((This is weirdly close to the plot of an omegaverse fanfic that exists only as notes on my hard drive. >.>))
-All commercially-produced space ships and stations come equipped with universal translators, but on galra slave ships, dampeners are installed in the walls of prison cells. This, combined with the Empire’s tendency to throw slaves together in mixed-species groups, makes it harder for them to work together and conspire to escape.
-But people adapt. The slaves of the Empire have their own limited pidgin language, based heavily on Galran and a few other common languages. Shiro’s been around long enough to learn the basics: “food”, “water”, “trade”, “guards”, “dirty”, “not safe”, “good”, “go away”, and so on.
-When one of the other prisoners says, “Guards coming!”, Shiro understands the words, but not the “why”. He knows their routes and rotations and meal schedules. Is it time for another match already?
-But instead of taking someone out, the guard shoves someone in. Someone… human?? A fine-featured boy with a lean build and his hands cuffed behind his back. The guard says the same phrase he says when dropping off meals, and Shiro recognizes the joke for what it is.
-He takes in the situation quickly: At least half the prisoners in the cell won’t do anything. They’re here because they have no choice and want no part in the Empire’s cruelty. But there are other prisoners who have embraced the base circumstances of their captivity and the “might makes right” rule of the Arena. There are several sets of eyes that fall upon the dazed and frightened boy with cruel intent, and Shiro knows he’ll need to move fast.
-Shiro shoves his way to the front of the room and pulls the boy to his side.
“Mine,” he asserts in his limited slave pidgin. The boy tries to pull away from his grip, but Shiro just tugs him close and pins him to his side with his left arm. It’s not ideal, but right now the newcomer’s safety hinges on everyone in the cell understanding that he’s “Property of Champion”.
-Most of the interested aliens turn away, unwilling to risk a fight with the famous gladiator, but a few growl out objections. One – built like a red, bipedal crocodile – stalks closer and growls out a string of words Shiro doesn’t fully catch, though he does make out the word for “unfair” mixed in.
“Mine,” Shiro reiterates, refusing to back down from the larger alien. “Go away.”
-The red alien snarls at the refusal and reaches out to grab the boy away from him, but Shiro catches the alien’s wrist in his metal hand and squeezes. There’s a crack of bone, and the alien jerks back with a yowl. Shiro snarls. His command of the local language is limited at best, but the language of bared teeth is universal.
“No sharing,” he asserts, looking around the room and making pointed eye contact with each person he’d seen eyeing the other human with malicious intent. Satisfied that no one else will challenge his claim, Shiro – or, perhaps, Champion in this moment – herds his prize back to the corner of the cell he’s staked out for himself.
-The boy is understandably wary of him, pulling against his grip, but unable to do much with his arms bound. Once they’re away from the others, Shiro softens his manner, gentling his expression and asking soft, concerned questions. The boy looks at him without comprehension but stares at Shiro’s face with a kind of cautious awe that makes Shiro wonder how long it’s been since he saw another human.
-Shiro tries English and Japanese and a handful of words from other languages, but nothing seems to ring a bell. He tries slave pidgin, and there’s a small flicker of recognition at that. But when the boy finally opens his mouth to speak, the words that come out are Galran, and Shiro can only catch a few of them.
-It all leaves Shiro with more questions than answers. How had the boy gotten out here? Had the galra conquered Earth already? But if he’d been taken as a prize of recent conquest, the boy would still speak his native language and not the language of his captors. Maybe some other species had abducted him at a young age and sold him to the Empire as a slave?
Even after all his time as a prisoner, Shiro doesn’t know enough about how the Empire actually functions to make an educated guess.
-Whatever the circumstances, the important thing is that Shiro’s no longer the only human on the ship. And, even more importantly, he has someone to protect.
-Shiro gently turns the boy around so he can examine the cuffs binding his hands. Resistance is minimal. (The boy seems to be coming around to the idea that Shiro isn’t going to hurt him.) Unfortunately, Shiro recognizes the cuffs as a kind of electrified restraint that can inflict serious pain and injury – even death – if removed incorrectly.
-Shiro turns the boy back around with an apologetic grimace. They’ll have to live with the cuffs for now. Until the guards decide to remove them, Shiro will have to stay with the other human as much as possible. Without his hands, he won’t be able to defend himself. He can tell by the guarded tension in the boy’s frame that he’s come to the same conclusion.
-Shiro tries to be reassuring, helping his new protectee get settled comfortably
in the corner
(well, as comfortably as possible given the circumstances) and making a wall of himself between him and the other inhabitants of the cell. He shoots warning glares at anyone whose gazes linger too long and tries not to think about the fact that he’s probably doomed the alien whose wrist he broke to die in the Arena.
