Ummmmmm... no. This sounds like a potentially very shity story in the wrong hands (any hands that are not very good at writing). But if you really want to, write up a first chapter and post it in the WBA. If it is good, well there you go. If it isn't...

 

Gah! Incest at arm's length is still incest! Kill it with fire! Cleanse and Purge!

Seriously: There's unconventional, and then there's just a bad idea. If you write this, you'll pretty much be forced to call it Oedipus Wrecks. I suppose you could get away with it as a mild WTF fic, but still... This bunny has all the earmarks of a train wreck. Unless you've got writing chops in the class of nonjon, jbern, or BigD, my advice would be to work on something else.


On another note- I've been playing around with that idea of a really bad ass Light!Harry from a few pages ago. It sort of percolated with an idea somebody mentioned in another thread, pointing out that Wormtail is actually fairly competent, and it made me wonder why the Potters weren't their own secret keepers. It seems odd in light of Shell Cottage, also with Peter being a Death Eater, the timing of the attack is really strange.

My guess for what happened in canon: Whoever cast the charm didn't quite get all of the details right with learning the Fidelus and the secret keeper, and thus Pettigrew became secret keeper. I'm fairly sure Pettigrew was part of the order, thus it seems likely that he was captured on a mission and the information was tortured out of him or he was under the Imperius curse. Cue Halloween 1981, yada, yada.

Peter spends 13 years wallowing in guilt over what happens/hiding from both sides, is revealed in 1993, and pretty much forced by people he once called friends into Voldemort's waiting arms. Cue downward spiral of villainy.

Here's the crazy thought: Fanon usually has Peter be a Death Eater from the get-go, which makes the timing of the attack on the Potters really odd (could be the horcrux ritual or Tommy-boy wanting to make a statement, but still, it seems weird). Using this concept, my idea was: neither Sirius nor Peter were the secret keepers; Lily or James were. However, when they attempted to make Sirius the keeper, he suggested Peter. Likewise when they try to make Peter be the keeper, he suggested Sirius. The Potters are his friends, even if they are on opposite sides of the war; he doesn't want them dead. So the Potters decide it wouldn't be a bad idea to let both of them think the other is the secret keeper while they find another secret keeper. Further research shows the secret keeper can live within the secret, and the problem is solved.

So, then how does Voldemort break in? Oddly enough, it was BTVS that got me thinking about this. A lot of the best heroes actually make their own villains, or draw them like moths to a bug zapper. Batman is infamous for this, Buffy herself seems to find herself new villains weekly, even Superman has attracted his fair share of villains wishing to test their strength against his. What about a magical artifact (probably a piece of jewelry) designed to make heroes by drawing everything dark to them in such a way as to attack the would be savior? Obviously, it would need to have some horrible consequence for removing it (perhaps death?), and maybe it could limit what spells Harry could use (No unforgivables/dark spells); a survival of the fittest, sink-or-swim hero maker that has a reputation for bearers becoming "A beacon of hope" or "A lone light in the darkness".

The Potters are chosen because James Potter was a bigger annoyance than Frank Longbottom. Lucius Malfoy seems to have a never-ending supply of strange artifacts; his family could easily have acquired it in the past. He gives it to Peter, who gives it Lily, someone who he always would have felt some antipathy for if he supported Voldemort.

Artifact acting like a homing beacon, Voldemort gets into the house with dark magic or whatever, collapses the wards, kills James, Lily does her thing (whatever that may be), Peter and Sirius do their thing, and Harry is now the wonderful Boy Who Lived. The Artifact lays forgotten in Godric's Hollow.

During first year, Harry got the cloak from Dumbledore anonymously. As a twelve year-old boy, would it seem particularly odd if he got a second anonymous present the next year? Particularly one with a label written in the same hand as the one before? Magical forgers wouldn't have to try particularly hard to fool a kid like Harry. However, who would have the knowledge? Wormtail, in the form of Scabbers, was around for Harry's first Christmas at Hogwarts.

For the sake of the story, Peter is an inner circle Death Eater with knowledge of what a Horcrux is.
Peter's basic plan being to use Harry as fuel for the horcrux, by allowing it to possess Harry's corpse with some evil ritual or other. This is more of an attack of opportunity when Evil!Wormtail finds the horcrux than a particularly well planned out conspiracy sort of deal. Peter goes to Godric's Hollow, gets the Artifact, and then slips it in among the other presents for Harry.

