Then write your fic that way. No one is stopping you. In fact, it seems to me like you already have a pretty clear idea of where you want to go. Bite the bullet and go there. Get feedback after the fact.

Do try to keep in mind that we are opinionated. No matter how hard we may try to convince you otherwise, no idea is innately 'good' or 'bad'. A truly skilled writer can make any idea 'good'.

In my opinion, the best dark!Harry fics (and I assume you want 'dark' dark not 'brooding' dark) involve a complete disruption of Harry's psyche. Harry is a nice normal dude, and nice normal dudes don't devolve into murdering Machiavellian sociopaths even when 'pushed over the edge'.

So you might try to incorporate some element that has destroyed, or is in the process of destroying, Harry's moral compass.

 

Did you see my first post? This thread is awful, and everybody who has posted seriously in it should feel bad.

 

'Getting older' (as defined by DLP):

A reduction in the need to be complete and utter cockbags to strangers on the internet.

 

I have a boyfriend already don't need any other arseheads trying do dictate what I want to talk about. If you don't "approve" of this thread then don't read it, there are plenty of helpful people posting feel free to ignore any and every thread I may start. Thank you in advance.

 

The part where you equate boyfriend to controlling asshole is fascinating to me.

 

relevant sig is relevant.

 

Rawricaine, I've got to say that it's bizarre to me that you decry slash fangirlisms, then go on to echo opinions that are common amongst Draco fangirls. He's not misunderstood, he's a total chode, because he was raised to be a great big chode. It's possible for that to turn around, or for him to be an anti-hero like Snape sort of is, or for him and Harry to make nice.

Shit, if you make it enough of an AU I can even buy a Harry/Draco pairing if neither is just a "misunderstood" creature, and there are no homosexual marriage clauses, and they aren't just randomly falling all over each other after years of antagonism. But you seem set on

As to you wanting them into Dark Magic you have two statements in this thread I'm struggling to reconcile. Because you say you see Dark magic as pagan magic, not actually evil and I have no idea what brought you around to that conclusion, certainly nothing in canon. I'm also curious why you're bringing religion into what makes magic Dark or not, because again, there's nothing I know of in canon that leads to any indication of it being pagan. Plus Dark Magic is what makes someone evil more or less, so "Harry does Dark Magic but it's pagan so he's not actually evil, so it's not dark and he isn't really dark anyways just a pagan" is the line of thought i'm seeing here and I have a lot of trouble accepting that because it's too damn convoluted and contrived to me.

 

Oh... I missed that bit. Probably due to the fact that it was encapsulated in a glorious 87 word run-on sentence.

 

In pagan beliefs dark and light are yin and yang without yin there is no yang and vice versa. Dark and evil are two completely different things in my mind. People can be evil, magic can not. It couldn't be exactly pagan because as I'm sure you know pagans do not have innate magical abilities it is merely an earth based religion and someone who is a witch or wizard in Harry Potter World does have magical powers, dark magic in my imagination is more earth based and raw. Not religious. I want to write a dark harry fic that is not as narrow minded as you are.

 

I think there was one fic which did Harry teaming up with Malfoy and 'Dark is not evil' in a nice way but from what I see of the OP's fascination with cliche's, I doubt she can pull that off. If you want some actually good ideas for a fic, there's this whole thread called Plot Bunny Thread in fanfic discussion.

 

No my boyfriend just likes to tell me what I can and cant talk about and I'm incredibly tired of hearing dumb shit about how what I have to say is stupid. I put up with him out of love and I certainly don't have any love for you so why should I put up with it from you?

 

Not to derail too much, but wtf, why even stay with someone like that, DTMFA.

As to your pagan thing, I see where you're coming from, but that wasn't how it was created by JKR, and you'd have to do some serious worldbuilding to turn "it's pure evil and malice" to "it's the other side of magic, necessary even." Also there's no Light Magic for Dark Magic to be opposite to. There is no Light Arts, there is Charms and Transfig and Potions. None of these are light, they just are. In canon the Dark Arts aren't an analogue to something, they're just evil.

 

Oh good lord. 17 year olds...

 

Just to echo what other people have already said in this thread: go write. Seriously. You say you want to overcome that inertia? To cut through all the crap in your head? Writing is really the only way to solve that.

Here's a fantastic three step plan to writing the next Lord of the Rings/Twilight/Whatever.

1. Plan
2. WRITE
3. Revise
Repeat ad infinitum.

Just in case you need some additional advice, here's a five part series by Dan Wells telling you how to structure a story (here's cliff notes) and here's a bunch of other writing resources of varying quality.

But seriously. Write.

Just ftr, that's a shitty reason to put up with verbal abuse from anyone. If your boyfriend treats you like a fuckwit, that's probably how he sees you and you should ditch him.

Oh good lord. People who are old enough to know better.

