I think if you want to have a Harry that can believably win against Voldemort in a straight up fight, he needs to be to magic, what Mozart was to music.

Anyone can pretty much learn to play music relatively good. But it almost always takes a genius to make a masterpiece.

Dumbledore and Voldemort are geniuses when it comes to magic. And Harry needs to be one to, that is unless he is counting on winning by pure luck.

 

Just make Harry Magic's bitch.

 

Mr.Face, meet Mrs.Palm.

 

This doesn't really make sense. As you say, Voldemort is a genius at magic. So making Harry a genius at magic only makes him Voldemort's equal - he's still relying on luck to win him the day. For Harry to win convincingly, he needs a deus ex machina - an edge that gives him a clear advantage.

This is the dilemma. We want a competent/genius Harry, but the truth is that even if he were everything we wished, he would probably have stood less of a chance against Voldemort than canon Harry, because he would have lacked the great power that canon Harry wielded - ignorance.

 

Voldemort and Dumbledore in regards to magic weren't people so much as symbols. Their whole purpose was supposed to represent the power of love's transcendence of skill and talent. Because of that, nobody in canon has the natural capacity to do their magic, because they represent power on a level above everybody else. There's no winning against them in a straight fight. Like Taure said, it's the difference between talented students and Einstein. When the next prodigy shows up, the whole point is that he's so good you know it right away, without him trying.

In that way, the whole premise of talentedbutnormal!Harry beating Voldemort doesn't work. It has to be a prodigy Harry to win a straight fight, and even then it's still 50/50.

 

No, a prodigy!Harry wouldn't rely on pure luck.

Canon!Harry would need 100% luck to win in a straight up fight. A prodigy!Harry would maybe have a 15-30% chance of winning with his skills alone, experience is on Voldemorts side after all.

So sure, a prodigy would still have to rely on a bit of luck and Voldemort making a mistake, but he still wouldn't have to rely purely on luck.

 

Does that depend on the mental " strength'' of the wizard ?

I hate to use the word strength here, but really can't find anything else.

Or does emotion play a role ? Harry was angry and somewhat tired, making him a softer target for the Dark Lord ?

An average seventh year could probably do a fair bit had he/she put his mind to the task. It would, as Taure puts it, depend on their familiarity with spells.

 

You're pulling these figures out of your arse.

Even if Harry is Voldemort's equal in magical skill, he is still depending 100% on luck to win - there is nothing that gives him an edge over Voldemort, and thus the only thing that will decide the battle between two equal opponents is who just so happens to be on better form that particular day, or an exogenous factor. I.e. luck.

 

Harry has knowledge of the U.S. Space Program circa 1970, whereas Tom Riddle does not. If he can just get close enough, he can take a deep breath, grab ahold of Voldemort, Apparate to Mare Tranquilitatis on the surface of the moon, let go, and Apparate back before decompression sets in. Problem solved, since we've already established that distance doesn't make a whit of difference when it comes to Apparition.

Are we discussing angels on the head of a pin? Perhaps. A lot of the answer to the OC rests on the question of "What is possible in fanfiction?" where "fanfiction" can encompass varying degrees of adherence to canon.

 

Says who?

I would contest the ability to apparate back before he was killed/disabled by the luna envirnoment, but you're the physicist here, not me.

 

I have to wonder why Harry doesn't just drink one of those super luck potions before fighting Voldemort.

 

Maybe Voldemort has drunk one too? Maybe luck can only take you so far? Maybe there's a way of countering it? Maybe he took Slughorn's advice about depending too heavily on it to heart.

 

Ah, I'm afraid you are mistaken here:

DH, chapter 23.

 

Unfortunately, JKR has contradicted that in a quote, saying that inter-continental apparation is possible for skilled wizards (which I think we'll all agree Voldemort is). And even if there was a limit on apparation, there's nothing to stop you from merely apparating several times in a row, so that bit of the story doesn't make any sense either.

In short, plot hole created by JKR wanting Voldemort to look cool by flying, combined with her need to stall him from arriving instantly.

 

Or, alternatively:

"You're going to die, Potter," Voldemort hissed. "Say good-bye to your friends."

Harry stood in the hallway, smirking, and waited.