-Shiro’s contemplating the logistics of mealtimes and whether he’ll be able to persuade the guards to keep him and the new human in the same cell permanently when the power suddenly cuts out.
-The cell door opens and several galran figures step in wearing strange glowing masks. Shiro nudges his boy further back in the corner and takes a defensive stance, but the other human just pushes past him, speaking excitedly to the newcomers. He offers them his hands, and the cuffs fall from his wrists.
-A few of the prisoners near the door are taking their chance to slip through it, and Shiro’s boy is grabbing his hands and tugging him in the same direction, talking insistently to the skeptical-sounding galra who freed him. Slowly, it’s sinking in that this is a jailbreak, and Shiro allows himself to be pulled out into the hall.
-There’s a feeling like coming up from underwater as everyone’s speech suddenly becomes comprehensible.
“-protected me. He’s coming with us.”
“On your word, cub.”
“Cub?” Shiro echoes, confused. “Can someone tell me what’s going on? Who are you?”
The boy looks at him, apparently startled to hear him speaking coherently.
“My name’s Keith,” he states simply, “and we’re escaping.”
“Quickly,” one of the masked galra urges, handing Keith a knife. “We have little time.”
“There are a lot of guards that way,” Shiro cautions, glancing down the hall ahead of them.
“Don’t worry.” Keith holds out his knife as it transforms into a full-length sword. “This time, I’ll protect you.”
No one uses sense motive or perception checks and it drives DM Padme up the wall bc she was attempting sUBTLE STORYTELLING guys please the villain is RIGHT THERE!
—
“I liked that NPC that Obi-wan sliced in half earlier, I think you should bring him back.”
“Anakin no. Anakin that’s not how necromancy works. Anakin that’s- that’s a natural 20, fuck, okay, FINE, but you’ve only brought half of him to life, what are you gonna do now, huh?”
“Robot legs”
—
Obi-wan, resignedly, for the 1239302th time: “I roll to save the Duchess.”
[gets a 1, like he does every time he tries for a lifesaving throw]
Obi-wan: “I don’t even know what I expected at this point. Is pointedly not contemplating emotional trauma a free action?”
—
Obi-wan: “Rolling to have an emotionally honest conversation with Anakin”
[die rolls off the table, across the floor, into a grate and lost to the darkness never to be seen again]
Look I would pay real currency to watch a series of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s couples counseling. The angst and the passive-aggressiveness and the “I’m fine it’s fine everything’s fine” “NO IT’S NOT OBI-WAN NOTHING IS FINE”. Or individual Jedi counseling.
Better: I want to watch the documentary/mockumentary made by a GFFA psychologist who embeds themselves with the Jedi Order to better understand how they can all be so chill and collected – What’s their secret? How can we all learn, from their example, to embrace serenity in our own lives? – who eventually, as the documentary wears on, comes to realize that THE JEDI ORDER IS COMPRISED ENTIRELY OF EMOTIONAL TRAINWRECKS.
I am living for this now. As @
devilangel657 said, the idea of a psychologist embedding themselves in the Jedi Order and having to listen to the stories of the stupidity the Jedi have to deal with every goddamned day in their roles as peacekeepers and later freeing worlds, would be amazing.
They’re so serene and calm and put together when you first meet them! Then, like, a month later, “YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SHIT I HAD TO DEAL WITH ON BRENTAL. LET’S JUST SAY IF I HAVE TO SEE ANOTHER FUCKING PIRATE I AM GOING TO SHOVE A LIGHTSABER UP THEIR ASS BEFORE THEY HAVE A CHANCE TO SAY A GODDAMNED WORD.” blares through the Force, even when all the Jedi says is, “It was a difficult mission, but I believe it has been resolved to the best of my abilities.”
Obi-Wan and Anakin’s couple’s therapy is a disaster. Sure, Anakin wants to talk about things! Until the psychologist turns to him and tries to make him talk about what’s eating him and then NOTHING IS WRONG, EVERYTHING’S FINE, he says angrily, crossing his arms and glaring.
Obi-Wan looks at the psychologist, not a single hint of self-awareness on his face, like, See what I have to deal with?
YES. Little by little, all these things come out and eventually it becomes clear that A) the Jedi have to put up with a TON of the universe’s bullshit, B) there are a LOT of secret affairs going on, both within and outside of the Order, and C) there is a WHOLE LOT of trauma being actively repressed.
