The challenge:

This is an AU splitting from canon at the time of The Prisoner of Azkaban. Basically, the premise is that Sirius Black was indeed guilty of the crimes he was accused of, a powerful dark wizard, and Voldemort's second in command (a non-marked Death Eater).

He will have escaped from Azkaban using dark magic that the Ministry is unaware of; you can still make him an animagus if you want.

So, Sirius escapes when he did in canon, and he goes after Harry to kidnap him to take him to Voldemort.

The story starts with Harry that night he runs away from the Dursleys and instead of hiding in the bush Sirius comes out and greets Harry on the side of the street.

He feeds Harry the story that we are given in canon, only here it is false, and Harry, keen for a connection to his parents and unprejudiced against Black, believes his false story.

Harry and Sirius run off together, fleeing from the ministry, and Sirius takes Harry to a type of wizarding underground (a bit like the Lady's realm in Malignant Objects). There they stay for a while, Harry just hanging around with the locals (inevitably having some fun along the way and picking up a few things about magic that he would not have come across at Hogwarts), while Sirius spends most of the time absent - Harry doesn't know it but he is searching for Voldemort's location.

This is where it gets a bit complicated. Sirius, though he is still a dark wizard, begins to get the idea to try to tempt Harry towards the dark. This idea is made more realistic in Sirius' mind by the fact that he is having no success in finding Voldemort.

It is also reinforced by his memories of the Marauders at school, who, though they turned out to be his enemies, he had some fun with when they were all still innocent.

So Sirius arranges for Harry to get lessons from people in the underground, giving the odd lesson himself, mainly in normal magic (e.g. Hogwarts stuff), but also some Dark Arts subtly mixed in. Harry accepts these lessons as he thinks that Sirius just wants him to have as good a education as had he stayed at Hogwarts (which has now started up again). The lessons are not really structured as the Hogwarts lessons are, and in this learning environment much more suited to Harry he quickly flourishes.

So Harry slowly becomes more dark, though it is a slow and gradual process and he doesn't really become actively evil, just a darker soul.

Where it could go from here is up to the writer, some ideas are:

1. The Ministry catch up with them and kill Sirius, our new, stronger and darker Harry is forced to return to Hogwarts. This would have some nice scenes with Harry now being better than people like Hermione at magic but really doesn't offer any conclusions to the story, becoming a generic dark!harry fic. Better for him not to return to Hogwarts at all.

2. Sirius hears rumours of Voldemort and takes Harry off to find him, still deceiving Harry, saying the Ministry is on to them. From here you could go several ways. Harry could be used in Voldemort's resurrection and the war starts, Harry only just escaping. OR:

3. Harry could realise Sirius' deception and leave, perhaps going to a foreign school, as he now has a deep seated instinct to flee from the British ministry gained in the underground. One idea would be him going to Beauxbatons and then a time gap would take place as not much happens for a few years, before he returns to Hogwarts for the Triwizard tournament, set back a few years, say to when Harry is in his 7th year (or equivalent).

4. Harry stays in the underground and works his way up the underground society, while Sirius keeps looking for Voldemort, becoming ever more absent. Eventually Sirius would disappear completely. There would then be a jump in time to a few years later. Harry is now a big player in the illegal underground wizarding world. We rejoin the story just as Sirius resurrects Voldemort, and an Order member, trying to get criminal contacts, runs accidentally into Harry.

5. Anything better you can think of to wrap the story up. The biggest problem with this challenge is that there are years and years to fill before Harry becomes a proper adult and therefore capable of waging a proper war against Voldemort.

Rules:

- Sirius is a powerful, dark, and serious wizard; not a joker like he is presented in most fanon and later canon. His power is probably between Snape's and Voldemort's; he could hold his own against Dumbledore, but not beat him.

- Sirius does not switch to the light or any namby-pamby like that. he can become slightly lighter, but he will always remain dark.

- Sirius does not change sides. He is loyal to Voldemort, fanatical.

- Harry will not get supered up, but will begin to realise his potential as Voldemort's equal in a realistic way.

- If you take up this challenge, you must be a good writer, capable of producing a dark atmosphere. (Duh!)

Well, there it is, hope someone takes it up.

