This is alright, but I think the better point of departure for Harry is after meeting Dumbledore in the King's Cross waystation of the afterlife.

From Voldemort's perspective, Harry was struck by the Killing curse and completely disappeared, as if Vanished. From Harry's viewpoint, he was going to go back and finish Voldemort but a part of him felt drawn to a different platform.

It would take time in King's Landing for Harry to find his feet and learn the language(s). I can't see him flying under the radar there for very long, especially if he has a wand and isn't afraid to use it. Who do you suppose would be the one to adopt and guide him in this situation: Littlefinger, Lord Varys, or the Faceless ones?

 

I was thinking Littlefinger, the paranoia that the man exudes would do more to push Harry down some of the nastier roads that I'd enjoy seeing him walk.

 

I can't remember where I saw it, but something akin to that has been done. IIRC, it was a Super!Harry who had been pranked rather than Dumbledore, the idea was the same.

 

After the war, Harry doesn't become an Auror. He's sick of fighting, and killing. He wants to learn about healing. So he does so, and spends his spare time volunteering for peaceful organisations and stuff.

In the end, even staying in Britain is too much. He constantly has to deal with the press, survivors from the war, and the whispers of a public that are still in awe of him.

He flees, across the channel, and settles himself in North-Eastern France. He ends up living a few miles out of the nearby village, settled in a cosy log cabin, where he helps brew up 'natural remedies' for the local villagers. Some sort of [MAGICAL ACCIDENT] occurs, and Harry is thrown through the walls of his cabin, and knocked out.

When he wakes up, he is immediately assaulted by eleven men, all in shining silvery armour. Ten of them have short swords and large shields, whilst the eleventh yells commands from the back of the group. In a language Harry doesn't quite understand. Harry stuns all of them, and leaves. He wants to make sure his cottage hasn't burnt down.

But he can't find it. Nor can he find the village he'd lived by.

Wait... since when were there blokes in metal armour tromping around Northern Gaul?




Basic premise was that Getafix was actually a pseudonym for Harry Potter. But no real ideas for plot advancement once Harry had gone back in time.

 

I would read the fuck out of that. HP/Asterix crossover? I never knew I needed it until this exact moment.

 

That's all fine and cool, I'd read it too, but it's Panoramix not Getafix :awesome

 

My only real thought for potential plot had been to have GETAFIX go along on the adventures, but sneakily. And basically do a retelling of some of the comics, but with Harry/Getafix casting magic behind the scenes, which is why Asterix and Obelix manage to succeed.

But I felt that would diminish them as characters.

The other thought had been to have Harry wandering around being a druid, and avoiding Romans. But then he isn't really being Getafix, he's just being HarryInTheRomanEmpire.

I'd gladly chip in if someone else wanted to write it, or step back if they wanted to go solo. Otherwise this will likely lounge in my 'odd ideas to work on at some point' file, and not surface for quite a long time, if ever.

 

Harry Potter / Tibia crossover. I played the shit out of that MMO a few years back. It has a nice magic system that even though relies on mana, has pretty strong spells and therefore Harry would not be overpowered. Since in the Tibian Universe most heroes (players) seem to be random people taken from alternate universes thanks to the Gods, we have already an explanation as to why Potter appears there.

While initially Harry would have to get used to the new situation, eventually the plot would focus on The Ruthless Seven as well as other hellish/demonic creatures invading the Tibian world. Who knows, perhaps the demons would discover a way to invade Harry's dimension and now he really has to take care of them.

 

I just started watching Fate/Zero, and had this idea for a crossover. What if Dumbledore's next great adventure was to be summoned as a servant (Caster) to say a little boy a la Waver Velvet. It would be interesting to see how he plots to win the Holy Grail, especially if he finds out HP and the gang are losing badly to Voldemort in his previous timeline.

Alternatively he could be bound to someone whose ideals totally run counter to his, and it'll be really interesting to observe the dynamics as he is held in check by the command seals and he has to protect his master against the other servants.

