Harry disappears from the wizarding world for a little while after the fall of Voldemort and only like Ron Hermione and Ginny know where he’s gone
but he’s traveling. he considered backpacking Europe, but then he realized he’d had enough of camping for at least twenty years, so he teaches himself to drive and pulls enough strings to get himself an American drivers’ license and and then he’s off on a roadtrip in a beat-up car that’s still fast as anything. he doesn’t use magic if he can help it because it feels tainted, feels like it belongs to the war, feels like it marks him out again as someone with power and responsibility and the weight of a world on his shoulders. and for now he wants to find out what it is not to be a world-saving wizard, but just to be Harry.
and he meets a lot of strangers (he figures it’s safe enough picking up hitchhikers when they’re more than likely muggles and he’s got his wand if anything bad happens) and he learns what it’s like to be just another face, another car on the road and he learns all sorts of stuff on the radio, tries every genre out there. and it’s nice to listen to stuff that isn’t specifically designed to remind him of the wizarding world, but he finds so much of it surprisingly relatable and sometimes he just breaks down sobbing at the wheel and has to pull over.
and one of the hitchhikers he picks up is a veteran, and Harry doesn’t tell him much but he does say that he’s been a soldier, too, and it’s hard adjusting to a life that you never thought would exist because things were so hard that you could not imagine yourself after. hard to think about settling down and marrying the girl you thought you’d die loving. hard to think that not everyone around you is an enemy. were you a prisoner of war? the veteran asks. or undercover? both, says Harry. and lost, not knowing whether I was on the run or on a mission that was taking a year. I got back alive in the end but something—something’s definitely dead, you know?
how old are you, says the veteran. I’m eighteen, says Harry. the veteran raises his eyebrows. but they both know that some armies, some wars, don’t care about your age.
I think the dead thing is me, Harry says one day, when he’s going seventy in a fifty-five mile zone and the sun is setting in their eyes. when I killed the enemy, I killed myself.
and the veteran looks at him for a very long moment and Harry slows down and looks back at him and at last the man says, no. no, you lived. and you’re going to keep living, son, and one day you’ll be ready to marry that girl, if you love her, and now that you’ve got out of the war, it’s time to get the war out of you.
(they almost have a wreck when Harry pulls over to the side of the road, gets out, sits in the grass and laughs through his tears. flowers start to spring up around him and he feels the magic in his core, but this time it’s peaceful and pure and fun. unspoiled. and he knows it won’t always feel this way but for now things are leaking out of him, joyful things, because he is the boy who lived again, the boy who lived after the war.)
okay but neville longbottom as head of gryffindor house and there’s all these stories of him going head to head with an army of werewolves, being tortured by death eaters and killing Voldemort’s snake with godric gryffindor’s actual sword but when the students see him he’s like cradling a pot plant and crying cause he saw someone lost their pet on the noticeboard and they’re like “that guy? are you sure it’s that guy”
BONUS: one of the older student’s get dared to go up and ask him if it’s true and neville just makes direct eye-contact and says “voldemort was a punk bitch” and continues knitting a lil baby sweater for a mandrake
how did jk manage to write ootp and not come to the conclusion that the only career w any true meaning for harry james potter was as a goddamn professor at hogwarts like how do u write the da scenes and say “nah he’d want to be a wizard cop”
#but it would be so perfect??? #bc it would help normalize his life so much #like there would just be this generation of kids who are like #‘ugh who cares that he killed the dark lord he gAVE US HOMEWORK OVER BREAK’ #like the beginning of every year there would be the new first years who would freak out a little #but then it would calm down #and most of the students would literally forget #until like clockwork the fifth years would have their history of magic class on the second war #and they’d all show up to DADA looking a little awestruck and everyone would be extra quiet #and harry would give this kind of annoyed sigh—except it’s fake bc he TOTALLY knew this was coming #bc binns is a bro and he totally gives him a heads up every year #and harry wouldn’t have any lesson plans for the day and instead he would just sit at the front of the room and answer everyone’s questions #but otherwise everyone would just be like ‘professor potter!! i can’t get my patronus to work! help me!’ #and like they’d go home at the end of the year or for break and their parents—who ARE still starstruck by harry james potter #would pester their kids with questions#and the kids would just be like ‘merlin i don’t know?? potter’s such a huge dork you should hear him talk about proper wand movements’ #but they would all love him #and he would feel safe and normal and utterly accepted #AND I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE (via @cinematicnomad)
Not to mention it would be an ultimate Fuck You to Voldemort, who put a curse on the teaching position in the first place.
