KenderCleric's Challenge #2 : The Unknown Prophecy

Summery:

In late 1979 the war against Voldemort was reaching new lows. Amid the struggle for survival and the defeat of the rising darkness Albus Dumbledore’s schedule was just a bit full. On a fateful night when the Headmaster was supposed to meet with Patricia Trelawney for a job interview the weight of his other responsibilities simply became too much and he was forced to postpone the meeting.

That evening Albus Dumbledore did not witness the delivery of the prophecy foretelling the birth of the child destined to destroy Voldemort. The Dark Lord’s spy did not hear the fateful prophecy either as his orders had simply been to watch Dumbledore.

James Potter was killed in an ambush by Death Eaters early 1980 leaving a pregnant Lily Potter alone to raise their unborn child. The ambush is concluded to have been the work of a spy within the Order. Evidence points to one of the remaining three Marauders as only a close friend of James could have provided the Death Eaters the information of his whereabouts.

A month later the Order uncovers evidence that Sirius Black is the spy they have been looking for. He is caught on a muggle street after having apparently killed a dozen muggles by causing a gas explosion. Having apparently knocked himself unconscious in the act he is sent to Azkaban without questioning or trial.

In July 1980 Harry Potter was born.

On October 31st 1981 Voldemort and his followers raided the Order of the Phoenix’s safe house after Peter Pettigrew provided its location.

Lily Potter was cornered in a dead-end hallway by Voldemort while attempting to hide her infant son. Voldemort, after taunting Lily about having killed her husband, decides to take away the last of her family and begins to cast a Killing Curse at Harry. Lily sacrifices herself for her child and leaps in front of the curse. Voldemort decides to finish off the last Potter as a sign of the cost of defying him. At the same moment he casts another Killing Curse at the child Dumbledore arrives behind Voldemort in the hallway, unaware of the events blocking his view. All Dumbledore hears is the second Killing Curse.

Dumbledore casts a fireball spell at Voldemort’s exposed back. At the same moment his killing curse is rebounded off Harry and collides with Voldemort. Voldemort’s body explodes in emerald flames and a horrible scream of pain. The explosion throws Dumbledore to the ground as the hallway is engulfed in flames. He does not see the spirit of Voldemort flee.

Once Dumbledore regains his feet he sees the body of Lily Potter and assumes she was the target of Voldemort’s final killing curse. He rescues Harry from the flames and rejoins the rest of the Order.

Dumbledore is credited with the defeat of the Dark Lord.

Harry Potter is sent to live with his Godmother, Alice Longbottom.

On November 4th the Longbottoms are attacked at their home by a remnant of Death Eaters seeking revenge for the demise of Voldemort. They believe the Longbottoms, as a prominent family among the Order, will make a perfect target.

Frank and Alice Longbottom are driven insane by the cruciatus curse.

Neville Longbottom is placed with his Grandmother.

Harry Potter is sent to ......?

Challenge notes:

Yes, this type of plot has been done before. However, it is usually a “wrong boy-who-lived” scenario. The challenge here is to write a story where the Prophecy does hold sway over events, but no one knows about it. Think about these points:

• There is no “Boy-Who-Lived” as no one knows the truth of Voldemort’s defeat.
• Voldemort witnessed the rebounded Killing Curse. He knows what really killed him.
• There will be no reason to force Harry to stay with the Dursley’s…if he’s ever sent there at all.
• Dumbledore will have no reason to hide things from Harry or to manipulate him.

Now to make things even more interesting…

Rules:

• Harry must be sorted into Hufflepuff.
• Harry must still have the Lightning bolt shaped scar.
• Snape must still loath Harry and can in no way be a mentor/friend/adopted father.
• Throw canon out the window. Be original! If you have Harry start at Hogwarts in year 1 then do NOT just copy events from the books.
• Make the story age-realistic. If you have Harry start at Hogwarts at age 11 then he is NOT going to be a ladies man who shags every female within sight. He will also not be a world-class assassin, master of the martial arts, or Mafia Goodfella.
• The words “Vampire” and “Veela” are outlawed for the purposes of this challenge.
• No crossovers with Anime.
• Most importantly though: No HP/GW or HP/HG.

 

Good idea, just one question? Why Hufflepuff. That house is the antithesis of everything we've seen in Harry so far. There have been stories that toss him in with the puffs but it just seems odd to be a rule. But anyway that's just my thoughts I would definantly read something like this.

 

EvilHufflepuff!Harry... the souls he would eat. :O!

 

Mostly because I wanted to make the challenge as different from the norm as possible. We've seen a few Hufflepuff!Harry fics, but they are few and far between. That, or they're a slash fic where Harry is such a weakling that I want to do bodily harm unto the writer.

I also think that the challenge of writing a fic where Harry has the personality traits to be placed into Hufflepuff, but still rise to meet the challenges created by the prophecy would be interesting. Think about it for a moment. A Slytherin Harry is easy to write because he'll obviously use cunning and a devious (note I didn't say evil) mind to overcome his challenges. A Ravenclaw Harry is going to use knowledge, logic, and intuition. Gryf Harry is, like in canon, going to just charge in an bludgeon the challenge into submission. What, pray tell, would a Hufflepuff Harry do though?

So yeah. There's my wordy answer to your simple question.

If a writer can figure out how to have an Evil Hufflepuff Harry that isn't mind-numbing or over the top I would fully support any soul eating necissary. Oh...and they'd have to avoid the cliche bit of "Oh I'll hide in Hufflepuff because no one would suspect me". I mean come on...you start eating people's souls and someone is bound to notice...especially when you're wearing a tie with yellow stripes on it.


Edit: So...yeah. I'm an idiot. In the above challenge's summery I had an itty-bitty, tiny, 'barely saw it there at all' typo. The attack on the Order's HQ was October 31st, not November. I'm all for time travel, but I think Neville's gran might have suspected something was up if she suddenly gained custody of her grandson while his parents were still alive.