feralpangolin

[feralpangolin]

What Charlie's first encounters might look like

On September 1st, Charlie is raring to go. Finally, finally she’s going to meet Hadrian. Her account manager at Gringotts couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell her much about him, only that he was likely to attend Hogwarts this upcoming year. It was an easy decision to ask Mom and Dad to go to Hogwarts instead of doing homeschooling or Illvermory. After some back and forth with Mrs McGonagall, one Charlotte Wright was in the books to attend Hogwarts.

It’s not until Charlie gets to the platform a whole 2 and 1/2 hours early that her grandma reminds her that she does not in fact know what Hadrian looks like. Unless she wanted to go and ask every compartment for him, likely scaring away her new brother in the process, Charlie instead has to wait until classes start. Which. Is not fun, but she’ll deal with it. She gives her grandma a long hug and a then a quickly hissed goodbye before she’s running up to the train, school trunk in hand. 

In short order, Charlie sets up shop in one of the compartments. She had her pick of the whole train, seeing as she’s the first student here. For the next couple of hours, she entertains herself with the “European Dragon Encyclopedia” she found at the bookstore, scribbling over the text and in the margins about inaccuracies and stuff to ask Uma when she goes home. The train slowly then rapidly fills up as the departure time draws near. 

Not long before the train is set to leave, the compartment door is slammed open. Charlie drops her book, chucks her pen at the wall, and hisses in surprise.

“Well Forge, Lee, look at this. We’ve got ourselves an ickle firstie in our compartment.”

In the doorway stand 3 older boys, two of which are tall, lanky redheaded twins, and the third was slightly shorter with dreadlocks. Despite the heart attack inducing arrival, Charlie finds herself getting along well with the boys. Introductions are traded in short order (“Charlotte Wright, but call me Charlie” “Hey, we have a brother named Charlie, don’t we Fred?”) and the 3rd years kindly allow the 1st year to sit with them. Charlie meets Lee’s tarantula, and gets poked fun at for her accent. She learns that Lee’s magic tastes like popping candy, Fred’s smells like gunpowder and George’s like fireplace smoke. Time passes quickly, and before she knows it, it’s time for Charlie to change and disembark from the train.

“Hope to see you in Gryffindor, firstie!” 

She waves at them as she splits off. The boat ride to the castle is fantastical and she wonders what serpents live in the waters. She stands in the entrance hall and straightens her robes as best she can as all the first years wait and wait and wait. There’s a commotion further up in the group, but she pays it no mind. She’s Thinking. 

Hadrian’s last name is Potter. P comes before W, so he’ll get into his house before her and she can just follow him. (Ha. When has any plan ever gone the way it’s intended?)

The hat is weird. It’s singing is even weirder and she’s supposed to put it on to get sorted? No thank you?? Do British people not have lice?

The tall, stoic lady, who’s apparently McGonagall, starts reading off names from a paper list in alphabetical order. Charlie claps for each person’s sorting, even as she gets odd looks from people for clapping for Slytherins. She’s mostly on autopilot, waiting on bated breath for-

“Harry Potter”. The dining hall goes silent. Charlie straightens to get a better look at Hadrian- no, Harry?- as he nervously walks towards the hat and stool. He’s short. And skinny. But his hair is black, and when he sits, she sees his eyes for a split second and they’re the same bright green as hers. Silences reigns over the hall as the hat sits on Harry head. One minute passes. Then two. Murmurs start to rise when the hat finally declares “Gryffindor!”

Charlie finds herself clapping manically, though she’s still no where near as loud as the table of lions. It takes a couple minutes for everyone to call down enough for McGonagall to say the next name, an Oliver Rivers. Charlie is just about to start zoning out again when suddenly, her name is called. 

“Charlotte—“ the professor stumbles, an action that stuns the entire staff and causes the student body to focus intently on her. McGonagall clears her throat before continuing as though she never stopped.

“Charlotte Slytherin.”

…Huh?

Charlie steps out of the line of the remaining first years, somewhat dazed. At her last name, the dining hall went completely silent again before exploding with exclamations and stilted questions. 

Charlie is also very confused right now. Yes, she’s Lord Slytherin now, but she kept her original last name so she didn’t draw any unwanted attention. Her letters were addressed and sent from a Charlotte Wright, transfer papers had Wright, she’s introduced herself with Wright—. What went wrong?

When she gets to the stool, Professor McGonagall surveys her with a squinted expression before dropping the hat on her head.

