Enter the Dragon (Harry Potter/Shadowrun)

[megrisvernin]

Following the story, some particular passages that stood out to me.

She would get even with those miserable goblins and that brat of a Boy-Who-Lived if it was the last thing she did.

And with his little pet, too!

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Wizard of oz reference.

Regarding the Dragons going to war over a tenth of a percent, I suspect it was more an issue of precedent in some encroachment Wizards did.

The biggest danger of the stone rings Snape and company found would be the risk of a domino effect. One detonating destroying the physical boundaries for the others, letting them release their energy. Now a purely random magical effect would be unlikely to trigger too many domineos, but given how large of a crater they describe if the energy was releasted into a blasting spell, that going off could easily trigger releases of other energy wells, leading to a dozen or more wild collapses.

Aunt Petunia had never made sense before, so he figured there was no reason for her to start now, even if she was apparently nicer.

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A child's observation, though still poignant.

Harry's insistence that obviously he would choose another damsel eventually, and she would come with him thank you very much were a bit amusing. It reinforces the moments when he's really a big scary dragon, and in the end they have to find a way to deal with the things he insists on. I suspect him carrying a gun with him. I find it hard to argue that Harry Potter being destined to fight Voldemort it isn't a sensible notion. The fact that Harry really doesn't actually need a gun to hurt someone he wants to, and it might provide a way to deal with threats without revealing dragonness is useful too.

Attached to the web-work of leather straps she had fitted tightly to most of her body — the interaction of which with her human-bits had held Tony's attention for longer than he was strictly comfortable with — the centaur carried a military-looking gun, one of those with the bullets stored in a little metal box forward of the trigger, a disturbingly large number of extras of those little ammunition boxes, a second gun that looked like a hunting rifle with a very long barrel, yet another gun that he recognized as a shotgun from the westerns he used to watch as a child, a sizeable variety of knives of various makes, and a very modern high-powered pulley-operated compound bow — he was pretty sure he recognized it as a top-of-the-line Browning — complete with a quiver full of equally modern carbon-aluminum arrows.

In short, she looked like she was carrying enough weaponry to field a full squad of modern infantry in a combat zone.

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Being a Centaur really does let you carry a bit more than a person, at least with straps. More area to put spots to hold things. And more physical ability to carry them.

"Okay, Harry," the centaur said, calmly taking the new bag from him and hooking it to her saddle alongside the others before giving the boy a hand up into said saddle and ambling off in the direction the boy had indicated, though Tony noticed that the reins remained looped over the saddle horn rather than in the boy's hands.

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Reminds me of Shadeversity's videos over the guy on a Centaur's back facing backwards. The Centaur is driving and doesn't need need reins.

With that decided upon, they set off for the wand shop. All three Grangers were given quite a fright by the thinning-haired man who seemed to appear from nowhere, only for Harry to ask why he smelled like fish, and the rather crestfallen man, who introduced himself as Ollivander, explained that small quantities of cod liver oil were used in the making of the glue used to hold the different wand components together and the finish used to polish them.

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You ruined his appearance Harry. I'm guessing Olivander likes appearing mysterious for his customers. Part of the store charm!

The boy finally paused for a breath before continuing, "Plus, Mr. Snape always says you should pay exactly what something is worth because if you overpay for things, then you're encouraging bad habits in the craftsman who made it, and if you underpay for something, then you're cheating an honest man out of the fruits of his labors. Those cauldrons were cheaply made, so you shouldn't pay too much, or you'll encourage people to make things even cheaper."

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Huh on a certain level I appreciate this, though I am mindful that fixed costs means you might need a certain amount of profit to keep things going. I suspect Snape has explained that bit to Harry.

The just made the declarations and you scurried to distort the rule book in order to allow it. Your mental gymnastics in those attempts would not have been out of place in the muggle Olympics. The boy has developed nothing in the way of cunning because he has had no need of it.

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Very true Severus!

 

[The Unicorn]

I couldn't imagine there being more than ~10,000 wizards in the British Isles. 4-8 students per dorm at Hogwarts, 8 dorms per year, 200 year mean life expectancy => 10K wizards.

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Not 10k wizards, 10k (or possibly 7k) Hogwarts graduates. That's not counting everyone who doesn't go to Hogwarts (Home-schooled, attending a different school then the best magical school in Britain, etc) and then you need to add all the other people who are part of wizarding britain.

What I've read felt like a small town. When the cops (aurors) show up, it's always the same handful of faces.[/quote]
1)the Aurors are supposed to be the Elite cops, meaning there is another group who aren't elite. I don't know of any small town that has a police department large enough to have a dedicated department of detectives or SWAT with half a dozen (mnimum given the characters we see) members.

The mayor ("Minister for Magic") has that combination of personal charm and incompetence that wouldn't be elected if there were anyone else running for the position.

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I wish. People like that get elected to run countries (please no one mention any names of living politicians).

There's only one newspaper. There's only one bank. There's only one bookshop. There's only one wandmaker.

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There are at least two newspapers and a niche market magazine (Daily Prophet, Lovegood's paper, Witch Weekly) and the last is much more indicative of population than the lack of a dozen different newspapers. Even if you assume the Daily prophet is the only major newspapaer that just shows how passive the Wizarding population is and/or how totalitarian the government is. Even in small towns you'll generally have multiple papers if only because someone disagrees with the politics of the first paper.

There's only one medical facility and it's combined research, treatment and long term care.

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False. There are at least two medical care facilities(and the reason those are the only known ones is that they're the ones Harry went to), there is only one major trauma hospital, and the fact that it's large enough to have multiple separate wards suggests it's a large hospital not just a 20-30 bed hospital which would provide all the needs of a 10,000 person community (IRL you generally have 2-4 hospital bets per 1000 people https://www.healthsystemtracker.org...-capita-many-comparable-countries/#item-start If we assume St. Mungo's has 100 beds, and ignoring the fact they'd need far fewer beds than an equivalent RL hospital, that would suggest a population of 30-50 thousand.

Muggleborn wizards being purely random doesn't reflect that wizards mostly have wizard children?If 1 in 1000 children born amongst the muggle population is a wizard then shouldn't 1 in 1000 children born to wizards be a wizard?

