Oh No There’s Two Of Them

You've read my mind. I had a completely different post in the works about the Malfoy-Riddle-Leach connection.

It's really fascinating how these 3 characters connect in canon and in fanon.

Because they represent the three main "blood statuses" even if Riddle's is assumed to be muggleborn.

Abraxas Malfoy was able to efficiently get rid if Leach with little effort and loss of power on his side. Going by the official site, people knew he was involved but they couldn't do a damn thing to prove it.

If purebloods were capable of this then what the hell were the Death Eaters in the ministry doing?!

Voldemort took away their security in power, because by the time of his first downfall purebloods were being arrested without trial, or solid evidence, in droves. If Abraxas Malfoy had done what he did to Leach during the Voldemort era he would not have gotten the same leniency he flourished in post-Grindelwald.

TL;DR

Pre-Voldemort

Ministry of Magic: We know it was you.

Purebloods: Oh it was absolutely me.

Post-Voldemort

Purebloods: Bloodpurity? Don't know her.

Ministry of Magic: jail

Purebloods: well if isn't the consequences of my own actions.

Its supremely unfair how under utilized Nobby Leach is in fanfic.

He's a blank slate! The 1st Muggleborn British Minister of Magic but we know very little about him personally or even the circumstances of his election.

Voldemort rose to power in the late 60s-early 70s. Leach was minister sometime between 1962-68. And Leach was supposedly threatened from returning to his position or possibly assassinated.

Do you think poor, working-class, assumed Mudblood of Slytherin Tom Riddle didn't see these shady dealings and go "Okay so taking the legal route to power won't work."

If having power was Tom's only goal then he absolutely would've taken a quicker route to it. But instead Nobby Leach's failure just proved the system was too broken to fix from the inside.

(Quick disclaimer, I think Riddle only used the blood-purity thing to get an in with the purebloods who were running the country. There are better posts that expand on this idea in detail so I'm not going to get into it too much here. Okay? Okay.)

We know so little about Leach that he could conceivably have gone to Hogwarts at the same time as Tom Riddle. Did they know eachother? That's up to you, but if they went to school together then they definitely knew OF eachother.

So here you have Nobby Leach who hit the ground running after graduation, who clawed his way to being the FIRST muggleborn Minister of Magic in a government made up of bloodpurists, and then he just...resigned? Fuck that. That doesn't fit at all.

And anyone with half a brain would've picked up on that. Tom Riddle could not have missed how uncharacteristic this would be if he knew Leach, or heck just noticed the sheer will and patience it takes to become THE Muggleborn Minister of Magic.

On that note, there might've been some sort of Muggleborn movement happening in the background following Grindelwald's defeat. After all it takes more than one person to achieve this kind of victory.

So Tom Riddle watches (or is apart of 👀) a fast-paced, determined movement place the FIRST Muggleborn Minister of Magic and then watches as this victory silently tumbles down into forgotten history.

Meanwhile Tom builds the Death Eaters who also work outside the system via raids and murder despite the fact that they all work inside of it already. Theres already lots to unpack with THAT decision but moving on... Once the Ministry finally gets its shit together and arrests the (clearly labeled with Dark Marks) perpetrators, throwing them in wizard prison eventually reaching the point where they would be thrown in without a trial (Sirius Black), the Pureblood lawmakers all of a sudden realize "oh fuck, this is getting real."

And now what do they have to do to avoid suspicion in this very Red Scare-esque era of spying and tattling on eachother (it worked for Karkaroff) to avoid wizard prison? Play nice with the Muggleborns.

TL;DR

Nobby Leach: went the legitimate route to making change by working WITHIN the system. He rose fast and fell silently.

Tom Riddle: went the shady route to power by working OUTSIDE the system, painstakingly working for decades to build a support base, and falling in notoriety.

There needs to be more fics with them as foils to eachother. And if it has to be me, I warn you it will take YEARS to finish.

A begrudging Happy Valentine's to you all! Stay safe out there, my fellow aromantics ...

What led to the Death Eaters?

War Crimes, Vigilantes, and Dragonpox, oh my!

I just had the craziest HP au idea so bare with me. 

Tom went AWOL for a decade or two where we have no clue what happened to him or what the fuck he did beyond finding Ravenclaw’s diadem. 

What we do know is that before his absence the Purebloods were very comfortable in their power...but then Nobby Leach became the Minister of Magic I will find some way to squeeze him into everyone of my TMR stories mark my words somehow and suddenly the Purebloods were ready to throw down upon TMR’s return. 

