NTLJ and the HBP
Jul. 20th, 2005 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snorkackcatcherA few notes for anyone reading Nymphadora Tonks and the Liquor of Jacmel who may be interested - discussing how HBP affected it, ways of adjusting for that, and a request for your thoughts on the most plausible option.
Generally I got lucky - most of the things that could have blown an unmendable hole in it didn't happen - but there were a few problems, obviously. This is where some of the escape clauses I wrote in come in handy ...
Right, here goes.
(1) First up, the worst blow - a quote I didn't even notice till a second read-through. It's in a passage where the Trio are discussing ways and means of getting the memory from Slughorn:
'I'm telling you, the stupid Prince isn't going to be able to help you with this, Harry!' said Hermione, more loudly. 'There's only one way to force someone to do what you want, and that's the Imperius Curse, which is illegal --'
*sob* I'm afraid the only way to get round this is to take advantage of the fact that Liquor of Jacmel was deliberately set up to be an obscure and not widely known potion (on the grounds that if it was well known, it should already have been mentioned in GoF or OotP), and simply say that even Hermione hasn't read everything and hasn't yet come across a reference to the stuff.
(2) Additional Tonks backstory - I got fairly lucky here, although I wasn't too happy with the way she was behaving (abstracted and turning up in odd places at odd times). I was worried that she might be a Polyjuiced impostor or under Imperius - in fact for a while I had the horrible thought that she might be an Inferius (until it becamse clear that Inferi were - apologies to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theregoesyamum - just standard horror movie style zombies). I'm still not entirely convinced that come book 7 there won't turn out to have been more to it than the survivor guilt, the war, and mooning over Moony, but for now I'll assume there wasn't.
I think I've shown one or two sombre moments for her (and might write in mentions of others now to show the potential), and luckily the start of the next (FA) chapter fits with the idea she might feel guilty about getting someone killed. However, since this tale is taking place well before the events of HBP, I'm OK to stick pretty much to the largely cheerful characterisation - the way we meet her in OotP.
Nice to know she does have a default appearance (I'd pencilled in Black black hair, but that can easily be changed when I get to the passages where it's relevant), and although the idea that she could lose her powers through emotional upheaval is a bit of a blow, I can get round that by saying it takes a lot of concentration like normal human Transfiguration (I suppose that was implied by the strained look before she changes) and distractions can make it difficult to do.
The relationship with Remus got three hearty cheers from me (even though it took a careful reread to spot the setup for it) - but it ain't gonna happen in NTLJ, obviously, even if she does encounter Remus. :) That was always planned - I was determined not to get her into any relationship in NTLJ that couldn't be assumed to have broken up by the start of OotP. Incidentally, did you get the impression Remus may be less enthusiastic about it than she was? Idiot. :) A chink of light for Wolfstarites, although that's all - given the minimal screentime of either character, I think we're meant to take this one literally, and that he's just being Ridiculously Noble And Self-Sacrificing (hello, paging Harry Potter, there's a Ginevra Weasley on line one). Not to mention the fact that for a lot of the book it seemed almost "Sirius Black? There was a character called Sirius Black in this series? Was he important then?"
It was implied her parents were still around, as Remus thought she might be spending Christmas with her family - but maybe that she wasn't as close to them as I've said as Molly got the idea she wasn't going to. But I can happily ignore that possibility here.
Ron dealt me a nasty blow by saying 'Tonks and Sirius barely knew each other ... Sirius was in Azkaban half her life and before that their families never met'. Even worse (because you can often discount Ron's views when it comes to Emotions And Stuff) Hermione in replying doesn't contradict him, but says merely 'That's not the point' and then starts talking about survivor guilt. Now I come to think of it, I can't actually remember Tonks and Sirius specifically interacting in OotP, or showing any obvious closeness ...
I know it wasn't just me who assumed they'd remember each other with affection. The trouble is that despite what the HP Sleuths have to say, I do think that when JKR writes this sort of thing, it's usually meant to be taken literally - a way of working in little bits of backstory about minor characters. Since the assumption that Sirius was once a reasonably frequent visitor to his favourite cousin Andromeda and regarded as a sort of cool uncle by Tonks is probably too woven into the NTLJ subplots to take out, I'm going to have to invoke the usual Pitiful Crutch and say that Ron and Hermione simply misunderstood and got this wrong, possibly because they have no more idea than Harry what went on at 12GP during most of OotP. So my take will be: yes, their families didn't tend to visit (I think I already got that bit), but Sirius as a young adult, once he'd left home, did. After all, he must have met Andromeda often enough for her to become his favourite cousin.
