Thinking about how I would create a HP/Dresden Files fusion (not crossover).

The Wizarding World

There are around 15,000 wizards in the world, with an average life expectancy of 450 years. Globally, around 30 wizards are born a year, of which around half attend Hogwarts, the only formal school of magic in the world. Those who do not attend Hogwarts will learn magic in a master-apprentice relationship.

The wizarding world is ruled by the White Council, which is more or less as it is in Dresden Files (Merlin, Senior Council, Laws of Magic, Wardens). However, it is significantly larger than in DF due to the higher number of wizards around the world and therefore has more sub-committees.

There are no national Ministries of Magic, no Diagon Alley, no Hogsmeade. The population is too small and too widely distributed to support such places. Wizards are largely integrated into the Muggle world.

Hogwarts is in Scotland and was created by the White Council during the English civil war. The name was originally a code-word, intended to be replaced, but the name stuck. Hogwarts has around 15 students a year (enough for all the HP main characters to attend, just with far fewer extras in the background), for a total school population of ~105.

Most Hogwarts students are from Commonwealth countries for historical/linguistic reasons. Many HP characters will have their backgrounds changed to match the geographically wider intake, and some international characters (read: Fleur) will also attend Hogwarts.

Hogwarts is run by Albus Dumbledore, one of the most powerful wizards in the world. At the height of his influence he was a Senior Council member and also friends/lovers with a German wizard called Kemmler. However, as Kemmler delved further and further into the dark arts and necromancy, Dumbledore eventually confessed everything to the White Council. Following Kemmler's defeat, in a rare moment of leniency, instead of being executed for his crimes, Dumbledore was sentenced to never leave Hogwarts castle, and to spend the rest of his life educating.

Hogwarts starts at age 13. It teaches magic but it also teaches "regular" subjects like English, mathematics, history, etc. It also teaches magic-adjacent subjects like faerie law.

Magic

All sentient beings have souls; wizards are born with a soul of a different nature, which permits them to use magic. Someone is either a wizard or not; there is no middle ground. Wizards tend to have magical children but it's not a sure thing.

Non-wizards can gain access to magical powers via interactions with supernatural beings/supernatural mantles.

Wizards vary in power. A wizard's power is determined by a host of factors, both innate and learned, and is no less than an expression of the totality of the wizard's character and soul.

Magic requires understanding and mental fortitude to perform. The process of learning magic will take a form largely similar to that depicted in Harry Potter (that is, largely academic in nature), only with more overtly occult elements and with a greater emphasis on increasing one's mental abilities.

Magic operates like a cheat-code, overriding physical law. It is constrained, however, by magical law. Magic is not a fuel a wizard uses; a wizard cannot run out of or exhaust their magic.

This means that most day-to-day magic, once mastered, can be cast without significant effort, and wizards use magic quite casually in their daily lives for simple tasks, generally substituting technology for magic. Walk into the house of the average wizard and you'll see loads of magic in use to make day-to-day life easier.

Mental focus can become a limiting factor in certain magic (for example, very powerful or complex spells, or if you are setting your will against another wizard's).

Another major limit to magic is distance. However, this can be overcome with a sympathetic link (thaumaturgy).

Magic is broken up into branches which are each governed by their own body of rules and theory (but each subject to the general nature and theory of magic): transfiguration, charms, potions, curses, summoning, warding, divination, necromancy, mind magic, etc.

Transfiguration is a genuine, permanent physical change and there are no exceptions to Gamp's law. It is an extremely complex area of magic, however, and most students never get very far with it.

Wizards can become quite specialised in a single area of magic, but the most powerful wizards will be generalists (albeit that they may still have a particular area which is their preference). Wizards' magical dispositions can also manifest in terms of elemental preferences.

Magic is dangerous and if it goes wrong, there can be serious consequences. No casting jinxes on people as a light-hearted school prank, no transfiguring an animal half-way without there being some nasty results.

Wizards can use objects such as wands and staffs as a focus to strengthen magic and perform more complex spells. However, these are tools, not a necessity. The greater your mental abilities, the less you will require a focus.

