Title: A Favor for a Friend
Author: Nonjon
Rating: M
Genre: Drama/Action/Adventure
Pairing: Not Applicable (but HP/LL I suppose)
Words: 4,705
Published: December 12, 2005
Status: Complete. One-Shot.
Summary: A little snapshot of a day in a potential post-HBP, post-Voldemort world. [A small exercise in writing for reasons other than making this author laugh.]
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2699455/1/

I figured I should link to this attempt at an action drabble that I ended up creating a complete backstory for and neglected the action on. It was trolling these forums and reading a lot of what you folks here enjoy that crafted a great many of this story's points. I can't make an all-out evil Harry, but this one's a bit darker than most.

If anyone wants to expand on the idea please by all means. I just have too much to do already and not enough discipline to write a long chaptered story like this one. It's just a little 4500 word one-shot.


Checked by Minion, July 28, 2013

 

Great story! You obviously have a thing for Harry with "I don't give a shit about anything" attitude (ex: Freedom of Apathy), but it works great in this story. Unfortunately, I don't see a way you could expand on this one, although I do have an outline of similar universe, only AU (where Harry goes to the first year again).

Anyway, even though darkish thrillers are not your thing, you did great with this one.

 

Fun little drabble. I can't say that I agree with Cho Chang being Lucius's undersecretary and getting lumped together with all the Harry-hating pricks like Cormac McLaggan and Zach Smith, but that's a minor issue and our differences in opinion regarding that particular Ravenclaw are rather broad. I do hope that she was not included in the two mystery students that helped Voldemort slaughter the Gryffindors. That would be wholly unrealistic, as she would never become a Death Eater. I did enjoy Lucius, though. I like seeing him portrayed as something more than a rabidly racist, murderous, hateful Death Eater. I do agree that a man with his distinction would be following Voldemort for more than just being able to kill Muggleborns. He obviously agrees with the man's philosophy and genuinely wants what he perceives to be a better wizarding world, even though the methods are extreme.

 

You know I actually and intentionally chose her for that bit, as I wanted the first name to be one that would *not* seem to be inherently evil!Death Eater-ish. If you start reading it with an especially closed-mind then when the Minister gets called Malfoy, theoretically, it would be a shocking surprise. But the clues and nuances about just who was in power were pretty obvious otherwise for anyone even remotely unassuming.

But Cho was the perfect immediately recognizable non-Gryffindor HP character. McClaggan was a name I thought I'd just made up, though that character may or may not have been Walden Macnair before. Never really mattered. Commander Smith was intended to be Zach Smith, but again didn't really matter. I was hoping to stick with known names that *could* lean towards evil!rule-the-world Death Eating, or just simply the less "Gryffindorish" characters. Most of the Hufflepuffs, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbott, Ernie McMillan, Justin Finch Fletchley (that name sounds and looks wrong but you know who I mean) all seemed the type to join up with the Order of Phoenix and would've fallen as one of the fringe cult vigilante groups or something similar, labeling these folks as evil who can only be fought. This world was about a reasonable rational Death Eater POV, but without the Dark Lord driving them. And I couldn't change Harry drastically enough to fit in with that world. It would have been completely different if Harry were a part of it, and without Harry, I think this is a pretty realistic possibility considering HBP took out the other 'light' influence.

But this time it was about Cho being intelligent, capable, and adaptable to the situation or new political climate. Under-secretary just 6 years out of school. Never intended to make her seem evil or do my usual Cho!bash at all, she was just the ideal intelligent and most common/recognizable non-Gryff I thought of.

 

I loved this. It was short, entertaining, well written and eye catching; A good morsel of fiction to lift your spirits and make you know that not everything out there completely blows.

Oh, and I do believe that it’s Justin Finch-Fletchley, but I’m not completely sure.

As for Chang, well, I understood that the use of her name right away was a ploy to distract the common reader from the sliminess controlling the government. Alas, it didn’t work on me, but it was none the less, very clever.

 

Your idea to bring down the Ministry was great too.

Actually, you've inspired me to break through my block on pre-planning the next chapter of PR. I've just outlined the whole part dealing with the ministry, Fudge and that Pederson-guy. And I've had a lot of problems on this one, trying to work around some loose ends from before AND still plot an exciting part about Harry manipulating the ministry.

 

Sweet! does that mean that you'll be updating soon?

 

Chapter 6 is with my beta, should be done tonight or tomorrow. I was refering here to chapter 7.

 

*Pulls out his carving knife*

So who’s your Beta? They’re taking an awful long time to finish with that chapter. I say, a little encouragement would not be amiss.

*Starts sharpening his knife*

In any case, I wish you luck with your ministry take over. Politics are not my thing, but I do enjoy reading what other people write about it in their fics. Anyways, good luck with Chapter 7, though Ill say that I’m more interested in the one I haven’t read at the moment.

 

No, I'm not doing politics. Just Harry manipulating Fudge and Pederson to gain access to the archives and find the file that Dumbledore had hidden there (leverage).

I don't think I'll make Harry dabble with politics more than necessary. I like his character too much to turn him into one of those bastards...

 

Damned good story.

 

Now that's a challenge if I ever heard one. Maybe I need super!Ginny to save crying-wussy!Harry because she's the only one who can get through to him!

Actually... I feel dirty just typing that. Maybe a smut-filled follow-up to "You Shall Not Harm Harry Potter!"

Harry had a firm grip on his naughty elf. He had to stop him punishing himself and start him punishing Harry.

"Insolent elf! I never gave you permission to spit!"

Dobby's turgid green member throbbed in anticipation.

Err... maybe not.

Actually I'VE GOT IT!
Potions Accident + Ginny = HP/GW hardcore graphic slash!

 

And, just for the record, I intentionally left out any mention of Ginny in this one-shot to illustrate how useless and unworthy of note she was.

But she *was* stalking Harry and wearing his underwear and glasses when tower go boom. She was unidentifiable bits. Just, you know, for the record.

 

Aaaaah! Stop it! Stop it! I'll admit! I'll admit everything!...

Seriously, that part was disturbing enough without you going all graphical on us poor readers.

 

I really enjoyed this story, very good for a oneshot.
Many authors seem to spend 20 minutes writing their oneshots, and don't even use spellcheck. I'm glad there are some good authors that write oneshots.

The sad thing is, if you actually posted a fic like this on FF.nazi, it'd probably get 1000+ reviews....... :s

 

May God have mercy on the poor soul above, because the DLP most certainly won't.

*runs away to escape from the inevitable fallout*

 

Ha.

I was just reading another of your stories when i came upon this gem:

Things like that are why i love your stories.

 

I usually don't enjoy one-shots, but this one was great. Most don't tie up the story enough, and leave me wanting more. This one was short, sweet, and to the point, as a one-shot should be. I also liked the Death-Eater controlled Ministry. Antagonists winning always a pro for me.