I'm in the early/planning stages of an AU where Remus Lupin raises Harry Potter in Narvik, Norway. Harry will attend Durmstrang, and the bulk of the story will be a Triwizard tournament rewrite. Harry will be there because Sirius managed to capture Wormtail at the end of third year, is exonerated and wishes to see him.

I intend to write a bit about what happens at both schools before the tournament and can't decide on the details at Hogwarts. So, I would like some input on what changes might have occurred there during the first three years. I am leaning towards a Hermione centric Hogwarts, but I'm not sure that the Hogwarts students will play that big of a role in the overall plot.

Specific questions I'm pondering:
1. Should Hermione be killed by the troll?
a. Without Harry would Ron have been confident enough to make fun of her?
b. Would Ron have had any friends?
c. If she hadn't met Harry and Ron on the train would Hermione have been closer to Nevile?
d. Would any of them have known enough to investigate the Stone?

2. Should Ginny be killed by the diary, leading to a teenage Voldemort running around?
a. Would Hermione (if alive) still try to brew polyjuice potion?
b. If not, who (if anyone) would find the Diary after Ginny dumped it in the toilet?

3. With Remus unavailable who would be the defence professor (assuming that they warrant mentioning)?
a. Should the dementors still be sent to Hogwarts without Harry there?
b. If they are, should they bother the quidditch game (or any of the students) without Harry there?

I tend to write 3-5k chapters and was planning for four chapters before the start of the tournament. One where Remus takes Harry and moves to Norway. One about their life together, another about Harry's education at Durstrang which might just be put in the same chapter. And one about Hogwarts. Then likely a chapter each for the arrival/selection of champions, each task, the yule ball and the graveyard. Ten or eleven chapters total. Is three or four chapters of set up too much?

 

If it has some direct consequence on the story, yes. (Same goes for Ginny.) How would the gruesome and preventable death of a first-year student in recent memory ripple through Hogwarts culture? (More united as a school? Less keen to put its students at risk? Etc.) Otherwise, I'd keep her around—I think the AU Hermione kill-off (while logical on the surface) is trending towards cliche.

Why would Remus be unavailable? He could still teach at Hogwarts while Harry is off at school, which could create several interesting dynamics. (What prevents Lockhart's return? Is the basilisk still on the loose? If not, who stops it? Does Lockhart survive unscathed and manage to take credit?)

Not if the set-up is interesting, but I don't think most people care to read much about Harry's childhood at this point. If the fourth year is the meat of the action, I would start there and weave in relevant details about Harry's first thirteen years where necessary.

 

1. Should Hermione be killed by the troll?

If you want to get rid of her as a character yes, otherwise no. There is also Malfoy using the death of a student to remove Dumbledore as the headmaster etc. If she dies there must be consequences to it.

a. Without Harry would Ron have been confident enough to make fun of her?

There is a moment on the train ride where Harry and Ron bond over Hermione being a pain. I always assumed Ron is so negative towards her because he latched on it as a touchstone in his friendship with Harry.

b. Would Ron have had any friends?

Yes. Why wouldn't he? He is confident enough to walk into the boy who lived's cabin and make up an excuse just to talk to him. Ron is gregarious enough to make friends easily.

c. If she hadn't met Harry and Ron on the train would Hermione have been closer to Nevile?

Perhaps. She could also have friendly/cordial relationships with Ravenclaws or some other studious students. Or she could go the route of many children that think themselves smarter than their peers and make friends with an older student.

d. Would any of them have known enough to investigate the Stone?

Does it matter to your story? I say to let it be something that Dumbledore resolved away from prying eyes of the students. Without Harry being present there would be no duel, so no spotting of fluffy, no Hagrid retrieving something just the right size to plausably be the stone from gringgots, no choclate frog card to show up at just the right moment etc.

Now you an fix all of that with a couple of handwaves, but if it's not something that is central to your story than why bother?

2. Should Ginny be killed by the diary, leading to a teenage Voldemort running around?

That is something you need to decide for yourself. Whether there is one or two Voldemorts is rather central to the story and only you as the author should decide that.

a. Would Hermione (if alive) still try to brew polyjuice potion?

That was Harry's plan. Again you can get around that, but why bother.

b. If not, who (if anyone) would find the Diary after Ginny dumped it in the toilet?

If you want Hermione/Ron/whoever to have experiences with investigating mysteries this is where you can give it to them.

3. With Remus unavailable who would be the defence professor (assuming that they warrant mentioning)?

Also a question only you can answer. Do you need another character? Insert him here.

a. Should the dementors still be sent to Hogwarts without Harry there?

