As you know Harry's been sent to Azkaban so much that the library has a section just for that. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that in most of them Harry is a prisoner. So here's the challenge an Azkaban story in which Harry ends up their, as the warden. Ok challenge rules.

-This is post epilogue fiction so Harry is happily married to Ginny at the start of the story.
-Harry is an Auror and is being "rewarded" with the job as warden due to something that was highly embarrassing for one of the wizenmagot members.
(You make that part up.)
-The warden of Azkaban controls the wards of the prison and because of that can't leave often. (Set this up however you want but its not a job anyone would want.)
-The dementors went back to Azkaban after Voldemort died. (Harry will have to deal with them, they do work for him though.)
-My original idea was to paint this as a mystery, with Harry more or less alone on the island finding out more about its residents. But really you could spin this anyway you want.

 

Hmm.

So basically he's being 'rewarded' with a job no one else wants? Post-canon, why wouldn't he have enough political clout to make someone else do it.

So its a bad job, fine, though I don't really like what you're suggesting about the wards. I get that part, but... Why would Harry be taken off the Auror force and put in charge of a prison?

There is no plot here: no story whatsoever, nor even the means to begin to make one. You've provided a setting. To make a story, we need conflict. Who would the antagonist be? A prisoner that Harry captured, most likely a Death Eater? Some facet of Azkaban? Harry himself? All three would be essentially completely character-driven, something very hard to do.

 

For a conflict... Hm... What if prisoners are dying? I don't mean high level death eaters and high security prisoners, I mean low-level short sentence prisoners. They get there, and every so often, one or two of them dies. Not their soul sucked out, but almost a brutal murder. Harry's sent to investigate.

Eh. Kinda shitty, but I could see something to that vein working.

 

You could have a semi-Monte Cristo approach in the sense that a new prisoner is brought to the prison. Harry begins talking to him, and the character somehow shakes his beliefs. This isn't a plot exactly, but it might make it easier to create one based on the setting. The prisoner could be an OC or a pre-existing character. Hell you could make it one of Tom's death eaters and let Harry into the other side of the war. I don't mean for this to be used to get Harry to necessarily become dark or start shouting "Hail Voldemort!", but it could be used to force Harry to reevaluate the society he is living in. <-- Add plot there.

 

Challenges with preset plots tend to be restrictive. I've got a direction that the story would go if I wrote it but I've offered the idea up in a way that if anyone took it up it can go in any direction.

 

The only way you could pull this off is if you delved into failure and had Azkaban as some brilliant island with thousands of years of magical history. The plot you have may work as a one-shot, something small but not a proper story.

 

I personally think this could work. If you want to set it up as a mystery, I think going with Samuel Black's suggestion would be good. I don't think I've seen many stories where Aurors take the kind of job where intelligence and investigation is needed. It's always just show up at a battlefield and blow shit up.

Goin with Samuel's idea, there's brutal murders of prisoners inside their cells every now and then, always someone not so important, whose sentence is probably short or nearly finished. No one can really find a connection as to what's going on. Enter Harry, a top grade Investigative Auror or something whose job is to get the killer. A mystery unfolds within the prison, the killer being someone you'd never expect.

Or you could go with KtheGreat's idea which is really good as well, new prisoner comes OC or someone we know or have heard of before. They talk to Harry and whatnot, showing him things he never saw before. Kinda like a mix between TCoMC and Silence of the Lambs or something.

Both could be great personality development fics, with action and stuff thrown in as well. If you ask me, I think going with one of these two routes could end up with a brilliant story - so long as there was a good enough writer.

 

Another path you could take is a prisoners rebellion with only Harry (or a select few untalented guards that get wtfpwned) as a resistance. He's locked inside Azkaban and has to reach the Apparition point. It could work good as a long one-shot with a lot of battle-filled moments or add more plot and make it into something completely different.

Maybe he has to contend with Dementors? Maybe the prisoners are omg!Zombiez? Maybe nonjon could come up with a better plot bunny?

