So, the problems with HBP are well-broadcast and everyone has their ideas about what they would change if they could.

But here's an interesting exercise: what would you change about HBP, if you were limited to only those changes which could be made without needing to make any subsequent alterations to Deathly Hallows?

That is: you can change HBP, but it has to remain 100% compliant with all other HP works.

My thoughts:

1. I would remove the references to Harry struggling with various pieces of magic, and particularly non-verbal magic. There's no need to overdo the "everyman" angle and Harry doesn't need to be bad at non-verbal magic for any reason - certainly it plays no role in DH.

2. I would add a Dumbledore's Army arc where Harry continues to study, practice and teach Defence with his circle of friends. I would use this for two main things: (i) to introduce the magic we see Harry casting in DH (Confringo, Expulso, the campsite spells, further improvements in his Shield Charm) and thereby give Harry more of a self-improvement, preparing for the war arc within HBP, and (ii) lay more groundwork for the DA-based resistance against the Death Eater occupied Hogwarts in DH.

3. I would include more interactions with Order members passing through Hogwarts, keeping us abreast of what is happening in the outside world.

4. I would have Harry study the Half-Blood Prince's potion book in more detail, taking a more thorough interest in the why/how of the spells the Prince invented and the logic underlying the potions. So that by the end of the book, Harry has actually grown as a result of his use of the book, it's not just something he's used to coast without putting in effort.

5. I'd expand the Harry/Ginny relationship, with more of a build-up (actual interactions/chemistry, not just Harry staring at her arse) and also more depiction of their actual relationship.

6. I'd have the Harry vs. Snape duel at the end be a bit more evenly matched (Snape would still win, but he wouldn't dominate Harry so much that there was no fight at all).

7. I'd have the DA driving the Death Eaters out of Hogwarts at the end be more of a moment of success for Harry, a vindication of the work he has put in through the year.

 

Considering that Deathly Hallows still happens, I would explore the significance of Wand Ownership more, since it's going to play a major role in how things resolve, including the defeat of Voldemort. I think the easiest way would be incorperating it in Dumbledore's lessons with Harry. Those lessons would also include other magics Voldemort doesen't understand which causes his downfall, like the nature of fairy tales, of love and the debt between people. Perhaps even a throway mention of Harry having to learn an instrument since "music is a magic beyond what is taught at Hogwarts".

A more major change would be having Slughorn be the DADA teacher, instead of Snape. The Book of the Half-Blood-Prince would now be a DADA book, instead of a potion book. And it includes several notes drawn from Snape's knowledge of dark magic including his own jinxes, hexes and curses. Harry being already naturally talented at DADA, but mostly in a defensive context takes on a new perspective on the more offensive applications of the dark arts to the worry of his friens he also begin researchign the restricted section(with a permission from Slughorn delighted by the prodigy). That explains powerful curses such as Confringo he can cast in Deathly Hallows, in addition to his sudden ability to use the unforgivables.

 

Laying the groundwork for Hogwarts during DH was my first thought when I saw this thread. I wrote a post discussing it before realising I was blind and noticing you had already mentioned it.

If you're adding a DA arc, I'd like to see a serious discussion about child soldiers, and the effects of warfare on societies and people.

In terms of child soldiers, it may be dark, but I don't think it's any darker than what we saw in the last three books. In particular, I'd like to see a nuanced discussion of the topic. Whenever I think about it I'm reminded of the Warsaw Uprising, which puts me in the uncomfortable position of "supporting" the use of child soldiers in battles such as that, in the sense that they were facing extermination and genocide.

The children in Warsaw could either have not fought because children "should not fight", increasing their chance of being exterminated due to the reduced military capability of the uprisers, or they could fight like everyone else and increase their overall chance of surviving. They chose the latter, though in the end they lost and the Nazis inflicted horrific suffering on Warsaw for it.

So I think a discussion about when it's right or wrong and the blurriness of the line that divides the two would have been much deeper. It would also have followed on into the events of Book 7. It should be treated as a deeply regretful but ultimately necessary thing to do.

The book touched on the societal and personal effects of warfare, but it was pretty light in that department. I think the best we got was Diagon Alley being deserted and Harry having nightmares (?). Of course, not covering the topic is better than butchering it and in fanfic many authors seem to think PTSD rates are near universal, when in actual fact even in horrific war zones the rates are something like 20-30% among civilian populations and 10-20% among soldiers. At the same time, I'd not want the story to get bogged down by it so I'm not sure what amount is right.