The challenge was inspired by me re-reading POA and liking the way that the wizarding world looked at Sirius fearfully and taking him seriously. Sirius Black was my favourite character, once upon a time, before GOF and OotP ruined his character.

 

Oh, that sounds like a great idea. I would try it if I weren't so busy all the time... what, I can make a dark atmosphere too! I really hope that someone takes this up.

 

This is well thought out, but honestly, I don't like the rape of Sirius' character, his transformation from a reckless prankster into an extension of his family - basically inversion of everything his character stands for.

Manipulative Dumbledore is one thing - there we take certain mistakes from canon and use them to build up a conspiracy theory. We don't say that events described in books never happened - we just give them different interpretation. But this is basically erasing the last 4 books and saying that canon background from them isn't true - Pettigrew was never alive, Scrabbers was just a rat and 11 year old Sirius had fooled everyone (including the Sorting Hat) into thinking he's something he's not. Very few HP readers could swallow something like this IMO.

That said, if Sirius was changed for an OC, or if he was given his own camp (he IS dark, but he's not working for Voldemort), I think this idea would work better.

 

It wasn't so much a complete rape of Sirius' character as undoing the rape of his character that the ending of POA put him under. A reversing of his character to the way it was originally presented: as a dangerous dark wizard. It is only in OotP really that we learn about him being a "reckless prankster", so for the majority of canon he has been more serious.

This is especially true if you take into account his character as perceived by the wizarding public. Even in OotP, he is still thought of by most as a dark wizard, second only to Voldemort in evilness.

As for him fooling the sorting hat: he doesn't have to have gone dark until after he leaves Hogwarts, or in his later years of Hogwarts (perhaps while James is off with Lily).

Take out the word "Sirius" and insert "Pettigrew" and you have exactly what Wormtail did in canon. It's not so hard to accept, apparently.

 

I like this. I'm really tempted to take it up, but I'm already working on one fic that's taking up all my time. Well damn. I really hope someone does take it up.

 

Still, you still ARE changing the canon facts, regardless of how you perceive those changes to be. And whether you want to smarten Harry up, make Dumbedore more sleazy or turn Voldemort into a better dark lord, rewriting history is something you should NEVER do IMO.

If you could somehow incorporate what we know about Sirius from canon into some sort of conspiracy theory, then this idea JUST might work. Like this - I personally can't buy it. And I'm not sure many HP readers could.

I would have to disagree here. Sirius you're describing is a die-hard Voldemort supporter, competent fanatic who had in fact never rebelled against his family. Peter was simply bullied into taking the mark and betraying his friends - he's obviously nothing like your Sirius is supposed to be.

 

This would probably be where we disagree then: AU is my favourite genre, it appears you don't like it. Oh well, everyone has their likes and dislikes.

 

Err, no. I love AU. What I don't like is changing the canon ideas arbitrary, without logical reasoning behind these changes.

Take 1st year AU's for example. The idea that Harry is a parseltongue wasn't introduced until middle of COS. But still, practically every 1st year AU that I know of use this as a know fact; Just because the revelation didn't happen yet doesn't mean it isn't true. And even if their Harry can't use parseltongue, it's always due to some logical explanation (like, Voldemort choosing some other BWL), and not because they decided to change the canon by saying that "the scar doesn't come with parseltongue ability" or something like that.

The same thing is with Sirius. He's a slightly childish prankster who was set up by his traitorous ex-friend. Changing his character by providing different interpretations of canon events is perfectly OK. Changing the entire HP history to build up a different Sirius character is fine too, as long as you describe his change logically and alter the historic events accordingly. But changing fundamental parts of HP canon simply by saying "I don't like it, thus it didn't happen", without providing any logical reasoning whatsoever, is just saying that your story's fandom isn't HP, but your own setting that RESEMBLES HP.

That's my problem with this idea; NOT the fact that it's AU.

 

As for me, I think I would have read it even with evil Sirius (he is better that way) But really why this Sirius is so significant for the story? Harry didn't know about Death eaters at all at the moment so why not to use somebody other? for example Black's roommate who managed to run away while Sirius only rose a ruckus? Or slitly smarter Pettigrew who after hearing about Black's escape didn't sit as rat waiting for him and tryed to reach Voldemort ealier (and present him Harry)?

