Harry inheriting a title

- Shit fanon: Harry goes into Gringotts after Sirius dies, immediately possesses massive political and economic power while still a child.

- Interesting twist: Harry is contacted by a lawyer at age 17, inherits a dilapidated estate which requires significant work to restore.

Harry inherits someone's memories

- Shit fanon: Harry gets a knowledge download but suffers no ill effects.

- Interesting twist: Harry gets a lot of knowledge but it comes with a personality and identity crisis. Harry's character arc is about rediscovering himself.

Sirius is given a trial

- Shit fanon: Harry grandstands his way through a trial with no legal knowledge or training, going on long immature rants and completely ignoring court procedure. Sirius is set free and various politicians' careers are over.

- Interesting twist: Sirius gets a fair trial... and is still found guilty.

Peggy Sue

- Shit fanon: Harry goes back in time with completely knowledge of how to defeat Voldemort in the space of a few days. However, instead of defeating Voldemort as efficiently as possible, he spends all his time going through the stations of canon and fucking kids.

- Interesting twist: Harry goes back in time but lacks a key piece of information. For example, Harry grabs the portkey at the end of GOF and is taken back to the beginning of GoF. He knows Voldemort is planning to come back, but he thinks Voldemort's man within Hogwarts is Karkaroff.

Your turn.

 

SI Fic

-Shit Fanon: A modern Harry Potter fanfiction fan enters the world and makes several guesses about how the World works which all turn out to be true to immense benefit of the SI, they also quickly form friendship with several Main Characters, bashing is also fully true in this universe.

- Interesting twist: A person who hasn't read the books or watched the movies, enters canon Harry Potter, they do however remember tons of Harry Potter fanfiction and now must navigate it based on knowledge of fanfic tropes alone.

 

Harry never accepts Ron's apology in GoF

-Shit fanon: Harry proceeds to acquire a harem of witches and massive amounts of friends now that Ron is no longer holding him back

-Interesting twist: Harry spends the next three years much more lonely with only Hermione as a truly close friend, and has to deal with all the trouble of Voldemort without a best mate there with him.

 

Harry (or Hermione) is forced into a marriage contract.

Shit fanon: Harry or Hermione fall in love minutes after it's sealed, as does the other party, and they live happily ever after. If married to a woman, 50% a harem is involved. If married to a man - I dunno, I avoid those like the plague, but I presume BDSM is somehow involved, knowing the audience.

Interesting twist: They marry but never become friendlier than vague acquaintances. Both sides of the "relationship" openly take other partners.

Other interesting twist: Harry murders his spouse and goes on to become the male equivalent of Zabini's mum, killing every suitor and harvesting their riches.

 

Fanon: Slytherin an irredeemable House and everyone from Slytherin is a mustache-twirling villain.

Interesting Twist: At Hogwarts, the Slytherin house is a veritable court full of dastardly schemes and pureblood politics. Eleven year olds have full Occlumency training and can call forth icy masks on command, making it possible to keep these plots from stupid Dumbledore.

Interesting Twist 2: If there was a genuine Tom Riddle v2 brewing inside the Slytherin house, a few of the older students (his followers) now have a reason to learn Occlumency. Naturally, the smirking "in the know" students now have worthwhile information they can feel smug over. Harry trying to investigate and piece the mystery together would be the draw. Similarly, it would also be interesting if, long ago, one of the Slytherin students found the Diadem horcrux, and realized it was a relic from Voldemort. The big secret is nourishing the horcrux, taking turns wearing it, etc, so that the Dark Lord can rise again one day.

 

Tbh these so labelled "interesting" twists sound about as fun to read about as their "shit" counterparts.

 

Someone else as Tom Riddle v2 would be a good twists to usual Harry Potter is the next Dark Lord. While everyone is dealing with Voldemort, he or maybe she slowly gets more powerful and recruits their own supporters in the background of the series with only some small details suggesting what's happening, finally entering into conflict with Harry in the eighth book.

That would give Harry someone on his level to deal with completely on his own establishing him as a new Dumbledore.

Some possibilities that aren't just names in the books, but aren't the main characters often interacting with Harry:
- Theodore Nott already is much of this character. He is friends with Draco, but keeps his distance and the post-books canon have him some serious magical abilities.
- Blaise Zabini with his mother acting as his mentor.
- Dean Thomas because why it should always be someone from Slytherin.
- Dannis Creevey as a reverse of Voldermort with his terror politics against Pure-bloods.

 

Dumbledore is manipulating Harry
shit fanon: Harry discovers this halfway through first year and there is a confrontation with no further consequence.
Interesting twist: Harry has no idea for years, only finds out because Dumbledore deliberately drops hints. He wants Harry to figure out someone is controlling him because he's concerned about the mental connection with Voldemort.
Harry goes on a shopping trip in Diagon Alley
shit fanon: He buys a ton of stuff he really never uses, enhanced by the dark arts and 'muggle science' and soul magic.
Interesting twist: With no idea of what he needs, and never having held that much money in his life, he ends up getting swindled extensively, but the magical artefacts he buys end up being useful.
Harry goes dark
shit fanon: Harry's character just becomes more sarcastic and more powerful. There is no legitimate reason not to use dark magic.
Interesting twist: Without having noticed the subtle changes in his personality and gradually growing numb to them, Harry's friends grow more and more concern for him, but he replaces them with people who encourage his descent into the darkness.

 

Shitty fanon trope: a super duper secret branch of the DoM recruits Harry to become some sort of a discount James Bond.

Plot twist: they actually eat to trap him and stick him full of needles in some sort of a ploy to harness his immunity to killing curses.

Double plot twist: Harry walked in there with full knowledge of the plot in order to nick some time turners, or perhaps take a peak at what exactly is in the love room. Or some other ploy to steal a bunch of cool magic that got only a passing mention in canon.

 

Shit fanon:
Harry is gay and falls in love with Draco, and works to melt his broken and icy heart, he and Draco live happily ever after.

Twist: After several books of trying and failing, Harry discovers that Draco is actually straight, and has been stringing Harry along the whole time.

 

FANON: magical cores

TWIST: mana bars

 

I like these ideas in particular, although I don't see how they could work as anything more than one-shots (Ending most likely with a terrible death of the POV character).

I do have a take on this related to the execrable "Reading the HP books" concept, but since it's actually an idea I'd like to write eventually, I won't explain further. I also have something about Daphne, but I think I shouldn't explain that either.

 

Then come up with an amazing twist and blow us all out of the water

 

I don't know if you've been informed, but that simply is a shit trope.

 

Shit fanon: Hermione the Revolutionary and her sidekick Harry.

TWIST: Harry vs Hermione

 

I have not, please educate me. I'm willing to listen to opinions on this one

 

Shit Fanon: Dumbledore placed Blockages on Harry's Magic that prevents his true growth.

Twist: Dumbledore placed boosters on Harry that let him perform magic. Without it, he's a squib.

 

Shit Fannon: Harry learns to craft his own wand and wands for others.

Twist: There's a reason Ollivanders Wand Shop has been perfecting their craft since 382 B. C., and all of Harry's attempts end up backfiring with either hilarious or tragic results.

 

See also: Ectomancer.

 

Alternatively:
Twist: The magical blocks were removed during the summer after fourth year when Harry was about to enter his Indy!Harry fic, as it turns out the blocks were there to prevent the dark residual magic of the killing curse from Harming Harry, which it can now do because of Voldemorts new Body. Harry now has a short period of time to destroy Voldemorts body or else be killed by the magic of thekilling curse in his scar.