Rambling On The Potterverse

Hello. My name is Theresa and I am a 45 year old Harry Potter addict.

I can talk about it with you all day. I am happy to share my opinions on Snape’s morality, on Dumbledore as a less then perfect, and probably manipulative, but well meaning old coot, on why I think Harry is a saint for putting up with the people around him, and then I’ll rail against the notion that Harry has to die in the end and then assure you that there is no other option in the end for Severus Snape but a dirt nap.

I am not, however, one of those that can write at length and in a scholarly fashion about the world of Harry Potter. You will not catch me speculating on Snape as a Christ figure, or if Albus lured Olivander into hiding so the wand maker could kit out the house elves or goblins with wands for the upcoming Battle Royal. You will not find me on the various Harry Potter forums getting worked up into a frothing fit while debating every little detail, or making lists of all the possible clues in all the books and JKR’s interviews. Although, to be fair, I did try that once in trying to figure out the identity of the Half Blood Prince before the book came out and I sucked utterly at it. I was convinced it was Hagrid.

I am, however, an obsessive reader of Harry Potter fan fiction. It’s is my guilty pleasure that has become an addiction since I discovered that it wasn’t all really ridiculous slash pairings (Harry and Snape? As if.). I have read a lot of completely absurd fictions, and some that should never, ever have been allowed to make it to the Internet because they are written by illiterate 12 year olds trying to write romance, or who think “angst and suicide are cool!”. But I have read some that have taken my breath away, and I’ll be happy to give you a link if you ask. They are brilliantly written, the characters first given life by Rowling transcend her rather mundane style. It’s in the pages of fan fiction that I have fallen completely in love with Sirius Black, where I have developed a quiet lust for Remus Lupin and Madame Hooch. I have had my opinion changed of Albus Dumbledore: from the all knowing, wise grandfather presented in the books, to a fallible old man who has forgotten what it means to be a child, and can often miss the forest because he is so busy watching the trees. I have become a staunch supporter of the Harry Potter who has had enough of the Dursleys, of being treated like a mushroom, of being told he has to save the world but not being helped to do so. I cheer when Wussy!Harry finally looks at things that make no sense in his life and throws off his shackles, his watchers, the hanger ons, and becomes Independant!Harry, or better yet: Angry!Independent!Harry. Pity it isn’t canon.

It is also within the pages of fan fiction that some of the things that bother me the most about Rowling’s offerings are held up to the light and addressed. Plot holes the size of Lake Michigan are examined and made into plot lines that are sinister at best in many Alternate Universe fan fiction. Plot holes such as:

1. Molly Weasley went through seven years of Hogwarts. By the time she is taking Percy, the twins, and Ron to the station, she has already put Bill and Charlie through school. Percy is more then half done himself. Why then, does Molly, in the middle of the muggle side of the station, ask loudly what the platform number is? It is September 1st, and the year that everyone knows Harry Potter will be starting Hogwarts. The Boy Who Lived, that everyone knows has been raised by his Muggle relatives. The Weasleys, I would remind you, are also very strongly entrenched in the Light and anti-anything not Dumbledore approved.

2. Albus Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the legislative body of the Wizarding government, upholder of Truth and Justice, does not at any point in twelve years ask himself why James Potter’s best friend and almost brother would turn on the Potters and betray them to Voldemort. Not once did anyone who knew the Marauders look for answers. No one asked for a trial for Sirius Black, no one thought to use Veritaserum on the man who was suddenly supposed to have been the Right Hand of Voldemort, a position that would have given him access to a whole host of information on Who, What and Where. At some point after that Halloween night, it never occurred to anyone to question Black?

3. Hagrid is sent for Harry when he doesn’t respond to his Hogwarts letter. Granted, Hagrid certainly made an impression that no one else could on the Dursleys. But Hagrid is not the person who should be introducing a muggle raised wizard to the Wizarding world. Hagrid also has a personal history with Tom Riddle, a reason to dislike Slytherin and is a rabid Dumbledore supporter because Dumbledore got him his job when he was expelled over the first Chamber of Secrets incident. Hagrid, who didn’t tell him how to get to Platform 9-3/4.

4. Does no one in the Wizarding world use their heads for more then a hat rack? Granted, Hermione points out that wizards are not logical creatures, but some of them must be for building new spells and creating new potions, if nothing else. Yet Hagrid is arrested for opening the Chamber of Secrets the second time when it has been announced that it was the Heir of Slytherin that had done it. Do they really believe Hagrid is the heir? Is there some reason Dumbledore has never gotten Hagrid’s expulsion overturned so the man could at least get a wand and not use that iffy umbrella?

5. More then once it has been stated that Harry’s strength is his friends and those who love him. Yet at every opportunity, those very things are kept or taken from him at an alarming rate. JKR is determined to deny Harry the love Dumbledore says he needs.

