Dumbledore underestimates Voldemort.

Apparently, spending over a decade as a ghost can teach even the Dark Lord a little humility. He doesn't play with Harry after his resurrection, ordering Wormtail to simply kill him with a knife and leaves his body for Dumbledore to find.

With all his plans to defeat Voldemort in ruins, Albus goes to the only person who might help him, Gellert Grindelwald. They fake his death to let him leave the prison and together they stand against the worst Dark Wizard in the history.

Obviously, to go against these two, Voldemort not only learned a thing or two about managing his hubris, but all these years as a spirit wasn't completely wasted in his quest for power.

This plot bunny focuses on three most powerful wizards of the XX century, but there is a second one with the same setup that allows for Harry to enter.

Realizing that with the Prophecy fulfilled Voldemort is unstoppable, Albus and Gellert decide they need Harry Potter one way or another.

The more dark take have them using the darkest of the dark magic to either bring back Harry or reanimate his body.

The second one would have him as a sort of Frankenstein's monster, if not in appearance, then in his tragic second life. He's not Harry and doesn't have a soul, but he remembers Harry's life and have feelings like a normal human.

The more light take have them realize they just need a Harry Potter and they bring one from the different world. The problem is that this Harry Potter may be very different from theirs.

Possible Harrys:

1) From a world where Albus and Gellert never parted their ways and rule it. Harry is a son of Lily Evans-Snape, a member of the resistance group called the Death Eaters lead by the only man who fought Grindelwald and survived, Tom Riddle, and James Potter, Albus Dumbledore's main enforcer.

2) From a world where Harry Potter is basically everything Albus was worried he could be, if he was exposed to his fame too soon and without a proper supervision. He's charming, popular with girls, with an ego rivalling Lockhart's and he couldn't care less about fighting some Dark Lord.

3) From a world where Harry is a teenage actor playing in a fantasy series called Danny Radd about a world similar to the one he found himself in.

4) From a world where Harry was trapped in a time loop for few centuries and while powerful enough to challenge Voldemort, he's not exactly sane and has problems with adjusting to the world where there are permanent consequences of his actions.

 

Best to go with the Frankenstein monster, he'd be less of an abomination that way.

 

The thing about Voldemort is that he is so (supposedly) powerful, that without those flaws of him, he really is unstoppable. If you take them away, at least give him some other flaws - perhaps his magical power is very diminished, or simply make the Ministry and Dumbledore much more competent. If you make Dumbledore underestimate Voldemort, make Voldemort underestimate Dumbledore as well.

 

Snape is only his stepfather and not necessarily one that he likes.

He does underestimate Dumbledore since he isn't expecting him to release Grindelwald. I'm more unsure if these two together shouldn't be too much for him to deal with.

 

I suspect they would be quite a threat to Voldemort if they where fighting together against him in a straight up duel, but seeing as it's Voldemort I can't really see him confronting them that way. Voldemort would be way more likely to run than anything else.

 

Keeping on the Grindelwald train: Grindelwald - DADA professor.

"Come now, Minerva," said Dumbledor stroking his beard. "I dare say Gellert will be a fantastic defence teacher. Remember his death ninja? Personally trained one and all."

 

The curse on the position would mean he'd be dead within the year.

 

Gone certainly, but dead? Lupin, Lockhart, Snape and Umbridge all survived.

 

Died in the Final Battle and orphaned his son. Obliviated himself and ended up in St Mungo's. Was murdered by a giant snake a year later. Probably was rapped by centaurs. I wouldn't call that 'survival' - more like that they got postponed execution.

 

The curse doesn't last when you leave the DADA position. Lupins and Snapes death were just a consequence of the war.

 

Did you just imply that ANY creature in the world could be willing to have sex with Umbridge?:fire

 

Murder on the Orient Express: Harry Potter edition.

Basically a story showcasing the detective abilities of an Auror (as opposed to their more commonly depicted combat skills). The story would focus on a young Auror Harry, just out of training, who is aboard the Orient Express when a murder occurs. He then solves this murder.

The train would be a mixed Muggle and magical train. Having Muggles around helps the plot in various ways. Firstly, it limits the use of overt magic and thus doubles the focus on detective skills rather than magic use. Secondly it blocks off easy solutions to the problem like "bringing in more Aurors". Thirdly it adds an opportunity for fun dynamics between the wizards and Muggles. For example, when the murder occurs the wizards on the train would naturally defer to Harry as not only is he an Auror, he is also known for Voldemort's defeat. But the Muggles would be rather more confused over just who this Harry Potter guy is.

The use of the train in the first place takes a little justification, but can easily be done by a little bit of worldbuilding relating to cross-border apparition being restricted.

I was thinking that the backstory could be that Harry has been sent by the Auror Office to a conference in Istanbul. He would be accompanied by a representative of the DMLE - one Pansy Parkinson. They would each resent the other's presence and their being sent on this trip together - I was thinking of a similar dynamic to that of James Bond and Vesper in Casino Royale. Harry is in charge but Pansy is in some sense there to keep an eye on him.