If Sirius escapes from Azaban in the same manner, than the ministry still knows that Hogwarts is his target. They could assume that he is going after Dumbledore and use the dementors. Now Dumbledore would not be too worried about his own safety, but have it be for the protection of the children, or something similar.

b. If they are, should they bother the quidditch game (or any of the students) without Harry there?

They did not invade the game, or the train, for the specific purpose of harassing Harry, so if you keep them they should.

 

1. It depends on the other questions you have here, really.
a. Ron, even before he was friends with Harry on the Express, seemed confident enough to express his opinions to Harry, so I'd say yes.
b. Ron seems the type to easily make friends; I could see him fitting in with Dean and Seamus.
c. Hermione and Neville are fellow "loser kids," so I could see them hanging out. Misfits fall in together for lack of other options.
d. I think without Harry acting as a linchpin, the first years might not have been as interested in the whole Stone plot. Or even realized that there was a plot there.

2. iirc, it always seemed to me that Ron and the Weasleys being friends to Harry made Ginny a target as much as Lucius Malfoy being irritated by Arthur. It could go either way, honestly. As for whether or not Ginny would be killed, again, that depends on how dark you want this story to be. But the fact that there's no one in Hogwarts who can speak Parseltongue would push the story in a deadlier direction. (Personally, I'd be inclined to get rid of her, but that's just me.)
a. If Hermione were still alive and friends with Neville, they might be more rule-abiding than they were in canon.
b. I don't think anyone would be very inclined to go into Myrtle's toilet. That's why Ginny dumped it there. But if you really want to go that route, I can imagine that another lonely outsider might come across it when she's (yet again) locked out of her common room -- Luna Lovegood.

3. There's a broad field to pick from here. Basically any adult character could fit. But who would be most interesting? Or make the most sense? Would it be Lucius or Narcissa Malfoy, who both surely know their way around Dark magic -- and, more importantly, would be in a position to mold students to their perceptions and annoy Dumbledore? What about other free Death Eaters? Or members of the Order of the Phoenix from back in the day? There are a lot of possibilities.
a. No. Harry isn't there, so there's no real reason for Aurors to think Sirius might go to Hogwarts. But I could see the British Ministry of Magic trying to work with Durmstrang to protect Harry. (As for Durmstrang going along with that ...)
b. I'll be frank. Even if you had an exceptionally good reason for Dementors to be there, hitting the same plot points with different characters and tremendously different circumstances would read like a canon retread minus Harry. And those are usually not fun to read.

Agravaine had a really good take on this.

 

This is an AU - you don't have to make just one change (Remus adopts Harry). You can either remove the CoS plot entirely, or make Dumbledore actually competent and figure it out easily.

What does it matter who's the third year DADA teacher? it doesn't sound relevant to me - though it could still be Remus. The reason dementors were posted at Hogwarts was that Sirius mumbled "he's at Hogwarts" in his cell, so I don't think they'd be around Durmstrang - the location of which is closely guarded in any way. Again, what relevance the dementors storming the quidditch pitch has for this story? you don't have to fill us on every little canon event just for the sake of it.

I don't care what Ron, Hermione or Neville do in Harry's absence, and personally prefer they'd be kept out of the fic entirely. They're not interesting characters by themselves and wouldn't have gotten involved with the plots at Hogwarts if it wasn't for Harry.

 

It might make more sense to figure out what you want in terms of a Hogwarts setting for fourth year and then work backwards from there to determine what happened in first through third years. Unless you want something really out of the ordinary, it should be pretty easy to have circumstances align to get you the characters you want in the right places.

1. Determine whether you want Hermione as a major character and then go from there. She easily could have avoided the whole troll scenario by Ron not having Harry right there to complain to in her earshot, for example.

2. Having a teenage Voldemort running around would change a lot of things in year three, I would think. Would Voldemort really be content to sit around doing nothing for a full year? This would create some pretty major butterfly effects prior to the Triwizard Tournament.

3. One thing to keep in mind is the defense position curse, so odds are that they won't be around as a major character during year four anyways. They could simply quit, retire, or you could have some fun with it and have them get fired or die in some highly implausible way.

 

If you really want tournament to be central tread, let Harry gain knowledge about Hogwarts at Hogwarts. Writing it before could coerce you to repeating some information later, because someone from Durmstrang have no way to know what is happening at British, isolated school - showing character going around and asking about things reader knows would be quite boring.
I see here tag "heroic hermione". Does it change fact that she is goody two-shoes and treat school rules as law? Without Harry and Ron she wouldn't have motivation to seek troubles - she always tried to help them, not even once encouraged their actions. Brewing polyjuce potion makes no sense in this case. And Ron isn't dedicated enough to even consider looking for answers to the Stone's plot in library and to find them.

