Challenge 1:
When Dumbledore left Harry at the doorstep of the Dursley's, he wished that Dursleys would not be spoiled, even a little abused for him to be his Golden Boy. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for Harry, Dursleys did not even think about a possibility of raising Harry Potter in their house, so they drove him to the nearest orphanage. Due to some accident, they left him at a very nice and good Christian orphange. The monks and nuns were very nice and tried as hard as they could to raise boys and girls entrusted to their care as good, honest people. Harry did not have new clothes or other materialistic stuff, however he had enough (if not very tasty) food to eat, monks and nuns helped him when he had a nightmare, other kids were his friends and looked after him. However, one day a bully two years older than Harry came to the orphanage and immediately started to dislike Harry. Monks tried to stop the bullying but did not succeed. One day, when the bully was especially vicious (for a 5 year old anyways), Harry's emotions took over and he magically (accidentaly of course) threw the boy to the wall. Monks and nuns saw the incident, so they thought that Harry was possessed by devil. They called an exorcist (true one) from Vatican City. The exorcist was a Holy Wizard and after hearing the reasons for the accident, he understood that what happened was accidental magic. He took Harry to the Vatican City's Holy Monastery of Magical Learnings where he started learning to control his powers. Now, you may wonder why the Catholic Church would have a magical school. That's because after the Inquisition, they understood, that magic can not be evil if it can heal wounds better than any medicine, protect people from fire and so on, so they hired some wizards to teach the most important people in the church's hierarchy about magic. After getting to know what true magic is really is and what it is capable of, they decided, that they should look for any signs of magical abilities among orphans, living in the orphanages, priests, popes, bishops and cardinals. When the results of the test arrived, they were shocked, because there were some people with magical potential. That's how magical school was created. In the school they thought very extensive courses on Defense Against the Devil Forces (equivalent to DADA at Hogwarts), however they were not as prejudiced as British wizards. Every werewolf, vampire and any other Dark creature was honestly tried for any evil activities. If they were found to be guilty of killing or other such acts, they were mercifully executed by using the most humane muggle method.
Harry was taken to the school, where all the teachers were nice but hard taskmasters. By the way, they did not know Harry's name, because there was no note on him when he was found on the doorstep of the orphanage. Real names of students were not used however. Harry was especially successful at the DADF, and after 11 years of intensive studying, being 14 years old, he graduated from the Vatican's Monastery of Magic, he chose to stay there. He heard about rumour of Dark Lord Voldemort coming back, but as the Ministry of Magic of Britain thought it to be rubbish, he stayed for one more year. Next year, a 16 years old Harry heard from the pope, that British Ministry aknowledged the return of Lord Voldemort. He also told, that Hogwart's Headmaster Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore asked for Vatican's, French, German, American Aurors help, to defeat Dark Lord Voldemort. Pope decided to send thirty wizards to help Britain. Harry is one of those thirty.

Rules:
1. Harry is not some super powerful wizard.
2. He IS trained as good if not better than British Aurors.
3. Almost all other Vatican Wizards are better trained, more experienced and more powerful than Harry, however during the mission he is going to be trained a lot by others and will EVENTUALLY be the best of them. No sudden power jumps.
3. After he comes of age, he will meet Dumbledore, and he will get to know his real name, but it won't matter to him because he is a Vatican Wizard.
4. Vatican will not brain wash him.
5. Vatican wizards will NOT be some supper powerful magicians. Only better than Aurors, because most of them were training for things Aurors do for most of their lives.
6. No pairings. Harry's a monk for St. Peter's sake

Umm... That is all, I think. Would write it myself, but I doubt it would be good enough... Disscuss...

P.S. Sorry for my english because I am not English...

 

Interesting, has potential, however on some points seem could be better.

First British Aurors would be much worse than Vatican wizards. As to why, they go to hogwarts or another school, then Auror training. So standard (ministry restricted) primary education + standard training (more similar to a basic bootcamp than elite training).

I see Vatican wizards sort of equal to hitwizards or Depart of Mysteries elite. Only focused on fighting evil and demons. Also their training is not controled or restricted by ministries. So the corrupt ministry guidelines as to marking many powerful magics as dark would not color their training.

Vatican wizards would not be soldiers though, not really geared for wars as in muggle wars, however more prepaired for wizard wars than Aurors. Clearly outmatching the general population (many of the order members would count as such).

Granted this Harry would not be likely manipulated by Dumbledore and others. However he would not be dark, rather a trained holy wizard.

While with your guideline of having Harry not be a super powerful wizard (at least to start with), most British wizards would be super weak compared to him anyways. There would be many reasons for this, including education and power suppression (could be ministry/dumbledore's doing).

What if Vatican wizards do not use wands? Instead they could use crosses and staffs, as that would fit better and blend in.