And by the way why Sirius can't find a Voldemort If Pettygrew did?

 

I got the way through a long reply saying why you are making a distinction that doesn't exist between this and any other AU when something else occurred to me that made the whole reply pointless.

This is the very essence of fanfiction; seeing something in canon and deciding to change it. Even more so for AU. I could list whole streams of AUs that aren't "logical" or can be backed up by canon; that is, after all, the whole point of an AU.

To an extent, all story's do this. Again, it is the whole essence of fanfiction. There is not a single fanfic that exists that uses the exact fanfom of HP, because as soon as a fanfic author begins to write, they begin to add things that aren't there in canon, and therefore any fanfiction is not based on Hp, but on a fandom resembling HP.

Your own story, Potter's Resistance, is a post-OotP story. As HBP has come out, everything in that story is now different to canon; based not a fandom that is HP but resembling HP. Do you have a logical explanation for why you took things in that direction rather than the direction JKR took it in HBP, other than the fact that you like your way better?

Edit to Dasha: Sirius is significant because he brings about the darkening of Harry. The reason why it is him and not just a random DE is mainly 'cos I wanted to see a story where Sirius is not a joke, but there are arguments for it, like the fact that Harry will listen more to a person who has links to his parents such as Sirius. As for why Sirius can't find Voldemort and Pettigrew could: Wormtail finding him was an accident. Even Dumbledore can't find where Voldemort is hiding, though he can guess at the general area. If Dumbledore can't find him, then Sirius won't be able to either.

 

I honestly don't see the problem with canging Sirius' character for fanfiction... people do it with Dumbeldore all the time. For all we knew through most of PoA, Sirus was after Harry's head, had murdered 13 innocent bystanders, worked for Voldemort, and was driven insane by Azkaban. If the book had ended differently then there would be no problem calling this fic a post PoA one... however it ended up being the complete opposite. So for the sake of fanfiction, you could ignore the last quarter of PoA and call it AU.

 

Perhaps you're right and I'm just being pigheaded.

Maybe it's just that the picture of prankster!Sirius is too deep integrated in my mind to accept his sudden change into a male version of Bellatrix. Maybe it's just that canon basis for Sirius's character from books 4 and 5 has overshadowed the book 3 to such extent, that any reversal seems ludicrous at this point.

Changing his character now requires much greater leap of faith then, say, removing inclusions of Horcruxes and male!Blaise from HBP. That is not to say I won't feel the same way about Horcruxes once 7th book comes out.

I guess I am personally just a bit stiff in regards of accepting huge changes in canon fabric; others might not be as stubborn as I. Either way, good luck with the challenge.

 

You could always make it out that Sirius pledged himself to Voldemort in fifth year and his entire scene with running away and living with the Potters is to ensure a spy within the Order of the Phoenix.

Sirius would then be like in canon, only hiding his true allegience, a "Dark-Prankster"

 

The way I see it, there is no such thing as being evil when you're 11. Sure, you might think its alright to torture Muggles/kill people or whatever, but you aren't established as evil, and you've never done anything that terrible yourself.

When the Sorting Hat reads your mind, I see it as examining qualities, not your tendencies and inclinations/memories. And by those qualities, it judges you. Are you brave/wish you were brave? Into Gryffindor you go. Are you meek and timid, and like making and keeping friends? Into Hufflepuff. Are you enthusiastic about reading and learning? Into Ravenclaw. And are you haughty, domineering and somewhat negative in your outlook on life? Into Slytherin.

I see this working basically for the reason that not everybody embodies the values of the House they're in. For example, Ravenclaws are studious, so shouldn't that mean that they should automatically be getting the highest grades? When Hermione's off scheming/messing around with Harry and Ron, they should be studying. Shouldn't that extra time be enough to establish their intelligence/cleverness over Hermione's?

And Hermione says, in the first book when Harry's about to go through the fire, that she wishes that she were as brave as Harry. There you go, a deep seated desire to be braver, and the Hat felt it. So instead of Ravenclaw, she got sorted into Gryffindor, and throughout the books, we've seen her becoming increasingly brave and outgoing.

