#yeah basically if I ever made a big ol fic of all this or collaborated to do so this would be the start

[aquelondungeonmaster]

TAZHP: Erasure

(Guess who has more ideas for TAZHP!  Hint: who's making this post.  That's right, it's me.  Yeah.  This fic is sort of almost the polar opposite of the last one I posted, intensity-wise.  Also, there are like major major spoilers in here, so if you're not at least to the Stolen Century arc and care about spoilers at all then nothing to see here, move on.)

(Credit for this AU goes to @anonymousalchemist , and a lot of the ideas in here are from various other people who were talking to her about this sort of stuff.)

~Between Sixth and Seventh Year, Mid-August~

It's a beautiful, sunny day, and the Hogwarts campus is quiet.  Birds are singing somewhere in the distance, a faint breeze rustles the leaves of the trees, and the sun is high in the sky.  The surface of the lake is still, and one might have to really squint to see the lights given off by its main inhabitant.

That is about to change.

The campus is peaceful, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world is.  If one were to go to a big city, one might find a duel raging at this very moment.  Even if there weren't any at this moment, the knowledge of coming battles hangs over the heads of the entire wizarding world like some sort of magic sword.

That is also about to change.

There's no one on the campus at the moment, which means that no one notices when the peace and quiet is disrupted by someone materialising just outside of the grounds.  This person has light blonde hair and dark skin, and she looks nervous, but there's a determination in her eyes and the way she clutches her wand that might frighten a casual observer.  She tucks her wand into her bun to hold both items in place, and makes the trek from the edge of the anti-Apparation zone to the shore of the lake in silence.

At the lakeshore, she very carefully places her bag on the ground.  She opens a notebook that is stashed in one of the pockets of her bag and silently reviews the notes she's taken, deciphered and translated from books older than her entire family line.  She traces a finger down the section of the text that she wrote herself rather than translated from old books, the incredibly cautious calculations and exhaustively practiced gestures that will save the world today.

Well, if she hasn't messed up, of course.

She tucks the notebook back into her bag and eats some of the trail mix she packed.  She knows she's stalling at least a little bit, but this will almost definitely drain most of her energy.  She packs up, retrieves the gift she has brought, and wedges the bag under a rock.  Now is the time for action.

Withdrawing her wand from her bun, she jabs at the very edge of the water.  The ripples spread across the lake, and as they reach the center, the gigantic jellyfish that lives in the lake surfaces.  Lights flash across its huge bell like stars in the night sky.  A note in the notebook that is currently stashed in the bag describes this creature as something called a voidfish.  A scribble over to the side, a note from the young woman now standing up to face the voidfish, states that it appears to like music and wooden ducks.

The young woman has brought an expertly-carved wooden duck for this exact purpose.  She sets it in the water, and a long tendril from the voidfish curls around it.  The voidfish drifts over and lifts up the duck, and now its huge form is directly above her.

She starts casting the spell she has made.  It's not a simple spell, but she has committed it to memory.  As she speaks, the voidfish begins to sing in time.  It's almost a subconscious thing on its part, but it's still beautiful.

Her wand is glowing faintly, and the light that it emits starts spilling down her arm.  The sheer power required for this spell to be as effective as she needs is lifting her up in the air.  She's facing away from the lake, now, but she's backlit by the voidfish glowing like a supernova.

As the spell is cast and the young woman's voice falls silent, the brilliant light from both her wand and the voidfish expands outwards.  For a split second, it fills her field of view, and then it expands swiftly, rushing onwards and encircling the entire world.  It fades from sight.

~oOo~

One of the young woman's close friends is having lunch when it happens, several half-finished woodworking projects on the table.  He does not notice what happens, and will only really register that something is off of his own when he does with ease something he's been struggling to figure out for weeks.  However, later that day, the thought will occur to him that it's been a while since he last called his girlfriend, and he will do that.

