Here's a kind of a meta plot bunny that I have vague plans for in the future.

I. What's the premise?

For general plot bunny purposes, let's say it begins after the Battle of Hogwarts. War scars run deep and Harry goes through some shaky changes. Think of a mash-up of Harry and young, Greater Good Grindelwald. So, a Dark(er) Harry.

Harry, for whatever reason (not necessarily explored) decides to fix the problems he believes to be plaguing Wizarding Britain and the wider Wizarding World. He plans to insert himself into government structures and eventually take over. He succeeds, riding the high of his popularity after Voldemort's death and by the time some people start to wake up to his budding tyrannical tendencies, he's already too powerful to be easily removed.

Former Death Eaters, their families, sympathizers, etc. are used by Harry as scapegoats to keep the attention off of his shady moves. Harry surrounds himself with trusted people and eventually, through manipulation, propaganda and all that other fun stuff is able to get himself elected Minister, then becomes a dictator and finally crowns himself the king of Wizarding Britain. Yep. His power hunger will eventually lead him to branch out into continental Europe, but you don't see that. The narrative would end at Harry's victory over the last concentrated effort by his enemies to remove him from power.

II. How would this actually work?

To differentiate it from a generic Rise to Power story, the plan is to tell it from other character's perspective. I chose Astoria Greengrass for this role (reasons for this are rooted in the fic this is actually based on). The kick off is this: after the war papa Greengrass is found to be a Death Eater/secret sympathizer who slipped through the net and decided to quietly distance himself from the losing side. If Voldemort had won, he would've supported the new regime. Harry's emerging faction is responsible for ousting Greengrass, who is Azkaban'd. In the aftermath, the family falls apart and eventually Astoria, who used to be in the same social class as Malfoys hits the absolute bottom.

Then her personal miracle happens. Harry Potter "saves" her and in doing so, gains a grateful follower whom he can mold into a trusted confidant. Cliche, yes, but bear with me. We're still looking at this from Astoria's POV.

Things happen, time passes and the relationship progresses to romance and eventually even marriage. Astoria is happy enough to play the wife of the most powerful man in Britain. She has her doubts, especially when she thinks about how she came to be in a position she needed saving from (which was Harry's doing), but then Harry assumes absolute power and she plays along.

Kids happen somewhere in between. Astoria, as the person closest to Harry, is covertly contacted by whoever I'd have opposing Harry (perhaps disillusioned remnants of the Order) and asked to help them overthrow her husband. Astoria's doubts come back, reinforced by the new ones which she got watching Harry begin to teach their children his Machiavellian ways. Astoria agrees to help and a coup is attempted, but Harry is two steps ahead.

III. Epic Finale

Here would come the crowning moment of awesome for this fic. I have a rough scene in mind. Order (I'll use it for simplicity's sake) storms the palace (or whatever lair Harry occupies) to take him out, literally. They walk into an ambush and are forced to drop their wands.

Harry walks in, with his daughter in his arms, all suave-villain-like. He does the villainous thing and makes some threats. Order gives up when Harry says he'll kill his and Astoria's daughter if they don't do what he says. The Order is arrested/executed (if the latter, Astoria is left alive) and then Harry pulls out a knife and slices his daughter's throat anyway. Much evil.

Harry throws out a witty one-liner, something about "I always liked [son's name] better." Astoria is Azkaban'd, maybe even next to her withered dad just for Harry's perverse pleasure (you wanted a villain). Some time passes and she's brought back to the palace, broken in body and soul and however that old thing goes. Her son has been sufficiently brainwashed that he doesn't remember her as his mum and has been very receptive to Harry's teachings. She becomes the governess to the evil little prince, resigned to her fate, symbolizing Harry's Absolute Victory.

The End.

IV. Format

I imagine it as novella length, around 40k words. Relatively short chapters, maybe 4k each, summarizing Astoria's POV in different periods in the story. For example, first would deal with papa Greengrass' fall from grace, second would be Astoria at the bottom, third probably Harry intervening, then one about their budding romance, then Harry's growing power, one dealing with kids, one with Order contacting Astoria, then the plotting, final confrontation, Azkaban and what came after she got out of there. I'd tie them together with the overarching theme of Harry gradually becoming the tyrant.

What do you guys think? Too cliched or worth a try?

 

Zombie Xandrel ask and ye shall receive. The prologue of Evil is not born has been written.

 

It would make for a very interesting series. Has to be done right though. I think Harry shouldn't go into absolute villain territory for a while. I would imagine him to be a manipulative person, hiding in the shadows sort. He does not need to announce his evil overlord status. He manipulates his way into the Ministry and takes it over from within rather than go full terrorist like Voldemort did. A villain, but not overtly so.

 

Links?

/10char

 

As with any good fall from grace, I think the key is to write a Harry who still believes he's doing the right thing even as he goes further and further down the evil path. Always telling himself "I did what I had to do" and "It was for the greater good."

 

Amann Chengar Qordath

I posted this as a regular plot bunny, but it's actually planned as an entry in a series, which alleviates some of the problems, like Harry's motivations and characterization. Would still have to watch out to not go overboard with crack-ish villainy.

 

This looks familiar!

Just, please, don't follow Chengar Qordath's advice and type "For the greater good" anywhere in the fic as a justification!

 

E. C. Scrubb, I posted it here to get more opinions.

Greater Good is DD's and Grindy's game. I'm not going to recycle it.