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Not how it works. If the effect was purely genetic with no environmental factor, and was determined by a single Mendellian Allele (with magic being recessive) then you'd get 100% of children born to a wizard and witch being magical, 50% of the children of a pairing where only one parent was magical and 25% of the children where neither parent was.
If there are multiple alleles affecting things, or there is an enviromental factor it rapidly becomes more complex, but it's quite possible to design a set of conditions that would produce the random "1 in 1000 doesn't match" JKR described.

They don't have cinemas or computers or any other kind of recreation on a Saturday afternoon. It's quidditch or chess or reading a book.

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Correction - Canon Harry doesn't have any other recreation. Even with just what Harry notices we know they have the radio, gobstones (which is popular enough that even Harry noticed the club for it), popular musicians that hold concerts, etc.

Do wizards pay taxes? If so, do they pay in galleons or pounds? who collects them and why didn't any of the characters in the book complain about the inland revenue? Should Peter Pettigrew have gone down for tax evasion? If not, how do any of the public servants (including the professors at Hogwarts) get paid? Are galleons an international currency? How do the goblins avoid the problems that hit Greece when they took on the Euro?

Where are the wizard miners? weavers? real estate agents? lawyers? accountants? tax collectors?

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The answer to all these is the same - Harry didn't pay notice them. I n the early books Harry was a young child and not expected to notice most of that even if he was curious about what is going on (and Harry very much wasn't). In the later books there's a war going on, and that affects what people will care about.

why isn't there a wizarding public library?

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Because it goes against everything the Wizarding society represents.

One relevant bit here is the House system, which, looking back, I now see has only been hinted at in the vaguest of terms, but it's an important part of the setting. I think most of the explanation got accidentally cut during my editing of Snape's expository rant in 2.7.7. I'll make sure to work it in soon, probably at the end of chapter 3, it'll fit the story well.

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I knew I remembered that.

dead

some kid that has seven years of school, is likely only middly skilled and has no realy experience fighting a "war" with magic vs wizard with several decades experience and a war or two behind them

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Not vs. a wizard with decades of experience - vs. dozens of wizards with decades of experience.

One thing I would expect to see in this sort of setting is ghettos of muggleborns (using the original meaning, i.e walled/defensive communities banding together for mutual defense).

 

[Doghead13]

If the Wizards are just that much a bunch of bastards, how come they even hide from muggles?

Given the numbers and power they have, why bother hiding in the first place? Ethics certainly don't appear to be the reason.

Especially as they started in pre-industrial times where modern weapons weren't a thing yet..

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Consider the entire theme of the story: change.

The Wizarding World is in a state of monumental population boom and has been since Krakatoa went up. Those circia 66,000 muggleborns? That's not the children of muggleborns, not 'halfbloods', that's wizards and witches with two nonmagical parents, many of them then going on to have 2.4 kids and a dog. The entire background is one of socieconomic change even more profound than our own industrial revolution. Griselda Marchebank can most likely remember Wizarding Britain with a population on the low side of fifty thou. They have been in a continuous state of full-on crisis for over a century. Grindlewald and Voldemort aren't even remotely close to the only Dark Lords in Dumbles' lifetime - they're just the famous ones. Go back to the time of the formalisation of the Statute of Secrecy and they did not have the numbers to take over: it's as simple as that.

This fic is - or at least was when I was its author - about that crisis coming to a head, the culmination of those sweeping changes and, ultimately, a reformed pureblood-supremacist, a fanatical revolutionary, and an absurdly powerful kindhearted little boy coming together to make that culmination happen without becoming the absolute bloodbath with all the wrong people dead and the muggle world burning too that any one of the three acting alone would have resulted in.

This is not a fic where one character solves everything.

 

[AlternativePerspectives]

A lot of interesting discussion since the last story post.

One thing that popped up, was the argument that not everyone is a AC20 wizard. And that is fine.

But you don't need to be a powerhouse to apparate.
And apparating to a brothel/cafe where rich people are meeting, and detonating a backpack filled with muggle explosives (that the muggleborn terrorist freedom fighter organization would know of and could potentially obtain with simple notice-me-not charm + walking into a military base), does not take fuck-you level of powers.

Think IRA if they had teleportation.

The take-away is that there may be reasons for diagon alley isn't blown up weekly, but so far I haven't seen them raised (just off the top of the head, the whole place is protected with intent based wards, but that doesn't entirely solve the issue of muggleborn with stolen guns ambushing purebloods in the countryside or setting mundane IEDs/mines outside their mantions. Unless everyone lives in paranoid terror and only travels in warded areas and only via floo/portkey/apparation to other safe places...)

 

[wichajster]

Maybe while the worst parts are utterly horrible, but it is far from a typical fate of Muggleborns?

Or maybe it can be explained by relatively small population that usually only extreme minority goes for terrorism/freedom fighting?

Or both?

 

[The Unicorn]

The take-away is that there may be reasons for diagon alley isn't blown up weekly, but so far I haven't seen them raised

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It was actually mentioned several times. The setting has Wards, and rich and evil people will inherntly have better wards than even Dumbledore could put up on his own meaning that actually getting the people you are after is effectively impossible.
Someone could go with your plan (although I'll note explosives are much harder to use safely, and much less effective than most people imagine) and if they pulled it off might manage to kill a muggleborn and their family and couple of poor half-bloods who were in the area and injure a few other people (although with their healing magic that won't do any lasting damage. The next day a bill further restricting the rights of mugglebons will get passed, if the terrorist escaped his idiocy alive he'll be captured and made an example of and the only thing accomplished is made things better for the Slavers.

While there are idiots who'd decide to do something that stupid, not caring about how counter productive it is the intersection between people so stupid/enraged not to care about this being counterproductive, people willing to kill themselves to strike back, and people able to think well enough to acquire the explosives and get them into place is fortunately non-existent.

I imagine someone does periodically manage to attack one of the brothels or factories and is killed, sometimes managing to do some damage first, and life goes on for everyone else.

On a different note Dunkelzahn thinking about groups of muggleborns banding together, I realized if they get enough money/power there's no reason they couldn't become one of the houses officially. Only question is if "enough" is in the range that is practical for them to achieve?

 

[Dunkelzahn]

Consider the entire theme of the story: change.

