Well, I always figured that alchemy was something BIG and possibly secretive, I mean Hogwarts teaches a lot of fields but one of the fields that they have zero classes for is alchemy. Plus, I think it is mentioned that Flamel was a alchemist (or maybe that's a fanon thing) and I think one of the books, probably the first, mentions Dumbledore knowing Alchemy or at least helping Flamel who used alchemy. So, I thought that maybe alchemy was this secretive branch of magic that was only taught to people specifically selected by an already existing alchemist and not to everyone who wanted learn it.

 

Hermione knows that Harry isn't anti-Muggleborn. No, instead she's just really angry that he's receiving preferential treatment when she is a better student, and has proven herself worthy of guided study. Her attitude in Half-Blood Prince supports that portion of my plot. However, the majority of the Muggleborn students don't realize this, and jump to a different conclusion - that Hermione is fed up with Harry's anti-muggle background. Remember, very few people outside of the "Golden Trio" know the details of what Harry, Hermione and Ron get up to, and there a ton of rumors that they have never bothered to deal with.

You have a point. I planned to have Dumbledore's Wizengamot push to remove Fudge from power backfire - at first he garners enough support, but then he realizes that even if he were to remove Fudge he would find another more difficult threat placed in power... Remember, Fudge has royally pissed off Malfoy. However, Lucius is still highly regarded (he never went to Azkaban as the Department of Mysteries never took place) - especially amongst the Purebloods in power - and whoever he throws his weight behind is likely to get elected. Thus, Dumbledore decides not to pursue that avenue after all his work getting the support - and pisses off more than a few people in the process.

But I recognize what you're saying - it's tough to walk the line between making all three powerful figures, and still making it believable and letting logically progress. It's something I'm keeping in mind as I work on it.

 

I'll add to this.

It's pretty much stated flat out in canon that Dumbledore, had he wanted to, could have easily become the Minister. I imagine that at this point in time, Dumbledore's reputation has taken a tumble thanks to Fudge's efforts, and Dumbledore has lost his "shoe in" position for the job.

The point I want to make is this:

Dumbledore needs a good reason to suddenly want to become the Minister, since in the past he could have easily taken the job. He needs a reason to suddenly decide that he needs that position of power when he's never wanted it in the past.

It's not a major point, but it's imperative that you provide this information so that we have a why now?

 

I think removing Lucius from the political arena could be a reasonable incentive. He waited so long to make his move to make sure that Harry is on his side, methinks.

 

But Dumbledore never needed Harry on his side. Remember that at the outset of book 1 he was considered possibly the greatest and most respected wizard in the world, and people were constantly asking why he never took the Minister position.

It wasn't until after book 4 that he lost much of his popularity. In other words, there needs to be a reason for Dumbledore to want to control the Ministry instead of Fudge. This could be as simple as Fudge going off the rails when it comes to Dumbledore's agenda - whatever that may be - but it's an important point to make.

 

I'm thinking of trying to write a post GOF Indy!Harry fic where a not too bright / magically powerful sympathiser of Voldemort goes to Surrey and ambushes Harry outside of the wards which kill him. Harry thinking that he has killed another wizard in a duel flees before the Aurors even arive ( he gets another Hogwarts expulsion / wand snap letter ) . Taking nothing with him except his wand, cloak, firebolt and a handful of wizarding coins he winds up in France where he lives like a vagrant for a while, breaking in n muggle houses and sleeping under bridges before he meets Fleur and calls in his favour for saving Gabby. She gets him a job with a friend of hers where he somehow finds out abou the DH and sets out to find them knowing that he can not defeat Voldemort otherwise. Afterwards he gets caught by Dumbledore who finds him with his deluminator and is forced to compete in the Tri Wizard Tournament again like this.

I would have to use a couple of plot devices that might be a little cliché though. Like Harry's cloak having several non cannon powers e.g. making all scrying and trace magic useless on him while he wears it and the ability to become transparent to give it's wearer the ability to blend in with the crowd ( alternative invisibility ).

And a spell that allows him to learn languages faster by forcing his brain to make connections between the words he already knows and the ones he hears in a different language. Potential braindamage there.

Thoughts?

 

I see a lot of potential in this idea, though I have one minor question about the factions that you've set up in the thing. What percentage of your wizarding population is muggle-born? The number of confirmed muggle-borns in canon is a rather low percentage of the total known characters (say, 10% overall? 15%?), but in fanon you admittedly do see higher percentages.

Might I suggest dividing up the half-bloods into your society's social issues? As an example, you might politically ally your muggle-borns with some or many half-bloods and a few pure-bloods, while other half-bloods can stay neutral, and some could support the pure-bloods.

Edit: Self-fail, you already take the other half- and pure-bloods into account in your first post on the idea. So the only actual extra input I can make is that you might want to start showing the dividing lines within the half- and pure-bloods fairly early on (or increase the number of muggle-borns to the point where their dislike of Harry is actually something that has serious effects on his day-to-day life).

 

I have a story idea that I have playing around with in my head for a while. The basic premise is what would happen if magic was revealed to the world at large. While this basic idea has been many times, my thought is rather than a present day reveal, that it would have taken place in the early 1900s.

After a high profile attack on British parliament by wizard supremacists, it slowly gets out. From that initial attack, I have planned out the rest of the century until sometime in harry potter time era. This includes the lack of WWI, a vastly different map of the world that looks much more like colonial maps, a WWII war parallel that isn't magical in fighting, but in cause, as well as major advances in technology due to the commingling of muggle and magical technology.

The story includes Tom Riddle, Dumbledore, and Grindlewald all as key players in modern world. They were all key generals in the war previously alluded to, and were all on the winning side. Riddle is Headmaster of Hogwarts, while Dumbledore rules the magical part of the British empire.