All things have some measure of magical significance; often, the magical significance of objects, events etc. can be drawn upon by wizards as part of spells/potions. However, the magic in the environment is not some kind of atmospheric fuel which is used up. Rather it lies in the magical meaning of those objects.

Instantaneous magical transport is not possible, though faster travel can be achieved through the Nevernever. Wizards can apparate only within visual range.

Supernatural Beings

The faerie courts, the vampire courts, werewolves, the old gods, naagloshii, the Nevernever etc. are all taken from DF wholesale.

Mortals (whether wizards or not) can gain powers, favours, etc. from supernatural beings. There are no biological magical beasts like in HP. Fleur is a Winter Sidhe changeling.

Supernatural beings reside in the Nevernever, where they have a spiritual form. They can take physical form and enter the mortal realm, but they leave much of their power behind in doing so.

In the mortal realm, the Senior Council working together could probably banish Mab. Within the Nevernever, those same wizards would need to use all their power and ingenuity simply to escape her. Within Winter, she could wipe them out with ease.

Another difference is that Winter and Summer are genuinely balanced; there is no Winter army defending the Outer Gates because Outsiders do not exist in this universe. The order of power goes: Queen, Mother, Lady.

Archangels/Fallen/Denarians are one area of significant difference. Archangels exist but they will be divorced from Christian mythology. Rather, they are powerful supernatural beings whose existence and nature relates to the orderly conduct of the universe. Much as the fae are magical representations of the seasons, the Archangels are magical representations of key aspects of the universe: the angel of death, the angel of beauty, the angel of war, and so on. Jewish/Christian mythology built up around them in the West, in the East they are considered Dragons. There is no creator God who rules them.

The Fallen, led by Lucifer, are archangels which have gone rogue, no longer fulfilling their duties to ensure harmony but rather seeking to exercise their powers for their own gain. However, if the Fallen act too directly, then archangels will act to directly oppose them, so they must act through mortals - thus the Denarian coins.

There are 7 Archangels and 6 Fallen. Each archangel is of equivalent power to a Faerie Queen. The Archangels and the Fallen reside in the most distant parts of the Nevernever, and they have around them lesser beings which are parasitic off their power in the same way that lesser fae are part of Mab and Titania's power as winter and summer queens. Those lesser beings are known as "angels" and "demons" and are engaged in an eternal war, the effort of which prevents the Fallen from getting up to too much mischief.

Plot set-up

Voldemort (born Tom Riddle) was the most powerful of Kemmler's disciples and caused the White Council a lot of trouble during the 1970s. He becomes fascinated with the legend of the Deathly Hallows when he learns that he descends from the Peverells, and loses his body when he goes to kill the Potters in 1981 - the only other Peverell descendants.

Harry Potter, who is around 5 years younger than Harry Dresden, was taken as a ward of the White Council following the death of his parents. He grows up within the household of Arthur Langtry. Arthur is cold and unloving, but he does ensure that Harry receives an education of the highest quality.

Arthur is very interested in how Harry survived Voldemort's curse. What Arthur doesn't know is that something about Voldemort's necromancy changed Harry's magic, activating a long-dormant part of his Peverell heritage - a connection with the magic of death.

From a young age, Harry occasionally hears a voice which guides him and supports him. The invisible voice says its name is Azrael.

 

Cool story bro, now write it.

 

You just had to get rid of the magical cores, didn't you?

And I must ask - will we see Mab or Maeve show up in the guise of Daphne Greengrass?

In all honesty, though, this is a great merging of the two worlds, generally taking the best from both and ordering into something that makes sense. I'd definitely read anything written in this verse. I'm not sure I like the part where magic disobeys the laws of physics, because I feel half of the fun is the limitations that puts on the writer (and wizard) but that's a minor issue.

The invisible friend angle has been done, of course, but it does make sense in context and if you're the one writing it I'd feel confident about it being handled well.

 

Its an interesting concept, but honestly I feel it would suffer from being not quite Harry Potter and not quite Dresden Files. Especially when it comes to the fusion of the magic systems, I think you create a lesser product by trying to bring 2 such different systems together.

That said, I'd probably still try reading.

