Voldemort only started the war for fun. He has no agenda, his organisation's attacks have no pattern, he takes pleasure in seeing the world burn.

Doesn't nescesarily have to be Voldemort, could only be someone of mediocre talent, but intelligent enough to keep at it for years without being caught.

 

Agenda- Pure-Blood superiority with muggles at the bottom of the chain.

Fun- He did it to seize power of the ministry and become magical king of Britain.

Pattern- Huh. What about the attacks on the Order members that decimated the phoenix Order? What do you call the assassination of Amelia Bones? That was a timely done assassination well done. If I weren't on the side of Harry Potter, I'd applaud the assassination well done.

Seeing the world burn- He wanted to establish an empire with him as the king. What do you call Hitler, Napoleon, Geghis Khan and other monarchs or wannabes of the past?

There was no second war against Voldemort. There was just adjustments in the policies of the Ministry of Magic because a person pulling strings. The same could be said of the muggle protection acts with Dumbledore behind them.

That being said, I am not defending Voldemort. He is a piece of swine that deserves to stay dead. But his agenda and motives were pretty clear. JKR portrayed everything in terms of black and white.

 

This is the plot bunnies thread, not the talk about how things are in canon thread.

 

So... Batman.

Voldemort is the Joker and Harry Potter is the rich boy with dead parents and too much time on his hands.

 

"The mirror." Riddle said.

Rodolphus glared at the weedier Nott, who gulped. "My lord..."

"GIVE ME THAT DAMN MIRROR!" Riddle snarled.

Nott held up the mirror, and Riddle looked at the reflection of himself.

Except it was no longer himself. The only thing that he could recognize were his eyes, and even they had been tinged red. His short, black hair was complete lost, and as he looked he saw that gone too were his eyebrows. His skin, rendered chalk-white by the potion, was smooth over his nose; where it had once been was only two nostrils, giving him a reptilian visage. Snake-like, almost.

"B-boss... boss?" Nott said nervously. "Boss? Are you alright?"

It was such an absurd question, to such an absurd situation. Riddle couldn't hold it any more.

He laughed.

 

Dumbledore controlled himself and never put on the cursed ring. He now has the three hallows at his disposal and he uses them to use their unique powers to fight the war at the same time, mentoring Harry and taking care of DE's. Using the Hallows to de age himself to give him a few more years or something.

Eventually, Harry kills him off in the epilogue sensing the madness of immortality that caught his master and takes the Hallows or destroys them.

The prologue is a beginning for a Dumbledore esque Harry James Peverell Potter.

 

Better yet, Dumbledore puts on the cursed ring, and while it is slowly killing him, it rekindles the flame that was put out when Grindelwald killed Ariana. Then, after using Harry to off Voldemort as he senses Voldemort is the only one who can stand against his own world domination, Dumbledore attempts to kill Harry and steal the cloak which is still in Harry's possession. Harry, suspecting someone would try to kill him after the battle with Voldemort (though he has no idea it's going to be Dumbledore) uses it to escape, just in the nick of time, and Dumbledore can't immediately find him. In his anger, he frees Grindelwald from Nurmengard, and the prisoner is thrilled to find his friend demented and hell bent on controlling magical Europe. Their plan, concocted in the depths of Nurmengard, is to turn back time to just before Arian's death and actually take over the world before Voldemort does.

Ron, Harry, Ginny, Hermione, and Neville along with what remains of the Order (McGonagall, Shacklebolt (who becomes Minister, this is imperative as far as the story is concerned), Bill and Fleur Weasley, etc.) and the DMLE, take the fight to Dumbledore, knowing that if he returns to the past before they can stop him, the world as they know it will disappear.

Fortunately, the Department of Mysteries fiasco destroyed the remaining time turners, and Dumbledore's vast library is now under McGonagall's control at Hogwarts. Conversely, Grindelwald knows a way, but it requires the sacrifice of powerful magically-imbued items... the Deathly Hallows, one of which Harry has on his person.

Harry considers destroying the cloak to keep them from erasing existence, and plans to do so, except Dumbledore and Grindelwald have now taken over Germany, killing thousands of innocent people. The bloodshed will last forever, unless Harry can unite the three hallows and turn time back to the moments before Dumbledore touches the ring...

Thoughts?

 

Fantastic. I am however a fan of redeemed Grindelwald stories and the story premise doesn't appeal that much to me. I'll still read if a skilled author pulls it off.

Better yet, how about we go my way and an adult Harry using the Hallows and going back in time to the late 19th century and killing off Dumbledore and Grindelwald in Godric's Hollow itself? Or better, gain their allegiance using an Unbreakable Vow or life-debt or something along those lines. Once time-travel comes into the scene, the possibilities are rather limitless @Averis.