(3) Inferi - as mentioned above, they seem to be fairly "standard" zombies, which means that they would presumably have rated a mention in that Ministry briefing document on the Liquor of Jacmel when it talked about zombies. No easy way round that, so let's just say the writer forgot to mention it (perhaps because it was an old document written before their extensive use in the first war). I can just edit in a reference in the CoS version, however, and may resubmit a slightly modified version to FA.
(4) Scrimgeour and the position he formerly held - ah yes, the CHAPTER ONE big snag. Unfortunately, by the time I reread OotP more carefully and realised that he was probably the Auror boss, not just a colleague of Tonks and Kingsley, I was already many chapters into NTLJ. Annoyingly, in personality he's not entirely unlike my version of the Auror boss, Claymore. I suppose I shouldn't complain, but it's frustrating - it feels like, oh I don't know, hitting your second shot to within four feet at the Road Hole and then missing the birdie putt. Three main options here, and I'd appreciate comments on which would be best:
(a) The "Quick Sidestep" option. Here I play my Get Out Of Jail Free card - i.e. the mention that Cassius had relatives working in the Department that I carefully inserted at the start of the FA version to allow for something like this - and have him mention casually at some later stage that his nephew/brother/cousin/whatever Rufus is in charge of one of the other Auror divisions, would undoubtedly get Claymore's job if he resigned or was promoted, and would then probably want to reorganise to bring everything under one umbrella (his title might be, oh I don't know, "Head of the Auror Office"). Claymore would then indeed resign or retire, or be seen to be considering doing so, at the end of NTLJ.
(b) The "Grasp The Nettle" option. This basically involves search-and-replace - giving Cassius a new surname, changing Egbert Claymore to Rufus Scrimgeour, tweaking his dialogue where it doesn't seem to match HBP, and just generally posting new versions of the chapters with the adjustments above already in place.
(c) The "Sit On The Fence" option - do (a) until the story is finished, then do (b) in case any new readers come along.
(a) has the advantage of being quick (and I can make it fit with something Cassius will be doing near the end). (b) is more 'canon-compliant', and hence has the advantages that it won't confuse anyone who hadn't started reading before HBP came out, and the story will be in much better shape should I post it anywhere else (e.g. Mugglenet or FFN). But it's more work - and although it's nice to reflect your sources accurately, we're talking about a fanfic here, not the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Suggestions anybody?
All this is subject to anything else relevant that comes up in the full version of the Mugglenet/TLC interview. And of course, if you can think of any passage in HBP that reflects on NTLJ that I've missed, do PLEASE point it out to me! :)
Generally I got lucky - most of the things that could have blown an unmendable hole in it didn't happen - but there were a few problems, obviously. This is where some of the escape clauses I wrote in come in handy ...
Right, here goes.
(1) First up, the worst blow - a quote I didn't even notice till a second read-through. It's in a passage where the Trio are discussing ways and means of getting the memory from Slughorn:
'I'm telling you, the stupid Prince isn't going to be able to help you with this, Harry!' said Hermione, more loudly. 'There's only one way to force someone to do what you want, and that's the Imperius Curse, which is illegal --'
*sob* I'm afraid the only way to get round this is to take advantage of the fact that Liquor of Jacmel was deliberately set up to be an obscure and not widely known potion (on the grounds that if it was well known, it should already have been mentioned in GoF or OotP), and simply say that even Hermione hasn't read everything and hasn't yet come across a reference to the stuff.
(2) Additional Tonks backstory - I got fairly lucky here, although I wasn't too happy with the way she was behaving (abstracted and turning up in odd places at odd times). I was worried that she might be a Polyjuiced impostor or under Imperius - in fact for a while I had the horrible thought that she might be an Inferius (until it becamse clear that Inferi were - apologies to
theregoesyamum - just standard horror movie style zombies). I'm still not entirely convinced that come book 7 there won't turn out to have been more to it than the survivor guilt, the war, and mooning over Moony, but for now I'll assume there wasn't. I think I've shown one or two sombre moments for her (and might write in mentions of others now to show the potential), and luckily the start of the next (FA) chapter fits with the idea she might feel guilty about getting someone killed. However, since this tale is taking place well before the events of HBP, I'm OK to stick pretty much to the largely cheerful characterisation - the way we meet her in OotP.
Nice to know she does have a default appearance (I'd pencilled in Black black hair, but that can easily be changed when I get to the passages where it's relevant), and although the idea that she could lose her powers through emotional upheaval is a bit of a blow, I can get round that by saying it takes a lot of concentration like normal human Transfiguration (I suppose that was implied by the strained look before she changes) and distractions can make it difficult to do.
