Plot Pockets/miscellaneous ideas
Spells
Vanishing and Conjuring
Where do vanished things go?
- a separate plane of existence? If so, is it a plane of junk or energy?
- are things shrunk to subatomic size?
Where do conjured things come from?
- Are they returned versions of vanished things? If so, are there things that cannot be conjured by virtue of having no corresponding vanished object?
- If they are not returned versions, does this mean wixen can create things from nothing or do they rearrange latent energy?
Are conjured items really the thing they seem to be? Would they work in a potion, for example? Or are they merely illusions with the appearance of the real item? What happens to conjured items that have fulfilled their purpose? Do they disappear on their own or do they have to be removed?
Shield Charms
How do shield charms work?
Are they reliant on your own knowledge of damage, or do they have some sort of sentience?
Do they rely on the casters thought of harm prevention? Meaning strong shields require in-depth knowledge of harmful spells?
Do you have to visualise the shield charm to get it working (like with the Patronus)?
Could you focus on one type of damage to make the shield especially good with that specific one? i.e., focus on defending against cutting spells with the downside that you're now less protected against fire attacks?
Patronus Charm
Why don’t they use Patroni to verify identity?
Do Patroni change if you polyjuice into someone? [[Does your magic change? Does your aura change?]])
Do they change depending on which memory you use (and the thoughts and character traits dominant during it)?
Idea: Send screeching Patroni all the time in the middle of the night to destroy your enemies' sleep schedule (maybe sing awful songs that stick in your head. Or embarrass your enemies)
Travel
create a magical submarine and hook it up with the floo/equip it with a vanishing cabinet
Magical plants
Carnivorous Whomping Willow. That is all.
Magical Skills
Animagery
What happens to animagi killed in their animal form? Do they stay in their animal form?
How do injuries in form translate to the other? Meaning, if damage is specified to a certain body part that does not exist in the other form, does it translate into another injury when transforming? If not, does the injury disappear when re-transforming?
Since the potion doesn't seem particularly hard to make, could the difficulty lie in the fact that one has to be brutally honest about one's nature (and does the same go for Occlumency)? And how does this reflect on Peter, who is essentially told as a teenager that he's traitorous and disloyal?
Metamorphmagi
Headcanon limit of the ability: Metamorphmagi need to stick to humanoid shape. They could transfigure arms into wings, or hands into claws, but not add additional limbs
Missed opportunity: using animal traits
- Eagle eyes
- echolocation
Magical Objects/Artifacts
Deluminator
Ron, using the deluminator in DH, could hear conversations between Hermione and Harry that included his name (similar effect to the jinx on the name "Voldemort". It follows, then, that the reason Albus seems omniscient is that he can listen in on conversations about him. It's likely he made the deluminator sensitive to multiple versions of his name, including his titles. He also asked Dobby to refer to him as "barmy old coot" instead of Master. Presumably he did so in order to be able to easily spy on him.
The fact that the deluminator works for Ron makes it likely that it works for any true owner (meaning it will not work for a thief) this way.
Portraits
Are portraits developed like photos? How is the paint made? Perhaps by collecting the essence of the person in some way (blood, spit, maybe just magical energy poured into it [if so, could you control the person in a way with the paint?])
Can you put memories in the paint, and if so, can you artificially create dementia by removing someone’s memories, or, if a copy remains in the person’s mind, save memories before dementia can get to it?
How abstract can a portrait be and what effect does it have on its function?
How do they move between frames? What happens to them if both the original painting and the destination get destroyed while they are in the middle ground limbo? Do they have to remain in their original painting to survive longterm?
Talking mirrors
How so they work? Are they sentient? Do they record things that happen in their vicinity? Can they be employed to spy on you?
Sentient weapons
(think Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures) of a weapon with a soul in it without Horcrux shenanigans
How would they react to decades, even centuries of hanging in a museum instead of getting to do their purpose of killing things? Would they become chill and enjoy different things or would they turn even more bloodthirsty?
Things that just don't make sense
Why didn’t they take a portkey from grimmauld or muggle transport instead of the knight bus right in front of the base (did dumbles want to remind them of the busses existence for the future mission he has planned)
How did the Dursleys even get home in Philosopher's Stone? Hagrid knicked their boat and left them on that rock
Why is there a squid in a freshwater lake – who brought it there from the sodding ocean and for what purpose
How did Dumbles know in CoS that Voldi is hanging out in Albania? Does he have some sort of tracking spell? Is he just bullshitting Malfoy? Did Helena tell him Voldi was interested in that location and so he focused on it? Or is Albania just super magical in HP since everything happening abroad seems to happen there?
