I saw that there's already a challenge posted by Vendo for a lich Harry story, but no one has accepted. After all a skeleton Harry wouldn't be too much fun to write or read.

Here's what little I know about Liches:-

1. A lich is a wizard who converts himself into a undead (the flesh eventually decays away leaving only the skeleton) by means of necromancy, storing his soul in a magical receptacle called a phylactery, which can be of virtually any form.

2. In some sources the method of becoming a lich is referred to as the Ritual of Endless Night. The lich creation process is often described as requiring the creation and consumption of a deadly potion which is to be drunk on a full moon; although the exact details of the potion are described differently in various sources, the creation of the potion almost universally entails acts of utter evil, such as using as an ingredient the blood of an infant slain by the potential lich's own hand, or other, similarly vile components. The potion invariably kills the drinker but if the process is successful he rises again some days later as a lich. The wizards magic, power and physical strength may get enhanced when he becomes a lich and he may gain new powers like raising the dead etc. Occasionally, this metamorphosis occurs by accident as a result of life-prolonging magic.

3. Since a lich's soul is mystically tied to its phylactery, destroying its body will not kill it. Rather, its soul will return to the phylactery, and its body will be recreated by the power keeping it immortal. Thus the only way to permanently destroy a lich is to destroy the phylactery.

4. Liches don't need to burden themselves with the necessities of bodily functions (such as eating and sleeping) so that they might dedicate every moment of their existence to the attainment of knowledge and power.

While a Horcrux ensures that its creators soul cannot cross over to the 'other side' after the his is destroyed, it stays in a helpless state lesser than even a ghost (as demonstrated by Voldemort). So a phylactery is superior to a horcrux as far as ensuring immortality goes. But it gives an 'unlife' rather than immortality.

I wonder how such a fic could be written.

How Harry will gain knowledge of the Ritual of Endless Night? In the Hogwarts restricted section/the Black family library/room of requirements/book shop in Knockturn alley/in a vault Harry didn’t know he owned? I got a better idea, why don’t we have Harry google it instead.

Translation: The author should come up with some original concept.

Alternately, he could be accidently turned into a lich. I can think of one such scenario:-

Vodemort realizes that Harry is a Horcrux and theorizes that if he can remove Harry’s soul while keeping the body alive, his Horcrux will automatically takeover the body. Harry dies in the ensuing ritual, the corpse disappears after a few days. Years later...............



Now that Harry has become a Lich willingly or accidently we have a problem. He has no flesh and blood. Surely this can be rectified with a little magic.

I figure that since all wizards (even second year students) in the canon universe seem to be capable of transfiguring animals from inanimate objects, a transfiguration master might be able to transfigure humans from objects. They may have the intelligence level of only savages, but humans none the less.

So Harry with years (or months if he has a 'cliché warning!!' time turner) of practice may be able to transfigure living flesh over his dead skeleton. But still he won’t be ‘bonded’ to the transfigured body. It would just be like clothing. Unless! he uses some form of Legilimency on the transfigured brain in his skull to connect to the body’s nervous system. With that he has his body back and he can feel, eat and even fuck again. He can easily connect or disconnect to the portion of the brain responsible for feeling pain.

Ofcource there are still some complications like a dead skeleton won’t produce white blood cells which is crucial to the survival of the body. But surely magic can take care of pesky little problems like that. Harry still might have to ‘change’ his body every month or so as transfigured things can’t last forever.

The author is of course welcomed to use his/her own original idea of getting Harry’s body back.

When Harry restores his body he may rejoin society. People will perceive that something is wrong with him but will never be able to figure out what. Harry will take great pains to protect his secret. He will try his best to avoid the killing curse. After all if his transfigured body dies he will lose all his facial expressions and people will realize he is an undead.

I would love to see Harry become a Dark Lord in such a fic. He could create liches from his enemies and bind them to his will, in addition to requiting ‘living’ followers.

Hmm....Would write it myself but I doubt it would be good enough.

So instead I am putting it as a challenge.

Rules:-

1. Harry must become a Lich (if you didn’t guess it yet)
2. He should somehow create a living body to go over his undead skeleton. Alternately he may create a illusion of his previous body to hide his real self.
3. He should amass followers and eventually become a Dark Lord.
4. The story should be non-DH compliant.

 

Why would anyone want to become a lich, unless it was the absolutely last recourse toward immortality availible in a certain setting? Sure you might get a 'boost' to your mana levels (how this applies to HP I'm not sure) but you have to spend the rest of your life (until a hero kills you) in a gross body - hope you don't plan on ruling publicly.

Lol at Ritual of Endless Night. Obviously pulled from some D&D sourcebook on the undead.

Also:

Not! Slight to no physical deformation (it's unclear how much of Voldemort's appearance was due to his multiple Horcruxes, I think, but at least he still had skin) versus being a molding skeleton after a couple years.

 

This is so disgusting.