I feel like Mace Windu would be amazing in this documentary series. The interviewer would be like “It sounds like you have a very difficult role, being responsible for so much in the Order. Would you agree?” and he just keeps staring into space like this:
…before finally taking a deep breath and being like, “It is a noble calling, and one I am honored to take on.”
Yoda cancels on his interview like 45 times, or pretends to be napping or dead when the guy shows up, because He Really Doesn’t Wanna Talk About This Stuff Everyone Knows The Order Is Just Fine Look How Well-Adjusted We All Are.
Quinlan Vos does his interview from a bar, during which he becomes increasingly inebriated. His interview turns into him just bragging about various conquests or awesome parties he’s been to on undercover missions. Viewers love him.
Obi-Wan explains to the horrified interviewer that he really totally wasn’t traumatized by being sent away to be a space farmer when he was 12, or the fact that he once got a rock for his birthday, or that his Space Dad was murdered in front of him. And that things between him and Anakin are FINE.
The two of them don’t realize they’re still mic’d up when they try to “discuss” things in the hallway in between filming after a particularly pointed on-screen argument. The resulting audio includes lecturing (Obi-Wan), dramatic yelling (Anakin), retreading of very old arguments (both), and eventually some mild dirty talk, which they vehemently deny later even though they both have mussed up hair when they return.
Ahsoka’s interview is hilarious, since it is mostly just her telling stories about Anakin or Obi-Wan embarrassing themselves.She manages to come off as one of the most competent people in the entire show despite the fact that she’s like 15. She instantly becomes a favorite of viewer commentators on the Holonet.
Some of the Clones get interviewed about what it’s like to work with the Jedi. This turns into all of them sharing “most insane thing my Jedi has done” stories, and it results in 157 hours of footage. They end up with their own series.
Chancellor Palpatine also does an extended interview as one of the Jedi’s closest colleagues, in which he repeatedly has to take a break from filming because he keeps breaking out into inappropriate giggles as he discusses how insightful the Order is, and what great partners they’ve been for his administration in helping it to achieve its goals.
I am crying at that screencap of Mace, that’s exactly the face he’d make.
“The Jedi aren’t perfect, we have our difficulties, just as anyone else in the galaxy does,” they all say. “But we deal with them internally to the best of our abilities. We’ve agreed to this documentary as a gesture of good will, we hope to reach out to our fellow Republic citizens and show that we are as human as any of you.”
What they don’t say is FUCK OFF WE DEAL WITH OUR PROBLEMS OURSELVES, but you kind of get that impression anyway. And the first half of the documentary is this build-up towards the idea that the Jedi are totally fucked up, they’re all a bunch of lunatics who refuse to admit they actually have problems.
But then the second half of the documentary has, like, 300 hours of footage of the Jedi dealing with two warring clans on some Mid-Rim world, each willing to nuke themselves into orbit just to spite the other side, and the Jedi have to deal with literal tantrums from political leaders at least once a month and they have to see politicians living these ridiculous lives of luxury, they have space caviar flown in specially hand delivered while ¾ths of their world are literally starving in poverty, and still have to smile and make nice with said politician because otherwise they won’t be able to get this trade agreement signed that will help the rest of the world, and all the while they’re not allowed to scream obscenities or anything. And you start to realize, oh, shit, I’d have gone off the deep end, too, if I had to deal with that every day of my life.
The documentary works in a roundabout way, endearing people to them–it shows the Jedi being human, that one time they caught Luminara Unduli making the most amazing bitch face, just for a moment, before she managed to smooth it back over. They caught Obi-Wan Kenobi actually swearing one time! They have at least an hour’s worth of outtakes of Anakin Skywalker flying around on his droid and crashing face-first into a wall or swanning off the top of the Temple and screaming when he misses the speeder Master Kenobi is driving to try to snag him the first time!
“It was a bit of a close call,” Anakin Skywalker says with a grin, “But I had it totally under control.” (Smash cut to Anakin screaming and flailing as story after story of the Temple blurs by him as he falls while Obi-Wan zips the speeder around for a second try.)
There’s a collage of the Greatest Faces Ahsoka Tano Makes When Dealing With Republic Officials. Almost unanimously, the face she makes when Wilhuff Tarkin turns away from her are voted as #1.
There’s also entire sites dedicated to gossiping about the love lives of the Jedi. The HoloNet EXPLODES when Obi-Wan and Anakin are caught on mic making suggestive comments after their fight, because everyone thought FOR SURE Skywalker was involved with Senator Amidala, have you SEEN the way he makes cow eyes at her? There are threads and threads of HA AH VINDICATION!!! from Obikin shippers and NO WAY THIS IS JUST PART OF A THREESOME shippers.