I personally headcanon that some sort of Muggleborn rights movement occured in this time frame that led to Leach’s ascent but I honestly don’t think that would be enough to result in such a drastic change. 

There’s also no way Tom wouldn’t have wanted to get in on some of that chaos if he knew it would help him later. 

Before I get into where the vigilante part comes in I should also probably share my other au idea for the Grindelwald-WW2 overlap. I think that some of the Purebloods took advantage of the chaos that arose from the bombings, the fighting, and the imprisonment going on in the Muggle World to hide their own war crimes. What kind of war crimes? Well that depends on how angsty you want it to get. 

Could this happen in canon? Probably not given how ignorant most Purebloods are to the Muggle World but it is an idea to play around with that they’re not all as ignorant as they pretend to be. Arthur Weasley just can not be the most informed Pureblood on Muggle matters because I would have no fic ideas otherwise. 

Anyway, they could use WW2 as a cover to do away with Muggles, Squibs, and Muggleborns in a manner that would go unnoticed. These raids also serve as a precursor to the Death Eater’s later strategies of attacking head on with violence rather than subtly in the courtroom. It makes much more sense for them to go this route later if they had recent evidence it had worked for them before. Purebloods are all about tradition and playing it safe; why would they take risks on an unknown? 

Tom Riddle is the perfect victim for Purebloods during WW2: he’s in London during The Blitz, he’s an orphan, a presumed Muggleborn, and he’s in Slytherin despite all of this. The Purebloods take offense to this. The audacity of this kid to want a place to belong, shocker. People in actual history have killed or done worse for less than this. 

Obviously, their attempts didn’t work otherwise Harry Potter would be very different. Tom survived with an extra dose of trauma and knows the Purebloods are actively unaliving (or worse) random children and getting away with it. And now he has to go back to Hogwarts and pretend like his housemates didn’t ask their parents to do the same to him. But he’s fine. Everything’s fine. 

This is where Vigilante Tom comes in. Once the war was over and the Purebloods no longer had a cover to hide their criminal activities they had to get subtle. I mean they could stop but they’ve gotten away with it so far, what could go wrong? 

Tom. Tom and all of the Muggleborns they failed to get rid of. And they are here to make it everyone’s problem. 

While the Muggleborns and Leach vibe check the Wizarding World, Tom throws down in the background dismantling the Pureblood crime syndicate. 

The Purebloods find this terrifying. They’re being attacked on two fronts: the public and the private. The Muggleborns attack their credibility and power, but Tom straight up attacks whoever he finds and kills without mercy. Suddenly, their power no longer makes them untouchable. The Muggleborns don’t know about Tom but the Purebloods don’t know that they don’t know. They also don’t know if the Muggleborns do know. 

To be safe, the Purebloods keep the situation with Tom underwraps. They control the newspapers so nothing is printed that even vaguely mentions him. Neither do the Purebloods mention him aloud. He’s the You-Know-Who to anyone who knows am I right? HA. Okay I’ll shut up now.  

But what they can not hide is the frankly concerning number of Pureblood deaths.  Luckily they have a solution ready to go.

Haven’t you heard? Dragonpox is terrible this time of year. 

Yes I know there’s technically a cure for it in canon, this is an au, let me dream. The phrase becomes code for ‘oh yeah they were absolutely unalived by You-Know-Who.’  (Except they didn’t know who otherwise they never would’ve joined his cult)

So the Purebloods are spooked on both fronts when Nobby Leach becomes Minister for Magic and Tom continues to dismantle their criminal underground. They are desperate, scared, furious, vengeful, and ready to rumble. But how are they going to-oh hey that You-Know-Who guy is gone yay! And so is Nobby Leach. I guess we can chill now-

And then before they can simmer down, some guy shows up who knows exactly what to say to get them fired up again. 

And no Pureblood connected the dots until years later when Voldemort visited Abraxas Malfoy on his deathbed and spilled the beans. Too bad he never got to tell anyone! Dragonpox is terrible this time of year afterall.  

Alastor's Father

WARNING: period-typical racism, WW1, race-based murder

I see a lot of fics where Alastor's dad is a piece of shit and abusive, but I'd love to see one where Al's dad actually loves and cares for his family but was taken from them when Alastor was too young to remember much about him.

Maybe he died as a soldier in WW1 or made it back to the US only to be killed some other way. If he was black, then those odds go way up unfortunately.

We don't know much about Al's parents but if it's still canon that he's creole, then that means at least one of his parents has black ancestry. A lot of the fics I've seen give him a black mom/white dad, but I think it would be interesting if both his parents were mixed too.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is if Al's dad was killed when he was still little, then they wouldn't recognize each other in hell now would they?

