Yay, fireworks cleared 60k views. This is super-awesome

Have fun reading my fics. I have had a lot of fun writing them, so hopefully you can have some fun reading them. Even the non-happy ones.

To quote Terry Pratchett "Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself."

Lets play a game of what if. I'll tell the story of Harry Potter ... and I'll change something because otherwise It's already in print. (I do write non fanfic stories but not here.)

Caution: stories may contain sarcasm or confused thinking, and probably Daphne Greengrass.
Writer has a chronic case of HAPHNEicus shippicus. (and I'm working on a story where Daphne Greengrass ships Daphne Greengrass because meta is funny.)

Fireworks

Fireworks is done.There is a sequel to Fireworks, "Harry Potter and the rise of the Black Rod", but other fics are taking most of my attention right now.

Harry Potter and the Method of Double-tap, and Harry Potter and the Unwanted Marriage Contract

For Harry Potter and the Unwanted Marriage Contract I did three different flavours of the same story, because it amuses me. Maybe you'll like it too. Don't take it too seriously.. except maybe the message that niceness beats being horrible. And that a fritatta is a good breakfast. I'm rewriting some of this due to forgetting the impact of Tonks & Andromeda.

PLEASE NOTE

I don't speak any languages but English. Google translate is responsible for the poor state of non-english languages in my stories. Unless I'm parodying the character, who doesn't speak the language. If you do speak the language, it should be clear from context, unless it isn't. I'd do better but I'm too ignorant. For those reading along in english: Occasional non-english text inserts occur. Life's like that.

An example : In 'Careers Day ch1', Theo Nott who is from a wealth pureblood family, understands the Headmistresses broken French but replies in German. What could he possibly be trying to communicate? I beg of you please, get my jokes. Or my characters. Unless they write their own dialogue for some reason. Is that... method writing when the character writes their own dialogue?

I will generally write in 3d person, semi objective and may change P.O.V. character occasionally. Sections of dialogue may not contain much description. Some reviewers don't like it. Maybe I'll rewrite it one day with more description, but people talk to each other in conversation.

Typographic conventions

In general I use the following typographic conventions.

"Speech" 'thoughts' 'writing being read by character'

I often don't write out parseltounge in english, just putting in speech that looks like hissing. Occasional "$parseltoungue$" occurs because VMS is cool. (If you understand the reference, you win a cheese)

Unusual words in capital case in dialogue might be Vocal Emphasis. Try saying it aloud. Ditto. For. Over-Punctuated. Speech. (they're angry)

Sometimes FFN imports a section and bolds the whole thing because it ate a bold sentence at the start and got stuck. Not my fault. But tell me anyway.

Oh and people with very old english surnames that have double letter like Jasper fforde (great real world author, please read him) don't necessarily use a capital. double letters predates capitals.

Official authorial excuses section

I have some life events I have to attend to. Really huge ones. And being in social-distancing for the coronavirus. And... a job.

I don't type very well anymore. I used to, but that was many worn out keyboards ago. Typing is now slow, painful and error prone.

To explain try to this better: I have to type then edit every line about four times, for get readable English.

Please Note: My bad case of plot bunnies got worse. My friends tell me I need to get out of the house. But... coronavirus lockdown.

Chapter-at-a-time isn't working for me so there will be a period of lack of progress on some stories.

New Stories in the works

Rise of the Black rod: the second book of Fireworks. Simply more of Daphne and Harry in the Fireworks universe.

Yes, Minister: A collection of shorts set in the double-Tap universe.

Ride-Along: Post Hogwarts immediately after the end of the war. Because Harry always wanted to be an Auror, be Ginny's boyfriend and call his son Albus Severus.

Terrible Things: My take on a overpowered Harry Potter. May contain disappointments, mostly for Harry.

Learning to Swim : Because the second task of the Tri-Wizard tournament is really hard when you can't swim, and magical contracts really suck.

On Frozen ponds : Set during Deathly Hallows, Harry's plot armour malfunctions.

Not what you expected: Harry Potter, post Hogwarts, finds life a bit more difficult than he expected.

Socks: Harry is fifteen and frustrated and has terrible hand-me-down clothes. What he'd really like is some nice woolly socks.

Down the Line: Daphne Greengrass ships Harry Potter and Daphne Greengrass. But she's two hundred and six and has never spoken to him, so she has cats and a heart condition instead.