The Wizarding World is in a state of monumental population boom and has been since Krakatoa went up. Those circia 66,000 muggleborns? That's not the children of muggleborns, not 'halfbloods', that's wizards and witches with two nonmagical parents, many of them then going on to have 2.4 kids and a dog. The entire background is one of socieconomic change even more profound than our own industrial revolution. Griselda Marchebank can most likely remember Wizarding Britain with a population on the low side of fifty thou. They have been in a continuous state of full-on crisis for over a century. Grindlewald and Voldemort aren't even remotely close to the only Dark Lords in Dumbles' lifetime - they're just the famous ones. Go back to the time of the formalisation of the Statute of Secrecy and they did not have the numbers to take over: it's as simple as that.

This fic is - or at least was when I was its author - about that crisis coming to a head, the culmination of those sweeping changes and, ultimately, a reformed pureblood-supremacist, a fanatical revolutionary, and an absurdly powerful kindhearted little boy coming together to make that culmination happen without becoming the absolute bloodbath with all the wrong people dead and the muggle world burning too that any one of the three acting alone would have resulted in.

This is not a fic where one character solves everything.

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Well-stated. While the exact circumstances aren't quite identical, the fact that everything is in flux at the moment is spot on. The current society isn't a long-term stable one, by any stretch.

A lot of interesting discussion since the last story post.

One thing that popped up, was the argument that not everyone is a AC20 wizard. And that is fine.

But you don't need to be a powerhouse to apparate.
And apparating to a brothel/cafe where rich people are meeting, and detonating a backpack filled with muggle explosives (that the muggleborn terrorist freedom fighter organization would know of and could potentially obtain with simple notice-me-not charm + walking into a military base), does not take fuck-you level of powers.

Think IRA if they had teleportation.

The take-away is that there may be reasons for diagon alley isn't blown up weekly, but so far I haven't seen them raised (just off the top of the head, the whole place is protected with intent based wards, but that doesn't entirely solve the issue of muggleborn with stolen guns ambushing purebloods in the countryside or setting mundane IEDs/mines outside their mantions. Unless everyone lives in paranoid terror and only travels in warded areas and only via floo/portkey/apparation to other safe places...)

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Teleportation, while useful, is also not terribly difficult to block, and most places of business block it as a matter of course, to reduce shoplifting, if nothing else.

Diagon Alley, for instance, has a receiving location at which apparition and portkeys are permitted, everything else is warded (note that the bulk of Gringotts Bank is actually elsewhere, the storefront is a portal, much like the one at King's Cross, and as a consequence, the Bank has its own wards and access point which is where Harry usually passes through on his own trips to the Alley). Most other magical shopping, or even residential, areas are set up in similar fashion.

This admittedly would make for a prime IED target, if you have people skilled with explosives, though it won't take too many of those before someone comes up with countermeasures.

On the manor houses and such, one of the first defenses employed by everyone is secrecy --- the magic is very mature and very widespread, and they're used to thinking that way, having been accustomed to it by the secrecy policies for a very long time. Finding a manor house is a major effort, much less approaching one in secret and breaching the wards.

As for living in paranoid terror... well, the travel protocol you described fits the profile of a paranoiac wizard well, but it also fits the profile of a lazy or hurried wizard pretty well too. Among those who can afford to line the pockets of the Malfoys by buying floo powder in bulk, a fair number have actually forgotten what their homes look like from the outside.

<SNIP>
On a different note Dunkelzahn thinking about groups of muggleborns banding together, I realized if they get enough money/power there's no reason they couldn't become one of the houses officially. Only question is if "enough" is in the range that is practical for them to achieve?

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Pooling resources is definitely something people might do, and the Houses don't actually have a set minimum for required wealth (though those resources are what is paying for your security, so take that 'no minimum' with a grain of salt). The Houses are hierarchical based on establishment, though, so a new House will not have all the rights and privileges of an older one (expeditionary rights are reserved to Ancient and Noble Houses, for example). The important ones for this purpose, though --- shared self-defense among the members and the legal safety net --- are available from the beginning.

The main limiting factor to forming a new House that way is trust, really. In order to secure the legal defenses described earlier (the Weasley version of the Frank and Betty court scenario) you have to pass your right to freely enter into contracts off to your Head of House --- not just letting them enter you into contracts like a power of attorney, but actually passing the right over entirely so you can't do it anymore. Therefore, everyone signing on to be adopted into the prospective new House is signing over a lot of power to the prospective Head, and there is little to no recourse if it turns out that the Head was an unwise choice.

It's one thing if you've got actual blood ties binding you together to smooth things, but that level of trust in what is essentially a business arrangement? Might happen, might not.

 

[demonLord]

The main limiting factor to forming a new House that way is trust, really. In order to secure the legal defenses described earlier (the Weasley version of the Frank and Betty court scenario) you have to pass your right to freely enter into contracts off to your Head of House. Therefore, everyone signing on to be adopted into the prospective new House is signing over a lot of power to the prospective Head, and there is little to no recourse if it turns out that the Head was an unwise choice.

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Instead of a house, what about a guild? That would be doable right? Guild by weird mix between democracy, talent and seniority. Wouldn't it be (not)-trivial for a bunch of muggleborn to bandy together and setup their own guild?

The possibility of a pureblood supremacist like Malfoy coming down hard on them is always there but keeping a low profile until they have a sufficient number might keep them safe. Risk is worth the reward I think.

The same magic that protects purebloods might also protect muggleborn, depending on how much access they will have to stuff like warding, fidelus etc post Hogwarts. I remember there was a fic where a muggleborn hoards as much knowledge as possible while in Hogwarts because there was no way to gain any decent magical knowledge post-hogwarts without being born into a old pureblood house.

 

[Pinklestia]

You are forgetting the loses witches abd wizards had during magical WWII and then during both of Tom rebellions.

Why do you think Hogwarts has so many unused classrooms?

 

[ConsiderableHat]

Why do you think Hogwarts has so many unused classrooms?

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Because Hogwarts is a castle. For whatever reason - and "It's the 10th Century and shit's always kicking off yo." is probably it - the Founders fortified the site of their school. And the point of a castle is that it is the local defensive retreat for quite a wide area of countryside. Quite a lot of that 'unused' space in the castle will turn out to be not so unused if there's suddenly a war on and the inhabitants of Hogsmeade turn up with all their livestock and extended families.

