The summer before Harry's Sixth Year, Voldemort is gaining power and begining his assault on the Wizarding world. Dumbledore revives an almost extinct practice of Apprenticeship at Hogwarts, which Harry becomes part of. Harry and the other Apprentices are sucked into a mire of politics, betrayals, and power struggles, with echoes of the past reaching out and complicating things further. WIP

Shang Qinghua goes to take a self-indulgent peek at his baby protagonist son and gets a kick to the shrivelled heart for his troubles. He gave up on changing the story years ago! Yet he finds himself helping his protagonist son's adoptive mother anyway. Just this one change won't matter too much, right? One little change leads to more. Shang Qinghua never meant to care, but he becomes invested in making sure that his new family survives the looming plot. With the changes to the world cascading around him, with his position as a traitor pulling him between his sect and a certain ice demon, and with the protagonist growing up so quickly, how is one displaced author meant to ensure that everything turns out all right? A Pre-Canon to Canon Divergence story.