How about the Weasleys not winning the lottery pre third year. No trip to Egypt, no Sirius seeing Peter still alive, no Dementor hunt.

No Ron getting a new wand, but that's trivial.

 

It could be interesting, though you've just removed a major chunk of the third year plot.

Harry would still blow Marge up but without Sirius to startle him he probably wouldn't summon the Knight Bus, so what happens then? Also, if Fudge smoothed the incident over because of Sirius then he'd need another reason to do so. Maybe it could be done in return for some political support in the truest fashion of backroom politicking. The story could then, maybe morph into a political fic with Dumbledore guiding Harry through the intricacies of wizarding politics. It could slowly evolve into a Mentor Dumbledore fic.

Maybe.

 

A couple of PoDs that I've thought about and discussed with some ff reading friends:

1) The events of Harry's first two years at Hogwarts and Sirius' escape force Dumbledore to take a more active interest in his life, particularly his magical development. With Dumbledore's greater involvement in Harry's life (and vice versa) you could have Harry become involved in the preparations for the Triwizard Tournament and Quidditch World Cup and his greater magical skills could completely change his eventual meeting with Sirius.

2) Another PoD that could be used pretty much anywhere in books 2-6 is the Board of Governors or MoM or any other organisation that can exert influence on Hogwarts deciding that Harry is too dangerous to be around other students because of his supposed instability or the danger he attracts and expelling him. Something similar was done in Draco664's Apprentice Potter series. From this I'd personally like to see Harry being given into Moody's care for training.

 

How about one where Dumbledore doesn't decide to stay away from Harry during 5th year? Whether Riddle doesn't think about / can't access Harry's head, or if Dumbledore just doesn't think about it and inadvertently allows Riddle to eavesdrop.

So Dumbledore would be trying to show Harry the same things as in HBP but while trying to avoid Umbridge and pretend that they don't talk much. Theres a greater urgency but also greater limitations placed by the Ministry- OotP turned up a couple of notches.

 

Off of that, Voldemort eavesdrops while Dumbledore is telling Harry about the Horcruxes, decides to move his Horcruxes, discovers that the locket has been replaced. Maybe he finds out who RAB and decides to... do something... the Black house.

 

Romantic POD: Harry is chosen as the fifth year prefect and thus grows closer to Hermione and the two become a couple.

 

I would have preferred that Harry end up with Hermoine, but if they didn't get together while sharing a tent for weeks unchaperoned, then they aren't going to get together.

 

I always thought she put the epilogue at nineteen years because that would be just before the point that Hermione finally snapped and her marriage to Ron dissolved.

 

Or when Harry and Hermione finally managed to build up a sufficient resistance to the love potions.

 

A good Point of Departure is one where, by changing one thing, the subsequent events should get worse or weirder instead of better.

F'rinstance:

The trio escape Gringott's on a blind dragon. Rather than 'wait for the dust to settle', the goblins choose then to kick off a rebellion- in part because Bellatrix was the cause of the chaos and because Voldemort hadn't made their lives better as he had promised.

Harry and co. convene at Hogwarts; around the time Voldemort's forces show up, the goblins begin their assault. Whoever wins at Hogwarts is obligated to fight the goblins in London. Or do they all hear of the uprising and thus put Voldemort in the situation of making an announcement that he's recruiting everyone for suppression duty, with 'Amnesty' a promised reward for serving? Better yet- Harry's crew hears about it before the Death Eaters et al and try to arrange a parlay to propose a temporary ceasefire.

 

Or someone 'gets clever,' and seizes the opportunity to attack Gringott's while the warriors are away.
The bank surely has major passive defenses, but greed would drive a lot of Dark people into the attempt.

 

Too bad this comment got ignored. When I first read Petunia's reaction--their parents were so proud to have a witch in the family rather than shocked and surprised--I thought that was actually what was going to be. Sadly, the whole International Statue of Secrecy then came up and I thought it was a waste.

Here are some points of divergence:

1. Someone other than Ginny gets the diary.
2. The diary event occurs at a later year.
3. Dumbledore gives up the post of headmaster to take over as Minister of Magic. (any year)
4. Harry tells Dumbledore about the voices he hears during CoS.
5. Cedric and Harry out-duel Pettigrew.
6. Lupin bites Harry, Hermione, and/or Ron.

 

Actually, reading a werewolf!Ron story would be interesting.

 

That would at least make him less (disgustingly) predictable. He'd be more interesting.

And when Remus is executed, or suicides, Harry can be all CAPSLOCK about it. Snape would use it as a way to abuse Potter even more blatantly. I'm not sure how Dumbledore would act. He's old enough, and has been through enough defeats, that he could be pretty zen about it - the way he acted about his cursed hand.

 

Being a werewolf is considered a kind of curse, and Harry had to deal with the curse scar and the burden of carrying Voldemort's soul with him everywhere he went. It might end up feeling like a redundancy of burdens if Harry were bitten. That or being a werewolf wouldn't be the all-consuming tragedy it would be for someone else, just another thing to manage (for Harry).

 

POD: The horcrux on Harry's head is able to communicate with him throughout his earlier years, influencing Harry into becoming a much darker individual, but not necessarily evil. However Harry does know about Voldemort and the wizarding world before he is eleven.

Truth be told, I really don't know if this is completely possible, although it has the potential to be. The idea really is that like the other horcruxes, it can talk. By logic the horcrux on Harry's scar should have been able to in canon, but apparently is was too weak to be able to. This POD is basically just the horcrux is a bit stronger and is able to talk to Harry.

 

I have a feeling I read this before.

 

I noticed there are a few stories that use this concept. But most of them have the Voldemort scar horcrux as a good guy who helps Harry(even though this would never happen). Personally if the horcrux could actually talk to Harry, it wouldn't try to help him, at least not in the way that Harry would stay good. Still, it counts as a POD.

 

It also counts as one of the more irritating Indy!Harry jump offs which are now terribly cliche. Why not go the whole nine yards and just have Harry assimilate all knowledge contained by the Horcrux?

It's a tired idea, and you can do better.

 

I always wanted to find more fics like this (Other than Jbern's). Everyone picking their own side, with dementors going rogue, goblins revolting or centaurs attacking Hogwarts. There's also that one about Harry+Dumbledore+Voldemort joining up to fight some demons invading or something too.