Maybe look to show his master of magic with him performing great feats of magic, or knowing spells that other folk don't, or being able to do things on his own that normally would take multiple people to do.

 

It's mainly for Harry to learn a trick or two from Grindelwald; the latter is not extremely important in the story. I'm not sure if I want Harry to learn actual spells from him, but I might pick that road if I can't think of something else. I don't mean to make Harry Grindelwald's student; only learn a couple of things from him, then leave him to his fate.

 

You could go with him picking up something more of a philosophy about magic or an unusual field of magic rather than anything more practical?

 

Good point. Maybe getting Harry started on shields with offensive applications like 'Protego Diabolica', except Grindelwald doesn't actually give more than the bare minimum of instructions (maybe even some contradictory ones), possibly with the intention of getting Harry killed because he suspects Harry is cut of the same cloth as young Gellert himself in some ways. (This is meant to be a ruthless Harry story, so he's not completely wrong.)

As for picking up a philosophy on Magic GG subscribes to... hmm, I'll consider it.

 

It could be as simple as "Never cast a spell with a single purpose, make every wand motion count for double or triple your opponents." All defensive spells should have some offensive or distracting component. Every offensive spell should be setting up future opportunities to manoeuvre, distract, or attack your opponent. If you could master that sort of approach to magical combat, you may come across to your opponent as much more powerful than you actually are. Combine that with being significantly more powerful/skilled and it could be devastating.

 

That ties in both ideas neatly (Shields like PD and something more abstract at the same time). Thanks for the idea!

 

So, I was taking a crack at messing with the HP prophecy interpretation because Horcruxes are kind of lazy. Getting rid of them and keeping the immortality goal and dark ritual. The ritual is to merge the soul with magic, which besides the massive power boost allows for the consciousness to remain after death as a quasi-ghost with magic allowing the magic ghost to create a new body to inhabit so long as there is magic. Each death represents a symbolic connection (i.e. family, wealth, etc.) and uses a powerful artefact to sever the connection with the final death representing the casters greatest enemy. The ritual protecting Harry messes with this, making Harry the conduit linking Voldemort with magic, he's still a quasi-ghost that's weak but still can do some weak magic. Fourth year sees Voldemort do the same ritual to get a body. The story starts seventh year, instead of a mcguffin hunt it becomes more like a heist movie where Harry, Ron and Hermione are gathering allies and setting a trap to kill Voldemort. The twist is that in order to make Voldemort mortal they discover they have to cut Harry off from magic which they try to do via magic faraday-cage which also means he can't actually fight Voldemort. Death eaters break the cage during the climax and Harry permanently cuts himself off from magic to make Voldemort mortal as Neville chops his head off with the sword of Gryffindor.

 

Some unfortunate volunteers take part in a test project called Hogwarts VR.

Characters' personalities and memories are forced upon them to some extent and their original memories in real life are suppressed. They have to try really hard to remember who they used to be.

Some of them just want to live their life and others fight desperately to get out and refuse to simply accept it and become somebody else.Even for those who choose to lie to themselves,their original personalities slip out once in a while. For those who are actively fighting,they can't completely escape their characters' personalities and experience.

If one is tortured into insanity,then they truly become insane.

 

Is the premise here that Hogwarts isn't real, its all a computer simulation? And that people's characters are just that, characters that they've taken on for the game?

 

From the sound of it, it's SAO: Hogwarts Edition. Could certainly be interesting, but it's not terribly original at this point.

 

I was actually thinking about Black Mirror,but I suppose it could be SAO.

If it's a stimulation,all the questions about why magic works in certain way don't need to be answered at all.

I just thought it would be interesting to see how a participant's original personality will war with their character's personality and how different people will react under such circumstances. If one is a loser in real life,will they refuse to fight at all?After all,they have a life here in the "magical world" and they're seen which may be something they don't have in real life.

Putting people with a certain type of relationship into different characters might produce some interesting results. For example,a single mom becomes "Harry Potter" and her loser of a grown-up son who lived with her and did nothing but gaming, watching anime and fantasizing himself as some fictional character becomes "Voldemort",what kind of conflicts will happen between them?

 

Ron-centric idea:

Harry and Hermione get together after the Ministry battle 5th year. Ron's, of course, hurt, angry and feeling betrayed. For the remainder of the school year, Ron avoids the couple and rethinks his life. Maybe he could get a summer workout montage out of it too, learning new spells and stuff from Bill and Charlie, maybe making up with Percy too and finds out what he's really good at (other than Quidditch and Chess)...and come back to Hogwarts sixth-year less hurt but with more distance to the "dream couple" and finding someone of his own (Maybe Lavender, maybe someone else, I'm not picky).

 

So basically have an indi!Harry intro, but changed for indi!Ron? I suppose it would certainly be a way to make him interesting enough to warrant being a main character. I'd not be immediately turned off of a fic by the description you've given.