(Everyone, please forgive me this enormous reblog. I think you all understand I have no choice.)
So, basically this is what’s going to foil Palpatine’s plans, isn’t it? He is kicking himself, because he actually urged the Jedi to do the documentary series in the first place, thinking that they’d come off as totally dogmatic, dispassionate weirdos and the Republic would be turned off, making it easier for him to push his “The Jedi Are Evil” spiel later.
Instead, as the series wears on, everyone finds them oddly charming, and is overwhelmed by how hard they work and the good they do. There’s all kinds of forums set up for the inevitable Jedi Order Fandom as people nitpick every detail the show reveals. The gossip is out of control. Ahsoka can’t go anywhere without an interviewer asking her about the state of her “dads”’ relationship. Padme is hounded by the tabloids every time someone thinks they saw her out with Anakin somewhere (and OMG IS THAT A BABY BUMP??! WHAT IS OBI-WAN GONNA THINK?! Wait, is OBI-WAN the father???!). Hondo Ohnaka, of course, uses this as a chance to make some money, and is constantly trying to sell outlandish stories about his “friends” the Jedi to the tabloids.
A couple of systems start petty disputes with each other just to get a Jedi and some clones to visit, and they start placing requests (”Can you guys send Luminara? We LOVE her, OMG. Also is Fives available?”) Even Yoda, who was hesitant to even participate, becomes somewhat beloved in his own right as the series’ grumpy, long-suffering grandpa, once viewers see how much insanity the poor guy’s been living with for hundreds of years.
I am very sorry to everyone that this is making your dash probably a lot to handle today, but you have to understand that this is what I joined Star Wars tumblr for.
Palpatine is so gleeful at first, look how awful the Jedi look, even though he’s pushing that, oh, they work so hard and they’re so talented and amazing! But then the memes start. LET OBI-WAN KENOBI HAVE A NAP. SOMEONE FEED THAT POOR CHILD AHSOKA TANO A REAL SANDWICH. AND GET HER A JACKET SHE LOOKS COLD. There are floating, spinning star crows attached to Anakin Skywalker’s head in holo pictures and vids. There’s a picture of Master Yoda making a face as he trips and it gets plastered all over the internet. Mace Windu strikes a dramatic pose after a battle and it’s caught on holo, people splash motivational wolf-style quotes over the image. The most popular of which is, “WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU. IS GOING TO DIE.” while Master Windu stands there with a >:| face and his lightsaber at the ready.
There starts to be knockoff Jedi merchandise. Toy lightsabers are a huge hit! So many people are much nicer to the Jedi now and are like, “Are you comfortable? Can I get you a blanket? You’ve probably had a hard day, here have a slice of pie, on the house.”
REQUESTING SPECIFIC JEDI. Of course The Team gets the most requests (Anakin is initially pleased by this, but then there are people flirting with Obi-Wan. WHO IS FLIRTING BACK. And knows exactly what he’s doing and keeps glancing at Anakin to see the effect of it because he’s a jerk who likes to rile people up. NOT THAT IT’S WORKING, OBI-WAN.) but Shaak Ti and Luminara Unduli prove surprisingly popular, everyone just falls in love with them. The clones, finally having the perfect audience for this, are MORE THAN HAPPY to tell everyone about the Most Insane Thing Their Jedi Has Done. Rex and Cody are no longer allowed to participate, in order to give everyone else a fair shot.
There are fandom wars over whether the fact that Obi-wan flirts with EVERYONE makes the Obikinmidala three-way MORE or LESS likely. “Hello there” becomes code for “I am flirting with you now” overnight. Clone naming conventions start to become popular with new parents and teens get their hair/ hair equivalent styled like their favorite clone commanders.
On the political side, the average Republic citizen starts getting savvier. Seeing their favorite Jedi deal with these Senate officials and obstinate planetary governors, day in and day out, energizes populations to organize more effectively. The Jedi are unsure how to feel about this at first, but its nice to have the added leverage when dealing with particularly reticent political figures.
Elan Sleazebaggano (of Death Stick fame) is Obi’s biggest fan. After he gets his life rethought, he becomes a community organizer in the fandom, trying to do for others what his favorite Jedi did for him
Okay so there are so many things to love here. Mace Windu’s FACE, Yoda memes, Luminara Unduli’s Jedi composure slipping, Anakin and Obi Wan being actual human messes, Poor Ahsoka, the only sane person in a literal mad house, the clones… Can you imagine how smug Rex and Cody are?
Obi Wan: goes to do something hilariously ExtraTM.