 

I've always been on the side of it being easy to combine the two magical systems, and I think any story that keeps them separate is worse off for it. It's easy to overthink it and over-explain it in a story, sacrificing plot progression for answering reader questions in-story. It's all about maintaining the balance.

 

Very nice. Some questions:

1. What’s up with the statute of secrecy? Will that be kept in some form under the administration of the White Council; or will you simply go with the Dresdenverse explanation (i.e. everyday humans don’t believe in magic out of close-mindedness)?

2. What consequences are there to expanding transfiguration in this way? For example, will there still be untransfiguration, or is changing a person into a ferret irreversible and deadly (assuming you cannot transfigure a creature with a soul)?

3. I noticed that you had earlier mentioned an incompatibility between technology and magic. I’m wondering if you’ve changed your mind on this.

 

Some further thoughts, post-Peace Talks. Spoilers for that book:

Spoiler

I'm entertaining the idea of a story set in this universe to kinda "fix" Peace Talks. Everything I posted above regarding the set-up of the world would hold true, except perhaps the Azrael-HP connection. Most of the events of the Dresden Files would have taken place as per the DF books, but with some logical adjustments (no Outsiders so all that stuff is gone - can be replaced with demons). And no lightsabers.

The story would be set in 2015, i.e. the year of Peace Talks. The idea would be to depict in full that which PT lacked: a full-fledged convocation of all big hitter supernatural parties. Fundamentally I think the story of an outside party to the accords seeking to bring the whole system crashing down is a good one, but I think the best way to do that storyline is for the outside party to play the Lords of the Accords off each other. They have to engineer a situation where by their own rules the whole Accords system collapses because all the signatories are forced by political necessity to break the rules.

In contrast to that, the premise of an outside party who is singularly strong enough to take them all on at once and win is uninteresting to me.

Character-wise, the angle would be to contrast the two Harrys and their relationship with the White Council etc.

Harry Potter, age 34, who grew up in the household of Arthur Langtry and attended Hogwarts, considered an up-and-coming wizarding of the future, destined for the Senior Council (in a couple hundred years), fluent in Latin, known for his opposition to black magic etc. etc. Basically Harry as the darling of the White Council, attending the Peace Talks as part of the White Council party.

Harry Dresden, age 39, who crew up in the colonies and was taught black magic by some no-name wizard, no formal magical schooling other than a brief apprenticeship to McCoy, known for his many entanglements with various supernatural entities, etc.

The arc would be the two Harrys initially really hating and distrusting each other but by the end of the story becoming allies. Potter would have the subtlety and political understanding. Dresden would have the key relationships with supernatural parties and combat experience. Magically, the two of them would be depicted on a par - Harry Potter's superior magical talent counterbalanced by Dresden's mantle as Winter Knight.

The big challenge here is coming up with a backstory for Harry Potter in this world. Without that, he's going to come across as a blank slate and a bit of a nobody next to Dresden. He needs to have some accomplishments to his name, some relationships with supernatural entities of his own - albeit nothing as headline-grabbing as "wiped the entire Red Court, allied to Mab and Lara Raith, known associate of Archangels and Knights, Warden of Demonreach".

 

I'm having some trouble reconciling Harry Potter with "council darling". Langtry is like a more competent version of the stuffy bureacrats that Harry hated in canon. How do you keep him Harry Potter while having him grow up with that guy?

 

The point is precisely that with a different upbringing, under someone like Arthur Langtry, in a massively AU universe, he would absolutely be a different person to canon Harry Potter.

 

Not going to lie, council stooge Harry would probably make me X out immediately.

 

Cool story bro. But that wasn't what my post proposed.

 

That's how it read.

 

I'm not responsible for your reading comprehension, I'm afraid. Nothing in there indicated he would be a "stooge" - I think it was quite clear that he was a powerful individual in his own right.

Now, shall we move on? This entire conversation has added nothing of value to the thread.

 

In addition to Taure's points, I would personally keep most of the wands' importance from Harry Potter in the fusion. Dresden's magic seems much more personalized, distinct from individuals even among those of the same "branch" in the genealogical tree of traditions and apprenticeships. Whether by nature or the decentralized way of teaching, its magic is much less standardized than HP's own. An official school and a greater, more united population would change that, vastly improving the pool of magical knowledge's breadth and its accessibility. Going back to the wands, they would be the symbol of these more "technologically" advanced Wizards, a powerful and versatile tool, the fruit of the advancement that comes with a White Council that is more of it's own society, like the Wizarding World, than a mere organization of Wizards.

