Several people, many of them far better writers than I will ever be, have already shared. Still, I figured I'd add my two cents, cause you clearly need advice.

1. Welcome to DLP. People here are going to call you on every single stupid thing you do. Either get used to that or leave.

2. Be aware that if you want to improve as a fanfic author, this is probably the best place to do so. That said, you need to listen to what others tell you.

3. https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=8086
Follow these rules as if they were your bible. If you break any of them, DLP is unlikely to approve of your fanfic.

4. Draco Malfoy sucks. I get that chicks dig the whole misunderstood guy who they want to reform, but here's what. He's not Spike. Spike is awesome. Malfoy is a racist and a coward. These qualities make for a bad supporting character, whichever side he's on.

5. Dark Harry (and not evil!Harry) works only if you've got good motivation. Seriously, motivation is key.

6. Dark Magic. Generally, there ain't no such thing. Not in Harry Potter anyways. People might label certain spells "dark" but that's just an opinion. There's no documentation in canon of dark magic being addictive or mind-bending.

What matters is the effect of the spell. Cruciatus can't be used for anything useful other than pain. (No Wordhammer, you can't actually revive people died from too many orgasms with it. Seriously, what was up with that?)

Avada Kedavra is only useful for killing, true, but what if you use it to painlessly put a pet out of its misery. I'm not going to go over the whole "Even levitation charms can kill" shit cause I hate that, but just skip the whole dark magic thing.

7. What I want from HP fanfiction (and that I haven't really seen yet) is this:
I want a fic that describes the war. The tactics, the strategy, all that stuff. How it develops as they go. I want a fic where we see Harry and the gang from beginning to start, how they improve as fighters and the sacrifices they have to make.

The necessary evils that a war would actually demand. I'd like to see the way the six of them (Assuming you use the people who went to the Ministry) change subtly in different ways over the course of the story.

Oh and I want Umbridge to die. Painfully. Centaurs are a recommendation.

 

Eh, I never agreed with #1.

 

That's because you're a Godless heathen.

 

Really had no clue i posted in the wrong
Place, and someone said something and I didn't know i could chAnge it after the fact

 

Na, I've seen people - well-loved DLP authors, in fact - break these rules. One of them being fics that aren't Harry centric. This doesn't mean you have my blessing, it just means that if you do, you're gonna get an asswhoopin' the likes of... well, you get the point.

Fuck, why do I even bother?

 

Potter Law is the single greatest set of rules ever, but the most important one is "if you write well enough, you can break any of these rules"

Except XVII

 

Need ideas?

 

Try lurking a bit more.

The simple fact that you are brand new and unfamiliar with the site makes you more susceptible to bashing. Lurking will also temper your inclinations to flip out and get defensive when someone deems your ideas moronic.

 

Motivate what you write adequately in the text and it'll work, maybe, provided you work at it and take a bit of constructive criticism along the way. Just write. And then when you have a chunk of text, post it in the WBA and at least read some of the feedback you get on what works and doesn't. It might help somewhat.

That said, no matter how you intend to motivate Harry's fall into the magical Gnostic cosmology, with all of its delightful and heavily overused (and sanctimoniously stressed "dark is not evil!") dualism, it's vital that you understand an essential point about writing related, in its own way, to another form of duality: Men are not women with penises and should not be written as if they are. "Draco's so tragically misunderstood" suggests that you may not have yet internalized this point. That's understandable; not many teenage girls have, which accounts for their schlocky literature *cough* Stephenie Meyer *cough* and predilection for getting impregnated young, naive, and weeping over their eventual (and utterly predictable) abandonment. But it doesn't make it any less true.

 

1. No slash
2. No massive WALK-IN trunks that hold a whole fucking apartment
3. No soul bonding
4. No 'thought/mind-speak' between two people due to advanced legilimency or similar.
5. No dual wielding wands.
6. Don't have Harry get a 'second/spare wand'
7. Do not make use of a House Elf to 'pop' Harry all over the country doing random shit. No 'popping' out of Hogwarts for random shit either.
8. No reviving Sirius, Cedric, or any other character if your divergence from canon is after the point in which they died.
9. Do not make Snape out to be some sort of hero. He is an asshole and will die.
10. Do. Not. Ever. Make. Up. Retarded. Names. For. Voldemort.