Al's dad sure does love his family, but everyone else can fuck off. And ooh boi did he earn his place in hell trying to protect them, not that heaven cared about his motives.

The second he finds out Alastor the Radio Demon is his baby boy? Hell hath no fury like a protective parent. He doesn't give a flying fuck about the atrocities Alastor has caused, that's his baby and no one is going to hurt him while he's not double-dead.

(separating this into its own post bc I need the validation of the radiostatic enjoyers)

Alastor absolutely believes that everyone else ALSO thinks that Vox is the most charming and attractive demon in hell, it's just an objective fact - just like how Vox is an annoying clout-chaser constantly trying to upgrade himself towards more and more validation

--

Like imagine, for whatever reason, Vox is at the hotel and he's bitching about Valentino, and Alastor is nearby because he doesn't like or trust Vox alone in HIS hotel.

Vox: And then the fucker said that he only sleeps with 10s AND Vox! That absolute bitch, how DARE he?! After everything we've built!

Alastor, confused: The distinction makes sense. I fail to see how THIS is the thing you take fault with, considering everything else lacking in the moth.

Vox, mortally offended that his rival-crush ALSO thinks he's ugly and trying to pretend he doesn't care about it: uh, FUCK YOU?!

Alastor, now both confused and offended: If he included you in the scale, no one else would rate a 10? Although I suppose it is true about what they say about television rotting the brain, if your offense is taken at a rare show of consideration and NOT the publicized and continuous cheating. Ha ha!

Vox is so caught off guard that his screen immediately glitches, and it's not until he does a full system reboot that he can even RESPOND to what Alastor just said.

Alastor is making fun of his flimsy technology when Vox comes to.

Angel is cracking up in the background, watching this entire thing go down.

Vox has no idea where to go from here.

Sinners Become Human | Hazbin Hotel AU

Concept: For one week every month, the sinners of hell take on their human forms and all the good and bad that comes with it.

----------------------------------

Once The Extermination is postponed till further notice, Charlie and Emily work to get sinners interested in redemption.

Unfortunately, they are unsuccessful and they have no idea how to convince sinners to take a chance and better themselves to get into Heaven.

The former humans (Angel, Husk, Alastor, Niffty) at the Hotel attempt to cheer her up by explaining human nature and how Hell and their demonic forms only exacerbate the disconnect from their humanity and make it more difficult to want to do good things.

And that gives her an idea. She can't change Hell itself (yet) when no one will work with her but she CAN bridge the gap...

In place of the Extermination, sinner demons will take on their human forms one week in every month. They will have no access to their powers, deals, or contracts during this duration.

And if you're killed as a human, you can't respawn until the week is over.

Sera and Lucifer are forced to work together once Emily & Charlie enthusiastically propose the idea. And sinners all over Hell wonder what fresh torture this is and if they should consider Heaven just to escape this bullshit.

An exploration of morality, community, perseverance, and what it means to be human. Exploring the concept of dehumanization and how sinners unintentionally view themselves and their fellow demons as less than human because of their demonic forms.

Jason: *picks up a hitchhiker*

After a few miles...

Hitchhiker: Aren't you afraid that I might be a serial killer?

Jason: Nah, the odds of two serial killers being in the same car is highly unlikely.

Ace Radiostatic idea Vox finally figuring himself out and trying to figure out how to talk to Alastor especially now he's realized yes AL likes him romantically, or he hopes at least. And does not want to blow it again and while sitting in an overlords meeting just blurts out "I DON'T WANT TO FUCK YOU" to Alastor. Everyone else is just staring WTF. But Alastor communicates him via radio waves or Alastor can tell what he means. All the overlords think Alastor is going to kill him but instead "I'll be free at 8 pick me up then". Every single Overlord 'WTF HOW DID THAT WORK???'

The fastest and most blunt way to clear up a long-standing miscommunication but if it works it works, that'd be funny as hell to witness everyone's faces

My goofy theory is Simon got some of his artifacts in not totally leagal and moral ways and he is just now opening about it cause statutes of limitations def don’t exist anymore:

Finn: So how did you and Betty get the Enchiridion in the first place?

Simon, not missing a beat: We had to kill a man.

Finn: Ha ha, no way! your joking?

Simon:

Finn, nervously: You’re joking… Right?

tbh one of my fav things in the knifes out series is that we have stereotypical 'genius' detective but that doesn't mean he has to be shut off and emotionally distant. he gets mad at injustice and tells ppl to shut the fuck up!!! sherlock bbc has poisoned the water supply for long enough nature is finally healing