Chapter Text
Chapter 1
A NON-WISH GRANTED
Daisy had loved the Harry Potter saga when she had been a kid, but the more she grew up and the more problems she had with it. She was 25 now and it had been a while she had re-read the books. She figured this was as good a time as any. She had the whole week-end off after all, and she didn't want to do anything but stay in and read. Sometimes it was good to just cut yourself off from the rest of the world and to dive into a world of fantasy instead.
This world in particular was very familiar to her and while she loved it, it was also not the first time that she thought about what she would change about it. Maybe it was presumptuous of her but anyone older than a child would tell you that there were some major problems with the world JK Rowling had created.
The whole view against Slytherins has always bothered her, for example. And it couldn't even be misconstrued, like the whole conversation between Dumbledore and Snape proved. So, Snape had showed incredible bravery, therefore he had been sorted too soon because clearly, he belonged in Gryffindor? No! Snape had been the quintessential slytherin, it just so happened that he was also very brave. Are we supposed to think that slytherins can't be brave, that it's just a gryffindor characteristic? And really, since when is cunning and ambition synonym with being evil?
And better if she didn't think about Dumbledore. A more manipulative character didn't exist. And, as headmaster of the school, he kept failing his students, repeatedly making the same mistakes. Tom Riddle, Snape, Harry and who knew how many others there were. All living with abusive muggles and the Headmaster knowing about it but doing nothing to stop it. And what was worse, the other adults, especially with Harry, going along with Dumbledore and making Harry continuing living with the Dursleys. Daisy didn't care about the blood wards. If Dumbledore had really wanted, he would have found a better solution – or at least making sure that Harry was being taken care of in that house like he deserved. But he did nothing, as usual. And his obvious favouritism for Gryffindor. And never bothering teaching Harry anything useful because he was going to die anyway. Not even making sure the Defence Teachers he hired were competent ones. Really, she could spend all day underlining everything about Dumbledore that was just wrong.
Moreover, she had a problem with how JK Rowling had written Harry. Sure, she loved Harry – his personality especially. He was kind, he was humble, he was brave, he was resilient, he was loyal, he loved and felt things very deeply. And he was a complex character, even if he was the hero of the story he wasn't the usual one-dimensional character. Though, of course, he was also extremely naïve and far too trusting. And lazy, to be honest. But she blamed his friendship with Ron for that.
That was a character Daisy couldn't stand. Ron Weasley was such a useless character most of the time. He wasn't smart (though he had a certain knack for strategies she had to, at least, admit that), he was a below average wizard to be honest, he wasn't even all that loyal – as all the times he had betrayed Harry showed –, he was jealous and bitter, petty and pig-headed, prejudiced and callous. She was sure the real reason Ron had even befriended Harry in the first place was because he was 'Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived', he wanted to live off Harry's reflected fame.
But back to Harry, like she was saying, she had a problem with how Harry was written when it came to his capabilities and magical potential. Daisy could understand that JK Rowling probably wanted to avoid make Harry too powerful, but by making every other character around him (except Ron) capable of some great things, she had ended up making Harry seem awfully weak in comparison – except for a few exceptions like the fact that he could conjure a Patronus at thirteen, almost fourteen (but then having other characters as young as fourteen like Ginny and Luna, able to conjure it as well so that somehow diminished Harry's own accomplishments), or being able to fight off the Imperius Curse (which was probably the only really impressive feat).
Draco was able to somehow fix a vanishing cabinet, Snape could modify potions and invent spells since he was sixteen (perhaps even before that) and he was a master Occlumens and Legilimens – and an incredibly powerful and accomplished duellist as well – , Hermione was...well, Hermione, James and Sirius etc became animagus in their fifth year and created the Marauders' Map, Lily had a little control over her magic before Hogwarts and it seem that she was an exceptional witch as well, Fred and George invented their own spells, potions and products. She could go on, but really, that was a rather long list already. While Harry's best accomplishment was…he was a great Seeker. Sad. Even with Defence, Harry was supposed to be the best in, at least, that subject but then, come sixth year, he was beaten by Hermione because she could use non-verbal spells while he couldn't.