“Hmm. Where to put you…” An androgynous voice rings out in her mind. Charlie startles, but immediately thinks in response:

“Gryffindor. I want to be with Harry.”

“HA! No, you’re no lion, though that loyalty may work for a badger. Even still, you’ve got a ruthless and cunning edge to you; it ought to be-

“SLYTHERIN!” Charlie gently removes the sorting hat from her head and hands it to McGonagall. She still looks like she bit into a lemon. As Charlie makes her way to the table in green and silver, she notes that the hall is so very quiet. There’s a small smattering of applause from the staff table and the Slytherin table, but the rest of the houses just watch her with varied expressions of interest to anger to fear. This was exactly what she was trying to avoid. Thanks Murphy’s Law.

[feralpangolin]

Accents are a thing

When compared to the posh and proper British way of speaking, Charlie sticks out like a sore thumb. Not only is her accent blatantly Cowboy American tm, but her vocabulary is much more lax and casual (unless she’s in her “Lord Slytherin” headspace, in which case she deliberately tries to emulate all the rich assholes she sees). Her words drawl together (ain’t’ve), sounds dropped due to the Texan twang, and that doesn’t even account for how occasionally her “s” sounds are accompanied by undertones of hissing.

Her Parsel isn’t much better in terms of comprehension, and in fact if any learned speakers heard her talk, they’d say that it’s the most incomprehensible thing they’d ever heard. Natural Parselmouths are only just barely able to understand her. Parseltongue is a difficult language to learn, and it really is only taught in the tones and hisses of snakes. But it encompasses ALL serpents, including dragons (and basilisks…chimeras…you get the gist). Charlie has a distinctly draconic influence in her Parsel accent— it sounds almost more guttural and gravely during moments while high and chirpy in others. And somehow, against all odds, she still manages to have a semblance of Texan twang in it. God bless Texas.

[feralpangolin]

Slytherin and Parsel

Parseltongue, Parselscript, and Parselrune are all languages that regular wixen can learn. It takes time and effort, as learning most languages does, and they’ll always have an accent/trouble pronouncing some words because human vocals aren’t really made to speak Parsel. In fact, in many countries outside of the UK, where snakes and Parsel doesn’t have a bad rep, it’s taught as a second language course, like French and Spanish are. Many Indian and African countries have Parselspeakers. However, being a Parselmouth is different. Parselmouth is an inherent ability to speak and understand all forms of Parsel, and rarely the ability to cast in it. It’s similar to Metamorphmagus in that it’s a family trait, given by family magic. Aside from instant comprehension, Parselmouths anatomy has slight changes that allow for proper pronunciation. In this AU, Parselmouths were introduced into the Slytherin bloodline via a Naga ancestor (half human, half snake). This allowed the Parselmouth trait to become integrated in the family magic, along with the chance for more snake-like or naga traits to appear. For example, if a member of the line is a Parselmouth, they also have a high chance of having fangs, slitted pupils, secondary eyelids, preference to heat over cold, an enhanced sense of smell and olfactory nodes on their tongue, etc etc.

It’s rare for a member of the Slytherin line to have many of these traits, and they often instead have one or two. This is primarily because of the decline of the bloodline through inbreeding and witch hunts. The last person to have all of these traits (and more), was Salazar Slytherin’s granddaughter, Edel, who was the mother of the squib twins that would become ancestors to Charlie and Harry. I imagine on top of the traits previously listed, she would also have scale patches dotting her legs—a callback to the naga roots— a higher propensity for multiple births (homage to snakes and their clutches), and a tiny nub of a snake tail.

I think it would be very fun if Charlie was able to smell magic; some wix can sense magic if they have a high enough sensitivity for it, but that sense tends to be visual or tactile. Charlie’s ability to smell would be a direct relation to her Slytherin bloodline. She can do the thing snakes do, and open her mouth the catch the scents on her tongue. This ability only increased in potency once she claimed Lordship — the family magic enhanced her snake like traits. In a similar vein, I think that once Charlie claimed Harry as family, and named him as Heir, he gained a better sense of smell (but not to the point of smelling magic). His eyes probably got more bright, more Slytherin green, and maybe his bones/joints became a little bit looser to allow for better feats of agility. He probably also got some other traits, but I’m not sure which ones I want to commit to. I think it’d be really funny if he could unhinge his jaw. Just as a little treat.

