A necromancer walks into a party...
...and immediately raises spirits!
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NOT MY FAULT — those are the words Mae Courtley wants engraved on her tombstone. None of it is her fault, but of course she's the one who gets expelled from Ilvermorny, and ends up being shipped off to her Welsh grandparents, just because she accidentally almost exposed the entire American wizarding community by dabbling in a little necromancy. Whatever. No one died, so it's not even that big of a deal.
Of course, her parents (and the American Ministry of Magic) don't seem to share the same opinion, so Mae has to leave her Quidditch captaincy, her best friends, and sunny San Francisco behind — even though she keeps insisting that necromancy isn't even that dangerous. So what if the graveyard she accidentally woke marched across the Golden Gate Bridge? Maybe the No-Majs didn't even see!
Her summer — which is supposed to be blissfully relaxing — is instead filled with trials, and more trials, and adults debating whether or not she should spend her fifth year at Azkaban instead of Hogwarts. She supposes she should be lucky that she gets to live out the rest of her days in a Dementor-free environment, but Hogwarts isn't exactly accepting. Mae loves popularity, sure, but infamy? It's not her cup of tea. And it doesn't help that everyone is looking at her as though she might hex them into oblivion.
So she makes a plan: convince Quirrell that she's not Voldemort reincarneted, become Slytherin's newest Chaser despite her reputation, and maybe, just maybe, score a date with that cute Gryffindor Keeper. And those, are Mae Courtley promises!
♥
in other words . . .
On the list of Mabel M. Courtley's Top Ten Worst Decisions (Of All Time), raising the dead is definitely up there. But hey, at least there's a silver lining — that guy at her new school is kind of cute — and honestly, things can't get much worse.
...Right?
♥
putting the ROMANCE in necromancer!
🦴💌
Mabel Courtley
&&
🧹🦁
Oliver Wood
♥
♥ ♥ ♥
i have revamped, rewritten, and cried over this fic more times that i can count. she causes me so much grief. she is my therapist and the bane of my existence. and she has returned after a months long break i took to figure out pretty much everything. point is: i started this story when i was fifteen, and now i'm on my gap year before i start at my dream uni next fall. i've grown up, i guess, and in a way this story has too. this is the new iteration.
big difference: this rewrite leans more into the folk horror (ish?) elements of my own version of harry potter canon because as if being a shitty person wasn't enough, joanne's entire body of work reeks of wasted potential. i digress. this isn't exactly horror by any means but it's like if... the haunting of hill house had a child with heartstopper. i do not know how else to explain it.
content warnings for discussions of death, unhealthy familial relationships (some of them get better... some of them do not), discussions of mental health, and general teen angst. also small content warning for homophobia later on in the story (i will put a note at the beginning of the chapter which might be particularly triggering). being queer and young is not easy, much less so in joanne's fantasy world where there is not a single gay to be found. but we exist, and obviously i'm going to write about queerness and the journey to finding acceptance. screw jkr and her transphobia — any comments support it or her will just be deleted.
please remember to sustain your local fanfic writers with comments (please please i'm not above begging). k that's all from me!!
please enjoy Dark Arts