I'll probably write this myself in the near future, or do a collab with someone who's interested/skilled enough.

 

I had a random plot bunny some time ago that's a twist on the love potion story. As usual, Harry is under the effects of a love potion towards Ginny. The twist is, Ginny is also under a love potion towards Harry - for once, it isn't her (or Molly) doing it.

So who is the culprit? Fuck if I know, that's as far as the bunny goes. I don't think it has enough substance for a full story, but it might make a nice one-shot or short story if a good writer (i.e. not me) wrote it.

 

Or any of the Weasleys, or Dumbledore, or...

If you just go down the list of major characters that don't love potion Harry in a million stories, the obvious first one is Hermione. It'd be an utterly out of character thing for her to do unprompted, so a story exploring why a canonish Hermione would do such a thing could work.

 

Hmm. It's been awhile since I played in this thread. Let's see...

It's best if you write it so that the twist is that each is dosing himself or herself. Done right, the reader won't see it coming.

The Power of Love® is the key to defeating Voldemort. The trouble is that Harry's craptastic upbringing makes him incapable of intimacy or affection. He comes to realize that without alchemical help, he won't be able to finish this war. It's not about him anyway, and he doesn't hope to survive, so why not give it up to some slag so he can do both what's right and easy, if you catch my meaning. Dumbledore (or Snape, choose your poison) memory-charms him after each draught so he can ignorantly believe that he is Farm Boy to his Princess Buttercup.

Ginny knows that without Harry's being able to love, they are all lost. Though she's long since become disillusioned of the broody, scrawny, self-absorbed twit, and actually has her eye on that dishy Michael Corner or, heaven forbid, the forbidden fruit of Draco Malfoy, with whom she spent a steamy evening bobbing her head and hips over the smaller and slenderer of his wands, she pities Harry and figures that since Michael is busy banging Cho, she may as well get some nookie, even bad nookie. Etc., etc...

The reveal should come just before their wedding (a routine check for love potions/compulsion charms?) or just after, when they are stuck with one another "untill death us do part." Perhaps Harry learns of his heritage--that his parents were similarly dosing themselves--and decides to name his firstborn after his fucked-up father. His second son, he names after his dealers, Albus Severus.

 

It's been done.

I'm not necessarily saying it was done well or that it couldn't be done again, possibly better... but it has been done.

It's usually still Molly or, occasionally, Dumbledore, for all the usual reasons.

 

Okay, it's of the "if you say it, someone must write it" ilk:

Harry Potter/Time Bandits crossover. There are so many ideas for ways this could work, it defies enumeration...

 

God, I don't know what the hell happened here. I meant for this to be a simple outline, maybe a thousand words, but... Just, uh, take what you want from it and ditch the rest if the idea interests you.

So here's my plot bunny. Originally popped into my mind when the second DLP Writing Contest was announced, but at this point I don't think I'll ever get the chance to do it proper. We'll do this instead.

Harry Potter Hunger Games. Let's go.

Harry Potter is an ordinary boy of ten years old, with a less than loving family of his aunt, uncle, and cousin Dudley. His aunt and uncle are never really abusive to him or anything like that, but it's very clear who they prefer between he and Dudley. And Dudley himself... well. Let's just say they have their differences.

Harry goes through his day to day life doing chores, reading books, and generally being bored with life. It's difficult for him to make friends because of Dudley's meddling, so most of his time is spent with himself. He wants something to change. Anything.

A couple weeks before his birthday, a letter arrives for him in the mail.

The barrage of insanity-inducing letters follow as Vernon persists in trashing them, and the day before Harry's birthday they leave the house with all of their necessaries packed in the car and go to stay in a hotel for the night. Simple.

Harry's woken up by a sharp rapping on the door.