We can then have a MOD 'Dark Lord Potter' (DLP) and everybody wins.

And better yet, Dark Lord Potter goes to London to kill off infant Riddle. Merope sacrifices herself and the killing curse strikes back Harry and Tom Riddle becomes the boy-who-lived. :awesome

The irony. *sniggers*

 

Why?

filler

 

How about a reversal of roles re: the Greater Good?

While Dumbledore is now hell-bent to take over the world and seemingly unstoppable, Harry, in his desperation breaks out Grindelwald from Nurmengard--who has actually repented and discarded his ideals of the Greater Good. This time, it is Gellert who must stop his friend from committing a terrible mistake, and instigating another great war.

 

Shacklebolt as Minister and head of the Order, thus giving the Order control of the DMLE and assisting them in the fight against Dumbledore.

@Oruma: I like that idea as well, but I always enjoy having the odds stacked so ridiculously against Harry that he should have no chance in hell, but ends up winning anyway. I wanted the Invisibility Cloak to be all that stands between all hell falling out, and for Dumbledore's attempt at turning back time to be reliant on Grindelwald, who is the only person alive that knows how to do it.

I think it's obvious how awesome any of those stories, if written well, would be. Dumbledore+Grindelwald against Harry+Order+Ministry, or Dumbledore against Grindelwald+Harry...

 

Realistically, a ruthless Dumbledore bent on world domination would win easily against any of those combinations. He beat Grindelwald (presumably the closest to him in skill) when Grindelwald held the Elder Wand, and now Grindelward has been in prison for decades.

The best they could do is hide from him, otherwise canon Dumbledore is just too damn good to beat outside of deus ex machina. Unless you change history and make Harry a prodigy too or something, I guess.

 

There is also another (hilarious) way to do this:

1.Ariana never died, Dumbledore and Grindelwald took over the magical world.
2.Some conflict appeared between the two and they split, bringing a Cold War to the magical world, with each of them having an equal part of territory.
3.Tom Riddle grew up in Dumbledore's territory and grew up to be awesome, he eventually gets his own faction which aims to take over both sides of the Magical Cold War.
4.The Prophecy is different, because while still about Harry, it says that he is the chosen one to unite the magical world.
As we can assume, Riddle is strongly interested in that, so he trains Harry to be badass.

Fast forward some years later, a duo of Gray!Voldemort and Potter fight to defeat both Dumbledore and Grindelwald.
The thing is that while Voldemort is obviously powerful (and eventually Potter too), both Albus and Gellert have entire armies while Tom and Harry are all alone.

 

How would you all try to characterize Dumbledore during a potential quest for world domination? I think a version of cool, polite,... professionalism? I guess? would be badass as long as there's an undercurrent of malevolence in either diction or setting or what have you.

 

It's already been done. Or something similar to these lines.

Harry Potter and the Greater Good

 

Oh god... Never mind then, I didn't even think... :facepalm

 

I was thinking of a lulzy one-shot where Kreacher's loyalty to Regulus has him turning to Dumbledore after the cave incident hoping to get revenge on Voldemort. Regulus told him not to tell his family and stuff but house-elves are clever little shits like that so he goes around that order and tells Dumbledore and bam, insert funny stuff.

I also had another idea where the sorting hat is destroyed. Not sure how it would play out (if there would still be houses, if there would be random pickings, etc.) but the base idea is Voldemort brings about the hats destruction before the war is over. I was thinking about it being a horcuxe, but then I figured Dumbledore wouldn't allow children to place an evil hat on their head year after year...wait, scratch that, if it was for the greater good I'm sure he would find a good reason for allowing it. But that just ruins my plot if the sorting hat lives. So yeah, sorting hat dies in the first war. Take it from there.

 

I am not sure how the absence of a batty old hat is going to affect the future that much. As it is, I wonder how sorting was done post DH seeing as the hat was destroyed by Voldemort.

Kreacher turning to RB was pretty awesome. If I were Dumbledore, I would try engineer destroying Voldemort's body to give him more time. A DE under imperius and a muggle bomb.

 

With no hat I'm thinking people in different houses and stuff. A thought was people from the older families (you know the ones) bribing teachers (you know the greasy one) to take on their kids as students, more like apprentices really. Like it would be more choice involved and hands on, like teachers aren't just saddled with little shits because this one is brave. Like the class schedule would be changed up earlier than in canon - a student could opt out of potions / charms sooner.

 

Here is another plot-bunny. Dumbledore doesn't take the easy way out of fighting the war. Since he has the resurrection stone at his disposal, he summons the shades of well known dark wizards of the past or the shade of the ring horcrux and weasel out the details on how to cure the curse without affecting his magic and life.

Would be awesome to see Draco Malformed pulling his party tricks against the now cured almighty Albus Dumbledore.