A little plot bunny just popped into my head that I thought would be amusing. In this fic, Harry ends up going through the veil and, rather than finding death, he finds an alternate universe. And rather than Harry finding the now cliched world of faries and butterflies and soulbonds Harry finds a world even more destroyed by war then his own.

The ministry has been sending criminals through the veil into this other dimension for centuries. They pop up in random location exactly as they were when they were pushed through: as adult wizards and witches with enough horrible crimes under their belt to warrant being thrown through the veil.

So the world is overrun by horrible criminals that may or may not be working together to try to take over. I haven't thought that far ahead yet. I haven't really thought that far ahead in any of this really- which is why I need help.

I was thinking that Harry would- for a yet unknown reason- go through the veil after defeating Voldemort. Maybe everyone he knew was dead and he just wanted to see Sirius again. Maybe the ministry wanted him out of the picture and threw him in. Who knows?

Then, after finding out about this world that could be as alike as or as different from his old world as possible, he finds a reason to try to stop all the people sent though what is ironically also called in the other dimension The veil of Death. Maybe it is because of another prophecy. Maybe they killed Sirius after he came through. Maybe it is just his saving people thing.

Pretty much the premise of the story is to try to put a more original, action packed, and dark world around Harry Potter while still keeping a lot of the same characters. I want to make this a challenge, as I can't write worth shit except for fun, but I need some more meat- and some positive feedback to the fact that this isn't, in fact, just another pisspoor plot bunny.

Why did HArry go through the veil in the first place? Why does he decide that he is going to fight a whole new war? How alike or how different is this world to the original? Romance or not? Who should the main antagonist be? Should I leave this stuff open when I make the challenge? Should I even make a challenge at all?

Half-Blood Prince

 

Hmm, so basically a world at the end of all others, a colon where all the waist from all the veils in multiverse is pouring down to.

Could be interesting. Something like, take the canon world and throw in any piece of scum you can think off... and Sirius, of course. I suppose that world would be a lawless wasteland, with fortified oasis's sprinkled over the country: Hogwarts, the Ministry, Diagon Alley. The only way to travel is through floo (unless you want to chance a broom flight over the badlands).

Maybe add a muggle element. Without wards, the muggle world falls into a disarray. Armed groups of survivors is all that's left of them; wizard protectors are heavily sought for.

And of course, Voldemort, who is trying to unite gangs and lead them on the crusade against fortified enclaves...

Hmm, now this looks like Fallout setting. *Shrugs* It works for me.

Harry's mission could be to find Sirius, who had popped out somewhere in the badlands and fallen captive by local gangs...

 

Its ideas like that that make me feel that I should leave most of the facts open when I make this challenge. People come up with much more interesting things than I do. I don't think giving anything but a rather vague goal of 'saving the world from all the evil bastards who came through the veil' would really help the challenge. It would more likely hinder it.

My only questions are these: why was he sent through the veil in the first place? Was his Voldemort sent through the veil as well? Is that how Harry 'defeated' him? Should Voldemort even be included when original antagonists could be made up that could be written a bit more rounded or mysterious than the cut and dry 'Crucio!' Voldemort?

 

Well, he can fall in by many number of ways. Perhaps he stumbled upon some text about the Veil and tried to use it to pull Sirius out (only to fall in himself). Perhaps, after killing Voldemort in the DOM, a corrupt Minister of Magic takes his spent wounded body and throws it in (to prevent rise of competition)? Perhaps he gets drunk and makes a magically bound wager (which he then loses)? Or perhaps he's Voldemort's horcrux and figures killing himself is the only way to vanquish the Dark Lord. There are really many ways to achieve that, it's not that much of a problem.

Also, to keep any semblance with the original HP world, the Veil must be made into a relatively new invention. Probably created by Grindelwald and later impounded by the DOM. In this target world, the difference could be that DOM tried to destroy the Veil, which turned the whole planet into a incoming portal.

A good character could be the Unspeakable who worked on that project and was responsible for the disaster. Ridden by guilt, he convinces/manipulates/blackmails Harry into helping him close the gap.

As for Voldemort, better keep him as is. Since all the aristocracy would be within the enclaves and he would end up outside, I don't see him rallying them against muggles and muggleborns (who are pretty much destroyed anyway). So he'd have much harder time gathering resources and people for his campaign, which could make him less arrogant and prejudiced and ultimately more dangerous.

 

I really like this idea, good idea Anyway, my ideas for the story according to your questions are as follows:

1. Going through the veil because everyone died seems a bit too cliche, seeing how it's used in like every story.
But I like Ip's idea that he was tossed through by "corrupt officials".
If not officials then maybe an injured death eater, or even a friend that is not yet freed from the Imperious.

2. I really do not think voldemort should go through the veil. I think Harry's volde should be dead and gone. Use the veil Voldy.

3.How could Harry defeat voldemort... Well, in his universe, Harry could have defeated him by collecting all of the horcruxes. But instead of destroying them, he could use a spell on all of them together (you'd have to make it up of course), causing all of the broken pieces of his soul, and the collected ambivent magic from all of them returning to Voldemort, Thus killing him with the magical backlash. And then knocking out Harry(enter the offical/death eater/Imperioed friend).

