Post-HPB Time Frame

Shortly after Dumbledore's funeral, Harry is reflecting by the lake. When Ginny Weasley approaches him and attempts to force him to allow her to go with on the Horcrux hunt, rather than simply giving in like canon would have done, he begins to dig in his heels.

The argument escalates into her feeling that the only reason he refused her is because he's being possessed, and attempts to stun him. Struck by the Stunner, he falls, but rather than blacking out, he feels a terrible pain and is hurled into a vision of the height of Voldemort's first rising, but he himself is playing the part of terrible villain.

Just as he finishes killing a young, redheaded Muggle, he awakes. He finds himself at the lakeshore, stained in blood and the broken body of Ginny not five feet from him. He'll probably scream, cry, mourn, you know, that bit. But what's Harry's life without a good pile o' hardship? And then another entity comes into play.

Harry experiences an incredible burning sensation as the rune for murderer is branded into his flesh. He is immediately yanked to another plane of existence, where what passes for God informs him that God and an opposite entity, which is left open to interpretation, ave been waging a cold war for millennia to achieve their ends on earth.

Good 'ol God has been trying to keep the balance, but the Evil guy is trying to capture Earth to use as a staging ground for his forces in preparation to launch attacks on the other planes. Harry's been chosen as the deciding piece in this massive game.

Then why, Harry asks, is this on my arm? God explains that certain forces, namely good and evil, have an effect on the human's soul. However, once evil hits a certain point, it begins to manifest physically. Voldemort's lifetime of evil has turned him serpentine, while Harry, since he's been a good little boy for all his life, receives pain and torment as the evil tries to drag him down.

But I haven't done anything evil! Harry says. You've done one, God says, but that's besides the point. Fact is, when you took out the Dark Lord, his soul entwined with yours. His baggage came along for the ride, too.

Now, says God, you've got a choice. Join the side of Good and save the Earth-plane, or join Evil and work to destabilize the plane in order for the Evil forces to attack and capture the plane. What do you choose?

Rules:
-Harry's got to pick a side. No wishy-washy shit.
-Harry isn't going to be just aginst one opponent be it Dumbles or Voldie. No,Good and Evil have a mass of puppets across the plane and Harry's got to get them one at a time.
-Don't turn this into a Super!Harry. Harry's got little experience, and low amount of practical spells, so his primary trick is surprise, sneaking, ambushing, hidden explosives, and so on.
-His enemies are smart. SMART! Harry has to be just as smart if he doen't want to be turned into Prophecy-powered vapor.
-There will be no "teammates/followers/assisstants." Harry's got to do this with himself and his wits.
-For each act of Evil or Good, Harry recieves a change, be it turning steadily more demonic or more angelic.
-If Harry gets more powerful, such as stealing Opponent A's spellbooks or weapons or something else, Opponents B-Z get tougher.
-Harry is nobody's asspuppet. He's out for number one. No matter who he joins with, He's looking for better positions and higher standing ASAP.

That's it so far. Feel free to throw up suggestions.

Edit for Averis: It's not so much one big snap decision as it is a case-by-case thing.

 

That sounds pretty dope, Mindless, real good stuff. I think an easy explanation for Harry turning Evil would be Ginny's death and an anger that is all consuming. I mean, he can only blame himself, but it's a lot more fun to take it out on what's around you.

It would be a bit of a stretch, though, for Harry to come face to face with God and say "Yeah, I'm taking the Devil's side." I mean, seriously. Who is that stupid? So maybe an alternative that is less of a choice and more of a forced thing. Perhaps he commits suicide, and when in Hell, he is given the choice to suffer or make others suffer, and escape pain completely.

The new power sounds pretty cool, but I think it should be a gradual thing rather than a "You have recieved Invisibilty Cloak *theme music*" moment. Maybe he slowly and steadily becomes more evil, and his skin tightens, his muscles bulge, his arms and legs stretch, his ears become more sharp... And the most profound change would be psychologically. I think something that is plaguing the back of his mind (Satan would be a controlling-bastard wouldn't he?) would force him to get worse and worse until he embraces it.

In my head this story looks cool as fuck, sadly... thoughts can easily be ruined on paper. I'd definitely read this if someone wrote it, though.

 

I thought it was a good challenge, there are many things that can be exploited. One thing that I believe would be interesting to see would be the "God/counterpart" interaction. I mean they must know each other, it wouldn't make sense for a "God" to fight something it doesn't know. Besides if they have been waging a war against each other for a really long time I don't believe one would pass the chance to sway a key piece in their war to their side. Either light or dark, it wouldn't matter in my opinion, if they both want to achieve their goals neither would play nice, it would be stupid specially concerning Harry and the role h has to play.

Another thing is I think you should make Harry decide his side later, after all if what the 'God' that spoke to Harry is telling the truth, then the outcome of the war would have huge repercussions, and by now Harry should know better than to judge things lightly, potentially uninformed as he is. The 'God', whichever it is, knows that forcing Harry has a 50-50 of swaying him to his side, so I think it would most likely try to convince him through other means ie. help, resources, information to achieve harry's personal goals etc. While at some point Harry has to meet the other entity too. I would really like to see the power plays.

 

It's a good idea, and would be brilliant if taken up by the right author. However, even with a good author, stories that include God usually turn terrible. Mainly because it's unlike a war human's would fight, with one side unwilling to risk anything and the other side absolutely everything.

And mainly because most people will drop a story if it includes the word God (as in a modern God)

The easy way to avoid it is two name the two opposing forces Chaos and Order. Cliche, but as long as you explain it properly it should avoid what makes it so cliche. Thats Chaos and Order being absolutely Good and Evil, which they aren't.

 

It's a great idea.

However, don't make it Good vs. Bad. Of course Harry would join the Good side if that was true. And it's unrealistic. Make the two sides much grayer; like InfernoCannon's idea.

Read LightningontheWave. She has the best comparison of two godly sides fighting each other - what you're talking about - (Light vs. Dark) in the HP fandom.

 

Although this at first glance sounds like a good idea the more i think about it and about the dynamics, for me it really would not and could not work. A staging point to capture the rest of the planes? please. if earth was that important then wars would have raged between "good and evil" forever, make it some other world, then you may have a chance of making this workable, as it stands it would be full of plot holes, needs some serious re-thinking but could work in the long run.

 

While it is an interesting idea, I think it would get out of hand really quickly and I doubt anyone but a rare few could write it in such a way that it still felt somewhat Harry Potterish (even fanfic HPish) and I think even fewer would be able to keep a plot going.