Another important thing she hated the more she thought about it was that Harry was almost sorted into Slytherin but asked the Hat not to (which, at the time, was understandable because he had just found out that Voldemort had been a slytherin and then Ron had spent the entire train ride telling him how awful the slytherins were and that everyone who had been sorted into slytherin had gone bad), but then, in his second year, when he had told Dumbledore that, Dumbledore had answered that 'the choices you make are more important than your abilities' or something like that, as if being sorted into slytherin would have been a bad choice and it would have turned Harry into a dark wizard or something. No, Harry would have still been Harry, only sorted in a different House. She found it extremely insulting.
She remembered the words of the Sorting Hat and she was more and more convinced that JK Rowling had somehow something against ambitious people, though she couldn't understand why. The Hat had clearly said that Slytherin House would have made Harry great, but he basically turned away from the offer because being great seemed too much like being like Voldemort (because of what Ollivander had told him when he bought the wand) and so he chose the easier choice, Gryffindor House like his parents. Once again, the more she thought about it and the more insulted she felt.
When she had read the books as a child she had basically accepted things as face value but now that she was older, it was much more difficult to ignore all these problems. That was why she had decided to make a list of all the things she would change about the Harry Potter saga. It was perhaps pointless but it would certainly help lessen her frustration.
She took the leather-bound, black notebook she had found a few days ago in the attic while she had tidied up the place and began to write. It was a strange notebook to be honest, it looked more like a grimoire – even the pages in it looked like parchment instead of normal paper – and she had never seen it before in her life but it looked cool so she decided to use it to write.
First, she had to be honest, she would have much preferred if the protagonist had been a girl. There were so very few fantasy sagas with the protagonist as a girl and it would have been appropriate, since this particular saga was written by a woman, that the main character had been a woman as well, though she was willing to be it wouldn't have had the same success if that had been the case, unfortunately. The way Daenerys Targaryen was demonized by some readers in A Song of Ice and Fire and then the way they had destroyed her and everything she stood for in the show showed that.
Women in fantasy most of the time were either love interests for the male hero – and completely boring and insipid as a result – or powerful and ambitious villains. Or side-kicks for the hero like in the case of Hermione. But they could never be the protagonist, they could never shine on their own, they could never be powerful and ambitious because being powerful and ambitious (especially if they gained this power on their own volition, without anyone else – especially men – giving it to them) meant that this female character would go evil or mad, or both. Same sexist cliché as usual. This was the sad, biased word they lived in unfortunately.
But back to her list. Yes, she wanted Harry as a girl – but perhaps not with the name Harry. The Girl-Who-Lived and not the Boy-Who-Lived then. And she also liked the poetry of the opposites. Voldemort and Harry had many similarities between them but they were also polar opposites. It would have been even better if Harry (not-Harry) had been a woman, to underline the fact that, no matter how many similarities there were between them, they were also opposites.
Of course, the prophecy would have been slightly different as a result, with a vague 'they' instead of 'he' so it could have referred to either a man or a woman. But, if that had been the case, Voldemort would have probably targeted Neville first, and not her, Neville being a boy and – in Voldemort's mind – as the most likely candidate.
But, of course, the whole reason why Harry became the Boy-Who-Lived in the books was because Severus asked for Lily to be spared but she sacrificed herself anyway and that sacrifice protected Harry for the killing curse. Such a thing wouldn't have happened with Neville and his parents, therefore all three of them would have died. But Neville and his parents would have probably been killed way before the Halloween night 1981, as soon as the prophecy had been made in fact, not giving them a chance to hide like the Potters. Voldemort, wanting to be thorough though, would have still targeted the Potter child, Severus would have still asked for Lily to be spared, Pettigrew would have still betrayed the Potters and the whole thing would have happened like in Canon. And part of the prophecy fulfilled as well. Sad thing for Neville to be sure, but she was a believer of the Butterfly Effect.
Another thing that always bothered her about the books and that she would change was Harry's appearance. He was already the boy-who-lived and people already had expectations on him without even meeting him, was it really necessary to make him look like a mini-James? So, either people saw only the boy-who-lived, or they saw only James when looking at him, like Sirius and Snape. Having a female Harry often meant having her look like Lily then, but she didn't want that. No, she wanted a character who looked like a mixture of both her parents (like it usually happen with actual, real children), but looking like herself. Still, with Lily's green eyes – because they were so pretty, but with no glasses – and James' dark hair (but not as messy and unmanageable as James). And beautiful, of course, because, why not? Like Alexandra Daddario, perhaps.
