Alright, here it is...

No one overhears the Prophecy when it's told to Dumbledore. He suspects both Harry and Neville to be probable Chosen one's but doesn't tell anyone.

At the age of one, Harry's parents are in Diagon Alley with him when there's an attack. Voldemort throws a Killing curse at James or Lily who's carrying Harry and it hits Harry, rebounds and in the effort to shield him from the curse, whichever one of Harry's parents is carrying him gets hit with the rebounded one. There, Harry's marked, one parent dead but in all this chaos no one knows about it, not even Voldemort. When Dumbledore sees Harry at St. Mungos he understands that Harry's the chosen one but keeps it secret.

Five or six years later, the war's going nowhere so both sides agree to a peace settlement. Voldemort and Dumbledore agree to have different areas ruled by the Dark Lord and under Dumbledore's control. Ministry was destroyed some time ago and the light side is now directly under Dumbledore. Hogwarts is partially split under the agreement (and I have some ideas on how this will happen but it'll make the post too long) And it is to this, a mostly peaceful magical world split into two that Harry enters at the age of 11 as a Hogwarts student and starts making waves that Dumbledore helps with and Voldemort just starts to take notice.

 

Why the hell would Voldemort, of all people, agree to a peace settlement? The argument that the 'war isn't going anywhere' assumes that both parties don't actually want a war.

 

well how about he's low on forces and building an army under the settlement. Voldemort isn't stupid, he knows when to back down.

 

Then why would Dumbledore give him that peace agreement? Voldemort is a terrorist, not a man leading a civil war. If they could get to the point where they could stamp him out, then why not?

And that also assumes that he'd need a armistice if he was low on forces. What Voldemort does is terror-tactics - they wouldn't be able to get to him pre-emptively anyway if Voldemort follows his canon behaviour.

I suppose you could circumvent this by making it an actual civil war, though. Voldemort would need a lot more support behind him to call it a war. And so would Dumbledore, now I think about it... canon is really just a terrorist group being fought off by a vigilante group. The general populace does nothing.

 

If Voldemort had managed to conquer certain parts of the country, defended them well with military-esque tactics, and established his own individual nation, seperate from the current wizarding world, the two could well co-exist, albeit with a lot of friction.

There would be no peaceful agreement. Every square inch of land under Voldemort's control would have to have been earned in blood. No government would divide their power with a criminally insane psychopathic terrorist, but they may, after time, be willing to agree to a ceasefire, just to put the bloodshed on hold; Voldemort might want time out to reorganize his forces, or settle things within his lands, or focus on a new goal, but he certainly wouldn't get bored of the war and agree to peace.

Look at the attitude of other countries in Prince of the Dark Kingdom, if you've read it; they don't like what's going on in Voldemort's kingdom, but ignore it to avoid conflict.

 

I can see him agreeing to a peace deal if he is losing, perhaps with a power sharing agreement between him and Dumbledore/Ministry. If you do that instead of having Voldemort and Dumbledore split Britain into two (I don't see this happening since it appears that land doesn't have the same value to wizards as it does to muggles), you could write a pretty good fic.

BUT the other point of your idea doesn't make sense. Why would Harry be marked? The scar is representative of Voldemort's horcrux inside of him. In this AU since Voldemort never got hit by the rebounded killing curse so his soul didn't tear and a piece didn't latch onto Harry. This means there is no scar in this AU and Dumbledore wouldn't know that Harry is the chosen one unless he saw the curse rebound.

That's in the Second Wizarding War. You can say the first one was more like a civil war. It's said in canon that during Voldemort's first rise he had the support of a wide array of magical creatures. I can imagine this being quite the army.

 

Well if you think of Voldemort as that charming bright lad packing a lot of power from his hogwarts days where he's trying to revive the ideologies of Slytherin and has a support group behind him, it makes more sense. Now, I'm thinking the Wizarding World isn't that big and their lands are simply spots of land in britain hidden from muggles. Dividing those up in terms of where the support for either group is larger would make sense. I'm not saying this is gonna be a joyful peace where ooh the sun is shining and look there's Voldemort, lets go say hello. Just spots of land on the wizarding world marked Dark, Light or Neutral (maybe not in those terms, they sound cheesy). But the wizarding world does co-exist because Dumbledore doesn't want more bloodshed (and wants to wait until the rise of the chosen one whom he knows has the power to defeat Voldemort) and Voldemort has more sinister plans which he conducts in secrecy. Also, i'm not sure but my plot bunny would put this settlement after around 15 years of constant war.

 

Why would Voldemort need or want land?

 

Only if he was attempting to set himself up as a ruler would Voldemort want land. Spots of land here and there don't really make sense. Perhaps the ambient magic, if you want such a thing to exist, could be 'tainted', and inclined towards either light or dark magic, but you'd be forgetting something.

Light magic is pretty much purely fanon. There is magic, and there is dark magic.

Voldemort could use a single set base of operations, and may have a few others in strategic locations, but what you're suggesting sounds like something out of a war-based strategy game. This isn't Rome: Total War, or Age of Empires, or whatever you've been playing.

This is Harry Potter.

 

Indeed. He probably values power over PEOPLE rather then LAND.

If you write this, you should make it a Voldemort-Dumbledore have to cooperate and rule together AU setting. I don't think that has ever been done well. What your suggesting is pretty much a canon rehash.

 

Voldemort, in canon, is not logical. He goes with complex plans over simple ones. No one, especially Dumbledore, is going to think that Voldemort would ever keep an agreement.

 

You could try Dumbledore being more proactive, forcing Voldemort to flee the country to regroup after heavy losses. That sounds kind of shit to me typing it, but at least it's more logical than dividing land.

 

You could argue that he is like this because he created too many horcruxes which messed with his sanity. Remember that in the AU the OP is describing, Voldemort has two less horcruxes then at the time of the HP books.

 

Make it so that Dumbledore was forced to give Voldemort the Defense Position as part of the peace deal...
that's got potential.

 

Make it so that this story never happens. We'll all be better off.

 

I think that this is one for the firing squad.

"READY! TAKE AIM! FIRE!"

...Then again, allot of my own half-arsed plot bunnies aren't that better.

 

Uh. Yeahhhhhhh.
No.

 

Drats, foiled again.

 

You just raped canon with a thirteen inch dildo up the ass. The HP books are based on Voldemort being a fucking idiot.

 

And on him being unable to back down. Even death couldn't stop the brain-dead force of nature that was Lord Voldemort. I believe his exact quote was