6. The Durselys. The finest example of denial in groups I have ever seen. “We are perfectly normal, thank you.” Surely they know that it is certainly not normal to keep a child in a cupboard and have a four year old doing the cooking, or hit them with a skillet. Harry does the gardening, and the whole neighborhood can see it, but Petunia maintains that she’s the one growing the roses. The have built in Harry a sense of worthlessness, an overblown sense of responsibility, a distrust of adults and the belief that he can only rely on himself. The Durselys have made him into the perfect little self sacrificing hero.

7. Harry’s friends. Ron is a jealous, hot-tempered, prejudicial ass with delusions of entitlement. He is the Draco Malfoy of the Light. Hermione is a judgmental, overbearing, overly competitive harpy. Book six was not kind to her. Harry should have told her to bite his lily white ass at her little snit over Potions, and Ron needs to get over himself and take a good look at his best friend and see just how bad it sucks being the Boy Who Lived. Harry really should have made more then two friends. He could have made more then two friends. Everyone was star struck at first by the Boy Who Lived, even Ron and Hermione. They got over it. So did most of Harry’s other classmates. Why does he only have two people he can depend on, but only when they aren’t in a snit?

8. The Prophecy is so important that people are attacked or killed because of it, including the Potters, Arthur, and Sirius Yet in Book 6 Harry is told not to let it rule his life and it isn’t the be all and end all. Que?

10. Where is Barty Crouch Jr.? I’m serious. Yes, his soul was sucked out by a Dementor. But then what? What happened to his still alive body? Where are questions? Where is the investigation into how he was there in the first place? He was a convicted Death Eater, found in Hogwarts after the Tri-Wizard disaster, and ex-Auror Alastor Moody imprisoned in his own trunk who could testify as to what he knew to have happened.

11. The whole ship thing. We’ll start with Ginny/Harry. Where the hell did that come from? Fangirl at train station, elbow in butter dish, Chamber of Secrets, nothing, nothing, Quidditch, OMG GET AWAY FROM HER, DEAN! Wha? Then we have the idea of Ron and Hermonie as a couple. Ms. Overachiver with Mr. Insecure. No. Just no. She doesn’t make him want to be better. She makes him want to punch her face. He doesn’t show her that there is more to life then books. He makes her want to beat him over the head with Hogwarts: A History. They are both the Ships That Should Not Be.

12. Albus tells Harry that he knew he would have a hard life with the Dursley’s, but he left him there anyway for his “safety”. Clearly, he was only worried about his physical safety. Arabella Figg would surely have seen and heard enough to at least raise some concerns about his emotional and psychological well-being. But he left him there anyway. He claims to have wanted Harry to have a normal childhood, but everyone on Privet Drive could see he wasn’t getting that with the Dursley’s, and time after time, he sent him back. After the bars on the windows, after facing Voldemort/Quirrell, after killing a basilisk, after facing a hundred Dementors, Cedric dying and the whole thing at the graveyard, after other people see the cat-flap and the locks on the outside of his door, after Sirius dies. The boy needed his friends, he needed counseling. He did not need Durzkaban.

13. Severus Snape for the last 16 years has been a snarky, mean-spirited, vindictive, sorry excuse for a teacher. Yet, Albus has let him get away with it. Are we to believe that not one single parent has questioned his fitness for the position? That no student has ever complained about the blatant favoritism that is over the top, even if he is having to keep up his front as a Death Eater to the students of his associates? Has no one questioned the obvious grade discrepancies between class grades and the OWL tests that Snape doesn’t grade? Cover or no, Albus could have reigned in his pet and all Snape had to say was “That muggle loving fool told me to.” But he doesn’t. Don’t even get me started on Albus not monitoring those Remedial Potions lessons.

14. Why is Harry not prepared in any real way to play his role dictated by that questionable prophecy?

15. We’re supposed to believe that Albus trusted Severus because the greasy bat claimed to have felt bad for telling Voldemort that first part of the aforementioned prophecy? The part that sent him after the Potters in the first place? Please.

I know, after all that, that it doesn’t look like I enjoy the Harry Potter books. I do. I enjoy the world in which he resides, for all that it is populated by sheep, rabbits, and the KKK. I like the notion of a world hidden from mundane eyes just on the other side of that brick wall. Some of the characters are wonderful; such as the poor, tortured soul that is Remus Lupin, and the doofiness that is Luna Lovegood. I like Harry, although I think he needs serious therapy and more of a spine. But I do like him. I want desperately to see him win in the end and have a long, happy life with lots of children of his own, preferably not with Ginny. Rowling’s gift is her imagination. But I don’t think it is necessarily in her ability to tell a story.

And to all you fan fic authors out there: I salute you. Yes, even the illiterate 12 year olds. Because writing, even in someone else’s sandbox, is difficult. It’s even more difficult to put it out on the Internet for all to see and leave yourself open to sometimes scathing and hateful reviews. Don’t let them get to you, and be proud of yourself. When the day comes that your readers are comparing you to the likes of these fanfic writers, then I want you to leave your borrowed sandbox and go build one of your own and add to the already rich assortment of universes of the imagination that we are able to visit for time in our literary travels.