The calamity that ensues basically amounts to Harry being hunted through Hogwarts by every dark thing in the castle, as a second year. The way I figure it, Harry handles the small stuff, like doxies, pixies, or whatever, and escapes the larger stuff, like boggarts, but then runs into the Basilisk. Fawkes saves him, but has to flash him out of Hogwarts. Plot-wise, that's pretty much all I've managed to cobble together. In the character development area, Harry has pretty much found himself in Buffy's shoes, but without the super-powers already installed. He has magic, but only at a second-year level; Expelliarmus and Wingardium Leviosa FTW!

As a hero, Harry's biggest flaw is how reactionary he is. He's not easily motivated, but when he acts, he tends to dash in heedless to the dangers and with little forward planning. The artifact would basically force Harry to begin to think in the long term. He knows he's going to spend the rest of his life fighting the Dark until he finally dies. Harry is equipped with enough survival instincts to not want to die.

I think this sort of story would be best served with very canon magic (inexplicable rules, idiosyncratic applications). Magical cores, super-duper wandless magic, temporary wards, etc. etc. aren't something I think would be fun in this story. However, I do like the idea of spellchains (their resemblance to martial arts kata appeals to my inner nerd), and I do think that the traditional Banisher/Summoner/Bludgeoner/Piercer/Slasher/Shield/Patronus arsenal has gotten a little overused.

As a combatant, I see Harry starting out with basic hexes and charms, using his mobility, his reflexes, his situational awareness (enhanced by a supersensory charm?), and small stature to defeat his opponent. His basic tactical doctrine would be disorient, confuse, dodge, and follow up with lightning quick spellfire. However, I also see the flaw with this method; he can only cast one charm/hex/curse at a time. Perhaps with training he could develop something like Kvothe's split focus trick, in TNotW?

Eventually I see him ending up using transfiguration in tandem with wards, supported by some area-effect spells and flashbang sort of spells; it seems like the sort of thing that would be an actual method of fighting with canon magic. He could conjure/transfigure missiles and shields that have wards already carved into them to prevent others from manipulating his creations, or maybe even Karmic Wards, that absorb and recast spells at a new target. I think Dumbledore actually did something like this in HBP. That said, this is not Bungle in the Jungle style wards, where they can do pretty much everything. I guess I kind of envisioned them the way they were portrayed in the Warded Man; they protect against or enhance a specific thing, but in a fairly limited scope.

Wow. This turned out a lot more detailed as I wrote it.

 

Bit of a mess, if I'm being brutally honest. I think there's a story in there somewhere, but edit out the insignificant detail and minor justifications for each little OoC divergence and make clear your principle plot (first-year Harry or in-the-past Pettigrew) and you might - might - be on to something.

But what's the actual story? I think here is your problem;

You need to work on the plot. Give a 'Harry/Wormtail is x. In x. Because of x.' not an 'x, x, and x happen prior to anything because of such-and-such reasons, and won't have any effect on a story that doesn't exist yet until a certain amount of chapters in.' You've presented a weakly founded string of canon tangents without an actual plot to tie them together. It's a series of 'What-if's' rather than a piece of fiction, and if it ever was started it would likely be abandoned very quickly for this very reason.

To butcher an adage, the end should justify the means; your means shouldn't be justifying the end (or beginning, or middle, etc). Show us a story. That level of detail won't ever be necessary in that format in anything other than the author's private notes anyway.

 

I was confused by your summary. The plot seemed somewhat garbled and unclear, and at times you seemed to contradict yourself a little. Initially you state that Peter doesn't want to be the Secret Keeper because he wants to keep James and Lily alive. But then you have Peter give Lily an artifact that allows Voldemort to find and kill the Potters.

I agree with Grinning Lizard though, the seed of a decent idea seems to be present in your post. Try and narrow down what your trying to propose. Conciseness in basic ideas is your friend. After you have a clear idea, you can start developing the outlines and deepening the story.

 

Yeah, the basic plot bunny was: Pettigrew gives Harry an artifact for Christmas that turns him into a giant target for the Dark™. Harry is forced to grow a spine and balls because he must spend the rest of his life fighting and killing Dark™ things that are driven to kill him because of the artifact. Aside from drawing tons of monsters, the artifact is utterly powerless, a MacGuffin.

My brain apparently had a epileptic seizure and when it was done, it seemed kind of a waste to just delete all of that. Looking back, I should have just dropped the babble into Notepad and saved it. Then I should have re-written it in a far more coherent form.

