InsaneJournal

First Year at Hogwarts original universe swappage.
The original fanfic is here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3587187/1/My_First_Year_At_Hogwarts_Or_How_Not_To_Write

Not necessary to read to understand the following, but that'll make things a little easier.

Now, onto the workings of the universe itself.

There are four groups of magic practitioners in the ‘verse; Casters, Seers, Artisans and Weavers.

Casters=The elite. They’re the equivalent of the purebloods in the HP universe and their powers are all about the flash/bang impressive kind of magic. They consider themselves to be above Artisans and Seers because they don’t require aids such as potions and crystal balls to perform magic. Their elemental correspondence is fire. They use wands or--if they’re very well trained--just their hands.

Seers=Lower on the totem than the Casters but higher than the Artisans. Seers correspond to both air and water and have control over things like astral travel, being able to see into the future, transfiguration, ESP, etc. They keep small vessels of water with them for divination purposes and crystals are how they channel their powers.

Artisans=Lower than the other two classes because they’re the most common type of magic practitioner. Artisans make potions, salves, are gifted in herbology and jewel crafting. They get their hands dirty, in other words and their elemental correspondence is earth. Medallions help to center and ground their magical powers, though their spell casting abilities are greatly weaker than Casters or Seers--naturally. They can build up their strength to rival that of Casters and Seers, but it takes a great deal of effort.

Weavers=Weavers have all the abilities of the first three classes to some extent. They don’t specialize and are equally good at all types of magic. They’re also very, very rare. Megara is the first Weaver born in over a century.

The familiars of the HP universe (cats, owls, frogs, etc) will all be replaced with small enchanted dragons which were specially bred for servitude. Dunno how that’ll work out, but that’s the general gist of it.

How Magic Came to Be: (THIS MAY CHANGE) Magic came from King Arthur’s court. Merlin was gifted with magic from the Fae Queen and ordered to spread it equally amongst mere mortals. He created the four groups and while their numbers were small to begin with, after centuries of marriages between normal humans and gifted ones, it’s all a hodgepodge of magical DNA now. Everyone’s got powers but the rarest of the rare squib equivalents.

THIS MAY REPLACE THE ABOVE: Instead of Merlin being given magic, the alternative is this:

Centuries ago, the Fae race--who are the world's most magical beings--decided that mankind, with his love of technology, wasn't worthy of recieving the powers of enchantment. Usually, they gave any given race of beings the opportunity to have this power at a certain point in their development, but man was simply too violent, power hungry and barbaric for this. The Fae Queen, in her wisdom, decided that every century, a child would be born and tested to see if the race as a whole was worthy of magic. Many centuries passed without anyone living up to her expectations, until Merlin gained her favor.

On his death bed, she offered to grant him one wish for a life well lived. She offered immortality, gold and eternal happiness. Instead, he asked that she create a world where the other members of the human race could know the wonder of magic as he had. She did so, creating a parallel earth, simply copying the planet as it was and planting the seeds of magic there. She gave Merlin an extra hundred years of life so that he could help develop his brethren and teach them. This way, on this paralell earth, everything that's happened here, also happened there. The same people were born, the same wars were fought, but for different reasons and with different weapons, etc.

Also, the Fae Race didn't give humankind all the secrets of magic. They still put a new person to the test every century to see if the human race as a whole is deserving of the next level of enchantment knowledge. Megara, with her gift of Second Sight, is one of these and will be instrumental in ushering in a new era of magic, just as Merlin was before her.

The villains of the story: Back when the magical community was still relatively new, an order came to be called The Dark Hand. It was a group of Casters who thought--because of their superior magical powers--that the other classes should serve them.

Seers and Artisans were enslaved, Weavers were all but wiped out because they posed the greatest threat to the Caster elite. It remained this way for several centuries (a dark age during which Artisans and Seers forgot how to cast like Casters because they weren’t taught how) until there was an uprising staged with the help of one of the Caster elite. A member of each class led the slave class in a revolution against the Dark Hand’s tyranny and, after the battle was over, these four people decided to create an academy (Fogswrath Academy) where all the classes would be trained to the fullest extent that their magics would allow. A way of keeping things more even, if you will, and to ensure that another dark age would never fall on the world again. Seers, Artisans, Weavers and Casters would all be taught the same things so that none would get the upper hand ever again.