So Vatican wizards do not have to be super powerful, just use their potential unlike the very weak suppressed/restricted British wizards. So they do not need huge magical cores and reserves or such things. One of the things they should be good at would be working together to pool their castings and power, well geared to not just face but destroy dementors as those are the kind of creatures they are specifically trained to face since they could be demons even if they are only minor ones. Not that a single wizard could hurt or destroy a dementor, though a team could.

Channeling massive amounts of spiritual energies through their crosses, from worldwide sources such as churches would allow them to pull off feats of holy magic that other wizards could not. Due to being properly trained and tuned for it. Other wizards would lack the mental preparation, magical and spiritual tuning.

So while Vatican wizards would seem powerful, in truth they are not much stronger than the average wizard, if they applied themselves.

 

Oh woe is me for I am British and thus repressed, biased and weak!

/sarcasm

Did you just write that challenge to insult the British?

Anyway, moving on to an unbiased dissection of the challenge.

Original premise is ok. Not perfect, cause there aren't that many completely catholic orphanages around, but ok.

Getting found to be a wizard due to a 5 year old teasing him...Dodgy at best. Have it as one of the older children taunting him, or perhaps even an older child who's just there for a Catholic schooling or something. Then you can have the child taunt Harry about not having parents without being a hypocrit.

Idea that the Vatican Exorcists are Holy Wizards who hunt down untrained witches and wizards...Nice! I like it.

Idea that the Inquisition decided that magic wasn't evil...dodgy. Thou shalt burn witches or some such shit is a line in the bible. If anyone has taken the bible too seriously in the past its the Inquisition. Better would be if a Pope in the past had been saved by a wizard. Perhaps the Papal palace was burning down and the Pope was trapped in his study, no way to get out. Just as he finished commending his soul to God a wizard apparates in, picks up the Pope and apparates out. The Pope then declares magic to be a gift from God to His favoured people, or some such religious jazz.

Extensive courses in fighting evil...thats fits with it being a Churchy thing. There would also be extensive courses in the Bible, and indoctrination and brain washing and such things, because its a Churchy thing as well.

"They were not a prejudiced as British wizards."

Hmmm, hello?????? who are we talking about here? The Vatican. Has there ever been a more prejudiced institution than the Catholic Church? Possibly, but not by much. Why would their wizards be ohhhhh so liberal? Did you ever consider that perhaps there is a good reason that werewolves are discriminated against, that dark creatures in general are discriminated against, that half-bloods like Hagrid are discriminated against? Perhaps there is. Wouldn't that be a novel concept? What if werewolves are dangerous all round the month, not because of their bite, but because of their enhanced strength and lack of any anger control. The instincts of a wild animal, the strength of a magical wild animal, and the complete lack of any control...sounds dangerous to me. Lupin might be an exception, or perhaps he takes a potion provided by Snape on the order of Dumbledore that makes him less angry.

And as for things like vampires. Ever consider that they might actually be pure evil beings? They aren't just people that happen to live forever and require blood to live. They might just actually happen to possibly be animals, with the instincts of animals, greater strength than most animals and a hell of a lot of Immortality.

Half-breeds like Hagrid...Hagrid thinks that a dragon makes good indoor pet. He has the instincts of a giant...an animal. Do you sense a theme here? Half-breeds might be human in appearance but their minds aren't all human. Having a man who thinks of a dragon as a cuddly fucking toy isn't the best person to have teaching students how to look after magical creatures.

I think that the Vatican would destroy "evil" things on sight, not give them a nice little trial, with the right of representation and then humanely kill them, if they're found guilty of 'evil' acts.

Ok, then you have Harry go to brainwashing...I mean Vatican school and learn how to destry the vampires and werewolves...oops sorry I meant to say "the Devil forces".

And then we have a 16 year old who is better than 20 somethings, who have had specialised training? Unlikely. Aurors aren't just wizards with a little training in how to arrest someone. That's Hit Wizards (I'm going by what JKR says Hit Wizards are, not what fanon says they are.). No, and Auror is rigorously tested prior to being accepted for training, so their skills and knowledge are well above average then, (thats after 7 years of studying at the best school of magic in Europe if not the world), and then they get 3 or so years of additional training. We know there is a stealth and tracking course, and that there is a camouflage and concealment course, Tonks tells us that. Apart from that we don't know. I would think from that small amount of information the Aurors are more a mix of Special Operations Armed Forces and secret agents. SAS and MI5/6 mixed together. How would a 16 year old fresh from school be better than them?

And jts360, if neg rep was still around you would get it in spades from me.