Cody: Arms crossed casually, face completely blank. “Ahem”
Obi Wan: Looks at him… “If I do this, you’re going to tell the entire Republic won’t you?”
Cody: Raises eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Obi Wan: “Ah, well,” looks almost sheepish. “What do you suggest, Commander?”
Cody: Deadpan “You’re learning.”
But we are missing some hilarious potential here… So you guys know how bad Padme and Anakin are at pretending they don’t know intimate details about each other/covering their asses/being remotely subtle? Well, once a film crew is following Anakin around on a semi-regular basis, they get even worse.
For example, Anakin, Padme, Obi Wan, and Ahsoka are sent on a diplomatic mission together, documentary crew accompanying. They all board Anakin’s ship and there’s a lovely lace outer robe lying in a crumpled heap on the copilot seat from when Anakin and Padme made their last Dramatic Escape from a senatorial function (”I thought you said you were in danger?” “I was- a few more minutes and I’d have DIED of boredom.”) Anakin snatches it up and shoves it into his robes.
“SO THAT’S WHERE I LEFT MY FORMAL ROBES. OBI WAN WILL BE SO PLEASED.” and then he turns bright red because he just implied that Obi Wan will be really happy to see him in a undersized, lacy robe, which is true but not the impression he intended to give the viewing public. Padme breaks a rib suppressing her laughter. The psychiatrist and crew just roll their eyes and wonder why they’re even keeping up the pretense of deception.
Or, the crew just keep on finding mugs of half-drunk tea with lipstick marks in Padme’s distinctive signature shade
”They’re Ahsoka’s,” Anakin blurts out.
Ahsoka, who is there and not wearing a single smidge of lipstick looks at the camera, looks at Padme’s lipstick covered lips, looks back at the camera. Everyone turns to Padme. She looks around the ship. Anakin hasn’t cleaned it in months. There is exposed wiring from the last time Anakin started “improving” it and then got distracted. It smells like sweaty man and teenager and curry.
“I really enjoy the ambiance?” She offers. “It’s very… relaxed.” A muffled snort comes from the vicinity of Ahsoka. Anakin, who is standing next to her, steps on her foot. Ahsoka punches Anakin in the shoulder, hard. Obi Wan folds his arms and does his only sane man routine, which the psychiatrist and the documentary team now knows is Made of Lies and Deception.
This lasts until the team catches him sitting with Padme and Anakin in the cockpit, giving Padme a foot massage while Anakin drives.
“It’s a Jedi’s duty to do what is needed.” He explains repressively. “The Senator had a cramp. I did it for democracy.”
Despite all this fun it is a small subgenre of the Jedi fandom who end up having the greatest impact – the conspiracy theorists.
See, in among the “Kenobi is secretly a Space Siren”, “Skywalker is the avatar of entropy” and “the Jedi don’t die but merely change their forms and continue to save the galaxy under a new name” theories there are a smaller subset who are driven by the desperate need to uncover the truth of the war so that the Jedi can go back to spending more time with fans planets in need of their expertise. Everyone thinks they’re nuts. Until they don’t.
It starts as a post on a forum with user k3n0b15w00shyh41r ranting about how the war so obviously benefits the military industrial complex, and why has no one ever investigated Kamino for separatist links? User winduismygod93 points out that’s an excellent question, and wait a moment, why exactly were the clones commissioned in the first place? I mean, it was convenient, but could you really see masters Yoda or Windu authorising the creation of sentient beings for war? User 5tone9arden agrees – could this be a smear campaign? User masspalooza posits that it was a false flag operation by the Sith, and after a bit of digging user 5ith7i9ht uncovers the Sifo Dyas link – a known associate of the traitor Dooku? They’re on to something. User blankdayzii is concerned about sabotage when user xxx_t4N0_xxx points out a strange bit of footage from the latest episode of “Craziest things my Jedi has done!!! – Series 3, of a clone looking suddenly disoriented and shaking his head while muttering. User y0dAts4w3sm obsessively scans footage for more case into a compilation holovid. But it is user shaak_pronounsaresirandgeneral_ti who comes to the final conclusion: mind control. This is urgent! What if the Sith are secretly implanting sleeper agents into republic forces to shift the tides of war!!! It probably wouldn’t have gone any further, except user 0biAn1da7a689 turns out to actually be the Senator for a minor system in the Mid-Rim and raises the issue in open debate…
The Kaminoans rebut the accusations – some clones have occasional reactions to their aggression control chips! Which are perfectly safe from tampering because they put them in prior to deployment are you some kind of CIS sympathiser trying to undermine our brave troops senator?