FOGSWRATH ACADEMY:There are seven magical schools under the Fogswrath banner, one on each continent. Formal education starts at age seventeen and stops at age twenty two when the students are released out into the world to find their fortunes. At the end of those five years, a test is given and, based on your score, you’re branded for life as either an Artisan, Weaver, Seer or Caster. Your life literally depends on your grades.

Though elitism is supposedly frowned on, the fact of the matter is that Casters get the best, most lucrative jobs because they’re so powerful. It’s like…Casters are college graduates, Seers are high school graduates and Artisans are the drop-outs. Any schmuck can make a potion; not every schmuck can blow a whole city block away.

The Dark Hand is still active, much like the KKK is still active, and TDH’s greatest ambition is to reinstate the dark age when Casters ruled supreme. The Voldemort analogue/historical figure Grigori Rasputin is at the head of this little society and he needs the powers of a Weaver to implement his big take-over-the-world plan. I haven’t worked out why yet, but that’s how it is.

Artemis Caine is Megara from the future. In her timeline, she was seduced over the TDH’s side with promises of ultimate power but the world suffered greatly for it. She’s come back in time to stop herself from doing what she did the first time around. At the end of the story, she disappears, which is rather tragic, since Artemis has fallen in love with Matthew Blackwell (Snape) at that point. Or…he’s fallen in love with her, I don’t know.

The Quidditch chapters might get chucked completely or, I might just make up my own magical sport. For now, it’s called Brandysnatch…and I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. I think it might be like the X-Men’s danger room. Just a giant free-for-all battle ground.

EDIT: Apparently, Bandersnatch refers to the game of catching a dragon. Like trying to catch a greased pig. I like this idea. I'm keeping this idea.

The Englishness of the whole thing will be cut out with painful precision. No more gits, prats or anything like that. Just plain old idiots, jerks and jackasses…and everyone will drink coffee, dammit. Coffeeee!!

William Keaton (Harry Potter) won’t be the boy who lived, obviously, so ignore anything that talks about that. Instead, he's one of many who was selected at birth for the war against the Dark Hand. Every Constable (Auror equivilant) was selected due to a prophecy given about them at birth. William's prophecy states that he is one of seven who will be instrumental in the Dark Hand falling forever.

Meg’s the heroine here and Rasputin’s never fallen in the past, just the Constables doubled their efforts in hunting down members of TDH in recent years and its fallen out of fashion to be counted in their ranks. I like to think of them as like, villains constantly behind the scenes just waiting for an opportunity to strike and cause another war. They’re the mafia, pretty much. Step out of line, never get the opportunity to do so again.

The Weasley twins are still twins, but now they’re triplets…if that makes any sense at all…and it probably doesn’t. Okay, take Fred and George, but Ginny came along at the same time, making Ron the youngest. And there’s no Charlie, Bill or Percy, either.

…I’m confusing myself. Here, the rundown of who’s who:

Draco Malfoy=Eric Underwood
Lucius Malfoy=Clement Underwood
Harry Potter=William Keaton
Ron Weasley=Avery Weeks
Fred Weasley=Damien Weeks
George Weasley=Errol Weeks
Viola Weasley=Viola Weeks
Molly Weasley=Mary Weeks
Arthur Weasley=John Weeks
Hermione ‘Mi’ Granger=Anastasia ‘Anya’ Hunter
Minerva McGonagall=Bridgette Webster
Albus Dumbledore=Claude Murphy
Severus Snape=Matthew Blackwell
Pomona Sprout=Claire Sandoval
Lavender Brown=Ernestine Simple
Poppy Pomfrey=Petra Webb
Neville Longbottom=Gregory Bowers
Blaise Zabini=Jonathan Fulton
Pansy Parkinson=Lana Fitzgerald
Millicent Bullstrode=Minnie Gumble
Gregory Goyle=Virgil Floyd
Vincent Crabbe=Tracy Klien
Hagrid=Hemingway Meek
Fillius Flitwick=Adrian Forge
Lord Voldemort=Grigori Rasputin (for now)

Diagon Alley is now called Vanderpoole Market. The Leaky Cauldron is Marina Gardens (a more upscale-y restaurant rather than a pub). I have no idea what I’ll call things like firebolts, butterbeer, floo powder etc. I’ll probably just get rid of those things, actually...but I’m keeping apparation...though I might alter it into something like boom tubes…because I FUCKING LOVE BOOMTUBES.

And…I think that’s about it.

Amazingly, the story doesn’t read half bad with names swapped out. Still needs a lot of tweaking and editing, though. Especially paragraph formatting and filling in holes that nobody would understand if they hadn’t read it in fanfic form first.