That's not even taking in to account that over the years a lot of things will have been done/headquartered at Hogwarts Castle alongside the school and had buildings go up for them that, a couple of centuries later, are surplus to requirements but still kept. Castles attract that sort of thing.

 

[MutantRancor]

Because Hogwarts is a castle. For whatever reason - and "It's the 10th Century and shit's always kicking off yo." is probably it - the Founders fortified the site of their school. And the point of a castle is that it is the local defensive retreat for quite a wide area of countryside. Quite a lot of that 'unused' space in the castle will turn out to be not so unused if there's suddenly a war on and the inhabitants of Hogsmeade turn up with all their livestock and extended families.

That's not even taking in to account that over the years a lot of things will have been done/headquartered at Hogwarts Castle alongside the school and had buildings go up for them that, a couple of centuries later, are surplus to requirements but still kept. Castles attract that sort of thing.

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Historical castles were often quite small, just big enough for the castle's lord's family.

A castle is any fortified building which is also a person's home (if it's not a home it's a fortress), which I suppose Hogwarts qualifies for at least most of the year, but Hogwarts is by no means typical of castles. For the more typical kind, imagine a family home, made of stone, with a wall around it, and you'll be fairly close.

What you're describing sounds more like a walled village, compressed into a single building with a few associated outbuildings.

Here's a video that explains what's in a typical castle.

 

[ConsiderableHat]

One thing I would expect to see in this sort of setting is ghettos of muggleborns (using the original meaning, i.e walled/defensive communities banding together for mutual defense).

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Uh, no. The original meaning of ghetto was ghetto. A place where a racially-defined minority was required to live by law, with sunset laws for them in the rest of the town. Venice had the first one called by that name - it still is, and is a tourist sight nowadays - and it was for the Jews. The practise is older, even in Venice - Venice had small-g ghettoes before they instituted the gapital-G Ghetto. (How it got its name is an ongoing etymological argument.)

Motives for establishing a ghetto for your local minority range from 'we don't want them mixing with decent folk even if we need them around to shovel shit and similar during the day' to 'we keep them all in one place until their slot in the extermination camp's schedule rolls around.' Either way it's a thing imposed on the oppressed group, not a defensive retreat.

If the muggleborns are establishing a secure haven away from the slavers, it will have to be *away* from the slavers or it's surrounded and functions as a ghetto regardless of the intentions of those within. There's been mention of an underground railroad with a safe retreat at the far end. Let's wait and see what that is.

 

[inverted_helix]

So I just finished reading this story. I remember reading the original version by Doghead years ago, and I'm glad to see this continued.

I've read little bits of the comments though not all of them. It seems like I'm a bit of an outlier though. I had little problem with most of the elements of the story, though I do think muggleborn terrorism, or just muggleborns leaving entirely to establish their own society would probably be more of a thing by now.

My biggest issue with the story is the millions of years old dragons in hiding around the world. It just doesn't feel like it matches with the rest of the story. I mean this basically seems like it's a struggle of reforming a society that's corrupt to the core. However I can't help but keep thinking "soon ancient dragons will just obliterate/conquer everything, corrupt or not". Seeing Harry introducing industrial equipment to the wizarding world is cool. The economic elements of this story are some of my favorite parts. And I do wish we could see the impact on the muggle world of the Goblins selling these super materials.

However I am concerned those elements just aren't going to matter at all when some 30 million year old dragon vaporizes the UK in a single shot later as collateral damage, probably barely scratching their actual target. Having such absurdities around kind of renders this whole thing pointless. The entire wizarding world somehow working together is a rounding error compared to something that's been gaining power since before primates were a thing. Those sorts of things lurking in the background kind of makes it hard to care about all the current characters. Which is sad because you've done a good job of making a lot of these characters interesting.

 

[Skjadir]

So I just finished reading this story. I remember reading the original version by Doghead years ago, and I'm glad to see this continued.

I've read little bits of the comments though not all of them. It seems like I'm a bit of an outlier though. I had little problem with most of the elements of the story, though I do think muggleborn terrorism, or just muggleborns leaving entirely to establish their own society would probably be more of a thing by now.

My biggest issue with the story is the millions of years old dragons in hiding around the world. It just doesn't feel like it matches with the rest of the story. I mean this basically seems like it's a struggle of reforming a society that's corrupt to the core. However I can't help but keep thinking "soon ancient dragons will just obliterate/conquer everything, corrupt or not". Seeing Harry introducing industrial equipment to the wizarding world is cool. The economic elements of this story are some of my favorite parts. And I do wish we could see the impact on the muggle world of the Goblins selling these super materials.

However I am concerned those elements just aren't going to matter at all when some 30 million year old dragon vaporizes the UK in a single shot later as collateral damage, probably barely scratching their actual target. Having such absurdities around kind of renders this whole thing pointless. The entire wizarding world somehow working together is a rounding error compared to something that's been gaining power since before primates were a thing. Those sorts of things lurking in the background kind of makes it hard to care about all the current characters. Which is sad because you've done a good job of making a lot of these characters interesting.

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You don´t need to worry about the dragons as much for several reasons.
The business building that Harry does is something pretty much every great dragon seems to be doing in some way or another instead of obliterate/conquer nations.
They are very much aware of their power and also like the world not being a magical wasteland.
That doesn´t mean they are nice people, they just tend to keep their fights in the shadows.

Edit: for the age of the dragons i don´t think any of the still living great dragons is older then 25k years (~first age) and i am only aware that the current great dragons that i know of are all maybe around 10k years old.

Apart from that as this is a shadowrun cross there are enough things out there that are more then strong enough to get into fights with great dragons and win.

Edit2: Some of the beings/things that can already came up in the story.

 

[tenchifew]

So I just finished reading this story. I remember reading the original version by Doghead years ago, and I'm glad to see this continued.

I've read little bits of the comments though not all of them. It seems like I'm a bit of an outlier though. I had little problem with most of the elements of the story, though I do think muggleborn terrorism, or just muggleborns leaving entirely to establish their own society would probably be more of a thing by now.

