"Overdue Protection" by PadyandMoony

[mcity]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7434492/1/Overdue_Protection

After the dueling club incident in Year Two where he is discovered to be a Parselmouth, Harry Potter is subject to abuse from the students, culminating in him running away. The Ministry needs to track down Harry, and for that they need the permission of his legal guardian. Since Sirius is still his legal guardian instead of Petunia, because he never had a trial, they hustle him out of Azkaban and convene a kangaroo trial--in a matter of hours--then pour truth serum down his throat. Upon discovering his innocence, they proclaim him innocent, give him a ton of money and some new clothes, and politely request he come to the Minister for Magic's office, where they basically ask him not to sue them and help them find Harry. He calls them out on it, and leaves to find Harry on his own.

Alright. Take it as it comes.

All of Gryffindor, bar Neville, burned Harry's trunk after they couldn't get into it. Even Ron and Hermione just stood by, not looking Harry in the eye.

If someone is going to try to crack Harry's trunk, they are not going to drag it down to the common room to do so. They are going to try and sneak in there when they think no one's looking. Failing that, they sneak back out. The dorms are up spiral staircases, and the house-elves presumably magic them up there by their secret ways and means at the start and end of each year. Getting one down the staircase, however, requires either dragging it down, or having two people carry it. You can't do that secretly. Even if two people decided to do so, that leaves the entire rest of the house to call them out on it.

So. The only plausible scenario is that the entire house, bar Neville, somehow got themselves worked up about it, then traipsed up to the Boys' room, tried to get into the trunk, then dragged it back down to the common room to throw it in the fireplace.

Assuming there aren't fireplaces in the dorm, or they're not large enough, they're still on the hook for destruction of student property. The entire house, bar Neville. I know it takes a lot for a student to be expelled--heck, they had to think Hagrid was actively or through negligence trying to kill people --but this merits serious consequences, which we'll get to later.

The premise of this event requires a serious, nigh-universal prejudice against Parselmouths, that even Muggleborns know and believe, one that dwarfs prejudice against Slytherins, who "everyone knows" are evil. Yet Harry has never heard of it. He was honestly surprised when everyone looked at him "that way" when he used Parselmouth. It would be the equivalent of going on the Internet as one's sole form of media for 3/4ths of the year, and never encountering a lolcat.

Speaking of Muggleborns, since when has Hermione been concerned with societal pressure? Her best and worst trait is that she does what she thinks is right, screw everyone else. If everyone else thinks Harry's a lunatic, she'll be right by his side. In pony terms, she's Rainbow Dash and Twilight mixed together. Ron had to be mind controlled by a fragment of Voldemort's soul before he had a serious tiff with Harry. The authour's note says it'll be "explained later", but I ain't readin' that far.

More realistic would've been part of the house arguing over the chest, fighting to get it away from the second group on Harry's side, with a third group staying out of it. Keep in mind this was hours after the event, and for all they knew, Harry could walk in at any time. Speaking of which;

Who decides it would be a good idea to mess with someone who they think might be the next Voldemort?

Seriously. If proof positive was delivered to most of the world that some 12-year old would be the next Hitler, there would be plenty of people who wouldn't piss him off, because of the whole "genocide" and "millions of armed soldiers" thing. Yet the author would have us believe that bias against Parselmouths is greater than bias against that against people like Lucius Malfoy, who is so evil he has a pimp cane with a snake's head on it.While I would like to read an AU where Lucius was thrown in the pokey and Draco ended up less rich and more humble and is discriminated against, this universe should logically have Draco being home-schooled for fear of lynchings.

After this sort of fail as the main course, the rest seems like an apertif or digestif. Harry, after sleeping in an unused classroom, comes down to breakfast to find that all of the Houses have formed a committee to prevent him from eating. The unnamed spokesperson says he doesn't get to eat with "normal, decent people", and hexes him with a sting as a demonstration. And again at lunch and dinner. And then he's assaulted by some Ravenclaws, and takes care of the damage himself because he doesn't trust the teachers.

None of the teachers had helped him so far. And they'd all seen him. He'd gotten points taken for not having his books. He had been bumped in class, his cauldron had been tampered with. No adult did anything. But then again, they never had.

Speaking as a guy who was bullied, I know how it feels you're isolated and alone. But Dumbledore, at the very least, would notice Harry missing six meals, and be aware of the incident. If Hagrid found out, he'd probably end up in jail after he got through with the perps.

By the way, it takes about a week for Harry to decide to run away. Given that he would likely have been puking after a day or so, and would've fainted between that and the beating, there is literally no way the school could say they just left any student, much less Harry Chosen One Potter, die in a puddle of their own puke in a corridor; they would have to treat him. And once he's in a hospital bed, Dumbledore comes to see him, and then the offenders are dealt with, and Harry never runs away, so Sirius never gets out of jail.

I'm not sure if the writer ignored this, or was just unaware.

Incidentally, Harry just happened to have the Invisibility Cloak in his bag when he went to the dueling club. No, seriously, the fic just tells us he has the cloak in there, and never explains why.

Fred and George just happen to give him the Marauder's Map because it somehow told them to because they "wronged the line of Prongs". Keep in mind that just creating the canonical version was hard, much less one that would track the bloodline of its makers' descendants, much less one that would be able to determine "wrongs" done against them.