 

Figured so, I was teasing.

Good on you for not recycling it. And thank you as well!

 

Oh, I wouldn't suggest directly blathering on about "the greater good" outside of a Harry Potter/Warhammer 40k crossover where Harry meets the Tau. Or possibly a Potter/Hot Fuzz crossover.

However, the general sentiment of believing that evil actions will ultimately result in enough good to justify them is a pretty classic way for heroes to turn villainous. "Torturing this death eater for information could save lives!" "Executing Draco sends a message that will deter anyone else from joining the Death Eaters!" and so on.

Really, "It's for the Greater Good" is just another way of saying "The ends justify the means." Which is classic villain reasoning.

 

Chengar Qordath, I think Scrubb was referring specifically to Grindelwald's brand of Greater Good™, wizards openly dominating muggles. Both of you have made valid points.

 

The ends justify the means is indeed classic villain reasoning, and also very many grey characters. Harry doesn't even have to dominate muggles openly if he is intelligent enough. He can rule from the shadows as it were in the muggle world, but be the open Minister in the Wizarding World.....or even have the Minister as his puppet ala Lucius Malfoy style.

 

Amann, what in my post gave you the impression that Harry gave a single turd about muggles? Lol, I just posted that the plan isn't for Harry to reuse Grindy's old recipe.

 

Yeah, I don't see a gone-evil Harry caring about muggles one way or the other beyond maybe going after the Dursleys. But that's more of a personal grudge than broad policy. Now I'm kind of tempted to start a thread: "101 Creative Ways for Dark Lord Harry to Punish the Dursleys."

I see Harry's brand of evil overlord-ness being much more along the lines of locking down wizarding society in an effort to wipe out all remnants of the Death Eaters, blood purists, and any form of dark magic. It'd probably end up looking like the worse moments of the War of Terror. Secret torture camps for suspected Death Eaters, Aurors given free reign to search homes and invade privacy while searching for evidence of dark magic, and so on. And yeah, stuff like brainwashing and Imperius curses to "re-educate" any blood purists into becoming happy, productive citizens.

Most importantly, no matter how far he sinks Harry's still convinced that he's the good guy. His security measures might be harsh, but they're the only thing protecting Britain from another Dark Lord. Sure, losing privacy is a shame, but why do people need a right to privacy anyway? Why is that one reporter stirring up such a fuss? The only reason someone would care about privacy rights is if they have something to hide ... like Death Eater sympathies.

And when the Aurors don't find any evidence of Death Eater activities in that reporter's house ... well, Harry knows they're guilty. They probably just hid the evidence really well. So it's not really dishonest to fabricate proof, because he's just replacing the evidence that was hidden or destroyed. And if it seems a little questionable, it's still better than letting another Voldemort rise.

 

Most villain Harry stories I've come across have him too powerful and too mature for his age in my eyes, and that really turns me off from the stories

 

Actually, I based quite a bit of the Dark Arts magical theory in When A Veela Cries on the Greater Good, but it was the philosophical idea out of Augustine. In short, the Dark Arts is choosing to take the Lesser Good over the Greater Good when using magic. That means it's a mix of both intent and spell (and I also threw in the reason for its creation). Then, I added to it the idea that sometimes, when faced with a choice between two evils, taking the Lesser Evil is the Greater Good, which means it's still Dark, but it's not. So, casting the Cruciatus Curse is dark because one must want another to suffer, but if it's saving a life, it's still the Greater Good, yet still dark.

Confusing? Yes. And I wanted it that way. It cleared up enough, but still left one unable to peek behind the wizard's curtain (no pun intended).

---------- Post automerged at 08:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:28 PM ----------

Generally, yeah. Specifically, I was talking about a character literally using those words.

 

I'll readily grant that the phrase itself is so trite now that it's hard to use it seriously in a story, even if the general sentiment behind it is still quite suitable to a fallen hero.

 

Well, that's the thing. I can imagine a Harry-going-evil kind of story, and I believe it's a nice genre, but what I REALLY would like to read is an evil-without-reason Harry, similarly to how he's good-without-reason in canon, but without making him more OOC than strictly necessary.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about that common "HAHAHAHA BOW BEFORE ME I'M EVIL AND I'M CONQUERING THE WORLD" kind of stuff, but rather a character who do evil things only because he loves evil. Not anything necessarily big, but something that permeates his choices, like not helping a fellow student study just to have the pleasure of seeing him/her fail. Stuff like that, I guess.

 

Vash has a story like that, though you've probably read it and it's quite old (dunno how well it's aged). And Harry is more a rapist than a murderer or anything like that. But there isn't a lot of moral equivocation, IIRC.

 

We can talk all day on variants of "Almost no one is evil. Almost everything is broken." Cliché as the general idea may seem, it's the execution that defines it, in the end.

I like Drakwiya's direction of "evil-without-reason." Except instead of being "without reason," let it be an irreconcilable moral calculus that Harry's grown up in. Let his thoughts reflect an alien referential frame from everyone else's around him, a completely distant way of interpreting relationships and the world around him. To them, his actions may seem odd, and occasionally "evil." Small evils, perhaps? But there's a consistency to it, building one atop another to the greater evils.

I don't as yet have any suggestions for how that pivotal creation point might happen. But as my roommate once said, "Bond isn't cold as he is because he planned it that way. He's just been in too many situations."

Or "Heroes don't do what they do because they're feeling heroic. They do what they need to do to get through the day."