Ne 30 května 2021

(my comments on the reddit thread “Fics like Starnlicht?” by BallZealousideal2109)

It is strange how little fanfiction authors investigated the whole area of the historical stories, a life of the magical community outside (and before) the canonical storyline. Aside from replants of the normal fanon stories to the past (“Prince Draco cannot keep his eyes from the lowly peasant girl Hermione …”), there are some which I have already mentioned in the post about the religion-less universe of Harry Potter, so I won’t be writing about them here in detail, but this is everything I found which is in my opinion worthy of mentioning (any additions to this list will be eagerly considered):

• “Makers of Fine Wands” — the first Ollivander was a student at The Plato’s Academy, and he experiences wild adventures while in Athens. Unfortunately, the story was abandoned just when it became interesting.
• “Makers of Fine Wands since 382 BC” This one is completed and it is one of the best fanfiction stories out there. It happens in that fourth century BC, and it is a story about the discovery of magical wands and many adventures around that. The story is crazily too long, and (like I think 90 % of all fanfiction stories) it could use at least cutting to half if not more, but otherwise, I liked it managed to keep even in those ancient times the same bourgeois middle-class Diagon Alley feeling of the story as the Rowling’s books. Highly recommended.
• “Bloodstone“ This is quite an exceptional story. Northumbrian, its author, is usually quite focused on the time area in the Nineteen Years after the Battle of Hogwarts, and this is the only one that gets out of this time frame. And getting out it does, it happens in the fifth century in the context of the falling Roman Empire. During the story, the two main heroines of the story lose absolutely everything and find their new life in the Celtic (?) Brynaich (later Bernicia, later Northumbria). The only thing they save from the ruins of their previous life is a small piece of jewellery with a beautiful (and strongly magical) heliotrope or a bloodstone. Apparently, this story was meant to be as a foundational backstory for “James and Me”, but that story was never finished enough to include the link to it fully (the stone is just mentioned without any explanation).
• “Fires of Time by GHL” (not available any more on the original site, I have locally downloaded EPub) and “Splinters” are two related stories where Harry and Ginny are somehow half-transposed into Britain in time of the Ancient Rome. Somehow, the story didn’t mesh with me well (I am sure, it could find its fans), so I have never finished reading them.
• “The Friar's Calling” I wrote about it in the post about religion.
• “The Mistake” medieval monk
• “With the Devil” (with the death of harrypotterfanfiction.com I have only my EPub downloaded before) it is surprising how few stories are located in the era of the Salem Witch Trials, while it is obviously fertile land for the HP universe. This is one of them, in the theme of “if Professor McGonagall thought that her deliveries to Muggleborn children are complicated …” (together with chapter 75 of “The Accidental Animagus”). Nicely done, from the point of view of the child.
• “The Western Front” short, too soon abandoned story, cross-over between HP and western.
• “Redoing it Voldemort Style” the person who is sent from the Heavenly Rail-station to fix the screwed up story of Magical Britain is this time Tom Riddle, who is thrown for that purpose back to 1938 while he was still firmly in the Wool Orphanage. Instead of terrorizing other children in the orphanage, he starts to use his magic and that Slytherin cunning to make the situation better for everybody. Except then the story was abandoned just when it started to be exciting.
• “Letters to Walpurgis” it is still in the large HP storyline, but Tom Riddle being drafted to the Royal Army during the Second World War quickly changes so much that the story goes AU so heavily it doesn’t have much to do with the main storyline any more.

{updated 2023-07-28}

• And this whole comment started with “Starnlicht” by Marquis Carabas, it is absolutely great story, which certainly deserves a mention. Large story build in completely new universe of the medieval version of the magical world, looking at it decisively from the bottom of the society, is really great.
• On the other hand, “All Are His Children” by sheankelor is something quite non-serious: just one of “who is The Fat Friar about?”, this time he is actually Brother Brendan from the “Secret of Kells” film, who when he leaves Ireland wanders around Scotland and finds a group of two wizards and two witches renovating a castle to be a school. The biggest value of the story is to remind HP fans to see the film.
• “A Wizard for Mary” by Jedi Buttercup is the Regency cross-over where Mary Bennet (of “Pride and Prejudice”, but she is an untrained witch in this story) meets Percy Weasley (living naturally in that period, no time travel) and two ultra-proper stiff characters find a link. Unfortunately, only one chapter has been written and the story is just a stub of a story.
• “Standing Stones, Tudor Roses, & The Thorns of Time” by nightfalltwen is a story of group of HP characters (good & bad) who end up in the Tudor times. It is a substantial story (35 chapters, and probably abandoned) with good characterization of living in the Renaissance time.

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