 

Honestly its a neat Idea. But I don't see Harry becoming a lich, I do see Voldemort becoming one if his new body is destroyed though, its been done before and is pretty cool. I could see it working out of !stupid Harry, say he knows that's he's a horrocrux and must die to kill Voldemort, so he goes about creating his own horrocrux so that he won't really die. He moves all of his soul to his horrocrux, read phylantary, and then when Voldemort kills him he does in-fact die. Voldemort takes over but over the space of several years Harry pulls himself back together. Its possible he told someone what he was planing, a blindly loyal Ginny seems like a good idea. Anyway she revives him and they began to fight back against Voldemort. Harry being undead has trouble thinking morally so he'll grow to replace Voldemort rather than simply kill him.

 

Sounds like a terrible idea for Harry unless you can combine it with the Master of Death idea. I can't see anyone other than Voldemort willing to sacrifice their body like that.

 

Forgive me if I didn't quit understand the concept fully...first I've heard of Lich....

1. Harry must become a Lich (if you didn’t guess it yet)
2. He should somehow create a living body to go over his undead skeleton.

Erm? Wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose/challenges/drawbacks of becoming a Lich in the first place?

I mean if you could simply wave your wand and eliminate all the drawbacks of using uber dark magic rituals Voldemort would have a nose.

 

A story like that will likely end up being one of those Super!Harry failures. I'd like to see more non-slash necromancer stories; but not one where Harry chooses to give up his body to become a living skeleton with unlimited access to unholy magic.

 

I can't really see Harry becoming a lich voluntarily. Sincostan raised a good point: letting the Deathly Hallows become the reason for Harry's new look.

Harry, while having in his possession the 3 Deathly Hallows and thus being the Master of Death, is hit with the AK. At first there are no visible effects, but after a while his skin starts to rot etc.

Personally I think building an entire fic, even a short one, on the basic premise of Harry becoming a lich is a bad one - or a difficult one, whatever. What is his reason for becoming a lich? And when he finally becomes one, what is his goal, taking over the Wizarding World? He doesn't really need to become a lich to do so, Voldemort did do it without becoming a lich even though it only lasted for a year or so.

I think in the end the fic will be more about everything else, than Harry actually becoming/being a lich. That's just my opinion though.

 

I went over this with Sera for "Prince of Darkness" back in 2005, but he used it on Voldemort instead of Harry

 

That story is not to be mentioned among civilized company, Middy.

 

Civilization?

Whar zat?

 

link, please.

 

Sorry to be digging up this thread but could someone please explain why Horcrux=Phylactery isn't true? I always figured that this was where this where Horcruxes originated and Voldemort was a Lich, albeit with flesh.

 

I don't think anyone actually said that. I assume this idea was not really pursued because the author wanted Harry to become a Lich.

 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoulJar

Horcruxes aren't exactly an original idea, nor is the Phylactery.

Although, they also resemble Sealed Evil in a Can since they can possess you and use Our Precious Essence to regain a body.

 

I have never thought of the One Ring as horcrux-like. But I suppose there is enough evidence to make comparisons between the two. As soon as a horcrux was explained in canon I cringed and almost screamed, "You stole that from D&D! Big V is a Lich??? WTF?" That was also the point where I said, "HBP sucks." That's where it just went over the Lame cliff into unrepairable plot territory.

Lich!Harry=Fail
Lich!Villian in a story=Win

Just make sure it isn't a Dungeon Crawl.

 

I have a white-hot love for tvtropes.org. If it had a body I'd marry it.

 

Huh... Played one kick-the-door campaign too many?

 

If it had a body, I'd violate it. Hard. Multiple times.

The site has wasted many fine hours I could've spent doing something a bit more productive. Like having a life.

 

My own idea for "arcane Lich" Harry

On Halloween 1988, exactly 7 years after his defeat, Voldemort (wraith) + Carrows (as they were not in Azkaban) + maybe Pettigrew or another "free" DE kidnap Harry.

They could (for example) Imperio Vernon at his place of work seeing as he does not share Lily's blood and then he wiil take Harry away from Privet Drive.

DE + Voldemort will perform magical ritual (maybe at some significant location (Stonehenge with Muggle repelling wards)) to destroy Harry's soul and Voldemort will then take Harry's body over.

They would need 3 parts of Voldemort's soul because three is a powerful magical number and Voldemort just could not animate body by itself but because Harry has another part of Voldemort's soul/on Halloween is barrier between our and underworld at its weakest/Lily's protection/Power he knows not/whatever, ritual backfires and Resurrection's stone becomes Harry's phylactery.

(Diadem is near Dumbledore, Cup in vault guarded by Goblins, Voldemort does not trust Lucius "I was only Imperio victim" Malfoy so they should use Nagini and Ring)

Harry is now "alive" not because of unholy force of undeath but because of magic so "arcane Lich".
He can use Resurrection Stone but each use could slowly deplete his own lifeforce in his phylactery so no uber training with souls of dead experts and masters.