Excuses:

I'm very busy with Real Life (tm) Less writing happens -- but nothing is abandoned.⁂

For REASONS, I have a century-old house I'm trying to restore. Because if I didn't. my house would be a wreck, and eventually I'd have nowhere to live. This happened AFTER writing Harry does DIY stories. I consider that suitably ironic.

Welcome

Have fun reading my fics. I have had a lot of fun writing them, so hopefully you can have some fun reading them. Even the non-happy ones. They're fun too, like spicy food.

To quote Terry Pratchett "Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself."

What's my problem, dude? Why can't Harry just be an Alpha male?

(That's not actually a thing. Even Wolves don't work like that.)

I like to play with the conventions of fanfiction. E.g. with Harry Potter, messed up kid.That kid already had PTSD before the war ended, and had an abusive upbringing. He's gonna have a bad time.

I'll take a trope and apply either crack or common sense to it. Often with naturalistic characters; not Naturalists who go naked, but people who act where possible like real people. And I'm always going to think about the ecological context of magic and thus try to find a way for the original author's world-building to with as few changes as possible to be a stable system. If it was unstable, it would have collapsed in the many millennia since magic was discovered. I'm not advocating (Rowlings) socio-economic conservatism, just assuming that the original works describe a world that existed before the work, and probably afterwards too. My series of stories about marriage contracts are technically a polemic against them. Who'd have thought.

Ecology 101. If there REALLY was a spell that could end the world, and a sufficiently motivated person could do it... the world would be a cinder.

Rowling's Voldemort is an interesting exception to this: An unkillable, unbeatable dark lord. In the end, he'd rule a dead world. So sorry, Tom Riddle jr, you've got to die. It's the combination of unkillable and unbeatable that makes him an existential threat to life on earth... it's just systems theory.

Typographic conventions

In general I use the following typographic conventions.

"Speech" 'thoughts' 'writing being read by character' Newer works : Bare Italics for inner thoughts.

I often don't write out parseltounge in English, just putting in speech that looks like hissing. Occasional "$parseltoungue$" occurs because VMS is cool. (If you understand the reference, you win.)

Unusual words in capital case in dialogue might be Vocal Emphasis. Try saying it aloud. Ditto. For. Over-Punctuated. Speech. (they're angry, or impersonating Alan Rickman playing Severus Snape.)

Sometimes FFN imports a section and bolds the whole thing because it ate a bold sentence at the start and got stuck thinking it's all bold. Not my fault. But tell me anyway.

Oh and people with very old english surnames that have double letter like Jasper fforde (great real world author, please read him) don't necessarily use a capital. double letters predates capitals.

PLEASE NOTE

I don't speak any languages except English. Google translate is responsible for the poor state of non-english languages in my stories. Unless I'm parodying the character, who doesn't speak the language. If you do speak the language, it should be clear from context, unless it isn't. I'd do better but I'm too ignorant. For those reading along in English: Occasional non-english text inserts occur. Life's like that.

An example : In 'Careers Day ch1', Theo Nott who is from a wealthy pure-blood family, understands the Headmistresses broken French but replies in German. What could he possibly be trying to communicate? I beg of you please, get my jokes. Or my characters. Unless they write their own dialogue for some reason. Is that... method writing when the character writes their own dialogue?

I will generally write in 3d person, semi objective and may change P.O.V. character occasionally. Sections of dialogue may not contain much description. Some reviewers don't like it. Maybe I'll rewrite all my stories one day with more description, but I tend to ignore the surroundings and focus on the conversation in real life, so it bleeds through into my text. Occasional accidental transitions into present tense occur. And occasional intentional ones: to be intentionally jarring: something very unpleasant is generally happening and the character, and you, dear reader, by association are possibly dissociating a little.

Unreliable Narrators

My POV characters are not omniscient: They may record things that didn't happen exactly as described. Some lie or are mistaken.

Official authorial excuses section

I write to amuse myself, which means when it feels like work I don't do it. This is a hobby, not a job.

Chapter-at-a-time isn't working for me so there will be a period of lack of progress on some stories. There is writing happening, and it will get posted eventually.

Typing:As I have arthritis and am dysgraphic; I can't hit the key I want to reliably. I have to type then edit every line about four times, for get readable English. On writing days I will finish the day in pain. To quote The Princess Bride: 'life is pain, princess, anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.' I would take 'painkillers for a dollar,' thanks.

Beta reader/proof-reader: I got one in mid 2024. We have a backlog, please be patient.

Cursed Child: I will use elements from it, but don't take it as really canon. My rehashes of it are generally parody. And for the love of Merlin don't read it, you might as well read My Immortal instead!

Honestly this bit is canon

BOOKS=CANON. Films not so much unless I want to.

