After Harry hears the second prophecy, I'd make him realise that changes are necessary, starting with buying a trunk in Diagon Alley. As he browses through the selection (before of course getting a custom made one with time dilation, and 30 separate rooms), he would notice in the corner of his eye a shop selling a full suit of basilisk armor. Etc.

This would change absolutely nothing in the stories, but would hopefully weed out all of the shitty shopping scenes in indy stories.

 

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

 

Well my headcannon is that book 7 is comprised of elements that got cut out of book 5 so...
1. Introduce the whole Peverell brothers/MoD/Grindelwald theme in book five
2. Have Dumbledore step down as Headmaster earlier in book Five
3. Give some insight into where he goes, preferably to Numengard to free Gellert
4. Let Voldemort openly start campaigning to take over Britain mid book. Give him back his looks and sanity. Having him look like the creature from LotR rings reduces his character.
5. End the book with Umbridge & Co. openly kicking the muggleborns out of Hogwarts.
Did you notice there's no prophecy?
Book 6
-Book 6 begins with Harry looking for the Ring and Voldemort searching for the Cloak and the Wand.
Note: Master of Death is a badass title. The holder of one of the hallows can bargain with Death. The holder of all three is immortal. Bar none. No side effects.
- Gellert & Albus return to Britain and engage in open warfare with Voldemort/ death eaters. They lose and are branded enemies of the state.
Thats all I have for now but I'd love to read a fanfic along those lines..

 

Yeah, seconding this. I wish JKR had either scrapped the idea of romance entirely (keeping it to the level of comedic sideplot, a la Harry/Cho at Madam Puddifoot's), or developed it well enough that the romantic subplots in HBP and DH didn't feel so clunky. I don't have an axe to grind, ship-wise - I think Harry could have worked well in canon with any number of girls. But it really felt like JKR never really committed to the idea, and it felt tentative at best and jarring at worst.

 

I would consider eliminating the scenes that involve the Muggle PM. Either the Muggles should be more integrated into the plot, or taken out entirely. I don't think it added much to the story. It was just an opportunity for info-dump and to announce that Fudge had been deposed.

 

You're right, I forgot about the essential extra wands and enchanted glasses.

Maybe some dark mark detectors so he can 'ferret' out Malfory

Of course I'm being sarcastic.

 

The PMs response to there being magical terrorists killing muggles was pretty pathetic. There is no way he would stand aside and let the ministry who he feels is incompetent deal with the threat.

Either he should never have been told or he was told and demands one of his people inside the Minister's office to relay information.

 

Please. All it would take would be Fudge turning his desk into a porpoise and the immediate guard's response's gun into a baby goat. Not to turn this into a wizard/muggle circlejerk.

My answers are a repetition of some other posts:

1. Scrap the romance unless it's just random date cutouts for humor/plot re. Yule Ball
2. Harry with more of a give-a-fuck re. point and cast
3. Harry caring about Occlumency more/Snape getting the fuck over it. Though I suppose that would fuck up the climax of book 5.

 

And then he's hit with a confundus charm and does exactly what the wizards want him to do. It would underscore for some people who think that RPG's can beat a wand how truly powerless normal humans would be against someone who has mind control at their fingertips.

 

And Instagib, magi-super-Napalm, you name it.

 

I've seen this argument before and never got it; what stops said guard shooting Fudge before he has a chance to transfigure the gun? Fudge doesn't just think and the gun is transfigured, he has to say an incantation and do the wand movements and then he actually has to hit the gun.

Cursing the guard would be easier and more effective, and even then firing a gun is much faster and difficult to predict.

Not to say that muggles would win a war against wizards with its many facets that wizards reign supreme in, but in a pure fight muggles would win.

 

What stops Fudge from being faster than the guard?

 

I'd give Neville more screen time, have him interact with the trio more, or even replace Ron completely during one of his temper tantrums. Neville is a boss and I wish we could have had more of him.

 

I would have put in a great deal more magical creatures--particularly traditional mythological creatures such as pixies, elves (the child-sized fey forest folk, not the LoTR variety), dwarves (keep to themselves underground mostly, mainly make quality goods), gremlins (like to muck about Muggle shops), etc. Make more locations for the wizarding world, and more societies.

Perhaps this would detract on some of the charm of originality, but the lack of world-building oftentimes makes the 'Wizarding World' feel more like a loose society of hermits than a hidden world to me. It feels like there should be a lot more to the hidden world of wizards than a school, a hospital, a government building, a tiny village, and what amounts to a magical strip mall.

 

Either you fail at joking or you need Jesus. An by jesus, I mean minion.

 

Neville kills Bellatrix instead of Molly, Ron uses the Sword of Gryffindor to kill Nagini instead of Neville. Allows Neville to get justice, and Ron to have an awesome moment as well. It just makes more sense in my eyes for the climax of Neville's character arc to be 'revenge against the person who tortured his parents into insanity'.

 

Molly's two brothers were killed by Death Eaters, so for her killing Bellatrix has also an aspect of revenge, albeit less so than for Neville, of course.

 

Vampires: They never happened. Except for that one at Slughorn's party which was incredibly lame and not at all threatening. We had werewolves, why not vampires as well? Especially with all of that fuss the Order made about Voldemort recruiting dark creatures.

 

I always got the impression that vampires, being ageless immortals and having seem much in their long lives, weren't swayed by Voldemort's kind words and saw through his promises of freedom.

 

I would have wanted to see more information about the magical world.

We know so little about it.

Perhaps include most if not all information from Pottermore.