 

If you insist with the definition of dark that you are using, perhaps it would be better if you used another word for it? It might avoid misunderstanding and people complaining about not being canon. You could even invent your own word for it and say it is part of a dualistic religion or philosophical that is only in the magical world. If you want people to frown on him for it, just make it one that is not popular (like, one believer every two/three hundred wizards in the countries where it's popular). And since it doesn't equate evil, there is no reason for the main antagonist Voldemort to believe in it or for Harry to join rather unpleasant people or for him to drastically change as a person.

You could also make him obsess over a wizardry legend like Dumbledore with the deathly hallows. Or pull a Tom Riddle and discover his powers in his youth and make him think he is special and should rule everyone (which doesn't really mean he should hate muggles, just that he thinks that being the boy who lived is important after all)

 

The Sorting Hat would be key if you'd take the route that I'd take...

The Sorting Hat didn't like being told what to do, he didn't like some upstart telling him what he really wanted, and he wasn't about to let him try. The Sorting Hat will follow through with his decision and place that Potter brat in Slytherin!

After that it's up to you who will take pity on him, maybe Malfoy will humiliate him and break him down to rebuild him anew?

Ooh! Perhaps Blaise Zabini, the heir(ess) to that gold digger will see a new fortune if they push Harry to be better then he is.

Theodore Nott, an outsider when it comes to cliques, was shocked at the strange Slytherin just sorted and decided to help him out. Strictly out of curiosity!

Crabbe and Goyle... I don't know what they could do with the mudblood spawn.

The girls could be looking for a quick rise to fame for their families.

I don't want to see any brotherhood in Slytherin, there are only those who push themselves to greatness and those weak enough to follow them through!*

So Harry is in Slytherin, now what? Will he let it break him? Will he push himself through and do his best to stay in the background... or...?

Some notes on a story I had before my laptop crashed:

1- Harry Potter is not a sneakier Gryffindor, he doesn't rush into danger without an incentive (you could do what I do when I make it to second year: Percy swears his fealty to him or something.)

2- Slytherin is not the House of the Loyal, when Sirius Black escapes, Harry's ass will be considered grass and he will lose all power and friends.

3- Harry could be welcomed back into Slytherin with open arms after the Sirius Black fiasco and he is elected as the triwizard tournament.

4- At the end of the year he will lie about Voldemort being back and say that it was a new dark lord or something, just to get himself into the background.

I never made it past that, good luck.

(*) Greatness can lead to anything, so be wary when you make your force into the world...

PS) I've just plotted out the barest basics of the first four years. If you fuck this up, there is no hope for your future

 

Exceptions can be made if you raise them as Inferi.

I think I might add "11. Don't put periods after everything in a sentence."

 

So it sounds like you want to be Raining Ink and write Out of the Night.

 

Key word here being dualism, yes?

Because this:

doesn't really sound like Taoist nondualism to me, which stresses the acceptance of both halves of the whole.

 

This... Good lord. Any time I see someone use something like "potter brat" in a story I want to punch them in the Fucking face.

That, and the story you describe is the exact same as every other shit slytherin Harry story out there.

 

Rawr,

write what you want.

People hate on Draco Malfoy, a lot. I think he has potential.

One way some writers get away with Harry meeting wizards pre-Hogwarts is that he runs away from the Dursleys, or they get into an accident.

He could run away if he was afraid of a particularly bad day. He could run away if Dudley and Piers were chasing him and he used accidental magic to go somewhere else and maybe thought of the green light and the woman's voice and ended up at Godric Hollow.

The possibilities are endless, try brainstorming and especially putting together things you normally haven't seen before.





As for certain DLPers:
I know for some of you being dbags is something that's almost a badge of pride. I was there at one point. Sometimes I have moments of deveolution.

As people grow more mature and get their head out of their ass, they sometimes think that trying out a positive response to a situation is better. And if they absolutely can't then they put their dick back in their pants and walk away.

 

Oh shut the fuck up, Lyrium.

EDIT: Oz is boss. We behave.

 

And make sure when you're zipping your pants, you're extra careful, IdSayWhyNot.

EDIT: I will behave. Sorry about that, Oz. I guess I'm not as mature as I pretend to be.