Make that Fleur Delecour, or Daphne Greengrass and I'd read it: there are way too many Harry/Ginny stories around, already.

 

Santi, pretty much nothing in your post is where I was planning on taking the story anyway. Perhaps I did a poor job explaining my idea. If there is a large role for the ministry, which originally I hadn't planned because they would have simply been unaware of the experiment, it would have to be planned out in a way that makes sense but I haven't even really attempted to do that yet. The idea was never for it to be technology vs magic but instead for the antagonist to use his limited abilities, intelligence, and ruthlessness to combat Harry's magical advantage. In the end though he doesn't care about Harry at all, just the girl. Harry would at no point be on the run from him.

 

You channeling Codex Alera here?

Tavi. <3

 

Then how exactly would your story be fast paced? At first it sounded like Harry would be on the run but now it doesn't seem like he has anything to run from. Can you provide a hypothetical that could make it into your story that shows how your squib can possibly be a successful antagonist? An example of his "limited abilities, intelligence, and ruthlessness" being used in a way that manages to threaten a Harry Potter that just fucked Voldemort over?

And as far as the Ministry goes, their originally being unaware makes sense but their continuing to do so after the girl reaches HP makes no sense at all. Harry's most logical move would be to immediately go to the Ministry and have them curb stomp both the squib and anyone involved in the project, Muggle ministry sanctioned or not. Not properly explaining this is a gaping plot hole. They don't have to play a large role but they do have to be addressed.

 

Is it just me, or does this seem incredibly petty? If it doesn't matter what character you want to fill in the role, why does it matter if it's Ginny instead of Daphne or Fleur? Effectively, just read the story and mentally replace "Ginny" with "Fleur" or "Daphne" whenever you see it, and problem solved.

 

Petty? Maybe. But who says that Fleur and Daphne don't need some fan'fic lovin'?

On a serious note, it also depends on what characters would fit the role better, judging by their canon personalities. Mentally swapping a character out for another one would not work because the response/actions from Ginny would not match up to Fleur's, or your OC character of Daphne. (Edit: Uh, unless you make your OC Daphne a Ginny clone, I suppose?)

Look at it from another point of view: if the protagonist was Ron instead of Harry, would Ron make the same decisions that Harry would make? Decisions that would affect the direction of the storyline?

 

Well what I was thinking of was that towards the beginning Harry thinks he's found a safe place for the father and daughter to hide while he tries to learn more. While he is gone they are attacked and the father is killed while the girl is captured. Harry sets out to find her and manages to find her and free her but the villian manages to escape. He's angry about Harry's involvement and decides to make Harry pay but knows he can't do anything directly against him. So he does something else, perhaps something like catching Ginny off guard and killing her (because nobody like Ginny anyway). Now they both want revenge and set out chasing the villian. If I were to use the idea that now the Ministry is after her and Harry wants to protect her then they'll have to try and avoid the Aurors while doing all of that. There are lots of ways to keep things moving quickly that don't require the antagonist to have Voldemort level magical power.

Yes the ministry should and will be doing something, so they will probably be looking for the squib too. But that doesn't mean finding him will be easy for them either.

 

It's got potential, but if you want it to be really, really good, then it needs a lot of work.
Why should Harry care in the first place? Before Ginny dies? How does he even get dragged in?

If I were him, I'd be like "I just killed Voldemort, I deserve a bloody break. I owe this random squib nothing. It'd be smarter not to risk my family by chasing after some random bastard who has nothing to do with me."

Also, it's my opinion that you're giving her too many powers. Give her something more creative that can't be used in such a direct way. Telekineses and mind reading are too normal and make for boring battles.

"Oh! I just read his mind! He's gonna attack! I must dodge! I know! I'll use my mind powers to throw a dagger at him!"

Give her something less direct, like the ability to blow up small objects. Something less obvious and powerful. And something that could turn around and bite her in the ass.

And be careful about the girl's characterization. There's a fine line between an okay OC and a Mary Sue self-insert. But you can't make her too weak either. There's nothing more annoying than a character that relies too much on the hero.

 

I remember a very long and slow story that worked the idea of muggles with a single natural ability that rivaled a wizarding spell. Forgot the name of the story but I think he called them free talents. Anyway you spent so much time in the back-story in your description that people missed much of the point. If you want the female lead to interact with Harry and the two to need one another, the answer is simple.

The squib is well funded and his guys get the jump on Harry and Harry loses his wand shortly into the fight. This shifts the power dynamic, and prevents Harry from just apparatning the girl away, solving all problems at once. If you alter her back story to the point that Harry is more knowledgeable about muggle culture than she is, say if she lived in captivity most of her life, then she relies on Harry for guidance. Harry in turn relies on her for protection, as without his wand he's defenseless.

Also the idea of the father escaping with the girl won't work. The mentor always dies or leaves the protagonists just as things get bad. For this idea to work you have to take away their safety mechanisms, Harry has his wand and the girl relies on her father, or foster father.

 

Starcraft-esque psionics versus Harry Potter wizards/witches. 'Nuff said.

