the history of magic meme

[1castle4houses]

welcome to AU hell

RULES;

1. tag in
2. tag around!
3. mix and match - pick a setting from the first column and an AU from the second column (or use RNG if you like to live on edge -- there's 10 prompts per column)
4. have fun

HINTS;

We welcome and encourage all OCs. Add a little blurb about your character so other players have an idea what to play with, and feel free to add your preferences and permissions.
Ship, don't ship; make out, don't make out - all is fair game.

PROMPTS;

Setting	AU
1. Ancient	a. Soldiers on the same side
2. Middle Ages	b. Arranged marriage
3. 1600s	c. Great new discovery
4. 1700s	d. Childhood friends
5. 1800s	e. Met on the road
6. 1900s	f. Rags and riches
7. Roaring 20s	g. Members of two feuding houses
8. 1940s	h. It's all about the art
9. 1970s	i. Co-conspirators
10. WILDCARD	j. WILDCARD

Comments

1600s parenting, apparently?

[baby_deer]

That last session of Wizengamot was exhausting, and Harry knows very well that, as much as he hates it, he can't really solve this one on his own.

As a representative of one of the oldest wizard families in England, but also a proudly half-blood wizard, he's been in the limelight for the last two years, trying to push against a law that would limit the rights of muggle-borns even further. It's obscenely far-reaching, including marriage, and holding office, and even education. Harry has been trying to fight it relentlessly, but despite the fact that he almost punched more than one of his opponents in the face here and there, he hasn't moved very far. Harry might be great at acting, and working, and building, but he's not so amazing at talking.

All he has to say for himself, as he makes his way to Godric's Hollow, is that he hasn't failed yet. And that doesn't feel particularly uplifting. He knows, as much as he hates to admit, that he can't do this one on his own - and there is only one person he can trust now. Isn't this why he made it all the way here, instead of staying the night in his London house?

As he expected, he finds his mother in the garden, examining the plot where she grows her potions ingredients. He doesn't understand enough about the recipes she brews to be able to tell how well the garden is doing, but some of the green shoots look very impressive.

"Hello, mother!" he calls out from the path, since she has her back to him. "Can I interrupt you?"

heck yes

[lancifolium]

With her hands on her knees, bent and peering into the blossoms of her Aconite Lily was frowning pensively when her son spoke up from behind her. "Far more easily and gladly met than most, I venture." Righting herself she turned to face Harry while dusting her hands off. "Something troubles you," she looked him over for a long moment before turning, waving a hand at him before heading towards her modest, but stalwart little house.

Drawing her wand as she stepped inside she had the kettle over a fire with a wordless, almost absent-minded motion, a log tossing itself onto the fire with another, more commanding sort of swish. Lily had always been fascinated by the spells her teachers had managed to execute without so much as a word,

“Are you eating enough?” Again Harry was given another look over, his mother thoughtful and never lacking in that parental concern that seemed to radiate from every glance and tilt of her head.

Even if he had been eating enough, Lily wouldn’t have believed it, and that much was plain to see as she crossed towards the hearth to get a bowl of the pottage that had been simmering over the embers endlessly ready for him.

“So, eat and talk my darling. Tell me everything.” She set the bowl on the table, regarding him with an almost business-like nod of her head before Lily’s focus turned towards the kettle she’d readied, eager to have a cup of tea to accompany whatever her son had to tell her.

[baby_deer]

There is no point trying to persuade his mother to not feed him, no matter how dire the situation, so Harry just goes with it. If she has pottage, he will eat pottage. Much easier to do that and get straight to talking about the problem, instead of wasting time on fighting over dinner.

"This is delicious," he remembers to praise after the first mouthful. Never say he's not a politician. "As for the Wizengamot... I'm not getting anywhere, mother. Us and the Longbottoms have just enough influence to be a nuisance for now, and for a while longer, but we won't be able to block this idiotic new anti-muggleborn law, push comes to shove. I need to get more allies. New allies."

[lancifolium]

"New allies," tilting her head back Lily looked thoughtful, already distracted from the gracious praise her son had been good enough to dispense on her cooking.

"The Weasley family perhaps," she began thoughtfully, turning her head to look out of the window. "The husband's worked with the Wizengamot before, hasn't he? And what of the Bagshot family? Bathilda always doted on you when you were small and she's become quite the matriarchal figure. Someone with influence is a good person to have the ear of."

[baby_deer]

"I haven't thought of Bathilda," he admits, brightening up a little bit. "I think she would support this, if I can explain how important it is. I was thinking... Well. In all honestly, mother, I was wondering if a marriage alliance wouldn't be the only way to go."

Obviously not with Bathilda, though she might want to suggest someone, if Harry can convince her to support his cause. He tries to focus on that, on possibly asking Bathilda to be a matchmaker, because it distracts him from the other thing - from just how much he doesn't really want to marry like this. He's not naive, of course, and he knows people do it all the time, but it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. It's one thing to arrange a marriage for long-term cooperation between two families, but when it's for a single cause, it feels... False, somehow. Brittle.