My biggest issue with the story is the millions of years old dragons in hiding around the world. It just doesn't feel like it matches with the rest of the story. I mean this basically seems like it's a struggle of reforming a society that's corrupt to the core. However I can't help but keep thinking "soon ancient dragons will just obliterate/conquer everything, corrupt or not". Seeing Harry introducing industrial equipment to the wizarding world is cool. The economic elements of this story are some of my favorite parts. And I do wish we could see the impact on the muggle world of the Goblins selling these super materials.

However I am concerned those elements just aren't going to matter at all when some 30 million year old dragon vaporizes the UK in a single shot later as collateral damage, probably barely scratching their actual target. Having such absurdities around kind of renders this whole thing pointless. The entire wizarding world somehow working together is a rounding error compared to something that's been gaining power since before primates were a thing. Those sorts of things lurking in the background kind of makes it hard to care about all the current characters. Which is sad because you've done a good job of making a lot of these characters interesting.

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Shadowrun dragons are absurdly mighty.
They are also born schemers. The successful ones, and these are the old ones, are very much aware that people can get lucky, thus going all out against the world is the last thing they would do. They gain (more) money, influence and followers.

Actually Harry gathering his battle harem and beginning his financial enterprise will very much meet approval from most of the important ones.
This said, most are not nice, but they are far more likely to see people (and Harry) as a resource to be used repeatedly, than something to crush maim burn.

 

[Doghead13]

My biggest issue with the story is the millions of years old dragons in hiding around the world. It just doesn't feel like it matches with the rest of the story. I mean this basically seems like it's a struggle of reforming a society that's corrupt to the core. However I can't help but keep thinking "soon ancient dragons will just obliterate/conquer everything, corrupt or not".

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Not in hiding: asleep. The level of magic in the world is too low for them to be up and about quite yet - in that sense, Harry's running on the dragon equivalent of a jumbo-sized can of Red Bull courtesy of Avebury.

They're from Shadowrun, their ages are in the low tens of thousands, and they're not that destructive for a variety of reasons - not the least being the existence of people, such as the sarcastic old pointy-eared asshole with the facepaint and the warped sense of humour recently seen examining the scene of Harry's actions at Stonehenge, able to play on their level.

 

[EternitynChaos]

Shadowrun dragons are absurdly mighty.
They are also born schemers. The successful ones, and these are the old ones, are very much aware that people can get lucky, thus going all out against the world is the last thing they would do. They gain (more) money, influence and followers.

Actually Harry gathering his battle harem and beginning his financial enterprise will very much meet approval from most of the important ones.
This said, most are not nice, but they are far more likely to see people (and Harry) as a resource to be used repeatedly, than something to crush maim burn.

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Yep, the big issue Harry should have to deal with when things start to roll on the Awakening and other Dragons join things, is a certain Great Wyrm who views all of Wales, and Basically all of the United Kingdom as there holdings, no matter what the silly little people who live there may think, and considering the way Rhonabwy wakes up and acts I don't think Harry will be all that willing to share territory with him

 

[tenchifew]

Yep, the big issue Harry should have to deal with when things start to roll on the Awakening and other Dragons join things, is a certain Great Wyrm who views all of Wales, and Basically all of the United Kingdom as there holdings, no matter what the silly little people who live there may think, and considering the way Rhonabwy wakes up and acts I don't think Harry will be all that willing to share territory with him

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He was pretty low profile as far as I remember though?
And not really active in Dragon politics either?

This said, he did go on a small rampage just after awakening, although some Dragons did this and it seems like awakening can lead to such, before sentience kicks back in fully.

He killed 100 or so people, mostly due to collapsing houses, but later apologized, paid reparations and financed rebuilding. Since it was 2012, after beginning of VITAS (2010, killed off a quarter of world population till 2012), Year of Chaos (2011 too many deaths to count, basically demolition man before cryo world wide) and multiple nuclear meltdowns (at least 20000 deaths just in England), as well as Feuerschwinge's rampage in Germany (a Great Dragon on a rampage for 4 months), not only did not anyone press any charges, all were very happy that this was another reasonable Dragon.

Afterwards he retreated to Wales and bought some stocks in megacons.
I do not know much more about him, admittedly.

And yes, "fun" times are ahead. Shadowrun is not a nice world, at all.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

He was pretty low profile as far as I remember though?
And not really active in Dragon politics either?

This said, he did go on a small rampage just after awakening, although some Dragons did this and it seems like awakening can lead to such, before sentience kicks back in fully.

He killed 100 or so people, mostly due to collapsing houses, but later apologized, paid reparations and financed rebuilding. Since it was 2012, after beginning of VITAS (2010, killed off a quarter of world population till 2012), Year of Chaos (2011 too many deaths to count, basically demolition man before cryo world wide) and multiple nuclear meltdowns (at least 20000 deaths just in England), as well as Feuerschwinge's rampage in Germany (a Great Dragon on a rampage for 4 months), not only did not anyone press any charges, all were very happy that this was another reasonable Dragon.

Afterwards he retreated to Wales and bought some stocks in megacons.
I do not know much more about him, admittedly.

And yes, "fun" times are ahead. Shadowrun is not a nice world, at all.

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There are also some hints of a soap-opera-worthy draconic custody battle going on between him and the Sea Dragon over some eggs she claims he stole from her but of which he may or may not actually be the father.

Anyway, I have some plans for Rhonabwy, the reasons for his rough wake-up (which tie in to him being on the Welsh flag), and his interactions with Harry after the Awakening.

I also have plans for several of the other great dragons involving, among other things, a scheme one of Harry's more prominent elders has been working on since the second age that Harry manages to accidentally stumble into in the course of his own pursuits.

 

[Skjadir]

There are also some hints of a soap-opera-worthy draconic custody battle going on between him and the Sea Dragon over some eggs she claims he stole from her but of which he may or may not actually be the father.

Anyway, I have some plans for Rhonabwy, the reasons for his rough wake-up (which tie in to him being on the Welsh flag), and his interactions with Harry after the Awakening.

I also have plans for several of the other great dragons involving, among other things, a scheme one of Harry's more prominent elders has been working on since the second age that Harry manages to accidentally stumble into in the course of his own pursuits.