Perhaps that would have helped Snape see Harry as he really was, instead of an incarnation of James Potter. Perhaps, it would have helped the two of them building some kind of relationship. That was something Daisy had always wished for. Maybe with non-Harry being very talented in Charms and Potions like Lily. Perhaps Snape could have noticed the similarities with Lily at first, but then realizing that non-Harry was her own person and learn to care for her just for her. Perhaps even comparing her to Lily and realizing she was in fact better than Lily had ever been (something that Daisy had personally always thought about Harry, that he was better – personality wise – that both his parents). That would have been something she would have really liked to see.
Especially because she always saw Snape's obsession with Lily as something born out of the fact that Snape had literally no one else. And when he had lost her – way too easily, by the way, she had always thought Lily didn't care much for Severus, keeping him around because she felt bad for him or something and because he had been a source of information on the Wizarding World before Hogwarts (she wouldn't have laughed at him with everybody else during Snape's worst memory if she had really cared about him, she would have tried to stop James and Sirius instead. Harry would have certainly done that if he had been in her place) – he had built up this perfect idea of Lily Evans in his mind but it was just that, a fantasy. That is not real love. And, to quote Katherine Pierce: 'love is not real unless it is returned'.
Moreover, if non-Harry had been sorted into Slytherin, instead of Gryffindor, that would have made Snape her Head of House – that would have aided in building trust between them. And, it would also have been a perfect way to show that not-Harry was her own person and not like either of her parents. Not only that, but being sorted into Slytherin and still being the hero of the story would serve to show that the prejudices against slytherins were just that, prejudices, as the books should have shown. The books preached a lot about the injustice of the prejudices against muggleborns but then did the same thing to a quarter of the school, how was that fair? And, of course, most of the slytherins – minus a few exceptions – would turn out to be perfectly nice and kind people, some of them half-bloods who hated the blood prejudices. Having the girl-who-lived in Slytherin would, in fact, please a lot more people than it would upset because it would help the whole House overcome the bad reputation they had.
Moreover, that would add to the similarities between non-Harry and Voldemort. Both Slytherin, both half-bloods, both orphans that had grew up in an abusive, muggle environment.
Also, making non-Harry a Slytherin would make things easier with her and Draco Malfoy. Daisy had always wished they would have become friends. Draco was spoiled and prejudiced and a bit of a bully but she had always thought he had hidden depths as well. She would have liked for the books to have explored that. JK Rowling had always seemed excessively harsh when it came to Draco while justifying Severus' behaviour. She didn't think it fair. Daisy loved Snape, he was her absolute favourite character, but she wasn't oblivious to his flaws. Thinking that Draco was worse than him after Draco had been unable to kill, was rather laughable to be honest. Snape had, after all, became a Death Eater on his own volition, Draco had been forced to take the Mark to save his parents. And the only reason Snape had defected at all had been to save Lily. Comparable situations but not the same at all.
So, yes, she would have written non-Harry and Draco as friends – perhaps not an easy, without arguments, friendship but a deep and important friendship nonetheless. And with Draco and non-Harry friends, she felt like Narcissa and Lucius would have defected to the 'Light Side', not because of any particular remorse but for Draco, to protect Draco. For both Narcissa and Draco there was no one or nothing more important than their only child, in that, at least, they weren't much different from Lily and James Potter.
Neither of them had wanted Draco to become a Death Eater after all and Lucius had come to regret serving Voldemort in the first place after he was sent to Azkaban and then tortured and humiliated by Voldemort for months. Lucius liked to be on the winning side and, if he had thought, non-Harry could win, perhaps he would have realized it was in his best interests not to support Voldemort anymore, especially if it meant Draco was safe from him.
Perhaps Lucius would understand the 'errors of his way' if he had put his own son in danger during second year, being responsible for the diary's presence in the school, and then having non-Harry save him. Such a thing would certainly put things into perspective for him.
Daisy would also make a few changes to Harry's personality. Like she had said, she liked him for the most part, so her own character would be a lot like Harry personality wise, but less naïve and less blindly trusting of people, especially Dumbledore. More cunning, more ambitious but still brave and reckless (but not acting without thinking) and loyal and idealistic (in fact, more idealistic than Harry – the kind of person who wants to change the world and, at the same time, convinced that she can change the world (and that was when the ambitious part of her personality would show the most)). Harry's distrust of authority figure and not listening to them was perfectly normal, overall, for someone who grew up with abusive people and with everyone around him turning a blind eye about the whole thing, but his blind trust of Dumbledore was ridiculous and completely out of character for someone who should be distrustful of adults in general.
