Introduction

On reading Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle, a number of ideas came together and I started thinking about the Harry Potter universe in a different way. Mrs. L'Engle's theology in that book is really really sketchy, but like many distortions of true Catholic thought, makes for interesting fiction. This is not really a cross-over, you will not see the characters from any of the non-Rowling works I am taking ideas from here. Similarly, much of the "theology" in this work is more like a comic book's depiction of Catholicism than a true representation. Mark Twain famously wrote that Huckleberry Finn has neither motive nor moral,¹ I will allow that I have the motive of entertaining at least myself.

As I said, that book caused a me to think about the Harry Potter universe differently, but it was not until I was reading CmptrWz' For Want of an Outfit Chapters 30 through 35 that what I am trying for here really came clear. Left unadulterated, Mrs. Rowling's Harry Potter universe has too few consequences. I harp on that theme in my Harrypedia. This fan fiction is a harsher universe. Magic, even if not "dark" and intentionally harmful, cannot always be undone or fixed. There can be not only life-long repercussions, but generational repercussions from the spells and potions that are so often carelessly used.

I am taking some things from Many Waters, some from C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, some from actual Catholic theology, some from various myths and legends, and some from Tolkien's Middle Earth universe. I am grafting these ideas into the Harry Potter universe, replacing some of its actual world building with these grafted bits, extending it in other places. The end result will, like Many Waters, be really really bad theology, that's okay and in fact inevitable (I think) when you mix in the mythological and Harry Potter elements.

A lot of authors will try to do almost all their world building within the narrative. I realise this is technically better, but it is also harder to do. Since I am pulling from several disparate, previously existing, universes that the reader may well already be familiar with, and because I am not an awesome writer actually capable of pulling off the vision in my head, I am going to set the stage and provide some of the world building in the form of Appendices that authors generally do not publish. These world building notes are useful to understand the story, but are hopefully not truly necessary. Most (everything in the backstory section) are written from the perspective of a researcher within the universe of the narrative. I have attempted to call out the places where that is not true.