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There is also Celedyr how like Rhonabwy is currently sleeping in wales (to be noted the two are as far as the wiki goes on friendly terms).

The one thing i am not sure about is if Harry is truely a great dragon at this point as he seems lacks one of the definding features that they have (the ability to have children), when we see him make the transition from dragon to great dragon and how he will look after it*.

*it is noted that the one transition from dragon to great dragon in shadowrun came with noticeable physical change to the dragon(Masaru).

 

[inverted_helix]

Edit: for the age of the dragons i don´t think any of the still living great dragons is older then 25k years (~first age) and i am only aware that the current great dragons that i know of are all maybe around 10k years old.

Apart from that as this is a shadowrun cross there are enough things out there that are more then strong enough to get into fights with great dragons and win.

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The oldest surviving dragons are a trio of clutch mates who hatched during the Eocene, about 37 My ago.

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So yeah. That's a thing, and kind of blows up your speculation on them. Dragons that are millions of years old are going to be a whole different paradigm from ones less than a percent their age.

Not in hiding: asleep. The level of magic in the world is too low for them to be up and about quite yet - in that sense, Harry's running on the dragon equivalent of a jumbo-sized can of Red Bull courtesy of Avebury.

They're from Shadowrun, their ages are in the low tens of thousands, and they're not that destructive for a variety of reasons - not the least being the existence of people, such as the sarcastic old pointy-eared asshole with the facepaint and the warped sense of humour recently seen examining the scene of Harry's actions at Stonehenge, able to play on their level.

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To reiterate:

The oldest surviving dragons are a trio of clutch mates who hatched during the Eocene, about 37 My ago.

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They aren't shadowrun dragons limited to merely a few ten thousands of years. They're orders of magnitudes older.

Now granted on the hiding vs sleep thing I was being a bit misleading with word choice. I meant as in the fact no one knows they're around. Though they aren't all asleep either:

The most recent such was the Illuminati, engineered by the sibling lairing under the Antarctic ice sheet using astral projection and dream manipulation while the dragon in question was hibernating through the Fifth Age.

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[tenchifew]

So yeah. That's a thing, and kind of blows up your speculation on them. Dragons that are millions of years old are going to be a whole different paradigm from ones less than a percent their age.

To reiterate:
They aren't shadowrun dragons limited to merely a few ten thousands of years. They're orders of magnitudes older.

Now granted on the hiding vs sleep thing I was being a bit misleading with word choice. I meant as in the fact no one knows they're around. Though they aren't all asleep either:

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Well, I think such old dragons would be extremely removed from day to day hustles of the world, I expect most of them to perceive millenia as years.
Short of a full blown Horror invasion I doubt they would bother to interfere.

You do not live such long lives if you take regular risks, after all.

They would be like Xianxia "Venerable Elders" or "Great Spirits", more background than plot devices.
This said, all above is purely my personal speculation.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

So yeah. That's a thing, and kind of blows up your speculation on them. Dragons that are millions of years old are going to be a whole different paradigm from ones less than a percent their age.

To reiterate:
They aren't shadowrun dragons limited to merely a few ten thousands of years. They're orders of magnitudes older.

Now granted on the hiding vs sleep thing I was being a bit misleading with word choice. I meant as in the fact no one knows they're around. Though they aren't all asleep either:

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Those are elements I added to the setting as a logical extension of my treatment of the great dragons as beings who get monotonically stronger with age. The idea is that they eventually reach a point where their ability to survive increases faster than the likelihood that they'll encounter something strong enough to kill them, so you'd expect the population dynamics to include such a Methuselan population segment. It's a bit of flavor I added to my background material for internal consistency which is irrelevant to the story as a whole.

However, sensible part of the setting or not, I didn't want to have them be a major part of the plot, so I added some tendencies among really old dragons that make them mostly irrelevant to the world at large (also discussed in the post you quoted). Old dragons tend to descend further and further into an isolated hermitage in which they focus on some inconsequential obsession --- it's sort of the same logic as the vampire stories that talk about older vampires descending into obsessive-compulsive counting and such things. Interfering in the world at large in any significant way is a young dragon's game (with 'young' stretching up to about a hundred thousand years). There might be little hints and Easter eggs about hidden things in secret places --- if I think it would be amusing --- but they're not going to pop out of the woodwork and annihilate a city.

As for the secret society thing, (while also a bit of private humor I hadn't originally thought to share) the mechanism allowing it in-setting is a sort of dream-walking mediated by astral projection. In my current interpretation, astral projection barely sips at energy reserves for a dragon, and so as long as they prepare before going to sleep, a sufficiently talented dragon doesn't have to be awake and active to do it --- it's like a magical form of lucid dreaming. In this setting, one of the canon dragons has been doing that for the entirety of the fifth age --- though his efforts have actually been focused on a task in the astral demiplanes, rather than in manipulating human dreams. Dragons don't do it often because you have to wake up to turn it off, and being stuck for an entire Age with nothing to do but watch the world go by, unable to physically interact with anything, is no one's idea of a fun time.

In short, the really old dragons are a throw-away setting flavor piece which won't be relevant to the story as a whole.

There is also Celedyr how like Rhonabwy is currently sleeping in wales (to be noted the two are as far as the wiki goes on friendly terms).

The one thing i am not sure about is if Harry is truely a great dragon at this point as he seems lacks one of the definding features that they have (the ability to have children), when we see him make the transition from dragon to great dragon and how he will look after it*.

*it is noted that the one transition from dragon to great dragon in shadowrun came with noticeable physical change to the dragon(Masaru).

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I freely admit that my knowledge of the Shadowrun setting is incomplete, and I filled in details and, intentionally or not, altered some things along the way. The normal dragon to great dragon transition/metamorphosis was an element I hadn't seen before I'd already worked out the broad strokes of the plot, so I didn't include it.

In this setting, I'm treating great dragon status as an individual innate trait which results in some dragons growing to adult size and then stopping (normal dragons), and some dragons exhibiting an indeterminate growth habit (great dragons). Formal acknowledgement by dragon society is a different matter, of course --- one which won't happen for Harry before the end of the story, as he will remain very much the scrawny new kid on the block for the next few millennia --- but I'm not planning a sharp biological metamorphosis at this point.