Harry Potter: Is thin, has messy black hair and green eyes. And ends up fairly tall. So not Daniel Radcliffe, and I often have Harry disguise himself by making his hair brown and flat, eyes blue, and his face chunkier. Mr Radcliffe has a much wider chin than Harry does. And if Harry hasn't got PTSD, I'll eat a hat. For all of that, by his sixth year at Hogwarts, Harry is canonically fanciable. Even Hermione says so (his eyes anyway, which are bottle-green not emerald dammit.) Harry's sarcastic and cynical, and probably depressed with the PTSD. He's therefore not a fantastic catch, boyfriend-wise.

Hermione Granger: Isn't Emma Watson. Get over it. She's got buck teeth, big frizzy brown hair and pale skin, she's prone to sunburn and blushing. And has some fairly bad habits. Read the books to find out what they are. Spoiler: bossy, thoughtless, resorts to violence, defers to authority figures. (And thus sometimes in my stories Hermione is a horrible person, especially when under pressure.)

Ron: Has red hair and a big (long) nose. He's tall, gangling and has freckles. He's a 'regular bloke' who manages to get good grades with hardly all that much work. He misses out on being as pretty as Bill Weasley was before Bill got scarred up. And he's really funny. (And has a Hermione Granger fixation.)

The Weasley twins aren't tall. Sorry, the movies lied to you. They're stocky. They play Beater in Quidditch. They may therefore resemble Royal mail postboxes.

Ginny might be short but she's canonically so fanciable even the Slytherin Blaise Zabini eyed her up.

Harry has a tiny circle of friends. He never talks to Fay Dunbar, who's in Gryffindor, and the same classes as him for six years. Seriously!

About Stories: Over two million words served. Thank you, come again. One and a half million words are in work-in-progress on my computer, comprised of fifty two stories. (Some tiny fraction of which are uploaded to the internet) The ideas folder has four hundred thousand words split across eighty-two different parked story ideas.

If you have opinions about these stories, especially unreleased ones feel free to PM me.

Big up-vote to people who write reviews. Feel free to PM me. It's the only feedback I get.

To people who write very negative reviews, and make personal remarks : Get off my lawn. Expect to be blocked.

Anonymous reviewers: Without dialogue there are only faceless people shouting into the void of the internet. So I'll delete you.

Head-canon I may inflict upon you:

Necromancy : I often have necromancy occurring, mostly using the good old Deathly Hallows.

House renovation: When you inherit a house on the edge of uninhabitable, you have to fix it, or sell it if it's not entailed. This may not seem important to you, but this is about applying reality to fantasy, to see what gems we can see glittering in the darkness. Also it creates financial stress which causes drama.

Harry as a somewhat damaged person: I've got to say this is a touchstone for me. He was a child soldier brought up without love. He's not going to be totally normal.

Harry's English. He puts up with stuff in the interest of being polite. Then is sarcastic, or just snaps.

The Hallows as a made thing, but rather powerful. And possibly cursed.

Harry got adopted: Either Harry inherited everything from Sirius but for a few things, or Sirius got ...serious about it. Canonically everything was left to Harry, and it was just glossed over.

Numbers that don't work : Trying to stick to JKR's made-up numbers even when they make no sense. We're on this crazy train to Hogwarts, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. (and that might be a crack re-working of canon in the dark recesses of my hard disk..)

House elves are slaves. JKR made the world of Harry Potter, so characters get to live in it. May contain magically parasitic house elves, or just bound brownies. (Americans: that's not a fudge slice.)

If Harry really never ogled girls or did more than snog Ginny Weasley for 4 months in 6th year,... he's pretty clueless with women. And probably a terrible 'kisser.' The obverse is therefore also true. [For those who can't parse that: If Harry did more than snog Ginny in sixth year, he probably is fairly confident in a broom closet.]

And of course that Daphne Greengrass looks like the un-named actress often identified as Daphne Greengrass from the films; (and is therefore a mezzo-soprano.) May be shorter than Hermione at 5'4", unless as the Hogwarts surname guide indicates she's tall. When Harry in my fics observes that she's shorter than her sister: In the epilogue of Deathly Hallows, Astoria Greengrass is a tall, willowy woman with brown hair. The actress playing Unnamed Slytherin female Student [AKA Daphne Greengrass] in Order of the Phoenix is blonde, aristocratic and curvier than both 1. the woman identified as her sister in the epilogue and 2. Hermione Granger. And is identified in at least one of my fics as a British size 6. So no, not 'fat.' And in Order of the Phoenix, when the Weasley twins wreck the exam with fireworks, unnamed Slytherin Student goes outside and jumps up and down with joy,and shouts with joy at the fireworks. Which is why in Fireworks et al Daphne is a massive fan of fireworks. Yes I have no imagination. This entire paragraph is a reaction to the Chads who review, thinking that Harry's obsession with her derriere makes Daphne overweight. Nah, she's well fit.

Why do you torture Harry? Because it's funny. Or dramatic, if that makes me sound like a better person.