My idea was to drop a war failure harry (and possibly crew) into this world after the standard attempt to go back to win the war with time travel. They would probably return sometime around 4th year, although I am not married to a time yet.

However, my main problem is that I have no conflict. I can't decide on a conflict that is both reasonable to work this whole AU. I can't justify a Voldemort type guy coming after him or something like that because why would someone that everyone thinks is just a normal, wizard kid is that important in this AU.

So I'd love for some help for potential plot ideas, since I love the setting and don't want to ruin it with a bad story.

 

No conflict? The conflict seems pretty clear to me. Hardcore war veteran Harry vs. evil oppressive empire.

Perhaps he could team up with an ambitious Tom Riddle to take out Dumbledore, and then double cross Riddle.

 

Just to clarify, your idea is to take a Harry who lost the war in the current canon timeline and dropping him into this alternate timeline where going back in time had some adverse effect?

It's not really one I can remember seeing before. Like Taure said, playing around with the allegiances and stuff could provide a fresh perspective: Harry and Tom working together without relying on the "We're both Dark Lords!" thing, Dumbledore and Grindelwald being allies without their break or whatever, things like that.

Wouldn't really have to worry about a Super!Harry with the ultra future knowledge either because he'd be thrown into a completely new set of circumstances.

 

I personally think you can do away with the Time Travel angle, introducing a completely AU Harry would make all interactions in the story feel more natural IMO. Otherwise you'll need to portray Harry as very awkward around all the people that resemble his canon acquaintances.

 

A Harry that came from that universe could have realistic reasons for disliking Dumbledore/Grindewald and siding with Riddle.

After growing up pretty much at Hogwarts under the care of of Tom Riddle, Harry would feel more inclined to dislike Riddle's enemies, which can be said to be Dumbledore and/or Grindelwald.

It would require some divergences from canon (such as Riddle having a reason to dislike Dumbledore, who seemingly never talked to Tom before Hogwarts), as well as a slowly unraveled background, but I think it would be a good story.

 

An interesting angle could be to have Dumbledore, Grindelwald and Riddle as the big players in the background but never actually meeting them: Harry's foil could be his counterpart in the universe he arrived in. Keep the story contained, make it a character piece rather than an epic saga about empires etc.

 

True, but wouldn't that come a little too close to being a Skitterleap clone? I mean, magic revealed to the world, evil empires, Grindelwald, Riddle; at that point, all you need is some German thrown in, a crazed Russian with god-like powers, and a pair of psychotic Weasley twins, and you'd practically have a carbon copy.

Which isn't to say it's a bad idea, 'cause it's not. The author would just have to be careful not to copy Enembee too blatantly, or the fic would lose a good deal of its charm.

 

While I do feel attached to the idea, I can't really bring my self to actually commit to any main ideas other than the ones I described. So I think i will give the idea up for adoption to anyone in case it helps spark their imagination. I might write this story eventually, but I don't that will be for a while.

 

So, if someone writes a story with an evil empire (probably the most unoriginal idea ever) and two canon characters, he's obviously imitating Enembee? Are you fucking serious?

 

Hmmm, I just had a thought earlier today as I read a few HP/SG crossovers for a story. What if some group of wizards, say some people working for Gringotts or just adventuring wizards, found the Stargate in Egypt before the muggles? Then somehow Harry comes across it, perhaps it's in the DoM and he becomes an Unspeakable after Hogwarts? Or some other way, dunno. Anyway, it would basically be Stargate only with Wizards going through the gate and exploring new worlds.

 

You should try it, seriously. The only problem would be that wizards would be hopelessly overpowered compared to other people. Expelliarmus + Petrificus Totalus can subdue just about any badguy from the early seasons. I'm not really a SG buff so I can't relly help you here. Still I support your idea and hope you write it.

 

But the wizards would be seriously handicapped when it comes to understanding technology. While magic would help them overcome a lot of things, they'd have serious problems with some of the tech in SG.

Since even the muggleborns stop their muggle education at 11 they wouldn't have anybody to go to unless they recruit muggles, which I don't see happening without a very good reason and after some time.

You could, I suppose, say that some muggleborns go back to muggle school because of the bigotry of the wizarding world, but I don't buy all that. I can't recall anything in canon to support that, and if Hermione didn't go back and finish her muggle education, I don't see a whole lot of other muggleborns doing it.

Then of course there are squibs that may have went to Uni and studied in astrophysics or something that could be brought in.

There is also the fact that it would be a VERY limited group of wizards that would likely even know about the program.

There could also be conflict later at some point with muggles finding the Antarctica gate, and starting up their own program. Of course, it might be rather difficult for them to figure out how to work it without the cover stones. Or even figure out what it was or what it was meant to do.


As for writing it, eh, I've got other things I'm working on right now...plus I'd have to go over SG canon again. I've seen every episode of SG1 and all but the last season and a half of SGA at least once, most more then once, but it's all still a bit fuzzy.

However, who knows, if SGU is any good it might get me more in the mood for the story. But right now I don't think I'd be able to write it, at least not for a long time. Dunno.

 

Well, from what I know of SG, the stargates were made by Ancients who were pretty much Harry Potter wizards at one time. After all they had the ability to even conjure fully working stargates in ascended state (or so I've read at wiki). So you'd expect their technology to be a blend of magic and mechanics. For wizards it would be more like reverse engineering spells and such coupled with study of the mechanics, there should be at least some wizards in the DoM who understand such things at least a little.

You could also pull the Ascended Ancient is the final step of Wizard-ness card (like post-Dumbledore level).