The relationship with Remus got three hearty cheers from me (even though it took a careful reread to spot the setup for it) - but it ain't gonna happen in NTLJ, obviously, even if she does encounter Remus. :) That was always planned - I was determined not to get her into any relationship in NTLJ that couldn't be assumed to have broken up by the start of OotP. Incidentally, did you get the impression Remus may be less enthusiastic about it than she was? Idiot. :) A chink of light for Wolfstarites, although that's all - given the minimal screentime of either character, I think we're meant to take this one literally, and that he's just being Ridiculously Noble And Self-Sacrificing (hello, paging Harry Potter, there's a Ginevra Weasley on line one). Not to mention the fact that for a lot of the book it seemed almost "Sirius Black? There was a character called Sirius Black in this series? Was he important then?"
It was implied her parents were still around, as Remus thought she might be spending Christmas with her family - but maybe that she wasn't as close to them as I've said as Molly got the idea she wasn't going to. But I can happily ignore that possibility here.
Ron dealt me a nasty blow by saying 'Tonks and Sirius barely knew each other ... Sirius was in Azkaban half her life and before that their families never met'. Even worse (because you can often discount Ron's views when it comes to Emotions And Stuff) Hermione in replying doesn't contradict him, but says merely 'That's not the point' and then starts talking about survivor guilt. Now I come to think of it, I can't actually remember Tonks and Sirius specifically interacting in OotP, or showing any obvious closeness ...
I know it wasn't just me who assumed they'd remember each other with affection. The trouble is that despite what the HP Sleuths have to say, I do think that when JKR writes this sort of thing, it's usually meant to be taken literally - a way of working in little bits of backstory about minor characters. Since the assumption that Sirius was once a reasonably frequent visitor to his favourite cousin Andromeda and regarded as a sort of cool uncle by Tonks is probably too woven into the NTLJ subplots to take out, I'm going to have to invoke the usual Pitiful Crutch and say that Ron and Hermione simply misunderstood and got this wrong, possibly because they have no more idea than Harry what went on at 12GP during most of OotP. So my take will be: yes, their families didn't tend to visit (I think I already got that bit), but Sirius as a young adult, once he'd left home, did. After all, he must have met Andromeda often enough for her to become his favourite cousin.
(3) Inferi - as mentioned above, they seem to be fairly "standard" zombies, which means that they would presumably have rated a mention in that Ministry briefing document on the Liquor of Jacmel when it talked about zombies. No easy way round that, so let's just say the writer forgot to mention it (perhaps because it was an old document written before their extensive use in the first war). I can just edit in a reference in the CoS version, however, and may resubmit a slightly modified version to FA.
(4) Scrimgeour and the position he formerly held - ah yes, the CHAPTER ONE big snag. Unfortunately, by the time I reread OotP more carefully and realised that he was probably the Auror boss, not just a colleague of Tonks and Kingsley, I was already many chapters into NTLJ. Annoyingly, in personality he's not entirely unlike my version of the Auror boss, Claymore. I suppose I shouldn't complain, but it's frustrating - it feels like, oh I don't know, hitting your second shot to within four feet at the Road Hole and then missing the birdie putt. Three main options here, and I'd appreciate comments on which would be best:
(a) The "Quick Sidestep" option. Here I play my Get Out Of Jail Free card - i.e. the mention that Cassius had relatives working in the Department that I carefully inserted at the start of the FA version to allow for something like this - and have him mention casually at some later stage that his nephew/brother/cousin/whatever Rufus is in charge of one of the other Auror divisions, would undoubtedly get Claymore's job if he resigned or was promoted, and would then probably want to reorganise to bring everything under one umbrella (his title might be, oh I don't know, "Head of the Auror Office"). Claymore would then indeed resign or retire, or be seen to be considering doing so, at the end of NTLJ.
(b) The "Grasp The Nettle" option. This basically involves search-and-replace - giving Cassius a new surname, changing Egbert Claymore to Rufus Scrimgeour, tweaking his dialogue where it doesn't seem to match HBP, and just generally posting new versions of the chapters with the adjustments above already in place.
(c) The "Sit On The Fence" option - do (a) until the story is finished, then do (b) in case any new readers come along.
(a) has the advantage of being quick (and I can make it fit with something Cassius will be doing near the end). (b) is more 'canon-compliant', and hence has the advantages that it won't confuse anyone who hadn't started reading before HBP came out, and the story will be in much better shape should I post it anywhere else (e.g. Mugglenet or FFN). But it's more work - and although it's nice to reflect your sources accurately, we're talking about a fanfic here, not the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Suggestions anybody?
All this is subject to anything else relevant that comes up in the full version of the Mugglenet/TLC interview. And of course, if you can think of any passage in HBP that reflects on NTLJ that I've missed, do PLEASE point it out to me! :)