He comes sleepily to his feet in the darkened room from his spot on the floor and goes to open the door, only to have his arm roughly grabbed and jerked back by his aunt, who just hushes him softly when he tries to ask what's wrong. He sees his uncle is awake as well, glaring fiercely at the door. They sit in silence while the knocking continues. After a while it stops, and Harry's relatives sag in relief.

Then the low, annoyed voice of a man on the other side of the door mutters a word, and the lock on the door clicks open.

While Dudley snores away, oblivious, and Petunia and Vernon watch in horror, the man opens the door and steps into the room, his features shrouded in the darkness of the night. A moment later he flicks the light switch, illuminating the strangest man Harry has ever seen.

He's very tall, standing head and shoulders above his uncle's height, and clothed entirely in a pitch black robe. He has smoldering black eyes, a crooked nose, and a greasy head of black hair falling down to his shoulders. And in his right hand, strangest of all, he holds a long wooden stick. He gives the room a once over, scowls darkly at Harry's aunt and uncle, and then says gestures for Harry to follow him.

Vernon takes this moment to explode, leaping up out of the bed and waving his beefy hands at the strange man, shouting at him to get out of their room, they didn't do anything wrong, who does he think he is- And then the man waves his stick and a streak of crackling red light leaps out from it, hitting Vernon in the chest and dropping him like a puppet with his strings cut.

The man snorts and turns back to Harry while Petunia wails and Dudley slowly comes to. He waves his stick again and Harry's aunt falls silent, even as her face contorts in anguish. The man gestures at Harry a third and final time and walks out of the room. Harry meekly follows.

The man flicks his stick at the door and it slams shut behind them, then he grabs Harry's shoulder and Harry's world falls away into nausea and confusion and endless pressure. An eternity later he stumbles as solid ground reappears beneath his feet and falls to his knees, gasping.

When he finally manages to pull himself together and look up, he finds himself in a brand new world.

The man chooses that moment to speak, introducing himself as Severus Snape, a professor at Hogwarts. When Harry asks what that is, Snape just stares at him for a long while, making Harry feel a little lightheaded as well as exceedingly awkward. Finally he shakes his head, muttering something about muggles, and begins to explain.

Harry is magical- a wizard. His parents had both been magical as well and as such he had qualified for Hogwarts, the most prestigious magical school in all of Great Britain. As it happens, Snape is a teacher at Hogwarts and has been tasked with escorting Harry through the maze of impossible creatures and creations they're currently standing in the entrance to- Diagon Alley.

And so they set off, with Snape curtly explaining in full this new world that Harry is apparently a part of and all of its various intricacies. Harry just follows along beside him, taking it all in, mute with shock and wondering when this dream is going to end. Eventually they enter a small shop filled with shelves upon shelves of long, thin boxes, and the change in Harry's world is cemented forever.

A small, subdued looking man with shining eyes steps out from a room behind the counter, gaze drifting up at Snape with a frown. It shifts over to Harry, and the man breathes in sharply.

"Mr. Potter?"

Snape immediately grabs the back of Harry's collar and drags him out of the shop. He tells him to wait while he speaks to the shopkeeper, leaving Harry to marvel at Diagon some more and wonder what the little man had said to alarm the professor like that. Several minutes pass before the door opens and Snape ushers him back in, and by then the little man is looking even smaller, avoiding looking at Harry entirely as he hands him a box.

When Harry opens it up he finds a stick similar to Snape's lying inside- a wand, Snape had told him. Feeling a strange thrill of anticipation surge through him, along with the beginnings of doubt of this being a dream, he picks it up and swishes it. Nothing happens.

Before he has time to be heartbroken over his apparent lack of magic, the little man snatches the wand from him and hands him another box. And off they go, on a search for Harry's wand. Wand after wand passes from the little man to Harry and back again, with varying results, but none that satisfy the store keep.