Like, Jo, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but COME ON
I already queued this but also, you do this, but still have Ginny become a famous Quidditch player. Imagine the first time Harry gets called “Ginny’s husband” before “the boy who lived” or “the chosen one.” Imagine how fucking pleased he’d be.
Imagine the first time a student comes up to him looking starry-eyed and Harry’s thinking “Oh no” because he doesn’t want to talk about Voldemort or the war but instead this little eleven year old is like “ARE YOU REALLY MARRIED TO WEASLEY FROM THE HOLLYHEAD HARPIES???!?? WHAT’S SHE LIKE?” and he’s like “oh thank god” because he could talk about Ginny all day.
Yes. Good.
Actually, all three of them should have become professors. Hermione would have become Headmistress, of course–youngest Headmistress of Hogwarts ever, and the only one willing to turn the portraits of her predecessors to the wall if they gave her too much lip about her efforts to modernize the curriculum. (She probably started as Transfiguration professor after McGonagall became Headmistress, but it wouldn’t surprise me if McGonagall was grooming her for the Headmistress job all along.)
And Ron took over as flying instructor for Professor Hooch; everyone thinks he’s an easy A because he’s so mellow and silly and hands out candy for good performances and his brother and sister sometimes visit the class to show off some of their old Quidditch moves and give away Wizard Wheezes to the best fliers, and it’s not until they talk to someone else from a different school or era that they realize that flying is actually really difficult to learn and Ron just found ways to slip all the teaching in under the fun so that they didn’t even notice. Things that seemed like silly tricks or goofy jokes turned out to be mnemonics for complex maneuvers, and of course nobody ever wanted to skip a class under his tutelage.
thisTHIS
Reblogging for all of this, but especially the Ron-Weasley-as-Flying-Teacher bit.
a harry potter au where potions is taught by gordon ramsay
neville: *messes up his potion*
gordon ramsay: *holds neville between two slices of bread* what are you
neville: an idiot sandwich
no no no!
Imagine that this is Gordon Ramsay a la Masterchef Junior
Neville: *messes up the potion, realizes it, starts crying quietly*
GR: What’s going on?
Neville: *explains how he messed up*
GR: Oh gosh okay…we can fix this, don’t cry, see, it’s fine now? Just be more careful when you’re adding the Newt’s eyes, all right? Drop them in gently. There we go. No more tears.
Neville: *giggles wetly, wiping eyes*
Yes, he only screams when he’s dealing with people that claim to know what they’re doing and clearly dont, when he’s teaching he’s very kind and patient because they’re still learning.
He’d probably do the bread thing to Malfoy.
nononononono. I get that Malfoy is a bit of a twat, but he’s still a kid. It’d be the teachers fucking up that he’d have trouble with.
Ramsay: All you had to do was treat it with a fucking Beozar!
Slughorn: It was a stressfu-
Ramsay: How long have you been teaching potions?!
or
Ramsay: So you’re going to raise this boy SPECIFICALLY so he can die as part of your twisted little scheme?
Dumbledore: It’s for the greater good, professor.
Ramsay: The greater fucking good?! *holds two slices of bread either side of dumbledoor’s face* What are you?
My favorite Gordon Ramsey moment is from the latest season of Master Chef Jr.
Gordon had run in to help a group of struggling kids with a team challenge and one of the older kids, a 12 year old boy, wasn’t passing attention while taking a pan out of the oven and not only spilled all the food but scalded Gordon.