Yes, as I said, woe is me for I am British and thus everyone else in the world is better than me simply because of that fact. No matter that we conquered a third of the world, despite being one of the smaller individual nations. No matter that we are still one of the more influential nations in World Politics. No, we are weak and suppressed because we like traditions.

Think about it, is there perhaps a reason that the Ministry might be restrictive in what magic they let folk learn? Perhaps dark magic actually damages people? Or perhaps its an effort to make it less easy for the general public the maim and kill. As some authors like to write, every single person above the age of 11 in the Wizarding World carries a lethal weapon. Is that not enough reason to try and restrict their method of killing people to otherwise fairly useful spells? Or at least spells that have a purpose other than killing or maiming?

 

What I posted was not about the British in general, not at all. It was only about the corrupt magical ministry of cannon and fudges cronies. How does that equal being biased against the British?

You are reaching and twisting it there, is all I'm saying.

It has been written by many a fics author that the wizarding world is full of bigots, hench malfoy's spouting of "mudblood" in cannon. That is not saying anthing about the real worlds British or government. I do not get where you could have equated it as such.

My view on the "fictional" magical world of cannon and au, does not have any basis in reality towards to the British. They could be any other group, such as germans, french or any other country.

Sure there could be good reasons for the ministry to restrict certain magics, however in many ficts it is politics and keeping the population weaker than the ministry, more than anything else.

Much like excessive gun laws, criminals will have guns no matter what, over regulation just insures that good citizens are unarmed and easy prey, plus possibly easier to oppress.

Maybe I should have left British out of the description and simply used something less exact...

 

This is Stupid.

 

About Aurors being strong:
Maybe Hogwarts is the best magical school in the world, but it's DADA program is just rubbish. So, let's think who would be better: 16 year old who was trained SPECIALLY to fight Dark Forces for 11 years or so, or an Auror after SUFFERING 7 years of Hogwarts DADA training and 3 years of Auror training? Also about the church, personally, I am not religious at all, so I don't really know, but I think that the church should be a lot more tolerant than in the times of Inquisition. About werewolves and vampires - God said: Do not kill (or something like that), so the church will follow the orders of god and will not kill anthing that remotely resemble human being without a very good reason, hence the trials comence. Also the thing about a wizard saving pope's life is a very good idea. For the end, I wanted to thank you for pointing out inconsistencies and so on. Also, my english is not good because I am not English, but Lithuanian. My understanding of Christianity is not very good too, because I do not believe in God.


EDIT: By the way, thank you deathinapinkboa for you incredibly informative, intelligent and otherwise useful post.

 

People go on and on about how if Harry was trained from a young age he would be teh shiz, but bear in mind, how much information can a young child really learn? Would you really want to teach a 5/6 year old how to cast spells that can actually hurt people. What happens when they have a tantrum? At that age there is little to no self control. 11 is about as young as you can go, thats about the age people start to become mentally mature enough to be trusted with potentially lethal weapons of the nature that magic is.

So, perhaps Harry is getting taught some basic magical theory for 5-6 years, maybe a few small spells, like households charms that have no violent application at all, but nothing more. And even the magic theory could only be simply, because a young child doesn't a) have the vocabulary to understand advanced things and b) doesn't have the capacity to think overly deeply about things. I think that magical theory would be more like a philosophical class than a science class from the point of view that it required deep thinking rather than rote memorisation.

So he would have 4-5 years of being specially trained to fight the Dark Forces, not 11.

And how do you know that Hogwart's DADA course is actually that bad? Quirrell stuttered certainly, but does that mean he completely failed to convey any information? And apart from that Lockhart is the only one who probably failed at teaching them anything. Lupin was a good teacher, fake-Moody was a good teacher, Snape (whilst not very nice) knew the material and seemed a reasonable teacher.

We know from HBP that NEWT level classes require self-study, partly because Harry sucks at all his classes because he spends time moaning rather than studying, and party because in potions they're expected to know things, like how to identify the required ingredients for an antidote without being taught in class.

The same could probably be said for OWL level if you want to attain a really good grade. And if someone wants to become an Auror they need good results in the two exam levels, so they would do the required study. Remember, the exams are externally set and administered, so I would assume they are externally marked as well. That would lead me to suppose that the required material stays roughly the same from year to year, no matter what teacher is teaching. This would mean that anyone serious about getting a good grade would study the required subject matter despite not getting taught it in class.

So your point about suffering 7 years of Hogwarts doesn't work for Aurors, because by dint of becoming Aurors, they've shown that they took their studies seriously and were able to study the required material to an advanced level.

Also, to become an Auror you need I think E's at NEWT level in like Potions, DADA, Charms and Transfiguration, not just DADA. So Harry can get as much tutoring in DADA as he wants, he can be the world leading expert on it, but he won't have as wide a breadth of knowledge, because he hasn't STUDIED as wide a variety of subjects.

