missing presence

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Okay, I've got to say it. I've been wondering, but now it's grown to the size of an elephant in the room that everyone's pretending isn't there...



...what about Peter Pettigrew? Where is he in this AU? What's his story? Has he somehow been erased? (Has he been mentioned?)

It's impossible to understand the grounds for the Order's apprehensions about Remus when they don't ever refer to the fourth Marauder.


Relatedly, do you guys have theories about what happened on the night the Potters were murdered? What are all of the differences? I'll start.

1. Tom Riddle didn't die.
2. Harry seems not to have been cursed. He seems to have no scar. (In other words, it seems not to have been Tom Riddle's plan to kill Harry, just to steal him. What interpretation of the Prophecy does this hint at? How much of the Prophecy does the Lord Protector know? Is the Prophecy the same?)
     2a. Harry's status: he is not the Boy Who Lived; he is (only) the Lord Protector's son.
3. Sirius is not the friend suspected of treachery. (And, since the event did not play out as in canon, he did not "kill" Peter and did not get sent to Azkaban.)
4.
5.

What else?

A small point, since in this AU Tom Riddle has established himself as "Lord Protector," I'm finding it hard to call him Voldemort. And now that enough playing time and so many posts have slipped by, I can't remember whether anyone in-game has called him Voldemort. It seems to me there was an early reference to his given name, but I can't think whether he's been called anything besides "Lord" and "Lord Protector" since.

Comments

[wordsworthy.livejournal.com]

Snape.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Word.

I'm eager to get some information on Snape, too. Where is he now? What's his backstory.

I'm content that we must wait, but ... impatiently content. (Players: this is a good emotion, really! Er...)

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

I see a fairly simple explanation. Lupin was the planned secret keeper, they switched to Peter. Lupin confronts Peter, kills/disables/vanishes him. Now no one alive knows that Peter was the secret keeper. Lupin knows the rest of the order will be deeply suspicious and along with his guilt at their deaths he hides, only to reemerge when the werewolf protections are enacted.

Now this does not answer to Snape's roll in the fatal night and since we know nothing about him that could completely rework the scenario. (Not to mention Regulus and whatever he was up to.)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

That seems plausible, but why the switch from canon in having Lupin rather than Sirius as the original secret keeper?

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

From the only explanatory text we have, the hpalternity profile (http://community.livejournal.com/hpalternity/profile) says, "As a result of one tiny change in 1981..." As we don't know what that change is, it could be the change in secret keepers.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Hm. That's an interesting twist on the matter. So the "tiny change" is not that Voldemort did not die or that he did not attempt to kill the Potter child, but that those differences flow from the real alteration -- that the secret keeper was Lupin rather than Sirius?

(None of those seems exactly 'tiny' to me, but that's not a quibble with your proposal. When I read it, I assumed that whoever composed the profile statement was understating for effect.)

Since you've called our attention to the hp_alternity profile statement, it might be worth noting that if you are right, then we can rule out changes to the Prophecy, which was made before Harry and Neville were born (during Trelawny's interview with Dumbledore at the Hog's Head in 1979) or alterations to the amount of the Prophecy which Snape overheard or a change in how accurately Snape reported what he heard (all of which presumably occurred before 1981).

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

Ah but remember the Sirius was not the secret keeper. He was the one purported to be the secret keeper. Peter would still be the secret keeper. Just that Lupin was the one who passed the job to him, with only James, Lilly, Lupin and Peter knowing this. Peter and James die. Lupin knows that it had to have been Peter, confronts him and bests Peter more thoroughly the Sirius did. And really for small change, there isn't much smaller than who turned the job down first.

Now I don't have theory as to how this would result in Harry not being the focus of the killing curse. Though conceivably this could have resulted in some change in the prophecy, what Snape overheard, what Snape reported or who he reported it to.

Clearly something changed in the Potters's protections or the information that Riddle had. Which says to me either a change to the sequence of events surrounding the secret keeper or with Snape's eavesdropping (and we all know how bad eavesdropping is for you in the HP universe.) Since we haven't seen Snape yet almost no possibility of reasonable speculation there. All of this is, of course, dependent on the change to Regulus's story not impinging on the events of that fateful evening in '81.

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

Well at least Sirius is fairly sure Lupin is the one who betrayed them. (http://community.livejournal.com/hpalternity/7506.html?thread=42834#t42834) "And until I have proof, I hate to say it, but he likely betrayed us first - and James, Lily, and Peter died as a result."

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Actually, when I learned that this AU was based on an old fanfic, I tracked down the first chapter of that and read it, and it basically describes that night, as well as answering the Peter Pettigrew question. But I don't know if that means that those events are canon for this game or not. And just in case they are, I don't really want to spoil it.

One thing that I don't believe was answered in the fanfic (since it was written before book 6, I think) is whether Harry is still a horcrux. I sort of think he might be. If he is, that explains why Voldemort wants to look after him and keep him close, much as he does with Nagini. In fact, in the books it's almost ridiculous the way Voldemort wants to kill someone who is his own horcrux (although I think it's because he doesn't realize Harry is one).