"Avada-"

*Psionic boils Lucius' mind like an egg in a heart-beat before walking off for a cup of tea.*

EDIT:

Anyone ever thought of a Left 4 Dead crossover, or a Night of the Living Dead universe crossover?

Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 are set in 2009, with the latter taking place a mere month after the first. The good news is, is that any character you don't like (such as Ginny) could be killed off, because it would cut a lot of the epilogue content off (such as Harry's spawn with Ginny). Hmm...'tis something to think upon, methinks.

 

Weird idea I have - what if Albus decided that Nurmengard is not a good place to hold Grindelwald? He wanted to keep a better eye on him, so he decided that he will have him at Hogwarts. How? Few oblivions and Gellert becomes new man - enter Argus Filch, a Squib and the caretaker of Hogwarts.

It only a start of what could be Grindelwald mentors Harry type of fic, with Gellert getting his memories back for some reason and waiting for a good moment to strike.

 

I KNOW I've seen this done before. Not well, but done.

The second half of your idea is original (and good) afaik.


Here's a plot bunny for something I'll probably never write. Based on viewing the brief cinematic after you install Starcraft II.

Harry Potter was raised as little more than a soldier - when the prophecy was made public when he was little more than an infant, all of Britain knew that he would be the one to kill the Dark Lord again. Sirius Black, his godfather, was the only one who truly cared about him as a person, but even he could see no alternative to training Harry as soon as he was old enough to hold a wand, if he was to have any chance at killing Voldemort.

When Black died at the invasion of Riddle Manor, where Voldemort met his end, Harry's only supporter was gone. Soon enough, he was imprisoned in Azkaban for using dark magic, even if he had only done it with pseudo-Ministry approval against Death Eaters and Voldemort.

That was ten years ago, when Harry was but 16.

Now, flareups of dark magic are occurring once again; politicians like Zacharias Smith, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, can do little good when three Hit-Wizards are slaughtered when they work up the courage to head into Knockturn Alley to try to investigate the rumors.

The Ministry needs someone expendable.

Harry agrees to work for the Ministry against the remnants of Death Eaters - and rumors of Voldemort's shade influencing them - in exchange for his freedom. But they don't trust him, and lock him in a robe with a steel collar - should he go against his orders, the collar will kill him.

Harry has to work against the clock as members of the Wizengamot object to his release, Death Eaters' Imperiused minions attack him at every turn, and he once again confronts the greatest dark wizard who ever lived...

Best idea for a Tychus!Harry that I could come up with. Sounds like a decent attempt at an Azkaban!Harry fic as well, maybe. But like I said, I'm sure I'll never write it, so if it tickles someone's fancy, by all means

 

Reminds me of the plot for Escape From L.A..

 

Basically that's what Tychus Findley had to do in Starcraft II, too.

 

An idea popped into my head, and now that I've got it I might as well share it (because I'm not going to be writing Harry Potter anyway).

It starts off at Harry's birth. James and Lily aren't in hiding, and wont be going into hiding at all, because there is no prophecy (but stating this outright would basically be wasting it). If it were me, I'd fast-forward through his growing years, because no one wants to read over 50,000 words about two responsible adults raising a child. Probably show a few flashbacks, but otherwise ignore the childhood.

And then the real story starts once Harry gets on the Hogwarts Express (but, again there will be fast forwarding in the probably future). Harry's most defining feature is his self confidence, which borders on arrogance. Show a couple scenes where he makes friends, sends/recieves letters from his family, the whole shebang.

Biggest scene in year 1 would be where Harry gets his marks back and is told he has the highest in his class. Ecstatic, telling friends, sending letter, whatever, you know.

This is quite vague for an outline, but I imagine there would be a Voldemort-related event over the summer. Perhaps one of Harry's friends has their family killed, or Bumfuck Villagetown was raided and destroyed. Something to bring to Harry's attention that not all is right in the world.

And then it fast-forwards through his next few years. By his sixth year, a few of his teachers are making similarities to Tom Riddle (basically, all the ones who were around for him), and this makes Harry even more confident. He has consistently been the best student in his year.

This is the part where things get a little murky for me. Perhaps Harry will have to hold the Idiot Ball for a bit, but through some turn of events he has realized his ambition to become a Death Eater (albeit a junior one). This just makes him even more arrogant, but there aren't any students in Hogwarts who can knock him off this pedestal of his anyway, so he just gets stronger and more confident through his 6th/7th years.

I would fast-forward again here, to where Harry is out of Hogwarts, has a low-level Ministry of Magic job (that would come in useful later; might as well, right?), but is now ready for his first mission as a true Death Eater. I would dedicate a whole chapter to explaining his day before, during, and after the job, including how he fooled his parents and friends, and show that Harry really is good at being moral-less.

From there the story is basically open-ended(read: I'm too fucking lazy to write a plot), except that eventually Harry will usurp Voldemort's position through force. Whether he does it as a mid-rank Death Eater or as his right-hand man would be totally up to the writer. The friends and family could be a way of showing just how obsessed Harry is with climbing the ladder of Evil, because they might worry about him more than he cares for.