She liked Harry's great capacity for love and forgiveness and empathy, the whole 'wearing his heart on his sleeve' thing. But she didn't agree with JK Rowling that someone like that couldn't learn Occlumency. Harry could have learnt to organize his mind and memories and emotions without suppressing his feelings. In fact, Snape's personality contradicted what JK Rowling had said. Snape was literally driven by emotions during the whole saga and yet he was the best Occlumens of the whole story, able to fool even Voldemort himself. Therefore, she didn't get it at all and that was something she would change as well – her made-up female Harry (not-Harry) character would be perfectly able to learn Occlumency, she would learn to master it in fact.
In fact, perhaps she would have learnt to meditate since she was a child, a way to cope with her everyday life without letting negative emotions consume her. Not only meditation served to control her more negative, explosive emotions (canon-Harry had anger issues after all) but it was also useful to heal quicker from physical injuries and to more easily withstand the pain. And meditation was the first step towards learning Occlumency so that, when she'll try to learn it in her fifth year, she will pick it up pretty quickly.
And talking about mastering magical abilities, and returning to her previous statement of JK Rowling making Harry much weaker than he was supposed to be, seeing as he was supposed to be Voldemort's equal and he was also less powerful than both his parents for some reason, she would totally change that as well.
First, she would totally want female Harry to be like that character from Suits, Mike, with the whole 'I like to read. And once I read something, I understand it. And once I understand it, I never forget it.'. Also, since canon!Harry was constantly plague with nightmares and visions from inside Voldemort's head and slept poorly basically every night, her non-Harry could have Short Sleeper Syndrome, so that she could sleep a few hours at night and still function normally.
She would also need to be powerful, as well, of course, more powerful than most magical people, on par with Voldemort in fact. It would only be fair since she was the one who was supposed to defeat him. Voldemort would always have years of experience on his side, the least JK Rowling could have done to even the playing field was to make Harry a magical prodigy like Voldemort, to make it realistic that Harry had, in fact, the slightest chance to defeat him. Otherwise it would end up like what happened in the seventh book, with Harry winning against Voldemort because he became a pawn in Dumbledore's game of chess. Not exactly inspiring for the hero of the story to be turned into a puppet on a string. She would write her own character independent, able to make her own decisions, master of her own destiny but still the hero of the story, able to triumph in the end.
That was a part that had always confused her, by the way. Dumbledore's initial plan was for him to remain undefeated so that he would remain the last master of the Elder Wand. But if he didn't know that Harry was going to be the Master of the Elder Wand, how did he think Harry was going to defeat Voldemort? Did he really expect Harry to come back to life after sacrificing himself to destroy the Horcrux inside his scar or he only said that to Harry at King's Cross after he realized that Harry could, in fact, come back?
And there it was, another point that had always bothered her. Harry not figuring out until the very end that he was a Horcrux himself. She would have much preferred if Harry had figured it out from the start – since Slughorn's memory in fact. He would still have looked for and destroyed the Horcruxes, all the while knowing that he was going to die in the end. Much more tragic but much more rewarding if, in the end, he would survive after knowing for more than a year that he would die. At least, in this case, it would have been his choice, not Dumbledore's manipulation and that would make all the difference.
Daisy took a look at her list and smiled, satisfied. Then a silly thought came into her head and she blushed. She would never admit it to anyone, but sometimes Daisy wouldn't just think about what she would have changed about Harry Potter (or other book sagas, TV shows and movies to be honest), sometimes she would also imagine herself in it. Therefore, her non-Harry character would have been called Daisy Potter – appropriate since it was a flower name like Lily and Petunia. But she wouldn't want to remember the seven books because where would be the fun in that, otherwise, already knowing what it was going to happen? Instead, to make sure to save some characters that died in the story, she would wish she had some kind of different warning. She would just knew things, before they happened, like some kind of very acute sixth sense. Daisy Potter would be a seer, then. And she would get stronger at her future-knowing abilities by using Divination techniques.
Daisy nodded, liking the idea more and more. Then she looked at the alarm clock on her nightstand, she realized how late it was and closed the notebook. She got ready for bed and then turned the light off before falling asleep a few minutes later. She didn't notice the notebook on her desk glowing blue for a few seconds before disappearing altogether.