 

I like it, but you should give him something too counter the Dark, because the canon Harry in his second year was a wuss better then the HBP!Harry but still a wuss. Maybe this artifact could give him an obscure/forgotten/mystical power that has little real use, but he could build upon it.

 

@ Hero of Stupidity: "Ancient Power," eh? Perhaps it can grant him the ability to do empowered wandless magic, since the ancients didn't have wands! Or maybe he can get super Legilimency, and implant memories in peoples' brains! Or maybe he can suddenly get perfect occlumency, and thus a photographic memory! Or maybe he can change his shape into anyone, and thus heal himself from any wound! Or maybe he can channel his magical energy to make himself physically stronger, faster, and more sexually appealing to his desired gender! Or maybe he can be possessed by a god, who then owes him a debt and is his Narhual! Or maybe he is chosen by the Artifact™ to be the heir of Merlin! Or maybe he can get a soul bond to Ginny!

As you can see, there are many good ideas which stem from Harry getting an "Ancient Power". :awesome

I think you kind of missed the point of the story there. If you're into Harry gaining some sort of superpowers, read Mastermind Hunting by Louis XIV. It's pretty much the super!Harry story.

Although I must say, now I kinda want a story where Harry is declared heir to Merlin, only to receive a spellbook full of spells less useful than the ones he learned in his first year at Hogwarts, a family ring, and crippling debt, compounded over thousands of years because Merlin happened to make some 'poor investments' at the goblin-run casino, which ultimately led to the first goblin rebellion.

 

You misunderstood me. I don't want a super!Harry I only want Harry to have something to build on but ultimately useless, like moving dead cats eyes.

And your another idea is good, maybe for a crack fic. I would add a family curse to further his suffering...

Toodles...

 

@Hero: Ah... Yes. You did miss the point. The central theme of such a story (at least in the beginning) would be highlighting how to use the spells he already knows to devastating effect, e.g. Wingardium Leviosa was used by a 1st year with mediocre skills to knock out a fully-grown mountain troll. Harry would be surviving by utilizing his environment to his advantage, a skill he seems well suited to pick up given his good situational awareness and deft reflexes. His foundation for later becoming an epic hero, in this instance, would be the endless supply of dark creatures to test himself against. He would reach a point (rather quickly I suspect) where he can reasonably expect to at least survive against the average, day-to-day mooks by developing a good sense of tactics.

Also, bear in mind that the range of Dark™ creatures seems to go from Doxies all the way to Dementors. There's lots of room for Harry to break his teeth before really dropping him in the cacky.

The whole Ancient Power rant was a bit of a knee jerk reaction. I react badly when somebody suggests something along the lines of "Sharr Lord" or "Harry is has Unique Power!" as it kind of defeats the point of Harry Potter as a hero; Harry is Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk, not a Lancelot or a Beowulf.

 

*sneezes*

/filler

 

Fixed. While your story isn't exactly my cup of tea, I do like your sig.

 

I was previously going to disregard your idea as a pathetic excuse to get Harry to find some deus ex machina which would grant him some cliche super power. However, it seems that I misjudged you and your intentions for the plot-bunny; you want a plot device which makes Harry actually grow up and face the situation, rather than spend his school days pissing about, playing chess with Ron and bitching about the unfairness of it all?

Now I am intrigued.

 

Just an idea, probably was here already:

Ron miscast Wingardium Leviosa (well, it is his first attempt outside classroom) and resulting buffalo killed him. Troll obliterated Hermione. Harry escaped with his life by the skin of his teeth but he knows that his luck will once run out. Only magical knowledge could save his life or life of others when facing danger in future. He has no longer distraction (Ron) or ready made fount of knowledge (Hermione) so he has to study and learn alone like Riddle and Dumbledore before him.

 

The main problem, so far as I see it, is that there's almost no divergence from canon. Harry already is a trouble magnet. By the end of his second year he's already encountered pretty much every dangerous creature in the vicinity of Hogwarts and its grounds.

The pendant doesn't seem to change anything at all with regards to what experiences Harry will encounter. And even if it does mean he'll get into even more trouble, I find it hard to believe that Harry would have had a complete attitude change if only he'd encountered X event - he manages to hold his current attitude in the face of Voldemort, multiple dark wizards, dementors, dragons, acromantula, merpeople, centaurs, boggarts, grindylows, hinkypunks, werewolves, inferi, trolls, basilisks, house elves, goblins and dangerous enchantments.