The picture I had was something out of Resident Evil, you know, with like one dude holding a gun (wand) and a flashlight (wand) and hiding/fighting/evading scores of enemies. He comes up to doors in the prison and they're mysteriously locked; at some point he loses his wand in a tussle with some prisoners. He finds clues to what's causing all this shit and then seeks out the cause.

Extra points if he goes out Scarface style and loses in the end, taking as many bad guys with him as possible.

Meh. It looks good in my head, but I don't know how well it would translate to paper.

 

I like that idea, but there's one problem I can see. Say the prisoners escape or whatever, rebellion, and they start to fight the guards. None of the prisoners would have wands. It wouldn't even be a fight. You could make it that some up and coming Dark Lord breaks them out and gives them all wands or something. I don't know.

It could work though.

 

First thing that came to mind when you described that was MissMarple!Harry. Not that that's a bad thing, just seemed to be very in line with the mysteries Christie writes.

You could have a sort of reversal of Shezza's Resistance of Azkaban, with a new "Dark Lord" using Azkaban as his staging point. You can have Harry escape from notice by having him hide in some dark corner of Azkaban as the Dark Lord frees the prisoners who will work for him and arms them. Then you can go the resident evil approach and have Harry start trying to make his way out of Azkaban, with the optional side-quest of killing the new Dark Lord.

 

That would work. I was just thinking he loses his wand at some point and has to work his way through without it. A Dark Lord arming the prisoners and telling them that the one to kill Harry Potter gets etc. amount of galleons would be full of win.

 

Alternatively, you could have Harry communicating with the prisoners and slowly becoming corrupted because of it. I'd say that would turn out having Harry release the prisoners and take on the MoM. I think him losing would be more interesting than winning, too. Just a random thought I had.

 

Thats what I was going to suggest but decided not to and he would have to get rid of Ginny, she won't do at all.

 

As this is a challenge, I'm issuing a challenge to one of you: I'll write one version of this in the way that my demented mind works, and you'll write one with your own spin on things. We'll parade it in front of the members of DLP in a my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours kind of game. Just... without dicks.

Maybe a few chapters and then if you want to continue seperately that's whatever.

So, who's up for it?

 

I actually have a one-shot outline planned out that goes with the idea I had of the upcoming Dark Lord breaking the prisoners out and arming them. I don't want to give to much away, so I'll stop there. So.. yeah. Dunno how similar it is to what you plan on writing.

 

You could actually take this challenge and make it into a kind of Human Hunt thing. The old warden is actually still around and taking payments from people so they can hunt prisoners in Azkaban. Have a barrier of Dementors around the island and when Harry comes he notices the cells are empty. When he gets to the Warden's office he is stunned from behind. He wakes up in the deepest part of the prison with no wand and stripped of all potions and other things he may have to fight. A patronus comes in as soon as he wakes up and announces he is the prey and to get out he will have to kill or stun his hunters and find the correct key to the gates of Azkaban and various other places around Azkaban necessary to escape.

 

That is lame.

EDIT:
Guys I'm so embarrassed I'm A SQUIB!

 

This might be lame, too, but why not use Azkaban for the staging of a Metal Gear Solid styled story?

Up and coming super Auror Harry Potter is secretly sent out to Azkaban (Shadow Moses) to take out some group of either Dark Wizards and Witches intent on take-over of the island, or to stop a renegade group of Auror Special Forces (F.O.X.H.O.U.N.D.) bent on some diabolical plot, etc., etc. He's given few weapons and is told to end the crisis by any means necesary, giving him the power to (like Crouch set up in the First War with Voldemort) use the Dark Arts and to kill, maim, destroy instead of capture.

I have no idea how you could even really make this one work, or at least work well, and it may be a fucking lame idea...but i think it could be a good Harry-goes-to-Azkaban-but-not-as-a-prisoner type of plot.