It’s clear Gordon’s leg is in pain. He’s been badly burned without warning. But he doesn’t scream. He doesn’t yell, not even in pain, and he doesn’t go off on the child who is now frozen in fear. He calmly tells the child to set the pan down and to close the oven, safety first. Then tells him to go restart the food he was making, calm instructions.
My husband and I grew up in abusive homes where any mistake meant parents getting angry (my husband is terrified of spills or broken glasses because that meant beatings growing up, for me, anything going wrong, that could upset my mother, even if it wasn’t my fault meant screaming and emotional abuse).
I didn’t know someone could be so calm. That someone could not get angry, and put aside what they’re feeling (in this case a lot of physical pain) and not take it out on those around them, even when someone around them had messed up, because that person is a child.
Gordon Ramsey is a survivor of child abuse himself and as an adult, the most non-abusive person ever when it comes to kids.
im going to cry can gordon ramsey be my parent this sound so beautiful
Please take a moment to picture Gordon Ramsay taking over Potions when Snape becomes the DADA professor (instead of Slughorn) and not only being horrified when he realizes how terrified the students are that he’ll verbally abuse them when they mess up in Potions class but when he overhears how Snape treats students. Like can you IMAGINE the level of RAGE and CONTEMPT that Ramsay would harbor towards Snape? The asshat wouldn’t have made it to the end of HBP. Ramsay would’ve hexed his ass to kingdom come.
Rebloging ALL of this because Chef Ramsay is THE MAN!
-HC
Chef Ramsay would have become the kids’ favourite teacher and you can’t take that away from me.
Imagine him dealing with Umbridge
I love Ramsay
I want to see Ramsay desl wirh Umbridge!!
Ramsay: I will not lie????
Umbridge: its for discipline
Ramsay: How about I roast your fucking arse in the cauldron and tell you not to lie?
Headcanon that an outraged 6-year-old Charlie Weasley writes to an elderly Newt Scamander wanting to know why Gringotts keeps a dragon locked up underground and begging him to fix it. Newt writes back saying that sadly he’s been fighting that fight for years and no one ever wants to listen to him because the powerful families whose money is being kept safe by the dragon always shut him down, and that Charlie is the first person he’s heard of who’s as angry as he is about it. Charlie decides that day to dedicate his life to finding out everything he can about dragons so that one day he can free the poor Gringotts dragon. After the war, when they hear that Harry, Ron and Hermione freed the dragon, they celebrate and immediately begin petitioning to have it made illegal to imprison dragons so that nothing like that ever happens again. It’s only when Hermione becomes Minister that it’s finally signed into law.
This is the best Harry Potter headcanon I’ve ever seen
yes yes yes
Just imagine how that conversation would go though, like Charlie’s been learning about dragons his whole life, studying them, learning about the laws surrounding them, practising the jailbreak of dragons by smuggling one out of Hogwarts, preparing for the moment when, one day, he can free the Ukrainian Ironbelly from Gringotts.
And Ron’s like “Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it—we broke into Gringotts and used him as our get-away vehicle. He’s just chilling in the wilds somewhere now so, yeah. Job done.”
I want an AU where Ron, completely convinced that he’s overshadowed by all his brothers and will never be as remarkable or as well-recognised as any of them, just accidentally achieves all of their major life goals without noticing. They’re all super jealous and think of him as The Golden Brother and he’s completely clueless.
I’m not sure this is an AU to be honest. I mean:
Bill Weasley: Curse-breaker, works for Gringotts breaking into cursed tombs and distributing valuables to heirs. Ron Weasley both broke into Gringotts itself and destroyed the ultimate cursed object, a Horcrux. Check.
Charlie Weasley: Aforementioned dragon stuff. Check.
Percy Weasley: Social climber, status seeker, desperate for attention and approval from his superiors. Ron: Literally married to the actual Minister of Magic. Check.
Someone else add on to this with Weasley-twin eclipsing stunts and hijinks, I’m sure there are some but my brain isn’t thinking of them right now.
Question of Smoke 