The ending I would have planned would be one where Harry gets destroyed after a few decades of atrocities, but I am absolutely not into writing that much filler-ish evil, so I'm not even sure about that. Would Harry succeed in becoming the strongest Dark wizard in history? Would he conquer a chunk of Europe, start a war, or just corrupt the shit out of his soul? Maybe one of his old friends from school was just too smart for his own good, but when Harry tries to kill him, he survives and lives to destroy Harry. All up to the writer.

So, basically, what I want to read is an epic Dark!Harry story, or at least a tragedy. I'm just too unmotivated to write anything of the sort.

 

I can't see how Harry in your idea went from this:

To this:

Because if someone close to him was somehow hurt by DE I can't see how could he want to become one (unless it's not his ambition per se, but part of his revenge or something). In other words the "little murky" part is the most important to make this fic work.

The rest is no different from most of Evil!Harry fics, but him having normal family is nice touch.

 

Yeah, oops. I meant to go back and put in that he found out about how Voldemort gives his minions power etc., but forgot to before posting. I also should've alluded to the fact that Voldemort was never stopped in this, but he isn't quite so obvious in his plots, so Harry has been hearing about him and not seeing him. Harry would be power-hungry, which is why he sees becoming a Death Eater as a good ambition.

 

So... What you want is a story based on an arrogant prick being perfect in school then joining a cult and eventually being killed after several decades worth of mayhem and torture? Why not just plot out an alternate Voldemort's rise to power instead?

 

Since I've seen this thread hijacked a couple of times with insane non-HP ideas, I'm going to toss a new one in here for a Star Wars fic. My idea draws pretty heavily on the EU, so I apologize for those not hugely familiar.

Basically, the story begins with the Outbound Flight Project - a Jedi-backed project, run by Jedi Master Jorus C'Baoth, designed to slice through Unknown Space, find the missing Jedi Vergere, and (for C'Baoth) to found a new Jedi-ruled colony outside of the galaxy and the reach of the corrupted Republic.

Now for those of you who don't know (sorry for spoilers, but I really can't say much more without spoiling the entire Outbound Flight novel by Timothy Zahn), this project attracted Darth Sidious' attention, and he engineered to have it destroyed through an agent - the
Chiss alien Thrawn, who later became a Grand Admiral in the Imperial Navy. Sidious knew that the opportunity to kill six Jedi Masters in one fell swoop was too great to pass up, and he also knew that he couldn't risk the Yuuzhan Vong discovering the galaxy yet.

Now my planned divergence from established SW-canon is something like this: Thrawn arrives upon the Outbound Flight Dreadnaughts and instead of the negotiations falling to pieces like they did in the novel, Thrawn actually succeeds in convincing C'Baoth that he'd be better off taking an alternate route out of the galaxy (believable, considering Thrawn has had success in manipulating that fucker in other stories).

Now here's where things get dicey. C'Baoth is too arrogant to directly abandon his mission, but he's also rather shrewd. He orders the Dreadnaughts to pull north out of Unknown Space and follow a more 'established route' out of the galaxy. Meanwhile, Thrawn has his task force plant timed explosive devices in Outbound Flight, intending to have the Dreadnaughts destroyed anyways - after all, that was his mission.

So instead of heading out of the galaxy by way of the Unknown Regions (and straight through Chiss Space), Outbound Flight chooses to go directly north out of the galaxy. As intended, the Jedi Masters begin using the force to calm the massive intergalactic turbulence that prevents hyperspace travel outside of the galaxy, making a final stop for supplies at a tiny Rim world named Sernpidal.

And then just as Outbound Flight finally breaks free of the galaxy, the charges explode, and the entire project vanishes. Thrawn is expelled from the Chiss Navy, and will join Palpatine's Imperium eight years later.

But enough of a hyperlane has been blazed - and the sudden explosion of radiation bombs is a beacon that draws the travelling Yuuzhan Vong like moths to a flame. It will take them years to get to the galaxy - but many years less than it should have taken.

Flash forward twenty-seven years. The first Death Star has just been completed, and Princess Leia Organa has just received the fragmented Death Star plans from the agents on Toprawa. Darth Vader is moving into hot pursuit in the Devastator - until he gets an urgent message from the Emperor himself.

For the Emperor has received a coded Holonet transmission from the northern fringe of the galaxy, a beacon calling for reinforcements, citing an onslaught of monsters in horrifying ships coming out of nowhere, that overran the Imperial ships guarding the sector with ease.

The Yuuzhan Vong have arrived twenty-five years early.

 

So you basically want a Imperial Star Wars vs Yuuzhan Vong series? Sorry, but I'm not sold. Thrawn is just too good at what he does, and reading about how the Vong get utterly annihilated by Thrawn seems a bit boring.

In short, the Vong wouldn't be able to counter Thrawn, and the Empire was far more prepared for all out war than the New Republic. The only interesting way I see for your idea to go down is in a polically nightmarish scenario, when the Rebels ally with the Vong, taking the opportunity to fight free of the Empire with a strong ally.

It'd be entirely reliant on a diplomacy based plot, which I imagine would be difficult to make interesting. The idea could work, but you'd need a hell of a plot. And while you're at AU stuff in Star Wars, eliminate that living world that made no fucking sense. Of course, that last part is just my preference.