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Can you link the fanfic in question? Or do you think that would violate game secrets?


I agree that Voldemort in canon does not seem to realise that the circumstances of Harry's survival made a Horcrux of him ... presumably that's not how the other Horcruxes were created (as accidental by-product at a murder scene -- they require a death, but they presumably required a deliberate process of spellcasting for their creation).

So are you proposing that in this AU, the events at Godric Hollow might have gone exactly as Voldemort intended and that what he intended was to kill the child's parents in order to make a Horcrux of the child linked to him by prophecy?

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Sure, here it is (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/285443/1/Alternity). I assume that if the author was against people reading it, she'd have taken it down. I decided after reading that snippet that I didn't want to be potentially spoiled for the game, though, so I didn't read the next chapter or reread what I had already read. It may have already been distorted in my memory.

Yeah, I was proposing that Harry was made a Horcrux on purpose, although I have no real evidence for that theory.

When I first heard of the game, it was introduced with the premise that emory mentions: that Voldemort interprets the prophecy to mean that his survival and Harry's are connected, so each needs the other to survive. The wording of the prophecy would have to be a little different for that interpretation to make sense, or maybe Voldemort misheard it? Or Snape misremembered it? Or conveyed it incorrectly on purpose?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link.

I'll wait to read in case alt_moderator or alt_player would like to ask us not to read or, in any case, not to take the fic as in any way related to game canon.

[alt_moderator]

The fic is not canon for this game. You can go ahead and read it, though - read anything you want to from the old Alternity! - just take it with a grain of salt: it has after all been 10 years and the plot now is significantly different.

[emony.livejournal.com]

What interpretation of the Prophecy does this hint at? How much of the Prophecy does the Lord Protector know? Is the Prophecy the same?

I thought the basic premise of the RP was that Voldemort (or Tom Riddle, or Tom Marvolo, or whatever he's calling himself here!) had interpreted the prophecy as meaning that for Voldemort to live, Harry had to live too, rather than that Harry was a threat to him. So he went down to Godric's Hollow, killed (presumably) Lily and James, and raised Harry as his own where he could ensure he was protected.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Seems reasonable, though we'll have to wait and see.

It could be equally that he recognized Harry as a threat, but also recognized that there might be a catch in the prophecy (there always is one!). Perhaps in this AU Voldemort knows the full prophecy? Or maybe he's just a cleverer interpreter of prophecies in general. (I'd respect a Voldemort who showed some attention to genre characteristics in evaluating the prophecy's significance -- that would make our Lord Protector rather smarter than JKR's Dark Lord.)

If he recognized Harry as a threat, but one that shouldn't be killed (lest Voldemort die, too), then he might have decided to seize the boy and raise him to be a loyal follower rather than allow him to grow up an enemy.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting point about the name Voldemort, too. I guess maybe his PR guy explained to him that "I am Lord Voldemort," while a very nifty word scramble for "Tom Marvolo Riddle," is not the most confidence-inspiring name for a ruler, containing as it does the word mort (French for death) and all.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I agree absolutely that "Lord Protector" is a title that he took up in the transition from insurgent to head of state. It is an official title, and you are quite right, I'm sure, it was chosen for its ability to reshape how people should feel about it him. Before he took power he and his Death Eaters meant to inspire terror through their costumes and their use of Unforgiveable Curses and other horrifically violent means to subvert the state. Once in power, the Lord Protector benefits from folks memory of those evidences of his terrifying power, but also wishes to woo public opinion.

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

Another thing that's different--Alice and Frank weren't tortured into insanity with Cruciatus. I wonder what Neville's connection to the prophecy is in this universe?

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Another thing that's different--Alice and Frank weren't tortured into insanity with Cruciatus.

Quite right.

Is it canonical that the Longbottoms fell during the effort to round up Death Eaters after Voldemort's "death"? Or were they victims of an effort to get at the other child who might have been part of the prophecy? I can't remember. (I think the former.)

In any case, in this AU Voldemort may have been absolutely certain that Harry's the child he wants. Once he has the child and comes to power, he has no special reason to target the Longbottoms, and as events played themselves out differently, diverging from canon, the Longbottoms did not end up being tortured by the Lestranges (perhaps because after the attack on the Potters, Voldemort came rather quickly to power and the Order's resistance went underground with equal speed so that the situation in which they fell never comes to pass in this AU's backstory).


I wonder what Neville's connection to the prophecy is in this universe?

A good question, indeed.

[gwendolyngrace.livejournal.com]

In canon, Bellatrix, Rabastan, Rodolphus, and Barty Crouch, Jr. were put on trial for torturing the Longbottoms after Voldemort's disappearance. The theory was that by going after the other kid, they could bring V back or find out something about where he'd gone (or why he'd gone after Potter instead of Longbottom). I want to say it was about a year after, but I don't have my books handy and it's been a while.

I do know that Sirius reports that they all showed up in Azkaban after Sirius was sentenced, that Barty is younger than the Marauders' class, and that he only lasted a few years in prison.