If I was to tweak it at all, I'd suggest that rather than have him rely on Bill and Charlie, or making up with Percy (awkward to do since Percy cut the family off that summer), make the focus of his improvement Arthur. You could probably do some quite touching scenes about them redefining their father/son relationship and growing closer over the summer. You could expand on Arthur's backstory, as far as I'm aware JKR never expanded on his backstory on Pottermore so you'd have pretty much free reign.

Arthur definitely was around during the first rise, and presumably at the Ministry. Maybe he started out in general DMLE? Or even had his share of front line fighting in the Order? Lots of things he could maybe teach Ron, in an effort to distract him, help him get over feeling useless at his performance at the Ministry, that sort of thing. I can see him logicking his way into thinking teaching Ron to fight was a good idea.

And if you really wanted to push the boat out, you could have Ron and Ginny get closer as well that summer. Maybe rediscover that early childhood friendship that they no doubt shared by dint of being the only 2 younger than the twins and so likely being frequent targets. They head back to Hogwarts close friends, both having been jilted over by the person they have a crush on. Could be interesting.

 

How about Indian!Harry? Time for some Hindu-Hogwarts.

 

Plenty of that on Tumblr.

One thing I enjoyed about @Newcomb's WYLB was the mention of Australian kids at Hogwarts etc. I've never seen a fic fully lean into the idea of Hogwarts serving as the magical school for the Commonwealth rather than just Britain, but it's certainly an interesting concept (probably best suited for a political fic, as presumably it would be accompanied with some level of continued imperial/colonial presence in the wizarding world).

 

The idea of Australian students at Hogwarts just makes me imagine a few scenes like the foreign kids using charms to get waves going on the surface of the Great Lake and going surfing, only to have the giant squid object to being disturbed. Or going tree climbing on the Whomping Willow.

It is an interesting notion though, maybe a good way to run with Indy!Harry. He gets the opportunity to fuck off to Australia, or India, or maybe somewhere a bit more random like Saint Lucia. Spends the year at a school over there, comes back with a new attitude to life, and interest in taking control of his own destiny etc. India particularly could work with the parselmouth thing, its a bit of a cliche at this point but it could be done that parselmouths are revered in India and he gets given special training and experiences because of that.

He comes back to Hogwarts the following year ready to kick ass and take names. Maybe he gets sent abroad after GoF, as Dumbledore's way to keep him away from the Ministry? During what would be book 5, the basic plot of the book still happens. Voldemort moves to secure his power base in the shadows, and the Ministry continues to deny. Really you'd just need to shift the Department of Mysteries scene back by a few weeks so that Harry is back in the country, and it would all work out in terms of timeline.

 

After Harry helps Dudley out of a spot of trouble with the cops by giving him an alibi ("No officer when those fireworks went off my cousin Dudders was teaching me math for my special school classes"), Dudley decides to be a good old bloke and be nice to Harry.

The next day he drags Harry to the local gym, where Dudley and his gang are working out, with a poster of the UK bodybuilding legend Dorian Yates on the wall. Harry Potter decides to be the first Wizarding bodybuilding champion.

With a bit of help from Dobby and a bit of potion supplies for extra strength, Harry gets himself, Dudley, and the gang a bunch of anabolic steroids and adds a touch of swelling solution to the batch. By the time Harry is back in school for his 5th year, he's jacked, feels like he's on love potions anytime he sees any girl, and wants to dominate the Quidditch circuit.

 

To counter the indy!Harry trope of "it's so easy to find Death Eaters and prosecute them, just use some veritaserum!":

So basically a series of interconnected one shots set during the first war. A Death Eater suspect gets caught and each one shot will show how they used magic and sympathises to avoid having their secrets spilled by veritaserum. Some will have a sympathisers slip them a bottle of antidote before their interrogation, some will find that the Aurors can't get a warrant to use veritaserum because of missing evidence or unwilling witnesses, some might be put under the imperius after capture leading to them being medically examined and exonerated because they "didn't do those things of their own free will", doors left unlocked etc.

Basically a dismantling of the "hurr, it's so easy catch them, obviously the Wizengamot is completely corrupt and were bought with Malfoy gold! Due process, what's that?"

 

Could definitely make for an interesting few scenes. Some sympathisers in difference Ministry departments all able to help out in different ways - losing relevant paperwork, delaying medical examinations until after x arbitrary time where you say that evidence of the Imperius can no longer be detected, providing antidotes etc. And probably a few twisty lawyers using clever arguments to help at least a couple of death eaters avoid veritaserum interrogation all together. It wouldn't really have legs for a multi-chapter fic. But as you say, a short series of one shots. Or even shorter than that, a series of interconnected scenes.

 

One of the scenes could be a lecture by one of the more senior Death Eaters explaining how you can tell the truth without revealing anything useful, or incriminate someone entirely unrelated. If someone put a false memory into Rosier's head about how Crouch made him commit all the crimes he committed, I expect veritaserum would probably just get tossed out. Examining people's memories would probably be ruled as legally invalid as well.