With Sirius and Wormtail, there's no evidence that Wormtail was a maladroit in his school years. As the end of PoA shows, his motivation to betray his friends and work for Voldemort was fear...he was scared for his own life, and put himself before his friends. A person like that wouldn't have been sorted into Gryffindor, so the only explanation is that he changed during/after his Hogwarts years. Perhaps because his friends were all successful (even Remus, since the fact that he is a Werewolf didn't become known until the end of Harry's third year), and he was a chubby, unattractive man who had no great advantage.

As to the challenge, I think its fantastic. I consider it as AU as anything else. Manipulative Dumbledore is AU...and sure, while the author is just putting a 'new' spin on how Dumbledore's actions can be seen, they also introduce entirely different motivations. So while it appears that Manipulative!Dumbledore is merely a different view of his actions, the fic's premise changes the character entirely, giving a different reasoning of his actions in Canon, and then changing his actions in the story they write to correspond with that premise. So no matter what, the character will be OOC in comparison with Canon.

Changing the actual history of canon is radical, but I don't see it as being more radical than turning a character OOC like in a Manipulative!Dumbledore situation. It's almost the same thing. Change the time line slightly, and instead of providing a spin on their actions, change the actions entirely just to correspond with the premise of the fic. Honestly, innovation is what makes the fandom worthwhile. While Light!Sirius is fine, Dark!Sirius is relatively unexplored, and offers a great deal of opportunities to writers to add originality to a fandom plagued by monotony.

As BMM mentioned, for most of PoA, this is exactly the character of Sirius in the opinion of the wizarding world. He's someone who killed a bunch of Muggles, exploded a street, murdered his best friend and gave away the secret of his other two best friends to the man who would later kill them. Sure, it violates canon after PoA's last few chapters, but it does conform to canon for most of PoA

Of course, it's not necessary that Sirius was actually enamored by his family. He could've hated them, and this challenge could still work. By canonic evidence, Bellatrix is fanatically servile, and Narcissa was willingly amrried to a rich aristocratic snob. That servility could be the factor that made him so hateful of his family. Later, as a member of the Order, he finds himself confronted by Voldemort, and attempts to fight him, his cockiness coming through in the action. Voldemort, finding this upstart little kid's antics so funny, takes pleasure in disciplining him, basically tossing him around and breaking his will. Unable to escape, and since Voldemort is so amused by him and so interested in the fact that this wizard who spurned his family is so powerful even without the Dark Arts, he's forced into submission.

The duel is eye-opening to him, and he accepts the fact that the Dark Arts are more powerful, nothing more. Voldemort laughs in his face and releases him. This could repeat itself, with different Dark Wizards, and is released by them on orders of Voldemort. One after the other, he's crushed by other Death Eaters, who he knows he's more powerful than, but can't stand up to due to his lack of skill and knowledge of Light Magic, plus their use of Dark Magic. Its even more shameful because one of the people who beat him is Bellatrix. And he confronts Voldemort a second time, much later, and mid fight, just gives up.

Mind you, this is assuming that James and Lily were roughly 25-28 when Halloween '81 happened. Deviates from canon, yeah, but for the hell of it, and to make it easier to introduce this 'disciplining into submission' thing.

And when he gives up, Voldemort 'gives him an offer he cannot refuse'. His life or his freedom...he will lose one to Voldemort. And no matter what, he was raised by the Black family, and disregarding friendships, etc, he will stay alive. Why would a playboy with a stack of cash and a desire for thrills (duels, the Order, etc) want to die so early on in life? He takes the offer, grudgingly, of course, since he does care for Lily and James, etc.

Over the next few years, roughly from when he's 22-25, he is an unmarked Death Eater, and capitalizes on the fact that the Order, as well as his friends, are busy with their personal lives (JP/LE getting married, establishing their house, etc, Remus trying to find a job, as well as Peter), he does what he is ordered to by Voldemort. First he learns the Dark Arts, slowly, then moves on to minor missions and then more major missions. He can hide it from his friends because his 'nights out' are easily passed away with a saucy wink and a steamy tale of a hookup, or are entirely looked over because of the lives of his friends are so hectic.

The prophecy appears, and Dumbledore forces it upon Lily and James that no one except them should know it. They go into hiding, first using Peter as the secret keeper. Peter, now, is terrified, because Voldemort has found out through a spy (Sirius) that he is the keeper, and he's being tailed, attacked, threatened, etc, and he's scared as hell. So they switch keepers, and the Potters are a little wary of Remus, so it becomes Sirius.