~oOo~

"I finally mastered wandless magic!" he says.  "Check this out!"  He goes to punch a training dummy and blast it into a wall, but about half of the spell's effects blow back onto his face and both parties go flying.  The twins burst out laughing, but they do look impressed.

~oOo~

The seven of them are sitting by the lakeshore, discussing present events with some combination of anxiety and determination.  He puts the finishing touches on a small duck he's been carving and tosses it into the lake.  One tendril emerges from the surface and catches the duck in midair, and another accepts his offer of a high-five.

~oOo~

He's watching a young girl watch her father die, and there's nothing any of them can do about it.  In the girl's father's last few moments, he casts some sort of spell, and a small bird flutters into the air and lands on the girl's shoulder.  He doesn't know what to say, and neither does the bird, but they both try to do their best.

~oOo~

Another one of the young woman's close friends is in a greenhouse at the time.  He does not notice what happens, and it will be a few weeks before he thinks about something he's only recently adapted to and realises that something is off.

~oOo~

It's his turn to host Candlenights at his house, which is why the house is crammed full of six additional people, a few owls, a mongoose ("It's just a weird cat, m'dude."), and a goldfish.  The kitchen is going full-blast making macaroons which apparently couldn't be made in batches of less than exactly the amount that everyone eats, and he's chatting up one of his closest friends; they're making plans to go camping together, or gardening, or on a broomstick ride.  That last one has been decided against because the friend's style of flying is entirely too daring for this person.

~oOo~

The spell sinks into his arm and starts to rush up it.  It looks bad enough that he accepts his friend's offer to chop it off, and based on the way that his arm crumbles as it hits the ground, that was the right decision.

~oOo~

The man across from him is incredibly terrifying, even when his appearance isn't all opalescent.  Truth comes naturally to this person; bluffing his way through danger is nerve-wracking, but it seems to work.  Hopefully.

~oOo~

Yet another of the young woman's closest friends is relaxing in the bedroom of the cheap apartment he rented at that moment.  He does not notice what happens, which is almost incredible what with how much changes instantly about him, but in retrospect the setup of the apartment will look a little bit morbid, even though he won't realise that.  He will not register that something is off until the very same young woman who started this whole thing begins to look into something that he thought there was no way for her to know about.

~oOo~

"Like this, sir?" asks the younger kid, and this person corrects his mistakes with a level of kindness that he will deny to anyone else.  They continue lessons like this for the rest of the afternoon, and he offers the kid an extra cupcake that he had lying around-- just because there was one left over, of course.

~oOo~

They're backed into a corner, and there's no way out except for through the wizard that's advancing.  There's just enough room to wreak havoc, though, and he grins at his sister as they both transform-- her into a phoenix, him into a T-Rex.  The expression on the wizard's face is priceless; the expression on his sister's boyfriend's face is equally sweet, but for different reasons.

~oOo~

The idea is ridiculous, and he's concerned.  No, scratch that, legitimately scared.  It's not his place to interfere with how his sister lives her life, but that's definitely not entirely safe.  "It's just going to be a plan for if it's needed, babe," she says.  "We've got this shit on lock.  But we can't keep nearly dying forever; we've gotta do something to turn the tide, and this might just be it."  She has a point, but he's nervous for days beforehand and afterwards, and some of the other people in his friend group seem equally alarmed by how drastic their measures have been getting.

~oOo~

The remaining three of the young woman's closest friends have just landed in the town they were visiting to collect information, half the world away.  None of them notice what happens instantly, but all of them realise that something is very, very wrong within minutes: one realises that he's not in Britain anymore; one registers that huge portions of his memory have just vanished; and one figures out that she's effectively invisible.  They will not figure out why for several months.

~oOo~

The light fades slowly, and the voidfish drifts back into the lake, clutching the duck, unaware of most of the effects of the past few moments.  The young woman's light blonde hair has gone even paler, and is shot through with pure white. 