What's your problem with Harry and Ginny?

Well, I never bought the poorly developed romance in the books, and the movies were worse. Film Ginny got like one good scene (Oy, shut it!). So... anyone else. (And the idea that she had a crush on the boy-who-lived before Hogwarts makes it creepy.) If that makes you think that I might have negative thoughts about Hermione and Ron, well you're right. They fight. That's a recipe for suffering.

Epilogue, what Epilogue?. (EWE) I'm signed up. Rowling's epilogue to Deathly Hallows was a bit disappointing, and wrapped things up very boringly. Therefore, the cult of EWE was born. I may use the epilogue to set Harry up for more misery. Especially if I use bits from Cursed Child. Satirically, see above. If one takes the epilogue seriously, Harry Potter was a rich jock who peaked at high school, and married his college sweetheart, then became a cop. Must contain sarcasm.

Potter Luck? It's a thing, innit? Harry's unlucky. Bad things happen, except... then he gets stupidly lucky. I find idea that Harry becomes savvy to his luck hilarious.

Haphne? (Harry Potter/Daphne Greengrass) Are you serious?

Haphne exists in a superposition of sincere, and (self)parody at the same time.

So, the idea of Harry meeting someone he didn't spend the war with, from a different background. A rich pureblood who's not a death eater, for example. A cultural clash for our amusement.

As canonically a blank slate she _could_ be nice. And there's a rich vein of fanfiction setting up Daphne as a blonde beauty. So... I'll make do with making fun around that. I do like to play with the fact that Harry never notices her in the books. That means she's either not that beautiful, has a glow-up after school, or Harry was just super oblivious to girls (Ginny literally threw herself at him in Order of the Phoenix to get that first kiss.) In a few of my fics, that cover Harry's school years, Harry does notice her. She almost always has a big nose, as a callout to the blonde film extra in OP.

As I get more experience writing, I'm trying different personalities for Daphne. Having Daphne as a magical native who doesn't believe the myths about Harry is inherently funny, as she slowly discovers that Harry is, to quote the hip modern saying, (I think correctly) "All that." As Readers, you already know Harry Potter is actually a big damn Hero, who bleeds honorableness, quips sarcastically, and when he gets fired up, can beat anybody in a magical fight. (And might have had the Deathly Hallows) Yes, it's Harry's learning about the magic world upside-down and backwards.

The idea that Daphne Greengrass might be an adult who thinks Harry Potter was a very good Quidditch player at school for Gryffindor, who went on the run during the war because Lord Voldemort was weirdly obsessed with him, and then had an absolute fluke victory at the battle of Hogwarts, well it's hilarious. We know Rita Skeeter's not doing a tell all biography about Harry; Hermione would have her in Azkaban as quick as you could say 'Unlicensed Animagus'. Combine that with Harry normally being modest, and there's a rich vein of comedy. Which I can completely ignore. /sarcasm.

What's with the marriage contract stories?

I hate the idea, which is popular in the fanfic community, and decided to play with it. Hence, suffering.

Also, that allows Daphne to start out with an even funnier misunderstanding of who Harry is. And that lets me play with the whole "I'd never choose to ask you out" turning into "My childish taste in partners was stupid, I was ridiculously lucky to be assigned you." for both of them. Personally I've done the obverse repeatedly, and should have dated some real weirdoes.

Meta; which is to say, discourse about this discourse.

I write things, reread them, hate them and change them. This happens till I give up and move on to the next chapter. Until I revise the whole story. The longer I work on it, the less bad it gets.

If you find yourself dissatisfied with the product, please PM me with details of the chapter and paragraph. Then we can fix it, and you'll go in the credits as a beta. Really negative reviews hurt and hang around forever. Thanks so much It's really demotivating. If you post a lot of generalities about how you dislike the story, I get the feeling you're got a problem, and "it ain't my writing".

Thanks for fireworks help from to alix33 , Lineheart, emilysouza221b and Meneldur, for finding fireworks ch 7 was set to ch5. Thanks Again to alix33.

Biographical details

My nic: one of my friends may have outed me as having had my first job in Mordor. It's hard in Middle-Earth when you're not a Hobbit or an Elf, and can't pass for human.

I'm a person that writes for fun in New Zealand. The hobbits are a problem, but I have a machete-like tool for that.

Self inserts? Is An Orc a fat woman, pining for the love of Harry Potter? No. I wrote at least two stories with self inserts: 'How badly could this go' and 'Old and tired.' And the short 'Remus Lupin and Mooney.' Full disclosure: I don't own a fez, and don't like the rebooted Doctor Who. Harry Potter is like... a nephew to me: When my story titled "Uncle Vernon" gets finished, there will more self-insert than would make Harry Potter happy. I will, of course be chuckling. Update: sadly "Uncle Vernon" (the story) got splinched in a computer accident and needs a lot of fixing.