I'm telling this in chronological order. The story actually starts with Sirius in the Minister of Magic's office after being released from jail. We catch up with Harry later. The fic actually opens with Sirius calling out the Ministry for imprisoning him without trial, and doing so in a way that handily recaps the plot for us. He also calls out Dumbledore for not expelling the students who bullied Harry.

Remember, the Ministry is able to track underage uses of magic, and Harry is probably the single most famous person in the Wizarding World. The one time he wasn't recognized was on the Knight bus, and he actually had to lie about his name and hide his scar. In the film, he doesn't give a name at all, and Stan Shunpike is still starting to clue in by the end of it. And he's on the bus for a few minutes. Even with the cloak, he has to show his face sooner or later, and the Ministry should be able to track him.

Also, think about all the measures real world city governments have to revoke a guardian's guardianship, without a trial. Any one of those would be sufficient. In fact, revoking Sirius' guardianship, at least temporarily, by saying he's being held for trial would work.

There are no attempts to determine sanity. People literally just look at Sirius and go "welp, he's sane." And he is, but not because he's an Animagus and could use that to hide from the Demontors and lessen their influence. He's just so special he makes all his Will Saves.

No, I'm serious. As the male head of the Black family, he automatically has some sort of special secret Pureblood family magic that makes reading his mind harder, and actively generates illusions for anyone attempting to do so. This also helped keep him sane. Of course, this is all a plot device to explain why he doesn't need a competency hearing.

Ironically, for a fanfic based on a series about how where you came from isn't as important as who you are, this series makes much about bloodlines and legacy and succession and blah blah blah. It's the equivalent of Naruto becoming the Uchichas and Friends Variety Hour.

So, Sirius demands an apology from Dumbledore for not expelling the students who bullied Harry. Considering that this was, apparently, more or less the entire population of Hogwarts, that seems reasonable to me. I've already mentioned how just getting to the point where Harry runs away is impossible. Dumbledore says he regrets not doing anything, but Sirius cuts him off before he even tries to explain.

Dumbledore is on wrong side of the table, so to speak. Canonically, he would point out that while he somehow screwed up, the most important priority is Harry's safety, and make a reasonable attempt to get Sirius to cooperate.

Also, while the Ministry is clearly in the wrong, as it is in canon, the Dumbledore in this fic is only incompetent because he was specifically written to be. The author even admits there's some Dumbledore bashing in the fic up front. Naturally, like most people who see fit to write bashfic--if that's a word--she seems to have a greatly distorted view of the character she's bashing.

When villified in fanfic, Dumbledore is either the incompetent idiot (in order to make whatever Mary Sue look good), or much more popularly the amoral chessmaster with no regard for human lives, instead of the canonical leader of a secret organization trying to prevent Voldemort's return and rise who is trying to make as few sacrifices as possible and has actually not informed Harry of vital information because he liked the kid and didn't want to hurt him. Strangely, neither fanon version seems inclined to put on the trapped ring, because admitting he knew better and was still wrought enough to make that mistake is entirely inconsistent with both versions.

Sirius snarks that this wouldn't be the first time Dumbledore did nothing about bullying. Considering that such bullies, in the past, have included Sirius himself--who nearly got Snape killed--it's rather hypocritical of him. In fact, Dumbledore could just mention that fact and have Sirius back in jail while a new trial is convened, assuming the statue on attempted manslaughter hasn't run out.

Incidentally, in this AU, the dueling club was on a Tuesday. Sirius blames "them", presumably Hogwarts administration, for not sending Harry to the Hospital Wing. (We find out later that Harry was actively hiding from everyone under his Cloak.) Dumbledore only realized Harry was missing when he didn't show up to class on Monday and asked at dinner. Which means that the teachers either saw Harry getting weaker and weaker and showing up with bruises and did nothing, or somehow managed not to notice. Simultaneously, not a single teacher noted Harry's absence from meals and reported it up the chain, not even Dumbledore himself.

This makes less than no sense. This makes negative sense.

Curiously enough, no one asks why Dumbledore sat on his hands while one of his students was being assaulted. Because there is no plausible internal logic, even for this fic's looking-glass version of the Potterverse, which justifies him or the rest of the staff to be so grossly negligent. The author entirely skirts over the question of why Hogwarts' faculty suddenly became nitwits. Appropriately, they are effectively asking the reader to believe A Wizard Did It, in a sense..

Sirius says he never harmed a single person physically. So not only is Sirius a Mary Sue, Snape and the Young Death Eaters Club apparently couldn't go a week without "maiming someone". Sirius says, in front of the Minister for Magic and two other witnesses, that he will take matters into his own hands if he does not find Dumbledore's response to the bullying satisfactory

Yes, a grown man has just threatened children in front of "the three most powerful people in Wizarding Britain". Apparently, this is so awesum super kewl that all three are too stunned to leap on him, bear him to the ground, and chuck him in a cell.

Sirius then storms out to find Harry on his own, and we cut to Harry, who mentally recaps the bits Sirius missed, and we close out the first chapter, which is all I could stomach. I could've read on, to see what Ron and Hermione's excuse for dropping Harry like a hot potato was, but I'm betting it involves someone being killed by Death Eaters.

Bottom line: It's profoundly self-indulgent to create an AU where characters act and things work in manners drastically different to their canonical versions, then have a character criticize the other characters, with the implication that it is in any way as a valid criticism of the original text.