As this goes on the little man gets more and more excited, withdrawing from his somber shell and chattering about all sorts of wand-related things that Harry has no knowledge of, but that seem to put Snape further and further on edge the longer he goes on. Finally, the little man takes another failed wand from Harry and, looking furtively at Snape, retreats into the back room. He comes out with a small, worn box clutched in his hand, and pops the lid off. He holds the box out reverently.

"Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches."

Snape jerks forward a step, but Harry has already plucked the wand from the box and given it a wave. His eyes go wide as a surge of something inexplicable tears down his arm into the wand, and from the tip of the wand a shower of golden sparks shoots into the air, basking the entire shop in their glow. Snape steps in front of the little man, murder in his eyes, but Harry interrupts him by happily declaring this wand to be the right one. A myriad of emotions play across the professor's face then, but at last he nods grudgingly and tosses a handful of coins down on the counter, stalking out the door with one last glare at the shopkeep.

The little man bids Harry goodbye, introducing himself as Ollivander, a wide smile on his face.

The rest of the day is inconsequential as far as Harry is concerned, so absorbed is he with his wand. It is this that has finally convinced him of the reality of this world, and it is something he's immediately grown attached to, and he spends the rest of the shopping trip waving it to and fro and watching, dazzled, at the sparks the fly out of it.

The moon is high in the sky when Snape announces that they have everything Harry will need for his schoolings, and Harry asks him if they have to go back to his relatives the same way they left, dreading another trip of mind-crushing pressure. Snape shakes his head, something unreadable in his eyes, and tells him that he won't be going back to his relatives.

Harry stares at him, speechless. Snape just shakes his head again and grabs his shoulder, and Harry is once again enveloped in the agony of wizard travel.

They appear again inside the waiting room of a building, whereupon Snape promptly flicks his wand and unshrinks all of the bags from his pocket, dropping them on the ground. He nods curtly to Harry, spins on his heel, and disappears with a crack. Harry is hopelessly lost at this point. Enter the receptionist.

What follows is a long, long discussion that Harry doesn't really understand at all but that mostly amounts to: Your relatives were a very bad people and you'll be staying in this orphanage until your term at Hogwarts starts. And so it is that he spends the weeks leading up to his trip to Hogwarts confused and unsure as to how he should take this. His relatives weren't the best of people, sure, but they didn't seem that bad. Dudley, sure, but he was just a kid.

He's not exactly torn up over trading them for magic, of course. Just confused.

When the day finally comes the various caretakes gather up all of the kids and procure a few portkeys- if there was one good thing about Harry's situation it was that there was no lack of interesting mgical things to learn- which they take to a train station. Harry shuffles in, staring out the window and wondering for the nth time what was so bad about his relatives, when someone hesitantly asks if they can sit in his compartment.

Enter Ronald Weasley. Harry accepts, and Ron soon strikes up a conversation with him. Friendship.

When they get off the train at Hogwarts, Harry is stunned into speechlessness, thoughts of his family momentarily forgotten in the face of the castle before him. After a boat ride across the lake in front of the castle a stern looking woman takes control of their group from the equally stern man who had lead them across said lake. She introduces herself as Professor McGonagall, and leads them in.

After a dizzying series of twists and turns they arrive in a massive room filled with floating candled and tables and lots and lots of older students. McGonagall herds them past the tables in front of a raised platform with another table atop it, this one seated by adults. McGonagall steps up onto the platform and takes a seat at the table, and another adult stands up.

Like everyone else Harry has seen in this new world so far, he's wearing a robe that covers most all of his body, but unlike everyone else's this one seems off, somehow. It's darker, if that were possible, licking at the ground where normal robes flutter, pulling at the light of the candles flickering above. It looks like the man is wearing a shadow.

What little can be seen of him from beneath his robes is pale white, except for his eyes. They're a startling shade of crimson, no pupils or irises in sight, and burn with something that Harry can't even begin to explain. He steps forward, holding a tattered black hat in his hands, and speaks. When he does his voice echoes throughout the room.