[feralpangolin]

Filling in Plotholes

The Texas Slytherin AU stemmed from my desire to give Harry a loving family, and a barrel of wet cement to fill the plot holes that such a scenario would create. Below are the questions that I've already come up with answers for lol

How do you address the family protection spell Lily put on Harry? Easy, give him more biological family.

Why haven't the Dursleys pawned Harry off to that family? Uh, its a very distant relationship. Like, many, many generations back. The Evans family had no idea they had family in America, so Petunia wouldn't've been able to send Harry away.

If its so distant, how does the blood protection work? The bizarre nature of family/bloodline magic! The family magic has some sentience (more on that later), and can appear in varying concentrations in descendants, no matter how distant. High concentrations of the family magic can allow for a Lord of the family to claim those relations, thus magically strengthening the blood ties.

Well then, what family would Harry be a part of? Slytherin! Just for funsies. I wanted to build on parselmouth lore and pureblood culture, assimilating stuff I've read previously and integrating my own spin on it.

Who's Lord Slytherin then? Think about how funny it would be. If the Lord of this Ancient and Founding family, the first one in centuries, was this foul mouthed, heavily accented, Texas child who grew up on a dragon reserve and sure as hell acted like it. The British Wixen world won't know what hit them.

But wait, how does Charlie become Lord? Well, Charlie is a parselmouth, and has a handful of other snake-like traits. This means she's got a high concentration/affinity with the Slytherin Family magic, despite how distant the blood relation is. When she hits age 11, Gringotts sends her a letter to let her know that she's eligible for Heirship. And as she's what the family magic considers to be the only surviving member of the family, she's also able to immediately ascend to Lordship.

Why isn't Voldemort Lord Slytherin? Tom Riddle technically had claim to the title. The only problem is, he never actually did the ritual to become Lord, whether that was due to ignorance of the ritual itself or distaste for the goblins from Gringotts who contacted him about it. But the biggest turning point was when Tom made his first horcrux. It split his soul, a crime against magic and the natural way of things, and thus lost favor of the family magic.

How far back does the relation go? So, I am 100% not fully aware of the canon lineage, so Imma mess with it a bit as needed. But around the 1400's is the last common point in their bloodline, pretty much. Salazar's couple-of-great grandchildren were around when the witch hunts started. Let's say we've got Edel and Isibéal, who are sisters, and a couple of male cousins. Edel is the most snake-like descendant of the Slytherin line outside of their Naga ancestor (more into that later). Her firstborns are twin girls, but they're squibs, Roisín and Lile. When they hit 11 with no sign of magic, Edel has to send them away. Before the witch hunts, squibs would be allowed to stay with their family and perform tasks that didn't require magic; with the hunts, however, the wixen community at large began kicking out, if not outright killing, their squibs. They were too dangerous, and a liability to keep around. Roisín ended up traveling to the New World (America), used her education to get a job as a scribe, and adopted the last name Wright. Her bloodline eventually ends up moving down the coast, and into Texas, culminating into the family Charlie is born in. Lile stayed in the UK, doing who knows what, and her line ends up in Lily Evans and Harry Potter. Isibéal, Edel's sister, is the split where the Gaunt family begins to distinguish itself from the Slytherin line, as she marries one of her cousins and continues that chucklefuck of inbreeding.

This has already gotten longer than I intended, whoops. And there's probably still stuff to address, but I shall do that later.

[feralpangolin]

The Start of the Concept

Consider a Harry Potter au where Harry has extended family in America, specifically Texas. Consider a world where Lily Evans and this Texan family are decedents of the Slytherin bloodline. Consider that the Texan family has a daughter, aged 11, only a few months older than Harry. Consider that she receives a letter from Gringotts letting her know that the Slytherin family magic has identified her as an eligible candidate for heir/lordship. That when she goes to Britain, and accepts the lordship, she sees that she has an underage dependent that she can claim as an heir if she wants. And she adopts him, without knowing his name or any personal information, because hell yeah, more family!

This girl is a parselmouth, raised on a Texan dragon reserve, is chaotic and has a deep love for her family. And her name is Charlotte "Charlie" Marie Ann Wright

captions: wand info: dragon heartstring, black cherry wood, 13 in, swishy -hard earned freckles from sun exposure -was slytherin black hair. now vry sun bleached -neck and burn scars from fire hair -sharp teeths. w/ the baby gap as a treat -tan skin from that texas SUN. -slytherin green eyes tm -misc. bite and scratch scars from teething hatchling dragons -blue bc colorblind dragons? 0.0