 

Maybe so.

At the end of the day, I agree with you. Stop asking questions about what people want to see. That's not helpful. Write what you want to write and then go about making that writing the best it possibly can be. That's all.

 

Is it just me or does it feel like OP is trolling?

 

Woah woah woah . . . slow down, there. Yes, 'paganism' is a word applied by Christians in certain cases to all non-Christian religions. Yin and Yang, however, are concepts that belong either primarily or entirely to Taoist philosophy (though Chan/Zen Buddhism borrows heavily from the Taoist framework), and have nothing whatsoever to do with the vast majority of 'pagan' religions, especially since that word is generally used in reference to pre-Christian, western religion, which is known to have featured a wide variety of cosmological concepts and beliefs from a wide variety of religious systems of thought, in no way limited to the non-dualism of Yin and Yang perceived in Taoist philosophy. You seem to be laboring under the impression that 'pagan' is the description of just one religion (apparently Taoism), and it is not.

I have yet to encounter any traditionally pagan, western system of belief as dedicated to dissolving conceptually dualistic constructs as Taoism or say, Buddhism. Neither Norse nor Greco-Roman mythology, or Celtic religion, for instance, to my knowledge, acknowledge any kind of monism, essential or otherwise, or even the unified harmony of existence associated with concepts like Yin and Yang that can be found professed in Vedic, Buddhist, or Taoist belief systems, which can be held as pagan, but do not encompass the whole of pagan belief. It's like trying to say all rhombuses are square.

IIRC, in the aforementioned religions of Celtic, Norse and Greco-Roman mythology, in addition to Mesopotamian (Babylonian or Sumerian, etc.) and Semitic traditions, the forces of nature are not only anthropomorphized (given human form and emotion), but in individuated conflict that suggests nothing of the harmonious and ultimately impersonal, cosmic balance implied by Yin and Yang. Not only are the forces of nature humanized, which brings them down from the abstract level occupied by the transcendent realities of Yin and Yang (the Tao), they are humanized to the point of constant and even biased interactions with humans, in addition to being individuated and separate far beyond the collapsing division between Yin and Yang. By this I mean that while Yin and Yang, of which the Tao is comprised, pervade and are expressed macro and microcosmically by all phenomena, beings, and objects, including humans, the gods of western traditions are separate entities, removed from humans and each other, and beyond this, humans are separated and removed from each other, living truly individuated experiences and sharing no binding essence as humans and other natural objects do in Eastern philosophy.

The gods embody specific, myriad forces (in multifaceted schemes that in no way resemble the Taoist ultimate reality acting as dualistic and opposed forces), and demi-gods, for instance, are favored over mundane humans, who themselves are by turns favored, despised, or simply ignored by various gods, having little to no personal agency in the framework of fate, no fundamental connection to other humans besides being members of a shared and generally irrelevant species, and no essential connection at all to natural, supernatural, or divine entities. They do not share the unifying existential substance emphasized by Vedic, Taoist, or (sometimes) even Buddhist religion. The gods fight amongst themselves, defeat others (sometimes permanently), and rather than light or dark, good and evil, being portrayed as ultimately correspondent, interdependent forces, one is easily preferable and superior to the other. Zeus and Olympus, for example, are far superior to Hades and, well . . . Hades. Life and immortality are far better than death, virtue far better than and superior to wrong-doing, and so forth. Negative things are still perceived as separate from and unnecessary to what is "good" and "right," as opposed to being mutually dependent parts of a single whole.

 

Nah, this isn't creative or stupid enough to be trolling.

@OP: I don't think that starting with the idea of writing a Dark!Harry fic is the correct way to do it, you should start with your divergence or your story idea and then let the characters develop from there. Otherwise I think it can lead to a very forced or contrived story.

 

Are you sure you wanna go the Pagan way? I mean, look at Prince of the Dark Kingdom...

Wanting to make Harry dark isn't good enough. It's like wanting your baby to lose weight. You've gotta starve the little tike - but I digress.

Draco is an asshole. No matter how good he is, no matter how rredeemable, assholity is wired to his corps. That's just how he ticks. Think a nice guy like Harry will hang with a self-possessed little twat like Draco?

And, if you really, you know, have boyfriend problems, model Draco after him and force Harry to fuck Draco up the ass, problem solved.

Now, seriously.

If you wanna go the AU rout, why don't you put Harry in a position where he can't help but join Voldemort if that's what you intend to do. I dunno, fuck, threaten his family. Kick his puppy. Just... put Harry in a position where Voldemort has him by the balls and ain't gonna let go any time soon.

But like most of them said, write, write, write. And since you seem to be concentrating on how your characters come out - forgive me if I'm putting words in your mouth here - then maybe write and let the plot come to you. Be careful of the hurdle of your characters getting too introspective and full of themselves, though.