Tom Riddle from diary actually could lie down for year or even longer. He doesn't have so much knowledge as his older version nor information from last 50 years. Besides - no money, no aquitances - he would lose a lot of time before gaining access to old contacts, bases and vaults and taking any important action.

It would be better if you just decided what you need for tournament. Nothing more is important, really. Consider if you want have Dumbledore, Ginny and Hermione at Hogwarts during this event and whatever for. Otherwise the is million ifs.

 

If go do go down this route in some way, I think you need to tie in into the Triwizard Tournament. Two Voldemorts is, frankly, a big deal and if it is not the point of the story, it should tie into it tightly.

Maybe rather than dead, Ginny is still possessed, though now more or less permanently, and ends up as Hogwarts Champion.

Or perhaps Young!Voldemort is trying to sabotage the Tournament to stop Old!Voldemort coming back.

Or flip that, Old!Voldemort's manipulations in the Tournament are no longer about getting Harry's blood but pulling Young!Voldemort into the open, Old!Voldemort having found a different way back to life. What happened to the Philosopher's Stone in this universe for example?

 

Completly new plot line? Glimmervoid, I would read that. Two Voldemorts fighting each other during tournament with one using Ginny's body sounds interesting. And leaves Harry on second plane but whatever.
What if someone less lucky have tried stop Quirrellmort insted HP and in the end enabled him to nick the Stone? Without object of his obsession close Voldemort would spend time to arrenge someone's participation - someone who would want to stop him. He would just have to know about the Mirror earlier.

 

I think Lucius was curious to see what the Boy-Who-Lived was like before doing anything with the diary. He wanted to see if Harry would be an ally. When Harry defeats Voldemort, Lucius started putting his plans into motion because Harry would never be an ally. Plus, Dumbledore probably got some heat for allowing this to happen, thus in more of a position to be removed.

I think if Lucius never knows anything about Harry, there would be no point for making trouble in CoS. He might even be more curious because Harry went to a "darker school". That and if no one knows about the stone, Dumbledore's reputation would be clear.

This would make Malfoy see the Tournament as a reason to use the diary during the Tournament. With two other schools there, Dumbledore would look even worse and the chaos would be awful. The schools can't leave because of the contract... but are in danger.

The last day of the task is when someone (I wouldn't use Ginny though), disappears. You will end up with both Voldemorts coming back as Harry can't be in two places at once.

You would also have an interesting dynamic if Harry knowing parseltongue which will be popular for Slytherin and Durmstrang but awful for the other Hogwarts students.

 

1. Should Hermione be killed by the troll?

a. Yes, probably.
b. He probably would, given that he got on fine with Seamus and Dean when he's having a tiff with Harry. I imagine without Harry being there, the three of them would be a bit closer with each other than they are in the books, forming a kind of new trio. And I imagine that without the 2+2+1 structure, they might actually remember to include Neville from time to time. It happened in the Marauder's time, after all. The smaller the dormitory, the more likely that they'll be united instead of divided.
c. I don't think so. Neither are particularly outgoing or sociable at the start, Hermione isn't naturally inclined to help her peers, and Neville isn't all that studious. Plus they're a boy and a girl, so all the more unlikely. But if you need them to be friends, then by all means.
d. Probably not. They need Hagrid for that, and Harry is really the only link to Hagrid in the trio.

2. Should Ginny be killed by the diary, leading to a teenage Voldemort running around?

I doubt a Hermione without Ron or Harry would be all that motivated, if she's willing to break the rules at all. More likely she'd bring the matter directly to Dumbledore.
As for who finds the Diary...I feel like it's more a matter of chance than anything else, and that this is a case of you should do whatever suits the story, and then create the reasoning afterwards.
I would hate for this to happen, but honestly, if Harry isn't there, it's entirely plausible that Ginny might die or at least be left stranded dangerously close to death before Dumbledore figures out something. Riddle might roam for a while, but not for long, I don't think. Even when he's ousted, Dumbledore has far too many people willing to work for him to really limit him all that much. He'll figure something out.

3. With Remus unavailable who would be the defence professor (assuming that they warrant mentioning)?
Moody, I should think. But feel free to create an OC here if you need Moody for 4th year.

a. It is possible. They might assume that Black assumes that Harry went to Hogwarts, and therefore still choose to guard Hogwarts with dementors.
b. The dementors didn't listen well to Ministry orders; I'd think they still would. Whether anyone would be affected as badly as Harry did is another matter.

Three to four 3-5k chapters shouldn't be too much, in fact it'd usually be a little too short for me, but considering the overall length you're planning, it should do fine. Still though, this is quite a wild divergence from canon that you're planning, and trying to establish a changed Harry, his environments, his mindset, and this new world all in under 20k words would be something of a challenge.