Things that would improve the Magical World
Communication Methods
- Postal house elves that bring mail directly to you
- Why not use protean charm more often? More two-way mirrors for example
- If we must use birds and are unwilling to use, idk, f a l c o n s, then there should at least be charms/spells to make them appear like normal non-nocturnal birds (like sparrows or pigeons) to muggles. That would cause far less suspicion both with the general public and ornithologists
Travel Methods
- Why not a network of vanishing cabinets for instant transportation of people/objects? Doesn’t even have to be a cabinet, maybe just doors
- House elves as convenient, publically organised teleportation method (bound in some way so they can't break into places)
Classes
- Use magical paintings as teachers to have people who were there at the time
- Magical Ethics (so characters can start questioning absolutely messed up things like love potions and memory spells)
- Loan students blank books that will be temporarily enchanted to contain the necessary material so students don't have to buy books each year
Conspiracy Theories
- What if the Potters died not out of love but because they had to protect the sacrificial baby saviour
- Magical spaces exist on different planes of existence, hence the need for a ticket to get on the platform the first time
- Diagon alley is on a ley line, that’s why it’s so cramped
- Kids get sent to the death-trap that is Hogwarts to soak up all the ambient magic so they can use their own magic better (that’s why maybe-squib Neville got sent there, to fill his magical reserves, and that’s why Filch works there)
- The real reason you mustn't see yourself in the past is that time notices the issue and tries to fix reality by destroying you (kinda like Life is Strange maybe?)
- -> All the stuff that makes no sense timeline-wise was caused by the first time travel incident. History has been fucked ever since and time is on a vengeance quest against all that keep messing with it
- Either the Ministry, the school board or Dumbledore don't want the kids to learn History. There is no other explanation for Binns' continued employment when he wouldn't even notice if students stopped showing up. You could probably pop in on any day in the year and see him yattering on about goblin wars
- The Weasley's are secretly pureblood supremacists just being more subtle than about it than others (supported by them not talking to their squib family, the twins targeting Dudley with their stuff rather than Vernon and Petunia {who're the reason Dudley is so fucked up in the first place}, and Arthur barely grasping muggle concepts despite his supposed interest since he never ventures into the muggle world). That's why they have so many kids.
- There is a curse on the dorms to make students fall in line with their house's values (definitely with the Slytherins because what is up with this den of baby terrorist, that's bs come on).
- The reason Squibs can't use magic is because the magic is busy keeping them alive despite the effects of inbreeding
- Why does Albus meddle so much to make the prophecy come true? Prophecies usually want to come true without any type of outside influence. Is this fate working through him or does he want to speedrun the conflict with Tommyboy?
- Does the DADA curse get worse the more dangerous/harmful/incompetent the teacher is by Riddles estimation?
Unanswered Questions
- How did the petrified students (and Ginny) manage to advance to the next class, when they missed so much class time?
- How did Ginny fare socially after being weird in her entire first year and her classmates finding out she was possessed considering we don't see any of her family members to be assisting her in any way (thanks for nothing Ron and fuck you Arthur for your fake ass logic, I don't see where a portrait or a mirror keeps its brain, am I supposed to just burn all of it??)?
Magical Beings and Creatures
Werewolves
What if you gave a transformed werewolf polyjuice? What if you do the same with the offspring of werewolves (intelligent wolves that cannot turn into human shape)? What happens to a foetus when a pregnant werewolf transforms?
Magical Law (it's interesting, I promise)
Names vs Titles
Presumably there's a difference between the ownership of a Name (Which is Albus Too Many Middle Names Dumbledore) versus a Title. You can own your own name, you can sign under your own name, but titles don't apply unless they have enough weight to be universal.
'The Boy Who Lived' will only ever refer to Harry and thus functions as a name; 'Supreme Mugwump' on the other hand is a temporary title and as such, using it might have implications in the field of law.
Specifically, it brings up the question whether titles that pass on to others bind people to contracts signed by their predecessors. So if Orion Black signed a contract with "Lord Black" and then named Sirius current Lord Black, does the contract apply to Sirius?
Culture
Wixen economy
How does the wixen economy work? Most things can be repaired. Outside of food, and literature (which presumably has safety measures against it) pretty much everything can be duplicated.
Hypothesis: there's high demand for professionally enchanted/novel items
You could buy a tiny plot of land literally anywhere and make it inaccessible to anyone you don't want there, then use space-enhancing charms and spells to affect the weather and you can have you own personal paradise in the Arctic or the bottom of the Atlantic.
Wixen clothing
As weird as it is, Lockharts robes were probably not all that outlandish. Molly liked him and she's too practical to like unnecessary stuff on these robes. Wizards just wear more fun colours than muggle men
https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/harry-potter-hogwarts-robes-fan-theory/ Check it out if you ever want to focus on wixen clothing, it's very helpful
Duelling robes/clothing
- Wand. Holsters.
- shorter, long-sleeved and with high neck, more flexibility than normal ones (achieved by certain fabrics and cuts)
- Runes embroidered in it? Pretty please?
- they should have something like bullet belts with tiny potion bottles
- and other useful knick-knacks in pouches, necklaces, bracelets, etc. All of it can be charmed to not be in the way so where are the wixen rocking a multi-layered battle look?
Illness and disability in wixen culture
How do deaf/hard of hearing children learn to use magic? Is there a potion/ritual to give back hearing? Do they continually use hearing amplification spells? Do they get speech therapy? Have to learn silent casting? Is there a way to use sign language for casting (perhaps combining it with runes)?
Improving wixen culture
Additions to libraries
- memories from eyewitnesses of historic events (or just everyday life because that's interesting too)
- Download memories taken via legilimency
- Modify a pensieve to work like a projector and get 3D Movies
- Communication mirrors for lectures from people that can't come
- Illustrated books/comics
Ways for Muggleborns to exploit dumb systems
If muggleborn kids were able to get their hands on a house elf, could they use that to mask their magic?
enchant muggle items unknown to pureblood wixen (because wix society is lazy as shit when it comes to inventing things)