We are given the impression in PS that 7th year DADA is rather advanced, the study of Dark and dangerous material, which to me would suggest that they are taught how to actually Defend Against the Dark Arts.

Yes, God said Thou Shalt Not Kill, but when did the Church ever listen to that? How many died in the crusades? How many died during the Inquisition? How many died during The Troubles in Ireland? How many were killed in the US due to white Christians like the KKK believing themselves superior to blacks? How many, have died in the name of God? What makes you think that the Vatican, possibly the most tradition bound anally retentive country on Earth, would have changed that much?

As a, probably bad, example: President Bush claims to, and appears to, be an exceedingly fervent Christian. I'm quite sure he would be quite happy to ignore due process and hand out the death penalty willy nilly to anyone who looks at him cross-eyed.

And, given that the Church hasn't really changed its opinion homosexuals, divorce, abortion or just about anything else since the middle ages, what makes you think that they would change their position on killing someone that they don't think is a Christian?

And do you really think that a human appearance for most of the month would stop the Vatican from killing a werewolf once they see what it turns into on the full moon? Would they actually give a vampire blood to feed on when it was in custody? Now, we don't know if that would simply kill the vampire, or send it into a blood rage, but its safe to assume the end result would be a dead vampire, right? One vampire rampage, and all vampires would be declared outside of God's sight, or some shit, and Church wizards would be given permission to kill on sight. Same with werewolves.

And your English is better than the English of a lot of folk I know who've been speaking it all their lives.

 

I agree with Mordecai on this one. While the idea of a holy warrior Harry is interesting the idea of a morally progressive catholic church is not. From the original idea you give me the impression that Harry and by extension the church monks would be more powerful than aurors because Brittan is backwards. Never mind that the bash the British line of thought that Mordecai objected to, I just dislike the idea that somehow the catholic church would be better because they allow study of more arts that would be considered dark by the ministry of magic.

Forgive me if I've mis interpreted but that idea, which is an annoying cliché of most of the Harry is raised by someone else genre, is ludicrous. The idea that the church would be dabbling in anything morally gray is just dumb. Likewise this egalitarian spirit that you infuse the church with seems wrong. I can see the idea of being at the forefront of research into a cure for werewolfs I don't see any of that compassion translating into leniency for werewolfs. The way I see it the Vatican would also be funding most of the werewolf and vampire hunters out there. And vampires are quite clearly an abomination that need to be cleansed and sent to God.

Harry being as powerful as an auror is a cliché too. I suggest that Harry is capable of some sort of ability that the other holy wizards aren't and they need Harry for that, not as a fighter. After all the idea of the monks and priests of the Vatican being lethal warriors delves into a layer of hypocrisy that can be safely avoided. Thankfully I think that they should be much better at aurors dealing with dark creatures but even more hesitant to take human life than the aurors are.

 

This could work, if you turned the Vatican into a black and white organisation that makes Barty Crouch Sr's views on Dark Wizards seem lenient. The child training is a bit far fetched, though its been done well before (given that 9 year old Harry acts like a 50 year old), but having him trained to specifically deal with Dark Creatures could work.

Maybe the Vatican is the foremost 'monster hunting' organisation in the magical world, and they send Harry along as an apprentice to one of the professional monster hunters. For work experience . (NOTE: I know this is going a very Van Helsing-esque route but bear with me) You could even have his 'master' become a bit sympathetic to the Dark/Dark Creatures and give Harry a moral dilemma (assuming that Harry isn't the equivilent of a berserker paladin who believes every word in the Bible with all his heart) where he has to choose between the church and the man he trusts most in the world (and it wouldn't be a woman cause the Catholic Church is just as sexist as it was in the Middle Ages, despite their claims).

So things in Britain have got to the point where the night is a dangerous place for any light-sided wizard (I'd place this at about 2 years post-Hogwarts canon time). Vampires prowl the streets, feeding indiscriminately. Fenrir Greyback is leading vicious assaults against wizarding families every full moon and giants are being used to great advantage by the Dark Lord. Thus, the Ministry sends out a request to the Vatican for help destroying them. The Vatican sends out several Hunters, and Harry tags along as an apprentice.

As you can see I may have got a bit carried away for a minute there , but I quite like the idea of Harry being trained by the Vatican - it has a good range of possibilities, with a good chance of Holy magic (which kinda tickles my fancy a bit ) and many laughs for the Harry-Remus confrontation.

Aekiel

 

I like it, but only because I'm Catholic...

 

Too many minutiae, some of which are honestly retarded (due to their specificity), but otherwise solid idea.

 

God damn that's a big necro, but what's worse is that I just got a shock of what I was like two years ago. Damn. Thank Fuck I've become much more cynical since then.