearance of a dark lord, maybe they fled. Lots of possibilities. Also, on the flip side, sixth year is the one year Harry could really meet Daphne at Hogwarts and change canon a little but not a lot. (Or maybe with an alternative point of view in a planning session, things could go very differently indeed.) People have done 'She's actually working for Voldemort, willingly or otherwise' to death, so I've left it alone. Harry might not be a genius at telling if someones' trustworthy, but Crookshanks, Hermione's cat, is half-Kneazle and magically gifted in this regard. (See Prisoner of Azkaban.)

There's no point arguing a single point in time, unless someone wanted her to be imaginary, and that's pretty limited as a basis for a story.

Number ten: If you make her not a Pureblood in Slytherin, make her someone else. She's an OC with a name, respect the three things we already know about her. (And I'm quite prepared to skewer any Siberian Pricness, Ice Princess etc tropes at this point.)

Number Eleven: No epilogue.

Well, unless she was over and done with Harry before he married Ginny and had 2.4 children. I've played around in this non-plot non point a bit, including skewering Cursed Child repeatedly. It's quite hard to have Harry, who only wanted a family, be an absent father and still be in character. Cursed child never managed it, but I've had a couple of goes so far.

Or maybe AFTER cursed child starts. And suddenly I'm writing 40-year old Harry Potter getting divorced, meeting someone from school... there's a rich vein to mine here. And yes, I've got a satire of a Hallmark Christmas romance with Harry and Daphne post-Harry's divorce, of course I do. "Horrible Romantic Christmas" on AO3.

Now for some freeform ranting.

One of the valuable things, as a writer about Daphne is that she can be unfamiliar with muggle Britain, and Harry's a native. So you can do the wonders of... Tesco. Basically, Harry's discovery of the magical world, upside down, and backwards. Or to be posh, holding a mirror up to contemporary Britain. See that sounds all literary, and this is just fanfic.

But like any idea, I can look at the back side, and Harry could, alternatively make a complete berk of himself, trying to show someone that already kind-of-knows muggle culture and technology things, and instead of childlike wonder she can say "I had one when I was eight, Potter. I wasn't born yesterday."

And there's even room to explore the idea that maybe she doesn't have a heart of gold.

There are some fantastic fics where she's the bad guy.I haven't written any of them. Personally, I'd rather not glorify bad people. But she can easily be the 'Slytherins will take any means to achieve their ends' character. And while I can't see the attraction about writing about psychopaths, just having someone prepared to bend the rules in the service of her own life is a nice contrast to the background characters 'who do nothing'. She could even, shock, horror, be a criminal, inasmuch as she did whatever to get through the war. (And I've got a neat fic stuck in plot development hell where she's a fraudster... but not a death eater. And Harry is a post-war Auror, so he gets to play detective and play the hypocrisy card. It may be a noir detective novel in wizards robes.)

Because so many writers have tried to make Daphne very special and extra, I've gone and written 'A very ordinary girl' where Harry slowly falls in love with someone who's... an ordinary witch at Hogwarts. While that's a short story, I feel disinclined to write more in that setting, because by the end, all Daphne and Harry want in some privacy, post-war. So they get to have it, in a way, as long as I don't write another chapter of it.

And one of the interesting things is that the very idea of 'A very ordinary witch' from an ordinary magical family isn't something that appears in the books. So ah, that's really interesting, even if it requires tricky niche world-building to fit inside Rowlings quick and dirty worldbuilding.

But, given all that, could Daphne have... interests?

She could be a music dork. They don't mix with non music dorks at school much, and they can be quite unusual sorts ... once you get to know them, though they might be quiet as mice outside of doing music. And we know there's a choir. Kinda.

Gobstones is a thing, but Harry doesn't play, nor do any of his friends. Therefore, book canon Daphne Greengrass might be eighth seed in the gobstones club, and Harry would never know.

People then jump onto 'she's a genius, she's Hermione's academic rival!' But that's kinda silly. And would have had Hermione grizzling about her at some point, surely?

Hogwarts doesn't have printed class rankings on the walls at any point, so Hermione, for all we know, may not actually be ... shock horror, the brightest witch at school. She studies hard, but in seven years, hadn't invented a single spell. Snape invented several by the time he was in sixth year. (Halfblood prince, his potions journal has his own spells in it.) I'm not saying Daphne is either. But she doesn't answer questions in class like Hermione, though Hermione is suspiciously quiet about all those electives she takes and the boys don't. (Maybe Daphne's an arithmancy nerd? Could be. And what would that actually mean, in practical terms?)

It's possible, nay likely that students with special interests might do better in the classes they are interested in, but they may not necessarily be the best in the school... if they are interested in something related to the class, but not in studying hard to get good exam marks. That's just how learning works.