Some reporter bails up the nearest Jedi for comment and oh, wouldn’t you know it? It’s General Skywalker! Here to see Senator Amidala for midweek nookie on Jedi business! Whose first response is “Chips? WHAT CHIPS?” followed by a litany of curses so vile even the reporter from the Nal Hutta Tribune is impressed. After Anakin’s brain reboots he does what he does best and angrily descends upon Obi-Wan demanding they free the clones immediately!
And that is how Palpatine had a very bad day and the Jedi fandom saved their heroes from a future full of loneliness and sand.😉
(yes there are references to some of you in the forum bit – @forcearama should be obvious but there are at least 3 more 😏)
People, I’m sorry this is a gigantic post now but I just want you guys to see this.
I know I keep reblogging this and I’m vaguely sorry about it, but not sorry enough that I don’t need every addition to this on my blog.
But the thing about reality shows and docudramas is that they’re all very staged and framed – music, editing, camera angles, over arching narrative construction within a season. So now I’m thinking what on earth could compel a studio to make a Jedi positive series during their wartime dip in popularity.
Palpatine: I would appreciate an, ahem, frank yet still somewhat flattering portrayal of our republic’s heroes. Make ‘em look good, but not too good, you know what I mean?
Some artsy liberal film maker who’s aiming for the space oscars: jedi having mental breakdown in the middle of wartime perfect this is edgy as hell
Cue death of the author on not one, but two accounts as the galaxy realizes that Jedi deal with trauma and stress with less screaming and more ‘haha you think i can force push myself to that ledge after three stims and two hours of sleep watch this padawan- what no of course i’m fine everything’s fine here’s three more puns about the sweet embrace of death :)))’
Basically Palpatine wanted dirt, the producers wanted angst, and what the galaxy accidentally got instead was five season and a movie of deadpan existential humor in the form of space monk family drama.
Palpatine would have stopped this long ago but unfortunately he created a system where profit reigns supreme and the studio execs are rolling in credits and will have you pry the show from their cold dead hands. THIS IS FEEDING THE WAR MACHINE CHANCELLOR. WE THOUGHT YOU’D BE HAPPY.
Can you imagine how differently their lives would’ve gone if Ron, in trying to transfigure Scabbers, had actually transfigured him back into a human? Just take a moment to imagine McGonagall’s reaction if Peter Pettigrew had abruptly appeared in her classroom from Ronald Weasley’s rat. Take a moment.
Or if Ron had fucked it up a little worse and couldn’t get ‘Scabbers’ back and McGonagall had take him to disenchant him and next thing we know there’s a naked Peter Pettigrew sitting on McGonagall’s desk and the kids in that class learn six new swear words, a hex they will never dare to use, and a fear of Minerva McGonagall’s wrath that will be with them until the day they die.
Ten and twenty years later first years are being pulled aside and warned never mess around in Transfiguration seriously the last time a kid mucked something up in that class Professor McGonagall used two semi-legal hexes, took down a Death Eater and sabotaged the rise of the Dark Lord before Potter had time to get his wand out.
What most of Hogwarts learned first on that otherwise-unexceptionable day was that Professor McGonagall could sure scream loud.
Professor Flitwick’s Charms 5th-year Charms class was close enough to catch the full effect, and the door had been left open besides; en masse the students recoiled with shock and a miscast Hiccuping Charm broke one of the windows (out which the entire flock of ravens they were practicing on escaped to the Forbidden Forest where they only had to worry about centaurs, rather than annoying young humans with wands).
Up in the Divination Tower, Sibyl Trelawny preened over her foresight to have warned her students of an unprecedented catastrophe likely to occur before the hour was out.
Out in Greenhouse Five, a NEWT-level Herbology class looked up in puzzlement, and most of them were subsequently bitten by the Venomous Tentaculae they were attempting to propagate. It does not do to ignore a Venomous Tentacula when you’re prodding at its intimate parts with a cotton ball held in tweezers, so the class was cancelled while two-thirds of the students headed for the infirmary and the rest of them headed into the castle because if they stayed with the Venomous Tentaculae they’d be outnumbered, and nobody wants that.
And down in the dungeons, Professor Snape turned away from comparing Lee Jordan’s Pepper-Up Potion to spoiled cream at what sounded like a woman screaming from the entrance hall. At the second scream, he ordered the class to remain where they were and behave, sweeping out of the room just in time to miss Theodore Nott suddenly jumping up and yelping as if someone had put a crocodile heart down the back of his robes.
Fred Weasley stepped back from the unfortunate Slytherin, shared a smirk with his twin, and stuck his head out the door to make sure Snape had rounded the corner before leading the way out of the classroom.