 

[inverted_helix]

Those are elements I added to the setting as a logical extension of my treatment of the great dragons as beings who get monotonically stronger with age. The idea is that they eventually reach a point where their ability to survive increases faster than the likelihood that they'll encounter something strong enough to kill them, so you'd expect the population dynamics to include such a Methuselan population segment. It's a bit of flavor I added to my background material for internal consistency which is irrelevant to the story as a whole.

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Their continuous growth is actually what would do them in. The bigger they get the more food they need. At some point they can't possibly get enough food fast enough to sustain their size, even with magic. If they shut off their growth at some point, then they're no longer growing stronger with age.

Another option of course is that their perceived agelessness is really more a lifespan on the order of tens of thousands of years. No human would ever notice significant deterioration over their own life, so it could easily be viewed as agelessness. In most fictional settings supposedly ageless species don't have members more than a few thousand years old, but no one really takes note of that.

However, sensible part of the setting or not, I didn't want to have them be a major part of the plot, so I added some tendencies among really old dragons that make them mostly irrelevant to the world at large (also discussed in the post you quoted). Old dragons tend to descend further and further into an isolated hermitage in which they focus on some inconsequential obsession --- it's sort of the same logic as the vampire stories that talk about older vampires descending into obsessive-compulsive counting and such things. Interfering in the world at large in any significant way is a young dragon's game (with 'young' stretching up to about a hundred thousand years). There might be little hints and Easter eggs about hidden things in secret places --- if I think it would be amusing --- but they're not going to pop out of the woodwork and annihilate a city.

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Older vampires descending into compulsions is the sort of thing that tends to happen after a few hundred years, and you rarely hear about vampires tens of thousands of years old.

Though if we're talking psychological problems dragons committing suicide from boredom because it's literally the only thing they haven't done yet seems like it would be a pretty serious diminishing factor on the high end population.

As for the secret society thing, (while also a bit of private humor I hadn't originally thought to share) the mechanism allowing it in-setting is a sort of dream-walking mediated by astral projection. In my current interpretation, astral projection barely sips at energy reserves for a dragon, and so as long as they prepare before going to sleep, a sufficiently talented dragon doesn't have to be awake and active to do it --- it's like a magical form of lucid dreaming. In this setting, one of the canon dragons has been doing that for the entirety of the fifth age --- though his efforts have actually been focused on a task in the astral demiplanes, rather than in manipulating human dreams. Dragons don't do it often because you have to wake up to turn it off, and being stuck for an entire Age with nothing to do but watch the world go by, unable to physically interact with anything, is no one's idea of a fun time.

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Isn't this interfering with the world at large? Things like setting up secret societies on the scale of the illuminati do have major impacts on the world.

In this setting, I'm treating great dragon status as an individual innate trait which results in some dragons growing to adult size and then stopping (normal dragons), and some dragons exhibiting an indeterminate growth habit (great dragons). Formal acknowledgement by dragon society is a different matter, of course --- one which won't happen for Harry before the end of the story, as he will remain very much the scrawny new kid on the block for the next few millennia --- but I'm not planning a sharp biological metamorphosis at this point.

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It's kind of weird given you have dragons in this setting being a result of an intensive self engineering program for there to be any 'random' advantage like this. They've engineered all of their other traits, so why wouldn't every dragon be a great dragon?

 

[megrisvernin]

"Mr. Potter, you are fearless, and with good reason! But I'm afraid courage is a very different thing from fearlessness. Courage is acting despite your fear, and you have yet to face any situations sufficiently dangerous to showcase your courage. Gryffindors as a group tend to leap into dangerous situations readily, yes, but a situation which is dangerous for a wizard would pose little challenge to one such as you. Conversely, a situation even mildly dangerous for you would be beyond deadly to a wizard, and I shudder to think what would happen should your housemates leap into such a situation after you. I suspect that my sorting you into Gryffindor would quickly lead to a marked decline in the House's population through attrition."

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A rather insightful remark by the hat, I'm impressed.

"Dobby insults bad master to force Dobby to remember, and Dobby uses punishments to keep Dobby's focus," the elf explained. "Bad master is bad, and by saying bad master is bad, Dobby remembers even though Dobby enjoys work. Punishments remind Dobby of why bad master is bad. They keep Dobby from thinking bad master is not-so-bad."

The small creature's bulging eyes glittered darkly, "Bad master is bad; slavery is bad. Without pain, Dobby might forget. Dobby's father's father's father remembered before the magics were placed, when house elves were free. Dobby remembers stories. House elves love work, but house elves are not slaves!"

"Pain helps Dobby focus; helps Dobby remember that bad master is enemy."

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My respect for dobby just went thru the roof. Felt I had to say this was a very clever take on why Dobbie insults him even knowing he'll be punished.

With that, the diminutive intruder disappeared from the Lair with a soft pop, leaving the cave in silent darkness once more. After a few moments passed, Suze felt comfortable enough to reset the safety on her rifle with a soft click and ask, "Harry, what manner of creature was that? It looked like a house elf, but the feeling it gave off… I have rarely felt such a thing."

"He was a house elf," Harry reassured her as she put her gun back where it had been. "I think he's just one that remembers what house elves were before they were enslaved. I did some reading on them after I met Frizzy — she's the castle elf that delivers our food and stuff out here — and Mr. Snape filled in a bit more. House elves were apparently originally minor fae," at that word, Suze gasped, "that were called brownies around Scotland. They were called other things in other places. Anyway, back before they were enslaved, brownies liked to help people around the house in exchange for a bit of food and being a valued part of the household, but if they were mistreated they could be really dangerous."

"Of course, they could be dangerous! They are fae!" Suze hissed. "Why on earth were wizards foolish enough to invite fae into their homes?"

"Um, I kinda gather they didn't really," Harry said. "The brownies just kinda moved in without asking. Anyway, 'cause they're fae, and they can be kinda spotty about what they consider mistreatment…"

Suze snorted, "That is an understatement."