Obviously a big part of the success of such a story depends on having a dynamic and interesting cast of characters. And given the post-Hogwarts and international setting, you have to be careful to avoid "class reunion" syndrome, so it's important to limit the number of characters personally connected to Harry.

So some ideas for some of the cast of primary suspects:

- Harry Potter, British Auror, protagonist.

- Pansy Parkinson, Under Secretary within the British DMLE, assigned to Harry Potter.

- Blaise Zabini, British-Italian wizarding playboy, accompanied by:

- Ms Zabini, Blaise's mother and renowned for her long series of mysteriously dead husbands.

- Jean Claude Durand, French civil servant, a suspicious and belligerent Muggle who contests Harry's authority at every turn.

- Count Brian Dracula, Transylvanian wizard distantly descended from the famous vampire, who trades greatly on his name's mystique

- Mr Jacob Anderson, Muggle army veteran originally from Georgia, USA on his honeymoon with:

- Mrs Lilian Anderson, American heiress from New York who married Jacob to her family's general disapproval.

- Osman Özdemir, Turkish wizard, Professor of the Dark Arts at Durmstrang, on his way to the same conference as Harry.

Inspired by the recent Murder on the Orient Express trailer.

 

I like it, but I would do it fully in HP world as Murder on the Hogwarts Express.

It's the tenth anniversary of Harry's year graduation from Hogwarts and at the same time the tenth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts and Voldemort's defeat. For this reason, everyone is invited for a ride on the Hogwarts Express and a ball that will happen at the school.

This class/year reunion goes well enough until someone kills Draco Malfoy and it's up to Harry and Ron to discover who did it before the train arrives to Hogwarts.

Instead of limiting it because of Muggles, I would play with how magic needs to be taken into consideration while performing the investigation. Like, making sure that the Polyjuice Potion wasn't used to either frame someone or let him have an alibi.

 

Thinking of an AU/Dimension Travel fic where a 25-30 year old Harry finds himself in a dimension where Ariana was killed by the muggles that broke her, eventually resulting in a Dumbledore and Aberforth far more committed to a Greater Good and the subjugation of muggles. The rest of the world as a result has been entirely taken over by Wizards.

I was thinking of a fic with a Harry that lands here, desperately trying to figure his way home while being hunted down on all sides.

 

Same thing for Portkeys?

Another issues is how the muggles and wizards would be forced to interact. Maybe the train is subject to an enchantment or has low-level sentience that allows Muggles to board? I like having the train be magical in some way because it can add interesting flavor and world-building.

Or the story could be about the train itself, like how the Great Gatsby is about New York City or Tokyo Godfathers is about Tokyo, and the murder-mystery is just one of an innumerable other stories that we get hints of through other characters (like Ms. Zabini, Dracula, and Özdemir).

 

Harry Potter and the Narrative Causality

The universe shown in the Harry Potter universe doesn't work by the same rules as the real world, it doesn't necessarily run on the laws of physics, at least not entirely.

Instead, it runs on the human concept of magic and the Author's whims in the form of the Plot.

So what if someone discovered the true nature of the universe? That the entire reality runs on the concept of Narrative Causality and some things are simply meant to be: "Love Triumphs", "Good Guys Win In the End", and so on.

Perhaps it's discovered by Voldemort, perhaps by Grindelwald or Dumbledore, or maybe it is Harry himself who learns the truth.

I imagine the truth would be quite shocking to any of them. Sure, they are used to the idea that magic overrules muggle laws of physics, but to know that the entire reality is dictated by The Author's Plot would be another thing entirely.

 

Yer a plot device, Hermione.

 

It'd be a decent one-shot, but would you be going anywhere with that? Maybe Voldemort somehow manages to find and capture the Narrator to rewrite everything to his bidding, and Harry has to stop him while the Universe is literally working against him.

 

So Taure's post got me thinking about trains, and this popped into my mind.

Voldemort's fragmented soul languishes between life and death. Now, the soul most closely connected to Voldemort's is once again passing between. All the pieces of the Dark Lord are desperate to escape, and they won't let their only opportunity pass. As Harry Potter passes away, he faces the same train he did a century ago. This time he boards the train, but he is not the only passenger.

I originally thought of this plot bunny as a way to get Harry vs Voldemort in a new world, but I never thought of an appropriate crossover. Instead, I imagined how this might work as a horror type of story. Harry is stuck on a train with pieces of his worst enemy, ranging from the mostly sane Tom Riddle from the diary to the monster that Voldemort was at the end. Harry's outnumbered, and parts of Voldemort are deranged enough to do anything while others are still possess the cunning that made Voldemort so dangerous.

 

Plot Bunny:

Alternate Universe in which Horcuxes can only made using living human beings. And these people can still be killed, so it's not a permanent solution.

I guess the best solution to this limitation would be to have the Horcrux-People make their own Horcruxes, and so on.

Basically Voldemort turns Bellatrix into a Horcrux, she then turns Barty Crouch Jr. into her Horcrux.

With this setup, Harry would be forced to kill people in order to defeat Voldemort.