"The Sorting will begin."

The students are called up one by one, and remembering what Ron had told him on the train of his family's history with Gryffindor, he goes up to the hat crossing his fingers. He stands in front of the odd man and looks up into his crimson eyes, only for his vision to be obscured a moment later by the hat.

The hat hems and haws, stating that Harry would be good in near any house, Harry puts in his two cents, and Gryffindor it is. The crimson-eyed man takes the hat off of him, and for some reason Harry gets the feeling that his smile is just a bit cooler now.

The Sorting passes, Ron is sorted into Gryffindor as well, and the crimson-eyed man speaks again.

"Welcome, old students and new, to another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For those of you who don't know, I am Voldemort. Your headmaster."

An introduction ensues, about all of the joys of Hogwarts and the magic that everyone will be learning and how he expects great things and all of the usual fare. When the necessaries have drawn to a close, he pulls a wand from his robes, a wicked-looking bone white instrument paler than he is. He twirls it in a complicated series of motions, and all of a sudden a massive ornate goblet appears in front of him, wisps of faint blue smoke rising from its lip.

The entire table is dead silent now, and Ron is looking queasily at the staff table along with everyone else. Harry hesitantly asks an older looking student across from him what's happening, and after a couple "You really don't know?"s he explains.

The tributes for the tournament are being chosen. Every year since Voldemort became headmaster there's been a tournament at the end of the school year consisting of students chosen at the beginning of it- six from each house. Three boys and three girls. The entire school is cleared to be used as a battleground for the tributes, and it's a fight to the death. There can be only one winner in the tournament.

The one remaining student is awarded the position of Death Eater, and catapulted into the highest class of social elite in Wizarding Britain, netting them practically any career they could possibly want by default.

Seeing the horrified look on Harry's face, Ron hurriedly assures him that there's nothing either of them have to worry about. Technically according to Headmaster Voldemort anyone can be chosen for the "honor" of representing their house in the tournament, but it's always high years that are chosen.

And besides, he continues, even if that did happen each house is allowed one volunteer. That is, one person is allowed to switch out for somebody that has been chosen as tribute, as long as they're the same gender and house as the chosen. So even if Harry or Ron were chosen, there's no way somebody wouldn't step in for them.

The older students nod along, and Harry relaxes a bit, his mind nonetheless a whirlwind of questions. The most central one, of course, being a question of how dark this world really is.

Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw come and go, taking with them muttered condolences, pained grimaces, and wet eyes. But never tears. Never sobs. Never a sound. Harry begins to wonder how many people came here because they wanted to, and how many had "bad relatives" like he did.

Gryffindor comes. The girls go first. The first boy is called. Then the second one, a slender boy with timid eyes. Another boy quickly stands up and offers himself as tribute. The first one tears up, and they hug quickly before the second goes up to the platform with all the others.

The goblet flares crimson red one last time, erupting with smoke and a single slip of singed paper. Headmaster Voldemort reaches up and plucks it from the air, crimson eyes falling upon it.

"Harry Potter."

The Gryffindor table seemingly goes rigid with shock all at once, and Harry simply stares at Voldemort, trying to breath. Wondering what in the world he's been thrown into. Up on the platform the boy who had volunteered for Gryffindor stares at him in utter horror.

Harry goes up to the dias, and by the time he makes it up just about the entire school is looking at him in disbelief. McGonagall stands halfway up, looking outraged, but Headmaster Voldemort holds up a hand and she falls silent, sitting back down with a furious expression on her face. Voldemort considers Harry for a moment, crimson eyes thoughtful, then places him in the line just behind him.

It's at this point that he begins to explain what this choosing of students is for... in his own words.

