Comment on The Unlikability Curse

  1. hungry4stories on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Jul 2025 05:27AM UTC

    Hmm...given the timing, I'm assuming Quirrellmort applied the curse as a way to outsource his murder attempts? Since it sounds like Harry's not on the team, we skip the cursed broomstick attack.

    I love the concept. He seems like he's in a similar headspace to the Harry in Used to the Silence, except the bullies in that story don't even have the excuse of having been cursed.

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    1. The_Other_Kim on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Jul 2025 04:38PM UTC

      Actually, we only have Harry's conclusion that it was Voldemort who cast the curse on him.

      And why did he come to this conclusion? Because the curse ended in the final battle, when he killed Voldemort.

      But who ELSE died in that final battle, that was specifically brought up in the narrative? Who hated Harry Potter in canon, and showed it at every opportunity from the first day of his first year? Hatred that would have gone unnoticed in this story, as just another sneer in the crowd...

      Severus Snape had a reputation for knowing so, so many Dark curses, far more than he was witnessed casting in canon. He would likely have been delighted to cast an Unlikeability Curse on James Potter's son, to make sure the brat's time as a student in Hogwarts was even more miserable his had been, as a poor halfblood in Slytherin that was also hounded by the Marauders.

      I'm betting that Snape cast the curse on Harry... And Dumbledore let him, because the poor boy had to die anyway, due to the horcrux in his scar.

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      1. hungry4stories on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Jul 2025 05:39PM UTC

        That tracks. I hadn't even thought of that.

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      2. ThroughDarkeningGlass on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Jul 2025 06:56PM UTC

        Agree, this curse is just so petty. like Voldemort tried to kill Harry many times but he always treated him as threat or adversary. And what guarantee does he had, that Dumbldore won' t figure it out and just hide Harry in some safehouse to train as a Chosen One. It would be like shooting himself in the leg. Snape theory sounds very reasonable.

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      3. Anon (Guest) on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Jul 2025 08:58PM UTC

        Harry did say he wasn’t sure if the curse ended after killing Voldemort, just that he believed that it was Voldemort.

        I think the theory is still valid though, if Snape technically died after Voldemort did that might explain why people were still hostile to Harry in the aftermath.

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        1. The_Other_Kim on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Jul 2025 09:20PM UTC

          Snape could also have died before voldemort, but the fact that Harry was out of school and on the run for nearly a year before the final confrontation, meant no one noticed that the curse had dissipated until after all the shouting was over, and they gradually realized that they were thinking of him without automatically hating him. Huh, what changed?

          And Harry himself provided the excuse for being shouted at in the immediate aftermath of Voldemort's death; he was covered in blood and gore at the time, and approaching a bunch of kids that were already freaked out. I must admit that I'd be yelling at him to back off too, under those circumstances.

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          1. Anon (Guest) on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Jul 2025 10:57PM UTC

            I do think that outburst about the blood could go either way.
            In cannon the younger students were evacuated but that might not have happened here. Cursed McGonagall believed him to be a “threat to little kids” like he wasn’t considered a kid himself. I could see the students in question be anywhere from 11-15 years old.
            But this Harry is more comfortable with violence and probably wouldn’t care about frightening first years if he’d expected them to hate him anyway.

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