“So it all comes down to this, doesn’t it?” whispered Harry. “Does the wand in your hand know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does . . . I am the true master of the Elder Wand.”

A red-glow burst suddenly across the enchanted sky above them as an edge of dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window. The light hit both of their faces at the same time, so that Voldemort’s was suddenly a flaming blur. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he too yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand:

“Avada Kedavra!”

“Expelliarmus!”

The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead center of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the spells collided. Harry saw Voldemort’s green jet meet his own spell, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward.

Oh wai-

 

I think you don't even need to wait until after Harry's first or second year to make him more serious, ambitious, and studious. You can overhaul his character in a believable way if you just know some basics of psychology.

Harry's upbringing was somewhat similar to that of Riddle's, in that he had no unconditional love, he was the subject of many a beatings and bullies, verbal and perhaps physical abuse at 'home', and even at a young age he should have realized that the system is broken, that all humans have the capability of cruelty and malice, and will 99.99% of the time look out for themselves.

Young Harry should have been jaded, bitter, naturally suspicious of peoples motives, and probably a decent bit clever (years of evading bullies and lying to your abusive family, teachers, etc. must require a decent bit of cleverness and basic manipulation skills). In other words, he should have been a lot like Riddle only without the sadist streak. Even if we permit that he was ignorant of his acts of accidental magic with his upgraded intelligence and social perception, when Hagrid comes and informs him that magic is real and all that, I imagine that he would have been eager to learn magic and learn how to defend himself ASAP, even more so than Hermione because she has not yet experienced the cruelty and coldness of the world. She is naturally studious, but she enjoys knowledge for the sake of knowledge, not necessarily for its practical applications (as we see later on why she isn't uber skilled like DD. Although that might not be correct as she was the universal bandaid in DH).

This is how I think Harry really should have turned out. JKR really didn't know what she was doing when she came up with Harry's character. If I was in his situation I would have been lighting shit on fire, blowing shit up, and basically reveling in the fact that I could do magic, magic that can hurt those who tormented him in his childhood.

Now, I'm not a fan of NewDarkLord!Harry, I just think with his upbringing he should have been a Slytherin, a lot less noble, more cunning and manipulative, a lot less reliant on friends and the opinions of his peers, and more willing to break rules in search of powerful magic.

Such a Dark!Harry (cliche, I know) might give Voldemort problems after he graduates. There is no conceivable way he could defeat Voldemort while still in Hogwarts, but maybe he pulls a Riddle and deserts Britain, travels the world learning esoteric magic, and comes back to his home country (think future Hyrule in Ocarina of Time only without the zombies) to tear shit up and wage a sort of guerrilla war against Voldemort.

The only problem with this kind of story, is that you would have to be in it for the long haul, which very few authors are willing to do. Most authors who start pre Hogwarts stories drop out after the first few. It's just too big of a commitment.

 

it depends really. He could turn out that way or he could me a lonely person carving for attention and friendships. even though all that emo cliche stuff was already used thousands of time(oh, i lower my grades so dudley dont kill me or so hermione doesnt get angry with me).

you would really need to start at year one to write something like that because any other way you would have to work with cannon personality or create a drastic situation where he would change and work himself harder

I personaly think that his last hope to change and win the war was after sirius died, after that he would face the danger getting close to home and start learning how to really fight(and i dont mean casting a expelliarmus on the face of the "most evil dark lord to ever walk the earth"
I think JK really did not know how to write voldemort. Here we have this super dark lord, feared so much that people doesnt even dare to say his name and all he does is cast AK after AK hoping to kill someone(which most fanfictions fail even more than JK)

anyway...I would say that even if harry studies 18hours per day since he set his foot on hogwarts he would never stand a chance on a one-on-one fight with voldemort, he would most likely die(and create some weird magic backlash that sends good old Riddle in pieces to hell) or set some sort of magical nuclear bomb with snape to blow up next time he meets with the DE's

 

If they stand there and cast spells at each other like Redcoats in the Revolutionary War, sure. An intelligent Harry would realize that he couldn't beat Voldemort through outmuscling him via magic and there were plenty of alternate options to exploit.

Traps, poison, guns, bombs, portkeys - given Voldemort's love of speechifying before attacking and willingness to waltz in to whereever he thinks Harry is, a smart Harry could probably kill him pretty easily.