Canon then occurs, to the point. Sirius betrays them, and the Potters are killed, leaving baby Harry alive and wounded. Sirius goes after Peter because Peter's the only one who knows that Sirius was the keeper, adn he needs to be terminated. Canon occurs, and in a fit of stupidity, Peter misses with his blasting curse and blows the street to bits. Insert emotional amplification of magic, if you want.

The Ministry think it was Sirius, and he gets thrown in Azkaban not for betraying the Potters (that's prolly not a crime, as it would impinge on free will freedoms), but for killing thirteen Muggles, nearly fucking up the whole Statute of Secrecy and for killing a Wizard. There is a short trial, but the number of witnesses was overwhelming enough that there was no need for Veritaserum. Dumbledore cannot intervene, for whatever reason...maybe he gets outvoted on the Wizengamot. Sirius gets 25 years or life, whatever.

And from there, Taure's Challenge comes into play. Harry goes to the Dursleys, canon occurs until the third book, and Sirius escapes.

Good luck to whoever takes this challenge up, it's absolutely fantastic. Taure, rep++

Edit: Instead of Peter, Sirius shouts the "You betrayed Lily and James, how could you?!" Peter, pissed off and in tears because of what happens, tries to draw his wand and fire the curse, misses spectacularly and gets blown to shreds by his own curse, taking out a bunch of Muggles and the street. Shrapnel hits Sirius, who falls down, bleeding...Aurors arrive, etc etc.

 

You know to make this more interesting, you should keep Wormtail alive and make both Black and Peter DE's. Now hear me out. Both Black and Peter were Death eaters but worked in different cells and ironically didn't know that they were both double agents. The potters still made the shift from sirus to peter as the secret keeper, with sirus planning to kidnap peter on the night he supposedly we to just check on him. Coming to the wrong conclusion that another group of DE got him he went to Godrics hollow expecting to join his master in victory, but he found the house destoryed, he assumed peter was some how responible and then hunted him down. Now he is wear some alteration comes in to play. Sirus was planning to frame peter and kill him in "revenge for the potters" and then rejoin soceity however peter beats him to it, and we now have the story that circulated around the hp canon world. of course it would be up to the author if he wanted sirus to figure out if peter is also a DE or vice vircea

 

That is actually a very interesting idea. It could work, and it adds a nice element of suspense and intrigue. Rep++

 

Both Sirus and Peter being DE's could be interesting. To add to that, have them learn somehow that there is/was another DE in the Maruders. Perhaps they either suspect Remus or Even James.

You could put little actions that make them believe that Remus is really spying for Greyback, such as mentioning having to meet others of his kind at odd hours. Instead of Spying perhaps he is trying to be a diplomatic envoy from Dumbledore, or depending on your view of Were-Wolves learning techniques unique to them such as speacial magic or meditation skills.

I don't know how you would make James suspect, but perhaps innocent comments complaining good naturlly about Lily's habbits, or trouble at work because of a Muggle-born plant the seed in Sirus and Peters minds that James is getting fed up with the Muggle-raised. Whether this is true or not is completly up to you.

Another even more twisted addition is LILY is suspected of tbeing the 'mysterious' other death eater in the Maruders circle. While this could be hardest of all, perhaps hints or misunderstandings brings them to believe that Lily is adopted child of a pureblood family and resents being raised by Muggles. Again, whether this is a genuine misunderstanding or the truth could be quite amusing.

So Peter and Sirus suspect EVERYBODY in the Maruders of being the other DE , including each other. They have no idea who is loyal to their lord, and who is a light side wizard. So there is no hatred to the others, just a cautios aquintence, not willing to antagonise a possible fellow DE, but at the same time not willing to trust somebody who is only 'suspected' of being a DE.

 

An evil joker! that reminds me of Joker from batman. It would be pretty cool if Sirius was like that, but being secretive isn't jokers strong points.

 

Heh, would be amusing if Sirus see's a batman comic that say Lily or a mugleborn brings to hogwarts and basiclly bases his 'DE Personality' after him. Using a speacial mask or spell to make his face look diffrent, and more like the Jokers face.