Well, it has been a long time, hasn't it? For those of you who want an explanation, basically my muse went and decided to focus itself upon other things. In addition to completing a handful of Harry Potter one-shots, which can be found in Bolts from the Blue, I have been playing about many other Harry Potter stories, some one-shots, some bigger projects. I have also been slowly updating my major Pokémon story (though to be honest, my muse hasn't really been into that either) and planning other Pokémon stories. I also have several Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth based story ideas that have been going through the planning stages, one of which now has six chapters ready to be written. There is also a Jurassic Park story that is almost ready to go and I have also been toying with the idea for stories based on two British television series Prehistoric Park and Primeval – both have been cancelled but ideas still bubble in my head! And on top of all that I am seriously considering a Harry Potter/Frozen crossover.
If that wasn't enough, I have also embarked on a rather large Harry Potter-related project which is aimed solely at helping me in writing fanfiction. J. K. Rowling left us with a lot of names and a lot of gaps for us to fill in and as a writer of Harry Potter fanfiction, I not only need to keep track of what is canon but also those things which I make up – it is a real pain in the hole to come up with a name for someone and forget who they are and what they do. While oftentimes the name can just be a brief mention in passing, you can guarantee that if in one chapter I say that Lisa Turpin's mother is a healer and then ten chapters later I say she's an Auror someone somewhere will pick up on it and comment on it (and yes, mistakes like that have happened before!)
So basically this project is to draw up my own guide to a who's who of the Wizarding World, starting with canon and then moving on to my own additions. This includes creating family trees, establishing blood-statuses and house ranks, Hogwarts houses and year groups, age, careers, wand, patronus shape, specialised subjects, hair colour, eye colour, allegiances, enemies, home locations, Quidditch Teams and so on.
This project is nowhere near completion but I can go off of it for the time being. Once the project is complete, that's it. I use that information and no other (unless of course Rowling ever decides to reveal more, then I might change a few things!) – So, if, for example, I make the female Hufflepuff prefect from Ginny and Luna's year a blond haired, blue eyed, half-blood, Holyhead Harpies fan with a wand made of the wood of a silver bird and the feather of a roc, the patronus of a honey badger, who lives in Holyhead, with a Dad who works as a potioneer at St Mungo's while his wife takes care of her aging mother who is a direct descendant of the third Minister for Magic of Nicaragua, then as far as I am concerned, that's it. If any story I write ever needs to mention the female Hufflepuff prefect from Ginny and Luna's year, she's there, filling that role with the same background as I have set out. Whether that background is ever needed or not is beside the point – it is there, should I ever need it.
So far I have drawn up a table naming every Wizarding family of Britain and have assigned them to the ranks of Ancient and Noble, Ancient, Noble, Lesser, Clan and Newblood as well and labelling those that are extinct, near extinction, are in default (squib or werewolf is the only one left for example), could be revived from Muggleborn descendants, who supports Pure-blood supremacy, or if they are a member of "The Sacred Twenty-Eight" – if you don't know what that is, look it up on the Harry Potter Wikia! The list also notes families of foreign decent (Chang, Patil) and where they are from originally – useful should I ever write a story where Harry decides to escape to another country.
I have also done a class list for Hogwarts which not only incorporates the official one for Harry's year but also goes up to Percy Weasley and Oliver Wood's year and down to those who were first years in Harry's sixth year. This is especially useful because, while I can remember names like Rose Zeller, Laura Madley, Euan Abercombie , Orla Quirke and Eddie Carmichael from canon, I couldn't for the life of me tell you what years they are in without consulting the list. This list is by no means complete, not yet taking into account that from year group that Romilda Vane and Astoria Greengrass come from would likely have seen an increase in size compared to previous years as a result of the first fall of Lord Voldemort. Also I am working on expanding the list to go at least as far as those students who were seventh years in Harry's first year. Once that list is complete I can work properly on all the needed family trees.
And on top of all that, I am attending a college course one day every two weeks – that doesn't seem like much but it is a work-based course so I have to make lots of notes and take lots of photographs of what I do at work and fill it all out in the form of Candidate Reports, as well as answer a crap load of question sheets regarding health and safety, irrigation, drainage, soil science and maintenance of ground conditions (I am a Groundsman, by the way. This means I cut grass and mark out and maintain sports pitches. See all those white lines on a football or rugby pitch? See how the grass changes from light bands to dark bands? I do that stuff.)
Anyway, hopefully that explains why there have been no updates to this story in a while. Tomorrow I am heading for The Making of Harry Potter Warner Bros. Studio Tour in London. If seeing the sets of places like the Gryffindor Common Room, the Ministry Atrium, Malfoy Manor Meeting Room, the Potions Classroom, The Burrow's Kitchen and Dumbledore's Office, as well as animatronics of Dobby, Aragog and Buckbeak don't get the ol' creative juices flowing, I don't know what will! (I'm not sure how I will do with Aragog as I've got a bit of arachnophobia!)
Hopefully I will return to updating this story very soon. The next chapter is already completely planned out, so I feel I can treat you to the title. Now, many people have been asking where he is and what he has been doing all this time, so he got a chapter dedicated to him in order to explain all of that.
So, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, witches and wizards, elves, goblins and, yes, even trolls, look out for Chapter 30: A Sirius Interlude coming very, very soon!