She falls to the ground and struggles to remain conscious for about a second before collapsing.  It takes an entire day for her to regain consciousness, and she spends the next couple days working up the energy to Apparate back to her house.

When she gets there, though; that's when she begins to discover exactly what the spell has done, which is to say, what it had to do and then some.  Some of it is amazing, some of it is confusing, and some of it...

Some of it is just terrifying.

[qorillas]

tagged by @latinsimonez! this was really fun to do lmao thank u for taggin me

answer 30 questions + tag 10 people you’d like to know better

-nicknames: ......i hesitate to inform you all of this but my uncle started calling me ‘the squish’ when i was a baby because i was so fat and now everyone on my mom’s side of the family calls me that more than they call me by my actual name. also sometimes people call me ari but not that often and my dad’s side of the family calls me arielita

-star sign: sad pisces binch

-gender: i’m a girl but. idk i’ve kinda been very slightly questioning it a little just to make sure? i’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that yup i’m a girl tho so 

-MBTI type: mainly infp, probably like 15% enfp because i get really excited when i’m around groups of people i love and Lose All Sense Of Boundaries. does that qualify me as enfp? i get tired being around most people tho so idk

-height: 5′5.5″ and yes the half inch COUNTS

-time: 10:41pm

-birthday: march 1. when i was little i couldn’t pronounce 1 correctly like i said “much fust” so everyone thought i was saying march 4 tho lmao 

-favorite bands: there’s this band called gorillaz i really like idk if anyone following me has heard of it tho :/// also phoenix, vampire weekend, the lumineers, glass animals, purity ring, young the giant, maroon 5, the beatles. i would die for ezra koenig and one time he liked something i tweeted at him and i cried for 10 minutes and my roommate took a video and made fun of me

-favorite solo artists: stromae, damon albarn, shawn wasabi, ingrid michaelson, childish gambino, nicki minaj, sohn, kanye west, lil wayne. gorillaz should collaborate with stromae also like i think they’d be good together

-song stuck in my head: ......the mii channel song but where each pause is uncomfortably long. yes i hate myself 

-last movie I watched: wonder woman like three months ago?? ? i like never go to the movies which is actually kind of a shame because going to the movies is one of my favorite things to do ever i know it’s like not that wild but i always get so excited wow i love movies

-last show I watched: rick and morty like the pickle rick episode. someone save morty and summer please i fucking hate beth

-other blogs: @ratqueenofficial is my main! also i have an art blog @ratqueenarts but i like never actually post there so. and i have multiple urls about antigone and about half mexican murdoc hoarded lmao

-when I created my blog: april 6 of this year but i made my main on new year’s eve because my friend came over so we could relaunch.......a semi-popular meme archiving blog whose name i’m not allowed to actually say because mods are a secret.........but anyway my old main had been around since 2013 and i wanted to start fresh so yeah

-what I post about: that son of a gun sure do love those gorillaz. also i post my own mediocre art and make shitposts and memes because i find myself hilarious and i write headcanons and am starting to do fics. but yeah it’s all centered around grillz, and sometimes like 1% damo but never hewll because. i don’t really like him lmao. i think my most common tag is murdoc and i know he sucks but i would fucking die for him in a heartbeat

-last thing I googled: ..........mii channel hip hop remix on youtube and i’ve had it on loop and my roommate hates me but. it’s a fucking bop okay don’t judge me

-following: 939

-followers: 1,233

-favorite color: yellow but like a Very Specific Yellow like strong golden yellow that one might be able to argue is actually orange but Bitch It Is Fucking Yellow (here it is) like half of everything i own is this color which was fun at first but one day i walked out of the house when it was raining and realized i was wearing yellow boots, a yellow raincoat, a yellow beanie, a yellow backpack and was holding a yellow umbrella and it was at that point that i realized that i had a Problem. my friends make fun of me for it rip