It's much more optimistic than what Harry had heard from his housemates, but the bare facts are the same: A fight to the death, winner take all. The Headmaster also explains other things. Students will taken to specific places outside of the castle to start the tournament, and no two students will start in the same place. This is to discourage the unfair advantage of teams at the beginning. Students will begin the tournament with their wand and nothing else. They'll be expected to collect all other resources themselves inside of the castle, if they need any besides a wand.

On and on and on, until Harry feels like he can't keep his feet, he's feeling so numb. A hand falls upon his shoulder, and he looks up to find an older Ravenclaw boy giving him a shaky attempt at a reassuring smile. It does nothing.

Headmaster Voldemort's speech finally comes to a close, the tributes are invited to return to their dining tables, and the food arrives. Harry doesn't taste a single bite.

His first quarter of magical schooling passes by woefully quick, from Harry's perspective. Every weekend when there are no classes the tributes meet with their respective heads of house to be trained for the tournament, and every time it seems that Harry has improved none and his fellow tributes have learned a dozen new spells. He only knows two spells (the levitation spell and the matchstick-to-needle transfiguration) when McGonagall approaches him one day after Transfiguration and informs him that she'll be training him separately from the other tributes from now on.

Harry goes in to her office the next Saturday feeling hopeful for the first time since his name was chosen. But instead of opening up a book of spells, the severe woman slaps a book on advanced magical theory down on Harry's desk. She informs Harry that he'll be carrying that around from now on instead of the Magical Theory Year 1 book he currently has, as they will be covering all of that one today.

And they do. It takes countless hours, a ridiculous amount of examples and questions, but at the end of it Harry understand, if not every detail, the nitty gritty of a set of concepts that should have taken him a year to learn. McGonagall sends him off with a list of exercises and such to cement the more minute concepts that they'd had to gloss over, for him to work on until their next meeting.

The next meeting they cover year two of magical theory, year three passes similarly, and on until they've knocked out all seven years of magical theory. Of course, not all of these went as quickly as the first, and by the time Harry is reasonably competent with all of those concepts it's almost March. Harry walks in to the next meeting absolutely sure he'll be learning spells now, but instead McGonagall instructs him to take out the book on advanced magical theory that she gave him months ago.

They begin to connect all of the concepts together, but Harry is so frustrated with his lack of concrete progress at this point that he flat out asks McGonagall why they're doing this instead of working on his spell inventory. She hits him with an endlessly tired look, and explains.

Harry has almost no chance to win the tournament. He has no experience with the spells and dueling techniques and potion recipes that are second nature to all of the other tributes. He has never been tested in a high intensity situation like the others, so they don't even know how if he'll be able to keep hold of his wand when the time comes, let alone belt out a chain of combat spells.

So instead they're going to lay a foundation that most wizards don't obtain until their graduation from Hogwarts, and that's if they're particularly gifted students. From this base learning spells from a book or on the fly will be infinitely easier to Harry, blocking or redirecting spells will become possible, and his chances will increase. If only a little.

And only if Harry knows these concepts of magic so completely that he could recite them in his sleep.

So they continue on in this vein for a while, and Harry is just beginning to learn spell redirection when a pretty older looking girl with yellow robes approaches him one day after dinner. She pulls him aside, and at her pleading Harry has Ron go on ahead, much to his displeasure. They retreat to an abandoned classroom, and the girl quickly begins speaking.

She's one of the three girls chosen from Hufflepuff to compete in the tournament, she explains to Harry, and she wants to help him. She tells him that she didn't think she was going to win the tournament no matter what she did, but she wouldn't be able to live with herself either way if she let a little boy die, and maybe if she sacrificed herself to help him he'd have a chance of winning.

He's in disbelief for a while, of course, but eventually she convinces him she's legit. Then his saving people thing kicks in and he tries to turn her down, but she insists, saying she's going to die either way. It's very morbid. Harry leaves the room with sorrow in his heart and just a little more hope.