After everything that's happened, I'd have liked to see more mature interactions with the adults of the Order. With the Department of Mysteries and other life-or-death situations I'd hope they'd treat him like less of a kid. Things like talking with Moody, Kingsley, Tonks, Lupin etc, a couple lessons, maybe even a few drinks together in recognition that Harry's forced into something that adults should be doing, which of course keeps Harry abreast of the magical world.

I'd go back further to the end of Book 5 for that. Have it start at the end of the year so it's going all through book 6.

Only through Harry's skills improving and not through Snape being nerfed.

 

I'd make it slightly harder for Snape to win too, but it would also crush Harry to be defeated (not as) easily, despite how far he's come. It would introduce the possibility of a training arc following a reconstruction, while highlighting the gap in skill.

Logically these ideas make sense, but thematically they replace "Taking control of your own destiny and continuing to fight despite stacked odds" with not a lot. I'd replace it with a "Actual cost of kids going to war theme" theme, regarding the harshness and un-glamorousness of war as a background to kids forming a militia. Also add in a lost childhoods thing, maturing beyond your years and all that. And use it as fuel to explain the grit and determination towards self-improvement harry would have (later to be torn down a la Snape).

PS: Just noticed Download mentioned some of this. Basically agree with that.

 

1. DA- I would continue with the DA, but it would attain a more militant character. The involvement of six of their members including their leader in the DoM fiasco could be used to gain new recruits and galvanise the members.
This also contributes to raising the skill level of the general student body and acts an incentive for Harry to improve so that he keeps ahead of the pack when it comes to magical combat.
The DA would be more involved in chasing out Death Eaters from Hogwarts.

2. Show how the war affects the school population in general. Students taking things out on each other. Students losing faith in the faculty due to their ineffectiveness during the previous year where Umbridge and her inquisitorial squad had a free run.

3. Slughorn as the returning DADA teacher who has come to redeem himself by contributing towards the efforts to take down his old prodigy. Harry's advertised skill (6 students who haven't received their OWLs going against veteran death eaters and coming back alive) and status as the chosen one gave Slughorn hope that he can help someone in taking down Voldemort. It would make more sense to ask the DADA teacher about a dark artifact than the potions teacher.

4. Harry and Co. have more awareness of the war situation due to increased interactions with the Order and Dumbledore.

 

For me, the lack of mystery when it came to the Draco Malfoy plotpoint bothers me more than anything else in that book. Harry and the reader are both fairly certain the whole way through that Malfoy has become a Death Eater and is behind the cursing and poisoning, it's just Ron and Hermione and Mr Weasley etc who don't believe him. Then we find out that yeah, this is the case, we and Harry were right. The end. (I did enjoy the Snape reveal though, but not enough mystery.)

To make it plottier and more in line with the previous books, it would start the same but there would be a twist towards the end, where the reader is fooled into thinking Malfoy is innocent after all and that someone else is behind the things he's done. There are many potential ways to do this, many suspects to choose from, you could introduce a new character or make do with one of the background cast or even, if you really want to fuck with the reader, make it seem as though one of Harry's friends, one of the DA, is joining Voldemort. (Could also make it seem like there's another enemy, not Voldemort-related at all, behind Katie Bell and Ron's murder attempts, but that would involve a lot more plot and I digress.)

The way I'd do it, because I do like a bit of interpersonal drama and I like Ginny's character (what there is of it) a lot, and I think there would be room to flesh out one of the Slytherins other than Malfoy in Harry's year a bit more, I think I would make Ginny's boyfriend after Michael Corner not Dean Thomas but Blaise Zabini. There's a bit of cattiness between them already in the Hogwarts Express scene, so I think you could engineer an enemies to lovers relationship, which would be conducted in absolute secrecy (possibly Ginny would tell Hermione towards the end, they seem to talk about these things in confidence, and that could be an interesting subplot for Hermione, she'd be acting suspiciously too because she's sitting on a massive secret).

Harry becomes friendlier with her, recognizes his feelings for Ginny, but with hints about her acting strangely but really not enough for the reader or Harry to have a chance of piecing it together. Harry's focus is on Malfoy. Then the bombshell is dropped. Harry will either think that Zabini is a Death Eater and Ginny is unwittingly feeding him information which has put Katie and Ron in danger, or that Zabini is actually grooming her to join the Death Eaters. Latter might be a bit hard to swallow unless there's a lot more plot and build-up.