-average hours of sleep: half of the week it’s like 4 and half of the week it’s like 14 because of the ol’ depresh so i’m not actually sure at all. probably like 7 if i absolutely had to pick a number

-lucky number: 3

-instruments: classical piano (and i guess keyboard by extension) but i can’t sightread for shit (i’m good at playing by ear tho!), general percussion like bells and xylophone and marimba, i did tenor drum in marching band for like one year but i’m pretty horrible at non-mallet percussion lmao. also i had a vuvuzela for like two years but my roommate confiscated it because “vuvuzelas are not to be played at 3 in the morning, ariel” and anyway i don’t think it really counts

-what I’m wearing: glasses, black skinny jeans, my black x men sweatshirt that has like pictures of the vintage comic panels on it and yes i got it from hot topic don’t judge me for that i was like 14, dark blue baseball cap that says “best dad ever” across the front but i’m wearing it backwards because i’m cool. i got it for father’s day so that i could match with my grandpa

-how many blankets i sleep with: generally like 2 or 3 but at this point they’re all crumpled up at the bottom of the bed anyway so mainly just the big comforter and a throw blanket over that if it’s really cold

-dream jobs: oh man uhh. i used to think i wanted to be like a genetics/evolutionary biology professor and do research on evolution or cancer or hiv/aids and teach at like ucsf or something. or like work for nasa as an astrobiologist, or maybe work as a vet for a zoo. but now i don’t think i wanna do that anymore? to be quite honest if i could be 100% guaranteed whatever job i wanted i think i’d want to be a showrunner for an animated show on cartoon network or adult swim, like not something just with storyboards or animation, but like actually involved in the writing of the show. i’d love to write for a tv show on cartoon network or something like the office or brooklyn 99 or even a story-based video game, or maybe like do something where i get to just joke around and be funny all the time like what the mcelroys or game grumps do but. i have No Idea how to go about doing that and honestly i think jobs like that just happen to people randomly so it’s not really like, a Secure Job Option To Pursue. but i really hope somehow i end up doing something like that. i just wanna do something where i can create something meaningful that i’m proud of and see people connecting with it and feeling happy and inspired and less alone because of it, and maybe liking it so much a fandom or something grows around it. i’d be so fucking happy if that happened. 

-dream trip: i really want to go to new york with my jewish grandparents and see where they grew up and all the places they lived so i can finally experience all the places i’ve heard so many stories about? same thing with my abuelitos like i wanna go to mexicali with them or mérida in the yucatán and just see where they came from and where all their stories happened and meet all the relatives that they left behind when they came to the united states. also i think going to like, denmark or england or germany would be really cool? my friend studied abroad in england this summer and her snapchat story was full of dogs and random cows and those are some good things. i would very much like to softly caress a gentle english cow they have beautiful eyes

-favourite food: kbbq? ? ?? Bitch I Love KBBQ. fuck now i want kbbq. also mangoes, and deli sandwiches from the deli by my temple, and jazz apples, and sugary coffee, and sweet corn tamales, and high mountain milk tea with taro qq but sharetea stopped selling taro qq and i’m still salty because of that. and raw lemons because i’m an inhuman monster. can you tell i’m hungry rip

-nationality: american (specifically born and raised californian even though i know that’s not really a nationality but i love california so much you guys im so glad it’s my home) edit: apparently people are puttin in their ethnicities too on this?? ? i’m half american jewish which is. basically white lmao and half mexican idk i look super white tho im so pale rip

i tag @two-chi @drugstore-soulboy @murdoctrinated @murdochub @ephemeralprince @funeralshawls @astronomutual @maccamc @loboluchia @helloitsbees @grimdarkmatt @gorillahz @hewlll and i know that’s more than 10 but this is my house also like. if i tagged u and we Don’t Actually Talk it’s because i see u on my dash a lot and we’re mutuals and i think you’re Super Cool But I Am Too Shy To Actually Talk To You But Yeah I Think You’re Really Cool