"…and wizards got the idea that they really oughtta put some guidelines on the interactions between wizards and brownies, so they put a contract in place which laid out what was okay and what wasn't. That's what turned them into house elves. I gather that worked pretty well for a long time, but later some wizards decided it wasn't enough and they started putting on more and more compulsions and control magics and stuff, and well… Mr. Snape told me that kind of thing works kinda weird with fae. Frizzy tells me that most elves are pretty happy with their lives, because most people don't go out of their way to mistreat them, and they like their work. The ones that are actually treated like family are the happiest, but some wizards do mistreat them, and when they do, well… I guess they eventually get Dobby."

"Indeed," his damsel agreed. "What insanity possessed wizards to not only bind a fae, but then whip it into a frothing rage? What happens when the leash slips?"

"I kinda get the impression that it might be a habit," Harry said, sounding puzzled himself. "A lot of the wizarding world seems to be built on being jerks to everyone just because they can, from what Mr. Snape tells me. It's a big part of what we're trying to fix."

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This makes a lot of sense. Fae are not something to be crossed, and House Elf magic is quite potent from what we can see in canon. Nice to know things get worse also implies things getting their comeuppance like Malfoy. I really, really like this Dobby.

"That's easy for you to say!" Ginny snapped as they passed through the doors into the station. "You've been around him for a whole year already!" The girl pouted, "You must have had lots of adventures and stuff with him by now, and you won't even tell me stories."

At this her brother winced slightly, "Ah, umm… not quite…"

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Hah. This is a fun almost allusion to canon, and something a younger sister with a herocrush on someone would say.

Well, his dear old Mum, bless her soul, had always told him, "A good thing ain't complete 'til it's shared," and it'd been far too long since they'd been able to introduce anyone new to the trade. It'd be grand to see some new faces as they learned about the joy of tending a beauty like 5972 as she pounded down the iron road, doing God's own work keeping good people fed, supplied, and taking them where they needed to go.

And maybe, just maybe, in a few years when his youngest said he wanted to grow up to be just like his Daddy, Mac wouldn't have to find a way to let him down gently like he'd had to with the lad's older brothers because there just wouldn't be a job for him if he tried. Maybe he'd be able to tell the boy, "Son, ya just pay attention ter yer old man, an' 'e'll teach ya everythin' ya need ter know." The fireman's eye's misted over in a way that had nothing at all to do with the heat of the blazing firebox he was tending.

That'd be a glorious day.

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Nice day in the life moment. Helps give perspective to the changes Harry is making. Then I remember this is a Shadowrun crossover, and oh boy! Changes are coming!

 

[wichajster]

Their continuous growth is actually what would do them in. The bigger they get the more food they need. At some point they can't possibly get enough food fast enough to sustain their size, even with magic. If they shut off their growth at some point, then they're no longer growing stronger with age.

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Magic in canon Harry Potter has FTL*, confirmed existence of souls, magic that shows no regards to conservation of energy, conceptual magic with ongoing rewrite of perceived reality (Fidelius charm), arbitrary limitations and no indications that magic reached some fundamental limits.

Feeding dragon is not going to be a problem.

*Yes, canon Harry Potter has confirmed FTL, though unusually short range one. No, it is neither floo, nor portkeys nor apparition. Yes, in books, not later fanon by Rownling.

 

[RedX]

*Yes, canon Harry Potter has confirmed FTL, though unusually short range one. No, it is neither floo, nor portkeys nor apparition. Yes, in books, not later fanon by Rownling.

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[Citation Needed]

 

[Gaming Geek]

[Citation Needed]

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The Map is one.

No information transission lag/delay. It's realtime, and apperently without limit.

The Orb in Book 1, that had LITERALLY the entire Milky Way displayed inside of it. I think that was the one being referenced?

 

[nyanaeve]

Except, you're not trying to cause as much damage as you can; you're trying to renovate an old rat-infested apartment building full of sick people and nurse the inhabitants back to health.

The average wizard with his .22 might be able to shoot some rats, but using that autocannon with anything less than consummate skill is just going to kill a bunch of people you're trying to save. The AC-130 is right out. Harry is best served by landing the metaphorical plane and sending in the crew to help, all that firepower is going to sit there unused.

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That is plan A, the B is simply bulldoze down the building a build a new one

 

[Doghead13]

You are forgetting the loses witches abd wizards had during magical WWII and then during both of Tom rebellions.

Why do you think Hogwarts has so many unused classrooms?

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I don't know about this fic, but what I built out for my current stuff is, because at the time the castle was constructed Hogwarts was the first modern-style school of magic in western Europe, possibly hands-down the first ever - the catchment area at the Founding included most of Scandanavia and possibly even parts of continental Europe, and as a result the school taught in multiple languages, many of them now dead or entirely lost (at least to muggles) such as Pictish, with a resulting need for far more classrooms than the modern school has a use for despite its actual student numbers not having changed in any particular measure. This may be a good fit for Dunlezahn's background about the gradual slide into hiding predating the Roman Empire - that could very well have led to resistance to teaching in Latin (the language used for education all over Europe right through the Middle Ages) and some dozen different languages were spoken in Britain alone at that time.

On a related note it's also worth highlighting how huge a deal the castle itself was at the time of it's construction.

In the ninth century castles were built out of wood, in the style known as a motte-and-bailey: nothing even remotely like Hogwarts had been constructed since the fall of Rome and its like would not be built for centuries after - for the first roughly three to four centuries of its existence it was hands-down the mightiest fortification on the entire planet and it would count as a major military strong point right up until the development of advanced gunpowder artillery roundabout the time of the enactment of the Statute of Secrecy; techniques for storming a fortress like Hogwarts would not be developed for two or three centuries after its construction, and the existence of magical teleportation makes it completely impossible to take by purely muggle siege. The building itself was a potent display of technological prowess at the end of the Viking Age. It would have been legendary worldwide, stories would most likely have been told of it as far afield as the eastern end of the Silk Road.

Its existence may even have had a role in the unification of the Kingdom of Scotland - bear in mind that Hogwarts had stood on that spot for well over half a millennium when the Statute of Secrecy came to be; hell, if the 'a thousand years old' it's stated to be in the 1990s is anything like close to accurate it predates the Norman conquest of England by roughly a century, and was built at a time that Viking raids were still ongoing all over Britain. I could well imagine the existence of this seemingly impregnable, hilariously unassailable, not-at-all-friendly fortress helping to drive the small muggle kingdoms that existed in Scotland at the time of its construction to band together.