They meet sporadically leading up to the tournament, hashing out a meeting place for the start of the tournament as well as some battle tactics. The girl is beyond impressed with his ability to pick up the spells she teaches him, and they start thinking they have a chance. They decide to meet in a place the girl calls the Room of Requirement. She explains to him how to get in and what to do if there's already someone in it.

McGonagall's teachings come to an end with the lessons on identifying a spell's relative danger level on sight, exams are taken, and the day comes when Headmaster Voldemort assumes his spot in front of the staff table and clears his throat. Dead silence falls and anticipation rises.

"Would the tributes please step forth."

Harry and his twenty-two opponents and one ally step forward, and for the first time he actually looks at them. He sees timid students, confident students, and cruel students. Most of the latter being slytherins. They all step forward as one, and the Headmaster promptly grabs the nearest student and disappears with a crack, reappearing a moment later sans student. Rinse and repeat, until Harry is the only student remaining. Voldemort appears again, grasping Harry's shoulder and turning to the rest of the student body. He informs them that now is the time to evacuate and head for Hogsmeade, where living quarters for the next month as well as a means of watching the competition will be established. Then Harry feels the sensation of being pulled through a needle head assault him and they're gone.

They reappear in the middle of what can only be the forbidden forest, and Voldemort lets him go, but doesn't leave. He just scans Harry with his thoughtful crimson eyes, his lip curling up ever so slightly in a smile.

"Surprise me, Mr. Potter."

He disappears, and Harry is left alone. An eternity later the Headmaster's smooth voice echoes through the trees, informing the students that the tournament has begun.

Harry books it in the direction he believes Hogwarts to be, cursing his luck all the while. He spends hours traveling, with already a close call with a nasty looking slytherin, when the castle finally comes into view. Making it into the castle and up to the seventh floor is a hellish endeavor, and one that Harry doesn't quite manage to do unseen when he makes it to the fifth floor and finds the corpse of the one person he needed to stay alive lying on the floor.

His hufflepuff ally lies in a pool of her own blood, a neat cut straight through her throat the obvious cause of her death. Harry falls to his knees by her, lost once again, and it's like this that her killers find him. Two Ravenclaw boys with grim faces and raised wands. Harry bolts down the hall and up the steps, saved from their longer strides only by the luck of the staircase moving right after he jumped on to it.

Nonetheless, he can hear the two of them pelting after him by the time he's halfway down the hallway of the seventh floor, having already caught up to him. He darts in front of the spot the Hufflepuff had mentioned three times, praying that he'd remembered right and that she'd been right. He repeats his desire over and over again in his mind as he comes to a stop in front of where the door should be.

Somewhere safe.

A solid mahogany door melts into existence, and Harry shoves it open while spells splash against the stone wall around him. He slams it shut behind him, and surveys the room. A bed, a small bedside table with a plate of food on it and a necklace, and a backpack filled with supplies. Once the sounds of the two Ravenclaw boys had faded away, Harry digs into the food ravenously, queasy thoughts of his late ally shoved away in favor of the aching in his stomach. Then the exhaustion hits, and he falls dead asleep.

He wakes up sometime later with a jolt, half expecting a wand to be in his face, but the room his just as he left it. Except now there's a new plat of food, which he eats (more slowly this time) while going through the contents of his new backpack. Some dried foods, a canteen of water, bandages, the works. He packs it all away, satisfied that he won't have to worry about keeping himself alive at least, just keeping others from killing him.

Finally, with nothing else to hold his attention, he looks at the necklace.

It's a simple thing. Small silver chains looping through a copper ring- nothing special. Nonetheless, curious as to what it's doing in this room, Harry picks it up. Nothing. He taps it with his wand. Nothing. Finally, he shrugs and places it on his neck.

And immediately an aged voice echoes in his ears, as if someone were speaking on the other end of a thin wall.

-will take time. Too much time.

He almost tears the necklace off, but then another voice speaks up, equally frail, and he listens.

You say that of everything, you old fool. We have nothing but time here.