–
Back in the Transfiguration classroom, about four minutes ago, it had started innocently enough. Ron Weasley, possessed of a broken wand and a lurking suspicion that most of the family’s magical talent had been soaked up by his siblings before he was around to get any, had attempted to turn his pet rat, Scabbers, into a teacup.
Scabbers had not become a teacup.
Scabbers, blast his useless furry little backside, had become a furry, vaguely teacup-shaped monstrosity out of which absolutely no one would have been tempted to drink, and to make matters worse, he still had a tail.
It was moving.
Harry was hiding a smile behind his hand. Dean and Seamus weren’t even trying to hide, elbowing each other and laughing. Parvati and Lavender were looking with disgust and horror at either Scabbers or him, and Hermione was opening her mouth, no doubt ready to tell him exactly what he’d done wrong.
Which only made it worse that he really thought he’d done everything right this time.
He snatched Scabbers off the desk (eww, the base of the cup had the same texture as rat feet) and turned away from Hermione. He made the wand movement again, picturing in his mind the way McGonagall had demonstrated it. “Erreverto.”
“Erreverto. Erreverto. Erreverto.”
It didn’t work. It didn’t work when Professor McGonagall stopped by and gave Hermione two points for Gryffindor for getting the spell perfect in both directions. It didn’t work when Harry made his successful transfiguration (Ron looked; the pattern was a little bit furry but it was definitely a teacup). Ron’s lips formed the shape of a word that would’ve made his mother box his ears had she heard it and attempted the reverse transfiguration, which didn’t work either.
Finally, faced not only with the indignity of failure but the threat of Scabbers being stuck like that, he’d gone up to Professor McGonagall’s desk.
“Um, Professor?”
Professor McGonagall looked up from the paper she was grading and looked from him to the squirming teacup. “Problems, Mr. Weasley?”
“Um, yeah, Professor. I can’t get it to work in either direction and it’s not fair to Scabbers to make him stay as a teacup just because I can’t do a spell right and can you maybe … ?”
“I suppose so, Mr. Weasley,” she said, and waved her wand in the exact manner Ron had been doing all along.
Nothing happened.
Professor McGonagall looked very, very puzzled.
“Now that’s odd,” she said softly.
As one, the other students rose from their seats and quietly moved closer.
She did not attempt the transfiguration in the other direction. Instead, she made a complex motion with her wand and murmured an incantation that possibly only Hermione recognized. The teacup squeaked. Professor McGonagall looked more puzzled than ever, and made a sweeping wand movement that ended with a sharp jab and uttered, “Arcanum finite!”
And there was a loud bang, and there was a pale, pudgy, and very naked man sprawled out on her desk, and she jumped back hard enough to knock her chair into the wall and screamed.
–
Having taught a particularly rigorous course of magical study to children and teens for quite some time now, Minerva McGonagall had become accustomed to certain things. Students who didn’t listen. Students who did rude things to the mice when they thought she wasn’t looking. Students who accidentally turned a frog or a raven into a flock of starlings or a school of strange slimy South American fish (and tried to solve the immediate problem by filling the classroom with two feet of water, neglecting to consider the gap under the door). Students who tried to transfigure their noses into a more appealing shape and wound up in the hospital wing regrowing their nostrils.
Naked men on her desk was something Minerva McGonagall had never had an occasion to get used to. What made it worse was that she recognized this one, and he’d been dead for more than a decade.
Inferius! was her first thought, followed shortly thereafter by Animagus, which collided with Peter Pettigrew! and produced the utterly horrifying thought of what if all four of them were Animagi? which didn’t bear thinking about at all, so her brain jumped to if he wasn’t killed by a Dark Wizard then why didn’t he say so? and realized there was only one possible explanation why, and about that time her eyes registered that parts of Peter Pettigrew she really doesn’t want to know about were flopping about in front of her face, and she was screaming as she jumped back.
The flow of invective which followed somehow failed to surprise her one bit. Some part of her registered, peripherally, the shocked faces of her students, but most of her attention was directed at Peter Pettigrew, who at very least faked his own death and at worst framed Sirius Black and if Black didn’t betray the Potters then who … did. And the words poured out of her, filthy English and filthier Latin while Pettigrew squirmed on the table, his face rage and guilt and fear and something shifty and contemptible, and he turned to look at the stunned students and lunged for Ron Weasley’s wand.
–
Severus Snape had reached the Entrance Hall by the time the scream died away and the invective replaced it. He almost smirked, amid the alarm; of all the things he’d never expected to hear from Minerva McGonagall … he took the stairs two at a time, still not noticing the students who followed.