The only way I could see anything changing would be if youwent completely over the top and made Harry under perpetual deadly assault. But in that case A) the fic would become a crack!fic and B) Dumbledore would come along and just blast everything to pieces.

EDIT: FFS, CAN WE PLEASE START ACTUALLY POSTING PLOT IDEAS, NOT BORDERLINE RETARDED EXCUSES TO MAKE HARRY STUDY/TRAIN AND THUS, SOMEHOW, BECOME DUMBLEDORE 2.0.

(Not directed at any one person in particular, but if I see another "plot bunny" that consists of nothing more than a divergence after which Harry decides to be better at magic I might just pull my hair out. An attitude change does not consistute a story. Okay, you've made Harry know some more spells and be better at magic. Now, where's the plot? You've got to come up with something fairly original, because Harry simply being better at magic is going to make almost no difference to the canon plotline, given that Harry's skill, or lack thereof, had no real impact on the course of events.)

 

While I've read that sort of story before, I don't think it's been proposed in this thread. What you've proposed is a good start: however, you need an end point. Taking GrinningLizard's advice to heart, where do you want Harry to end up? In my plotbunny, I wanted to chronicle the transformation Harry goes through from being a bumbling british hero to something along the lines of Beowulf. My end point is Harry spending the rest of his life as a sworn Hero of the light that has fought endless battles against the Dark and will fight in this perpetual war until he becomes just another casualty.

Your end point seems to be where Harry becomes the next big prodigy like Riddle and Dumbledore. Also you're going to have to be careful not to let it descend into "And Harry learned the Splendiferous Charm. Then he learned the Califragilistic Curse. And then he learned..."

Edit: @Taure: There's a pretty big difference from canon, maybe not in content, but most certainly in threat density. The inspiration for this was Berserk (with the Brand; I believe the relevant quote has something to do with it turning turning the world into a battleground, but I can't be buggered to find it) and Buffy (She is a giant trouble magnet because she's the Slayer, and thus the various plots ensue). The Acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest may not like him, but they don't go searching him out because he's the Boy Who Lived. Likewise, the only time Harry actually encounters the Basilisk is when he kills it in canon. In this, it would be attacking him every chance it got. Until he clears every dark creature from Hogwarts, nearly every step he takes will dogged by the worst Hogwarts has to throw at him. Once he cleanses Hogwarts, the Artifact will pull from the entirety of England, and start reaching even further.

The Artifact is tangible evidence that he can't be a normal human being. Harry's ultimate realizations is this: Every enemy he defeats today, will be replaced tomorrow by something most likely even worse. My vision was Harry being turned into a Beacon of Hope, very, very literally. Darkness™ cannot abide his very presence, and his beacon-y tendencies means that every Dark™ creature will know he exists, and roughly where he is.

Edit 2: I guess the summary of this is: In canon, Harry went looking for trouble. In this, Trouble comes hunting after Harry, howling for his bloody, torturous demise.

 

I had this notion, but I can't be sure I'll ever get to writing it. Feel free to knock it around the park a bit.

Title: Harry 'Tonks' Potter

Like Edith Wilson...

Story concept: Tonks and Harry start a relationship following the 5th year trouble, but just before Harry is to leave for the Express, he is killed by a goblin assassin, right in front of Tonks. She kills the assassin but now is stuck grieving for her lost cuddle-buddy. Albus appears (shriveled hand and all) and starts off admonishing her for the lapse in duty that got Harry injured, but then she corrects him- Harry's not 'injured'; he's dead, gruesomely (and not as quickly as one would hope). The goblins' blade was poisoned, making Harry's body unsuitable for alchemic use. In fact, his body rots away right before their eyes about ten minutes later.

Anyway, Albus corners Tonks and insists that the public hearing of Harry's death right now would doom them all- she's going to have to substitute for Harry until they can work out a plan.

As she attempts to sink into her role, she often reflects on conversations she and Harry had over the summer. Tonks had been teaching Harry some Mind magics, enabling them to share memories directly. This gives her an edge in filling the role, but now she has to proceed under the scrutiny of his best friends and keenest enemies (and it's not like she's got a lifelong backup of Harry memories, either).

Hermione figures it out over time; Neville, too (though being in the dorm with 'him' gave more clues). Whether the Weasleys catch on is up to author preference.