Having the veil voldy not make horcuxes is another good idea, because it would force Harry to find another way to defeat him.

3. I don't think there should be romance, or at least have it as a background. Every pairing is disliked by somebody.

I like all of Ip's ideas as well, The "fallout type" landscape, bands of criminals wandering around, ect.

Anyway I wish you luck with it.

P.S. I think I'm staying out of the political forums

 

You could have this be how Harry defeats his Voldemort. The typical grab onto him and pull them both through the veil. Harry thought he was doing the noble Gryffindor thing by taking out Voldemort and sacrificing himself. Instead they're both starting in a strange new nuclear winter type world.

Voldemort could assemble a rogue's gallery of criminals and miscreants here. Could even have Voldemort save Harry unintentionally, when Voldemort kills a threat to his own power. Or even try and ally with Harry so they can find their way out of this world, all the while constantly double-crossing each other.

Horcruxes could have disappeared/severed/made useless by the veil trip.

 

I like that idea as well, but I already posted the challenge and I like how it turned out. Your idea does sound just as fun though- and perhaps even more like the world I had originally thought of when I first had the idea. I wanted a world completely original but I decided in the end to just have it different in a war torn sort of way.

 

You could integrate it with a bit of mythology too, to add that Harry Potter feel to it.

The world you describe sounds pretty hellish; why not take that idea and run with it?

It's said that there are 7 gates to hell, so you could make there be 7 feeder worlds that have veils leading to the hell-dimension, the one that Harry and Voldemort came from being one of them.

An interesting villian would be an alternative Harry from one of these other dimensions who had gone Dark (think The Dark Knight from Stranger in an Unholy land) and got chucked into the veil. No doubt he wouldn't take kindly to an alternative him, and a good version of him at that, running around.

The options are endless.

The aim of the story could be not Harry trying to defeat Voldemort and all the other villains, but Harry simply trying to survive long enough until he can find out how to escape.

One idea for escape would be some sort of myth of a "stairway to heaven" - some sort of gateway that will send him back to the world he came from, built as a safety precaution by those ancient warlocks who created the veil connections.

 

I'm a bit confused is this world going to be a bizarro world with evil counterparts, or is it a world where everyone that got thrown into the veil reside?


As for the purpose I would agree with Taure and simply have Harry try and survive, and perhaps find a way home. It would be cool to see a corrupt Sirius who has had to become that way to surivive, and a redeemer Harry or something but that's just a though.

 

The second.

 

Every time a death row inmate is executed, they reappear somewhere in your neighborhood. Any war criminal that's put against the wall and shot, shows up at your local bus stop. Any time a warlord instills so much fear in the populace that, rather than executing him by mortal means, they shove him through The Veil... he lands in your backyard.

That is what this world is, in a nutshell.

I don't feel that Harry and Voldemort would team up under any circumstances. Too much has happened. At the end of the day, Voldemort is too arrogant and prideful to accept help from Harry, even just to use him and chuck him when he's done. Taking a young and immature Harry into the fold so that he can corrupt him is one thing, taking a powerful Harry that is on the cusp of adulthood and had Voldemort on the ropes badly enough to send him through The Veil is quite another.

As for Harry being the one to suggest the team up; everything bad about his life can pretty much be blamed on Voldemort. So, yeah...

Evil Harry is kind of played out, in my opinion. Then again, it's only my opinion.

On the other hand, seeing two very different, though both good, Harry Potters teaming up to exchange tricks of the trade might be fun.

AU Harry could be anything, really; a magical and muggle MacGuyver who survives by his wits or a lazy bastard/naive youth who is only alive because of his extraordinary luck (sprung from his dungeon cell by a meteorite falling on his captor's hideout, pursuers being hit by a bus, potential dark lord contracts rabies...) or a paranoid Mad-Eye Junior who killed Ginevra The Kinslayer with a rusty screwdriver.

 

It would be a good starting point for a manipulative Harry to pit them against each other to survive, while figuring out how to get away. They all know how they got there, surely lots of them would have done research on finding a better world by constructing something similar like the veil. So Harry would be best off by playing them off against each other and collecting some spoils when possible.

 

If we're talking dystopia, it might be fun for some of the 'bad guys' to look awful like Harry's idea of the Right Side; one of the outlaw gangs could be trying, apparently sincerely, to fight for freedom and the equality of all magical beings. The flip-side is, they're doing it by acknowledged terror tactics, attacking the enclaves with whatever the magical equivalent of car-bombs is - and they genuinely don't give a shit how many of the 'entrenched exploiters' they kill. An alternate Hermione would make a fearsome vigilante, and would give Harry *serious* problems in choosing sides. If you don't like alternates, there's any amount of One Man's Terrorists being chucked through seven different veils.

I know that any take on this would get an author flamed to hellangone, but I get a bit tired of the rebels always being either good and noble and not killing unnecessarily, or being evil bastards who deserve to die. You get a Dark Harry often enough, but a Dark OotP? A Dark SPEW? Could be interesting.

 

I think "The One" could be of some inspiration to your undertaking.