Mister Carstairs: Harry, Hermione and Ron get a different History teacher in first year. A sort of paean to my old History Teacher, who would have turned out some quite different Hogwarts graduates.

and I'm rewriting Harry Potter and the Unwanted Marriage contract because someone pointed out that as Tonks is Sirius and Harrys' cousin, and might be the tiniest bit interested in her little cousin at Hogwarts treating a girl like a thing.

And a couple (I still work on) that are so awful I'm never showing anyone. OC-SI the whole nine yards of fan-fic awfulness, plus Mugglew*.

Obversely to all this dissipative effort, my beta reader is helping me prioritise a bit and obviously ,beta-ing my stuff. Sadly my beta got coronavirus, but is getting better now they're not on a ventilator.

Big up-vote to people who write reviews. Or PM me, whatever. It's the only feedback I get. Gimme that Sweet Sweet Dopamine.

Anonymous reviewers: I understand that you don't have an account. Sigh.

My (un)original concept for Fireworks, so, many spoilers.

I started with this one idea "Just for once, can something nice happen in Harry Potters life?"

Harry is mostly canon, with a dose of EWE. Remember in DH. Harry was obsessed with Hallows but had to go horcrux hunting?

Daphne was just a name in the canon books but we clearly saw she really liked fireworks in the films. Apart from that she sings in choir and looks like she goes to hunt balls. And is in the sacred 28. Apologies to whoever was the actress. Fanon's made her a person, or three. This is a person cherry picked from that to be as "realistic" as a fictional character could be in my tiny mind.

The banter Harry and Daphne has comes from some of my very funny friends. You know who you are. Thanks to all my ex-girfriends and female friends. You're in here too, a bit.

Fireworks setting ideas:

The government of magical Britain is largely stable, if corrupt. (Metastable, if you want to get picky)

House elves aren't the ultimate weapon (otherwise a dark lord would have already done this).

Harry really dies.

Harry is owed favours by the Minister.

Ron and Hermione have a _thing_. But as Rupert Grint observed, they're not made to last.

Slughorn wasn't an idiot. (Dagwood-Granger)

And lets give Harry a parcel of lordships that are actually... a massive liability, just to poke a little fun at "Harry gets mega rich and super powerful". He's happy, but it isn't the money doing that.

And of course, saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal.

Full disclosure : I have tried to tone down things in fireworks from earlier drafts that had Harry getting all cold and vicious on things, to keep Harry more like canon Harry. If you like that Harry, he's in another story, or a thousand.

I really dislike when really bad things happen to characters I like. Mostly. Unless it advances the plot. Fireworks started out as an experiment in 3rd person objective with everyone's thoughts opaque. I seemed like a good idea at the time, and I went back and changed it to be more like proper Harry Potter. JKR. uses "speech" said Ron "more speech" ; I did not notice till I reread DH.

Meta

I write things, reread them, hate them and change them. This happens till I give up and move on to the next chapter. Until I revise the whole story. The longer I work on it, the less bad it gets.

If you find yourself dissatisfied with the product, please PM me with details. Then we can fix it, and you'll go in the credits as a beta.

Thanks to alix33 , Lineheart, emilysouza221b and Meneldur, for finding ch 7 was set to ch5.

Thanks Again to alix33.

Thanks to my beta reader LoneWolf0729, You make this easier. I appreciate your work. Yay, not dying!

To all the anon reviewers, I can't effectively reply to your critical comments. Don't think that means I ignore them.

Biographical details

My nic: one of my friends may have outed me as having had my first job in Mordor. It's hard in Middle-Earth when you're not a hobbit or an elf, and can't pass for human.

I'm a person that writes to avoid doing things that urgently need doing for fun in the land of OZ: Where I'm stuck inside for the next N months, because we're having a plague.We've all got that in common now.

Coming in 2021 I'll have more time to write from the abandoned estate of a french Baron. This is not actually a joke.

Goals:

1. To write something Hinny that's not bashing. It must be possible. Surely?

2. To remember to keep Ron and Hermione separated for our mutual mental health.

3. To finish something that I can post for you lot to read.

4. To have readers that are not just old white men.

5. To keep putting in in-jokes and cultural references from the right year. (harder than it sounds.)

6. To write a list without sarcasm.

7. To not have everything turn into a HP/DG romance.