On the other hand, Hermione Granger doesn't attend Hogwarts for the 97-98 academic year. (maybe she goes back later.) It's possible that every other student, apart from being bullied and possibly tortured by the Carrows, also had a chance to get some house points for a change without Granger hogging all the questions in class. If Daphne attended Hogwarts after 1996, she might have actually got to NEWT level in her classes. So it's possible a post-war Daphne is better at magic than say, Hermione, at least excluding Hermione's specific skills, like Polyjuice making.

Weird worldbuilding fact. In sixth year, in 'Halfblood Prince' there are 'two other Slytherins' in Potions with Harry that aren't Malfoy or Nott. And they are never named, nor are they mentioned again. One of the ''one simple trick's" of writing is to provide the bare minimum and have the readers fill in the rest. It's... possible one is Daphne.

The curly haired elephant in the room.

Tracey Davis is possibly Daphne's best friend. She certainly is in many fics. She is... definitely in the same dorm in Slytherin with Daphne. I've settled on the idea they're neighbors out of school. It's the simplest possible solution of Daphne needing a bestie.

Which can't be Pansy, or we'd notice Daphne more.

And cant' be Millicent, because Daphne is at best a hanger-on in Pansy's gang. And... we'd notice Daphne more.

What's Tracey like? Who can say. She's a halfblood in Slytherin (according to the list.) Poached this pic from Living Dangerously, and why not have Tracy wear a brown hat?

[anorc-writing]

Who's on first?

No, not the Three Stooges skit. What have I been working on lately?

Well, atypically, one of my older works. "The Old Betrothal Contract"

Who doesn't love a betrothal contract story? (Obviously, they're quite toxic, and no, I don't like them, which is why I write so many parodies of them.) This one.... is different.

Here's the draft blurb.

A Harry Potter marriage contract story where played straight. And it's obviously Haphne. But the twist is ... it's set in canon "real world." so it's not magically binding or anything. Harry just has "first refusal." Obviously, Daphne can say no too.

Technically there are two Siberian Princesses, but it’s not Daphne, and they’re not beautiful.

Because it’s been such a huge trope in fandom, what if a Potter-Greengrass betrothal contract was a real thing. But just less cancerous than as portrayed (lets pretend Magical Britain is a stable reality of sorts). Our bespectacled Hero will do what he does best. Wing it.

And let’s pretend the author of the Harry Potter Series didn’t make up all the back-story as she went, and thus, like a snowball, a few almost accidental questions make Harry’s life different. Note not necessarily better, just different.

Now, I've been accused of writing crack. This will, obviously, crack because Betrothal from birth isn't a thing. Well, okay historically it was a thing, and don't worry, characters will be bringing up the Henrys of England to explain to Harry that yes, it's a real thing.

It will contain inherited humiliation for Harry, because the idea that Harry has a Mysterious Ancestry(tm) is a fandom staple.

And that leads to an element of crossover-ishness towards the end of the story. (Which will be taking elements of cursed child as canon, because it's a framework for postwar history.)

[anorc-writing]

Not with a Halfblood, Redux

So, the rewrite project is going to be uploaded as a redux.

After a lot of thinking I've found the right tone for Harry's thoughts, finally.

We're left holding an empty sock here as JKR managed to write in 3rd person objective without the point-of-view character's thoughts. I guess Harry really did know occulamancy, huh?

Thought given the 'chest monster' JKR came up with for Harry's feelings towards Ginny Weasley, it's probably just as well.

As to when? Maybe 'in a little while' as the real world does demand work gets done, and all that.

The original Not With a Half-blood!, (for all it's flaws) now has three quarters of a million hits on Fanfiction.net. That's... a lot of hits.

[anorc-writing]

Not with a Halfblood for people that ...

Can't read between the lines.

Don't do subtlety

Need everything spelled out.

Can't read good? (Zoolander vibe to that one)

Conceptually it's just NWAHB with a few snide little thoughts by Harry Potter.

(Someone pointed out that the 3rd person in canonical Harry Potter isn't thinking Harry's thoughts. (Oh, no, its JKR))

Anyway, as writing projects tend to, it turned into a rewrite of 185,000 words. (As opposed to the original 160,000 words.)

100 pages more of, mostly snark.. well and ogling.

Still doesn't conflict materially with 'A witch with a certain point of view'

'Getting to know you' is still in the same setting, with the only caveat that Harry would have to forget Daphne liked music. Considering he canonically forgot Ginny had been possessed by Voldemort, that seems plausible.

Anyway, it's with the my editor, and we'll see if I want to somehow publish it as a redux or some something. At no point will I change my style; though some of the more egregious slips into present tense are eliminated.

[anorc-writing]

Harry Potter mums... scarier than portrayed.

Well, they're witches. They love their children, but also…. can change reality by thinking about it. (Witches, even the drippy girls that did Herbology, are all like that. It's kind of sad how badly misrepresented Harry Potter style witches get in … Harry Potter and fanfic of it. Even the drippiest Harry Potter witch has a backbone of pure magic. By the end of seventh year, even the laziest witch can full-body-bind, summon, banish and hex.)