He did notice the Herbology class, which had stopped on the way to the Infirmary and were staring transfixed in the direction of the Transfiguration classroom, but pushed his way through them, getting Venomous Tentacula pollen all over his robes in the process.
From the other end of the corridor came Professor Flitwick’s Charms class, with Professor Flitwick bringing up the rear and pushing his way between students.
–
Ron looked stunned as the man who’d been his pet rat snatched the wand from his hand; Professor McGonagal’s expression shifted to one beyond fury and when the entire class recoiled, it wasn’t from the naked man with the wand.
“Laedo!“ Minerva McGonagall roared.
–
Ron Weasley’s wand cast a Splintering Curse many years beyond its rightful owner’s abilities, and it did Peter Pettigrew the poor favor of eliminating the door, which might have slowed him down a bit.
–
Severus Snape flailed and skidded to a halt as the Transfiguration classroom’s door shattered. He stepped back just in time, and stared, jaw dropped in shock, as a naked man he recognized from his school days flew past him and bellyflopped against the wall, bounced, and collapsed to the ground just in time to avoid the “Exitium!” which followed and vaporized an impresive chunk of the castle’s stone wall.
Fred and George and Lee Jordan, determined to stay at the front of the crowd, had been pushed almost against Professor Snape by their fellow Potions classmates and some pollen-coated Hufflepuffs. Fred squirmed aside hastily as Professor McGonagall appeared in the doorway, the look on her face so utterly livid that Professors Snape and Flitwick both reflexively stepped back.
Snape tripped over George’s foot and fell against a knot of Hufflepuffs, releasing another cloud of pollen and knocking them backwards. Pettigrew saw his opportunity and took it, scrambling to his feet, stumbling sideways, and launching himself towards the gap.
And Minerva McGonagall made a thrust with her wand and said, “Perdo.”
In the very loud silence which followed, Filius Flitwick squeaked, “The Splinching Charm, Minerva?”
She might’ve looked embarrassed for a moment, and then she smiled as she looked down at Pettigrew, who lay on his belly, his arms and legs lying akimbo some distance away.
“Unorthodox,” she said, “but useful in a pinch. If someone would inform the Headmaster, and send an owl to the Ministry—-not Fudge, not Crouch, someone competent—-Shacklebolt, perhaps. Students, return to your classrooms, please. Mr. Weasley, I’m very sorry, but I do believe it’s impossible to return you your rat. However, the zero I was going to have to give you for the day’s work is entirely undeserved, as you were not transfiguring a normal rat. You may make the lesson up any time this week.”
–
The story was, of course, much embellished by the time it reached all the students. Versions of it had the intruder peppering Snape with a Glitter Hex or transfiguring Ron’s rat into a pair of boxers, and people had to be disabused of the notion that it had been Voldemort who’d been hiding as a rat all this time.
Snape gave both Weasley twins detention for tripping him, and took forty-seven points total from Gryffindor over the next few weeks for various pretend-subtle pollen references.
Kingsley Shacklebolt showed up with a team of Aurors in time to meet Professor Dumbledore; the Wizengamot launched an investigation into the events surrounding the Potters’ murder; the results turned into a scandal which saw the release of Sirius Black and the forced resignation of both Director Bartemious Crouch and Minister Cornelius Fudge. Director of Magical Law Enforcement Amelia Bones was confirmed as Minister of Magic shortly thereafte, and the Daily Prophet reported that Sirius Black (“Godfather to the Boy-Who-Lived!” “Framed, Abandoned, Condemned to Living Hell!” “Heart-Wrenching: His Release In Pictures, Page 17!”) was considering applying for a teaching position at Hogwarts, “but just for a year, I’ve been cursed enough for one lifetime.” (“The Prophet reminds its readers that the so-called “curse” on a certain Hogwarts teaching position is almost certainly a mere string of coincidences.”)
And, Minerva thought with relish some months later, it was almost three weeks before anyone attempted messing around in her class.
A personal record.
I’ve probably reblogged this before but I’m going to do it again right now
I think this is literally the best au this entire fandom has produced
I’ve only seen this legendary bit of writing in memes and screenshots. I feel so blessed to see it in person.
face as he trips and it gets plastered all over the internet. Mace Windu strikes a dramatic pose after a battle and it’s caught on holo, people splash motivational wolf-style quotes over the image. The most popular of which is, “WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU. IS GOING TO DIE.” while Master Windu stands there with a >:| face and his lightsaber at the ready.
Because Why Not? 