That does not mean- The first voice cuts off very suddenly, and Harry's breath catches in his throat. Is somebody there?

Harry stares down at the necklace, unsure of what to do.

Well come on now, The second voice says irritably. We've been waiting more than long enough for you to pick that blasted bit of jewelry up. The least you could do is say hello.

Harry hesitantly says hello, and the voices fall silent again. When they speak next, asking for his name, there's a small undertone of excitement in them. Deciding it couldn't really hurt him at this point, Harry introduces himself.

Harry Potter, The first voice breathes. How did you come upon this necklace, my boy?

Bewildered, but more willing to discuss his current situation with strangers in his head than twiddle his thumbs and wait for his problems to magically end, he informs them of his entrance into the tournament. When they press him for answers and he gives them, the first voice practically explodes in outrage while the second just cackles.

The voices fall silent for a while after that, and when they reappear in Harry's head they inform him that they'll be helping him win this tournament. Confused, Harry asks them how- and why- they're going to do that.

And so they introduce themselves. Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald, at your service.

And so Harry's eyes are opened to the truth of this new wizarding world. He learns of Voldemort's true colors, the war that had been fought and decided mere years after his birth, and how things had changed since then. Grindelwald, as he hadn't been present for any of this, left most of the explanation to Dumbledore, who had been the Headmaster of Hogwarts before Voldemort took over and he'd been imprisoned.

Then Grindelwald takes over, and informs Harry of their plan to escape their prison and take back Wizarding Britain from Voldemort. A plan which would be made much, much easier if they had an ally in the prison. A prison whose wardens just so happened to be Death Eaters.

And so Harry is brought into something magnitudes larger than his current predicament, and they begin to hash out immediate battle plans. When Dumbledore and Grindelwald learn that Harry is only eleven, they almost give up on him again. But after picking apart Harry's knowledge, Grindelwald grudgingly admits that he has a chance- if...

Under Grindelwald's orders and with Dumbledore's directions, he makes his way from the Room of Requirement down into the potions classroom. He finds the place ransacked, and for a moment thinks he's doomed, but Dumbledore quickly assures him they have all they need. So he shuts the door and locks it with a complex spell courtesy of Grindelwald, and then he sets to work.

When it's all said and done Harry has a cauldron full of Felix Felicis and a very, very good chance.

The tournament goes from there, with lots of lots of badass moments with Harry, his magical friends, and his super luck. Culminating in a jaw-dropping battle with two particularly cruel slytherins, Harry finds himself the last man standing in the wasteland that used to be the Quidditch Pitch, and finds Voldemort suddenly standing in front of him, a wide smile on his face.

"Consider me impressed." And then he grasps Harry's hand, and draws his wand down his arm. Harry grits his teeth, listening to Dumbledore's assurances that they'll have the damaging affects of the tattoo taken care of before the week is up and Grindelwald's commands to stop cringing like a weakling.

Voldemort pulls his wand away, leaving a writhing serpent tattoo in his wake, and then waves his wand across Harry's face. Nothing seems to happen, but when Harry reaches up to touch his face he finds cool porcelain in his way.

And so Harry's life as a death eater and Voldemort's most interesting student begins, and the decade old plans of Dumbledore and Grindelwald are set in motion.

Booya.

Oh, forgot to mention. The point of divergence is that when Snape learns of the prophecy he doesn't tell Voldemort. As such Voldemort never pursues Harry, and Lily and James raise him with no issues. Until Voldemort levels a devastating attack on Hogwarts and the two of them are forced to leave Harry with the Dursleys while they go off to fight for their loved ones, that is. Boom, divergence.

 

That sounds amazing.

 

Man, is that fucking cool or what?

 

And that is only the first chapter/arc. The second could be the prison arc, where Harry goes to and learns about the prison, that -hopefully - isn't anything like a normal prison from canon. Maybe something Cube-esque like?

 

That plot gave me the biggest boner.