Case in point: Ron's mum. She's a bit fat, and cooks a lot. She yells at her boys, and when the boys bring Harry home unexpectedly, she adopts him on the spot, like a clueless green-eyed black kitten. And when Bellatrix LeStrange…. who was sent to prison for life for torturing two Aurors to insanity… (SWAT/Anti-terrorist forces members, because that's what Aurors are. She, her husband and brother and law, and Barty Junior broke into their house, disarmed them, and tortured them.) Bellatrix attacked Ginny ( and Hermione) in the last battle. Molly killed Bellatrix. "British housewife kills mass-murdering cop killer in shock battle." Only… Molly Weasley nee Prewitt has always been a witch. She went to Hogwarts, her two brothers died in the first war. And while she might not have practiced dueling every day, she's been doing an entire farm worth of enchanting every day. And how did she deal with the gnomes when the kids were all at Hogwarts for nine months of the year?

I had a sudden glimpse of Molly summoning gnomes out of their burrows, em-masse and then banishing them in midair. Summon-Banish. Summon-Banish. Wipe-on, Wipe-off. Every day, for at least five years of nine months. "Oh I got my hand back in," she said, dismissively. (We'll ignore alternate universes where she walks the gnome-infested garden, her wand spitting flashes of green light.) Could she have done that and not had scut work for her boys? Yes, but what's the point of that.

[anorc-writing]

What's your stuff like, anyway?

What to expect?: Mostly longfics (novel-sized, or fantasy-novel-sized). People say it's often crack. But "good crack." Some ( about 30% of my works) are one-shots. Humour. Cynicism. Harry Potter being very good at not thinking about things he doesn't want to. Quite witty dialogue, with Harry and Daphne often having serious repartee going on. Daphne may be posh, reserved, and have cold feet. Not an ice-queen, as such. See Why below.

GIVE ME TAGS: Fluff. Comedy-drama. possibly Romantic Comedy. sometimes Angst, or even 'whump' (I think I'm using that word correctly.)

Aspirationally, there is METAMODERNISM, which might be a bit much for some people. Some of my writing attempts to be naturalistic, where it doesn't conform to the genre conventions for a fantasy novel. In other words, not much happens, things that would be 'a subplot' are to Harry 'just things that happen.' Also, I might be subverting the story I'm writing. See below.

Why do I ship Haphne?: Well, I don't actually know for sure. I think it's because JKR wrote such a terrible 'romance' with Ginny. And Harry needs a fresh start. Obviously, as a writer, I like the freedom to have a labelled OC. And as part of the Harry Potter fanfic community, I get to be one of the few writers deconstructing Daphne Greengrass tropes. "Part of the Ice Queen subversion subgenre." Also, I thought the actress playing "Untitled Slytherin Student" looked posh, and someone said she was Daphne Greengrass. Next thing I know, I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt, it's 6 months later, and I've got half a novel written about Harry and Daphne

[anorc-writing]

The time buy me a coffee said no.

So the whole reason there's a blog is related for awkward reasons to b.m.a.c

And they decided I don't pass their creator filter whatever that is.

So the one person that pitched me a few bucks gets a refund (less fees, of course)

So don't bother trying to tip the orc, orcs don't get tips.

At least Google paid me for the linux kernel vulnerability I told them about. (Many computers have blind spot for not keeping secrets, orc told big company, big company paid orc for map to blind spot.) With the massive wealth I got from that I'll be ... well they didn't pay much.

[anorc-writing]

Harry Potter and the prompt critical advice.

So this one's sitting in my drafts folder, with about 20k words in it already.

Yes. Prompt critical. I’m far more familiar with the meaning of the phrase than is really mentally healthy.

Someone’s going to stage an intervention for Harry Potter. They’re just not going to tell him.

A pentology in four parts.

Post-war Harry Potter with a little help. From friends, and some good legal advice. Or something.

Getting Screwed by Goblins

Beg Forgiveness

Should Not have said that.

The one where Ron did something suicidal.

[anorc-writing]

Breaking Potions

Imagine Breaking bad, but at Hogwarts.

I hadn't seen BB, and wrote it anyway. So there's most of a first draft at 15k words.

But I Also got the idea to do one with Hermione... well, Grangers anyway.

Did anyone else notice we never find out her parents names?

That Hermione spends summers at the Burrow ?

Never, ever, ever talks about her parents?

Meet "Breaking Teeth". Setting up a Dental Practice is VERY Expensive. But, to get a Dental degree, you have to have a quite comprehensive course in chemistry and biochemistry.

Oh sweet Merlin!

Hermione's parents are monolithic, characterless Dentists. Everyone knows that.

Hermione says that to everyone. BUT WE never meet them.

Breaking bad-alike crossover.

Hermione's parents are both in prison by 1992 for drug offenses. They _were_ dentists, but to fund buying their own practice they resorted to cooking. Hermione gets those mad potions skills from somewhere.

My name is Wendell Gregory Granger. I live at 308 Royal Road, Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN14 OBG. This is my confession.