So a few possible plotpoints:

Ginny and Zabini are also using the Room of Requirement, only they're going there for privacy rather than magical carpentry.

Katie happens to be with Ginny and not LeeAnn when she goes into the Three Broomsticks bathroom and gets cursed.

Zabini and Malfoy could have a big semi-public falling out, and it's generally seen as Zabini denouncing extremist views (sub-plot of nuanced Slytherin characters?), but then something makes Harry think it might be the other way around and he's been wrong about Malfoy all along.

There could be a memory in the Pensieve that gives backstory on Zabini's mother. Shouldn't be too difficult to make her a bit sus if she has a history of killing her spouses, but some memory that ties her to Voldemort. Or maybe make it less obvious who the memory is about, just a woman connected with Voldemort, another small mystery for Harry to figure out and he at first thinks the memory has to do with Narcissa or Bellatrix and then later realizes it's Mrs Zabini who's being referred to. There would need to be a resolution in the last chapter when Blaise explains that he doesn't hold quite the same views as his mother, or that she's changed since then.

Some plotline to tie Snape to both the Malfoys and the Zabinis. In the first ch of HBP, Bellatrix can make a passing reference that she's heard that he still visits Mrs Zabini, before they get onto the Unbreakable Vow and talk about Draco. Then a scene that in some way mirrors the one with Snape and Malfoy during Slughorns Christmas party, but less obvious, the reader is supposed to think that it's Malfoy until:

A switcharoo just before Harry leaves with Dumbledore for the cave, the Trelawney scene will implicate that it's Zabini and Ginny and not Malfoy celebrating in the RoR, Harry will hurry off to tell this to Ron and Hermione (perhaps just Hermione, if such a thing can be engineered), and she tells him that oh she thought they broke up, she's been telling Ginny ever since she found out that Zabini isn't good for her, that he's manipulating her etc, that she needs to stop seeing him. Harry will then go off with Dumbledore without having time to confront Ginny about it and will fully be expecting Zabini to come out on the top of the Astronomy Tower when he gets back with Dumbledore from the cave, but then, to the reader's immense surprise, it was Malfoy all along, Zabini was never a Death Eater just in a top secret relationship, Ginny and Zabinin broke up weeks ago and Harry gets together with her for just one night or something, make it a night he really remembers and he's haunted by it in DH because he thought ill of her and he never got more than that one night and woe is me.

This all became very convoluted, but my fix would definitely involve someone other than Malfoy who could be a potential suspect. Other than that, I love the Order and would want see more of them, either in action or more of the backstory, more info on the first war. Then I would have loved to have seen one more magical location. A magical theatre or a cinema or a circus or even just a restaurant or something. Not as a plotpoint but just as a backdrop. In line with other commenters, maybe a fair and Harry just catches a snippet of a children's play or puppet theatre or something with the tale of the three brothers as a bit of foreshadowing.

 

I can see why you won the competition.

I love the Ginny-Blaise subplot. To give Ginny a bit more agency, it could be that she wasn't enamored of Zabini so much as trying to convince him to ally with the Order, which she does.

 

Why would a 16 year old girl who herself is not a member think she could find "allies", such as a 17 year old boy?

 

At this point in my life, I just can't foresee any changes I can make to a YA book - that needs to remain YA - that I'd end up enjoying.

Not without nuking everything, a la having Harry get expelled to remove him from the highschool drama bullshit I can't stand.

 

That could make a nice canon divergence fic, Zabini aiding Ginny, Neville and Luna with insider knowledge in DH, perhaps even some help with horcruxes for Harry and co, and Harry unhappily resigned to the idea that when he's dead, Ginny might end up with Zabini again. Ginny, of course, only ever sees Zabini as a fuckbuddy/tactically useful person to save. The narrative could allude to history almost repeating itself, in regards to the Snape/Lily/James triangle becoming Zabini/Ginny/Harry (if you squint).

More difficult to fit it into canon Deathly Hallows, though. Unless instead we just kill Blaise off in the fight after Snape kills Dumbledore in HBP. Then his only role in DH is to be rolled out as an example to less militantly purist minded Slytherin students of what might happen if you go against Voldemort, so a further reason for why every single one of them sides with the Death Eaters.