Would have to change the composition of the core though, maybe an alchemical substance that reacts with the Wizard's soul, tying soul fire in its creation. Much like the Wizarding World, we would have a single Wandmaker (plus a few apprentices), with an incredibly honored status denoting their strategic importance. This could be also another distinction between Hogwarts Wizards and those of more, shall we say, archaic education. Dresden could then find himself as the poster boy of these "marginalized" wizards, much like there was some tension in the canon Council with the non-european Wizards. Speaking of which, Hogwarts appears to be a bit too anglo-centric in your conception Taure. I don't think linguistic reasons are enough as you could easily keep the council's official language of latim.

What about the Laws of Magic? You mentioned them, but I feel they deserve a more elaboration when the world around them changes so much. I never liked the whole corrupting Dark Magic thing and the Thou Shalt Not Kill had always been a can of worms to me, changing to "thou shalt not irreparably damage another's soul" would fix many of my personal niggles with it. The second law may also pose a problem if transfiguration is more prevalent. And would the casual mind magic of HP be erased or would the law changed?

 

I like it overall, though I do think it would be a little better if the Dresden Magic System was less adulterated by elements of HP Magic (I tend to prefer the DF magic system for being better thought-out overall), but I think you would do better to have the HP characters closer to their canon personalities, otherwise they basically become OCs with familiar names, and that just saps the fun out of seeing how characters you like from one universe would live with the realities of another.

Like, for example, would Hermione's insatiable thirst for knowledge (and general disregard for rules restricting said knowledge) eventually lead her down the Warlock's path in this fused universe? Even by the HP universe's much looser standards, she got up to some questionable shit over the years.

I once tried to come up with a semi-legitimate sounding reason for the school's name grounded in something more concrete than simple whimsy. The best I came up with was that the modern name ("Hogwarts") started as an irreverent nickname three or four centuries ago, as a corruption of a mispronunciation of the original name.

The original name I came up with was "Hugrvarda", which is Old Norse. Much of England and Scotland was dominated/colonized by Norwegian and Danish Vikings in the century or so leading up to the Founding of Hogwarts, so Old Norse would have been a reasonably logical common language for the school to use early on, especially if the area it was built in was Norse territory at the time.

"Huga" means something like "to think". "Varda" (coming from the same Germanic root as the English word "ward") has a number of meanings dependent on context, but for my purposes, "to guard, watch, or defend" and "pile of stones, cairn" seemed to be the most appropriate translations. So with a little poetic license, the original name "Hugrvarda" means something like "Fortress of Thought/Knowledge"

 

What does this mean for practitioners in the Dresden series? I like what they add to the Dresden world, but since you're expanding the wizards I could see not needing them for your story.

This made me think of Michael, and what role faith is going to retain. Is it still a source of power against monsters and will the Knights of the Cross exist? Personally, I don't think the existence or nonexistence of God even needs to be confirmed in a story about humans. I like there being a level of mystery to the upper echelons of the supernatural.

Just a note, but DuMorne wasn't a nobody. He was a warden and the student of the Senior Council member who died early to the Red Court, which is part of why wardens suspected Dresden in the book that happens.

 

Despite the plotholes in HP world, I like the idea of Hogwarts. If fusion can still able to keep the magic of the castle, it will be cool.

White Council has fortified places like Edinburgh HQ, Archangel. Hogwarts is another fortified place where White Council does scholarly work under the guidance of Scholar Albus Dumbledore. Hogwarts was established by the original Merlin back in the day. Castle and its grounds are warded with unique wards. An excuse for HP magic. They can do transfiguration and other such hp magics at Hogwarts because of it(?)

House elves belong to Summer. There was some old pact made by Merlin with Mother Summer. She will be responsible for supernatural protection. Also the pact restricts the scholars from studying dark magic at the castle.

Skilled wizards can do hp magics outside the wards too. Voldemort was such wizard. He died when tried to kill smol baby.