Okay, I've mentioned this challenge before in the Anti-Cliche Thread, but since I gave up on the story I was writing with this premise (giving him Merlin's powers, but only making him a Master of Charms, which was Merlin's specialty in the Potterverse according to the Lexicon, and horrible at Transfiguration), I now lay it open to the talented authors at DLP.

Halloween Chaos (converted from the Buffy fandom):

Premise: A dark mage by the name of Ethan Rayne blows into Little Whinging for a bit of muggle-baiting. He throws a huge costume party at the local civic center, cajoling and bribing the local parents into making their children attend, with costumes. During the height of the party, he performs a Dark Arts ritual which turns everyone into their costumes for a single night.


Rules:

1.) Harry must attend the costume ball.
2.) No one knows that the spell will be cast in advance.
3.) Harry must be wearing a costume that will significantly affect him after the spell is worn off.
4.) The memories and skills gained may be permanent or temporary, but no turning Harry into God of Magic or Superman.
5.) Feel perfectly free to use crossovers, although anime is just stupid. And completely overdone in the Buffy fandom with this challenge.
6.) Harry may gain knowledge, skills, talents, powers, etc. But he cannot become more powerful than Voldemort until the prophecy is concluded.
7.) Story must be post-GOF or post-OotP. HBP is just stupid and therefore ignored.
8.) Remember, the story is not about who he turns into that night, but how it affects him afterwards.
9.) Whatever the costume is, or the effects afterward, Harry must have gained some perspective, or at least a spine, making him more mature than canon!Harry. Or at least cooler.
10.) Feel free to make Harry dark, or reinforce his heroic aspects. Just keep him from being a pussy.

And . . . that's it. 10 rules, a simple backstory, and hopefully an excellent story

 

This actually sounds like a nice idea. The only problem is figuring out why Harry's little metamorphosis leaves a lasting effect on him, rather than simply fading away with the spell.

I'm picturing Rayne as a crackpot, a wizard of Dumbledore's cheery personality just laid a little insane by his use of the Dark Arts. It could also serve as a nice way to introduce the Dark Arts as being addictive, but not harmful. I see him walking down Privet Drive and tut-tutting to himself about how irritatingly monotonous the neighborhood is, and through some odd turn of logic, taking it upon himself to 'liven up their day'.

Nice challenge, rep++

 

As I said in the anti-cliche thread, an excellent idea, it could make a very good fic.

 

Or it could be a simple fact that Harry has magic and others don't so his magic sort of automaticlly tries to keep any additions. THat probably came out wrongm but the thing that is diffrent about Harry from everybody else in this party is he has magic. Maybe that has an effect on the spell cast.

 

But... there might be someone with magic in the area aside from Harry- they could be anywhere, and you never know. I'm not sure whether Rowling has confirmed the existence of any magical people (aside from Figg) in Little Whinging, so meh.

But if so, then you have to take for account Harry is different from other magical people. Ergo, his scar/connection to Voldemort and/or the Power the Dark Lord Knows Not.

Those could be related to his adverse (or simply unusual and unprecedented) reaction to the forced possession of Rayne's.

I've read Buffy fics where this is used- I believe there's one with Xander dressing up as a Jedi, and I enjoyed that particular fic.

All in all, you'd have to be able to express change within a person and their thoughts and attitude very well without explicitly stating their thoughts- like Sera did in Dakaath.

 

I think this is a great challenge. Does it have to be from a specific point of view or can it jump around a little bit? For instance, if I were to try and write this, could I write a little bit in Ethan's perspective and then switch to third person (clearly defined, though)?

 

POV is purely up to the author, although Harry must be the main character, and we must be able to garner insights into Harry's mind after the spell and the effect it has on him, essentially we must see his metamorphosis from canon!Harry to your particular fanon!Harry. I think that starting it out in Ethan's POV before switching to 3rd person is perfectly fine.

I intentionally left it up to the author to explain why Harry is more affected by the spell than anyone else. I prefer for my rules to be guidelines for the set-up and eventual outcome, and not dictations of your plot points.

As I've said, this is an extremely popular Xander-centric challenge in the Buffyverse fandom, but one of the main drawbacks is the tendency to make the main character into Superman or some uber-powerful god-like character. However, I've read fics where Xander was, as a result of his costume choices, turned into a Highlander-style Immortal, a mutant with the powers and knowledge of Wolverine, a Jedi/Sith, an assassin, a Goliath clone from the Gargoyles series, and even a future version of himself.

I think that this challenge would work extremely well with Harry going as Dumbledore, but that's just my opinion and not part of the challenge. The possibilities are nearly endless, and it can be an excellent start to nearly any kind of story. In the end, I try to leave most of the details and the entire storyline to the author; this challenge is just a way to start a story.

 

I'd love to see Harry going as Dumbledore though. Dumbledore would go as a lemon drop and fall uselessly to the floor for the duration of the curse.

And Colin Creevy as Harry.

 

I'd love to see him go as a werewolf. Makes a good way to keep the changes and adds an interesting aspect to the story. Or maybe I just like werewolves.

Or he could dress as an elf, a discworld elf. Cruel, amoral creatures that can keep people alive for a very long time. I was actually planning on introducing elves into the story I'm writing, I just find them fascinating compared to Tolkien's elfs.

 

It would be a good way for him to go dark if he went as a villian. Darth Harry!

He could go as Voldemort!