Agravine provided a good alternative in which you can show this new Harry first, and then slowly reveal through details, conversations, or flashbacks just what changes in his upbringing caused what changes in his mindset/personality. I'd also come up with a good reason as to why Remus is raising Harry now (kidnap? Why did he bother when he didn't in canon? Did Dumbledore acquiesce, was he even aware?)

Ditto to Lesath that writing Hogwarts as Harry sees it is probably best. Info-dump tend to be summaries, and summaries aren't interesting to read. Provide what is necessary to establish the background and let that be enough. The details of the different 1st-3rd year history could be shown in details/dialogue/etc.

Also, are you planning to have all of the loose ends tied up by the graveyard scene? Cutting it off there would be a little cruel, unless everything in canon resolves by that point.

But I have to say, this au sounds right up my alley. Would you come back here with the link once you've posted it? I'd love to check it out and review.

 

I don't think Malfoy randomly thought "Huh, I could use the Diary to bring trouble there or there....". Ministry hunting for dark artifacts and checking his manor was one of the reasons he decided to shed it. Changing time of these events would demand some reasoning. And, well, containing too much action during only one year seems a bit off.

I started to wonder why would Remus pick Durmstrang ove Hogwarts for Harry? Is it justified or completly casual idea?

 

Do we know it was a dark artifact purge or is that fanon?

I thought Lucius tried to slip the diary to Harry at Flourish & Botts but it got dumped in Ginny's cauldron along with the free Lockhart books that Harry didn't want.

Why did Dobby think it was a plot against Harry?

Book 2 doesn't need to have happened at all in a Harry free Hogwarts.

Another thing to consider, without Harry to stay Sirius's hand would Pettigrew have been executed at end of Book 3?

 

source

 

That just means the Ministry was raiding homes for Dark Arts stuff, not that that's Lucius's impetus for sending the diary to Hogwarts and opening the Chamber of Secrets.

 

It means Lucius had motivation to sell or toss many of his things. I suppose otherwise he would be too scared to dump it somewhere. Sending it to Hogwarts was the best way to decrease risk of aurors finding something incriminating and was good enough excuse for Voldemort. Lucius was more worried about Ministry than the Dark Lord this time and him sitting and waiting for better opportunity doesn't make sense.

I mean - If he hadn't sent it to Hogwarts, he would have dumped it somewhere else. So Lucius waiting until the Tournament isn't justified.

 

Unless the raids were due to children getting caught in the crossfire of a Dark Wizard at Hogwarts. The Ministry doing pointless raids to boost the people's confidence of them after the disaster at Hogwarts. And if Harry wasn't there, and no children went after the stone... it wouldn't have gotten any attention from the press/Ministry and the raids wouldn't have happened.

 

Thank you all. you've given me some interesting things to think about and a few new ideas.

Definitely justified, Remus abducts Harry from the Dursleys' (for safety concerns), so sending him to Hogwarts would mean that Dumbledore could put him back with them. Remus' lycanthropy will be less of an issue at Durmstrang than anywhere else.

I hadn't planned on resolving everything by that point, but would consider a sequel to tie it up.

Of course.

 

You're raising a couple of red flags here. Your assumption that Harry needs to be protected from Dumbledore and the Dursleys reeks of the 'manipulative' Dumbledore trope.

Another being the bigoted/backwards wizarding Britain trope. Nothing in canon implies that werewolves are treated better elsewhere than in Britain. Not to mention the emphasis on dark arts in the Durmstrang school curriculum is enough of a reason for Remus to avoid placing Harry there.

And you will have to come up with a convincing reason for why Harry should come to Hogwarts at all during year 4 considering he is not 17 and hence not eligible for participation in the Triwizard Tournament.

 

I think anyone who can drop a baby off on a doorstep and not face to face with their new guardian because it's safe from Voldemort and the Death Eaters is morally suspect at best. I don't think Dumbledore is evil per say, but I also don't believe in black and white morality. He either threatened or emotionally blackmailed Petunia into keeping Harry. (She might have any way out of human decency, but we'll never know.) Canon Dumbledore was manipulative. He was good and on the side of good, and yes most fanon blows it way out of proportion, but that does not stop him from being manipulative. For the Greater Good.

Nothing in canon implies very much at all about anywhere outside of Britain. I'm taking the liberty that tolerance toward the Dark Arts extends to Dark Creatures.

As far as why Harry is at Hogwarts in fourth year, it's to meet Sirius for the first time. A free, exonerated, mind-healed Sirius who never lost legal custody of his godson (what with never having a trial). Harry and Remus intend to stay at Hogwarts maybe through the first task, then convince Sirius to go to Durmstrang with them. And then hijinks ensue.