Possible complications:
Harry was being kept virginal as part of his protection- Tonks, having taken his cherry, may have inherited some of Harry's prophetic burden
Alternately, this would be proof of the fallacy of prophecy- Harry wasn't killed by Voldemort, in fact, we're not sure why the goblins were hired to track him down and kill him, though a plot by Lucius isn't completely out of bounds
At some point, Tonks will have to step up into the role of leader, but that sorta precludes marrying Remus and building a family


The essence of the tale is that it's not the anointed heroes that win the day. Heroes are discovered when they rise to the occasion of a critical need. (Audie Murphy, Richard Winters, Matt Urban...)

 

Few thoughts about ASmallBundleOfToothpicks' idea. Making Harry a magnet for the dark forces is not bad, though I'd do it with use of his cursed scar not some special artifact. Darkness draw darkness and we have another good reason why Dumbledore left him with Dursleys - with Lily's protection it was the only place where he didn't attract attention of the dark forces.

But I'd add more to making Harry a "Beacon of Hope". Him taking this role, because he has no other choice is boring and not very heroic at all. Make him search for remedy for this situation, try to escape his destiny. And once he will find it, he will need to make this decision for himself - will he choose a normal life or will he stay like he is now, so darkness keep coming after him and not some innocent people.

 

@Celestin: Doing it with the curse scar would make it more like its origins (marked for death and all that rot), but the reason I'm choosing not to is because I like the idea of how the horcrux would react to something like Harry becoming that Beacon for the Light. It could be something as benign as invading his dreams to attack him every night, or it could be far more insidious, like what Lash did in the DF. Hell, I could even have a whole "Redeem the Fallen" sub-plot thrown in there, if that was my gig. "The Darkness attracts Darkness" would be perfect for a Dark Arts!Harry story.

Also, even with the artifact, Harry has to make the choice to be a hero. The artifact only makes sure he'll come into contact with the bad guys at every turn, and that they will try to kill him. That's it. Nothing in there says Harry has to save people, be good, or even care. For all that it matters Harry could become a psychopathic monster that gets off on killing the innocent just as much killing the wicked. Actually, I might have a few of the previous bearers actually be like that. The whole theme in this I guess is that the Dark and Light aren't all that different; the Dark requires that you be less than human, but the Light requires that you be more. Both break their vassals just as much as their eternal adversary.

 

Here's a plot bunny I've been working on... Well, actually, next month I will be quitting my job in preperation for the Army, and I plan to write this story extensively during that time. I just wanted to throw the idea out here to see if you guys might help me pick out why it won't work, or maybe explore avenues of thought I hadn't yet considered.

The basic premise and divergence point for my story (I am hesitant to call it a Dresden Files crossover, since this won't happen in the US and generally won't feature Dresden characters, but I think I have to, for simplicity's sake.) is that sometime in the past, the two 'races' of true wizards and wand wizards were merged forcibly by some leader (The original Merlin or one of his more immediate successors.) The merger was done so that there wouldn't be a power struggle between two incredible forces that could wreck the world in the future.

The merging was either done biologically (True wizard and wand wizards being forced to procreate, or did it voluntarily, noble bunch as they were!) or magically somehow (remember, this was done in the time that the community was small enough to make this all possible, and I think I'm allowed a little creative freedom to get the basic history to work XD). The 'race' that won out was the wand wizards, and the true wizards basically went extinct (Obviously, this could be explored to produce antagonists and stuff like that.)

Over time Wizarding Britain as we know it from HP canon came to be, with one major difference; The seven laws of magic, and their subsequent enforcement by The Ministry of Magic. All the rules from Dresden are valid here apart from "Thou shalt not transform others" because it became irrelevant and outdated with the progression of Transfiguration. The Ministry of Magic and it's enforcement divison the Aurors aren't quite as fanatic as the White Council and the Wardens in making sure the laws aren't broken, but they're getting close to it.

My idea is to have the Wizarding World absorb some White Council mentality so as to make it much more effective and less idiotic than portrayed in canon, allowing for actual warfare against Voldemort, while still having to deal with alot of issues stemming from the laws. Hogwarts would be different (I'm unsure if drastically or minimally, as of yet.) and you wouldn't actually believe who the Blackstaff is

So that's the basic outline and I want to go from there and build a hopefully interesting tale. Any thoughts and criticism are very much welcome, please tell me why this is retarded or whatever.

 

To tell the truth I've read it twice to find something that I could give you my thoughts about. From what I gathered you want to make wizards from HP more effective, but it can be done as easily without any influence from DF, and that's it. I see no plot or anything else to comment on.

On a second thought - why DF wizards are called 'true'?