Many of you won't know me yet since I just posted my introduction but I just really need to post this plot bunny, even if it's just to get it off of my chest. There are many many great writers on this board, so maybe one of you guys/gals will pick it up. Sadly, I am not much of a writer.

Instead of just listing elements in the plot I would like to expand on the ideas a little bit.

Firstly, this would be an idependent story that begins after book five. It is possible to make it after book six but I am not sure it would work out so well.

The main element of the "plot" would be someone, getting through to Harry but not in the since that all other fic's seem to incorprate. Mostly we see someone coming to Harry and showing him through love (this is usually done by the future love intrest of the story) that not everything is his fault, and that he can be a great wizard if he puts his mind to it.

Now my idea is to have the character that comes to him is to basically go off on him, badly. Let me explain a bit. Everyone goes on and on about Harry having this horrible life, and how things always happen to him, and on the surface this seems to be the case but if you look deeper, it's not the case at all (with a few exceptions of course).

Yes, the Dursley's are bad and he suffered some abuse but instead of this making him and emo, it can make him stronger.

First year, lots of stuff happend but Harry can't blame it on anybody but himself. All he had to do was when he saw Fluffy, was that he wasn't intrested in what it was guarding. Harry, tried to find out about the stone, no one made him do it. He could of had a basicly normal year but it was his choice to do what he did.

Second year, he could of taken his narrow ass straight to Dumbledore and told him that he was hearing voices in the walls of Hogwarts. Dumbledore is not a stupid man, if Herman could figure it out, I am sure Dumbledore could have as well.

Not much to say about third year.

Fourth year, yes he got entered into the tournament, but he didn't really try at all. If he would not of had Crouch's help he would not of made it all.

Fifth year. After wanting so badly to know what was going on, what did he do? Basically nothing, just went along with what Herman told him to do, right?


Now whoever talks to Harry should point these things out to him. For example have Harry bitching that someone should of been training him, and that he is not a child. Well the person procedes to tell him that "yes" indead he is still very much a child who no doubt can't think for himself.

Other examples. In fanfics we have Harry finding out lots of things about his family. After this he usually gets mad that no one told him about it. Well, the person he talks to can simply say "you have never asked". I actually think that is very much "in canon". Harry doesn't ask at all, maybe that stems from Aunt Petunia telling him not to ask questions.

Now after the talk whoever the person is should take him somewhere and show him just how much he doesn't know. Show him why he is not ready to fight Death Eaters. In other words just pound him over and over again both magically and physically. This is why I think Moody would be perfect for this.

It would also be prudent for the person to somehow make Harry really evaluate Ron and Hermione as friends. They can remain friends if you want but Harry needs to realize by the end of it that they have actually hurt him more than helped him. I have always thought that the real reason the sorting Hat wanted to put Harry into Slytherin was because if he was there he would not make any friends. He would be forced to learn on his on. Anything he would have gotten he would earn there. After all we know that Hermione does his thinking for him, and Ron keeps him distracted.

At this point Harry would fall into the standard training regime etc...etc... However, the training should be done by someone not in the Order and this is where Harry starts to break away from Dumbledore.

My ideas for him breaking away are that Harry slowly realizes that Dumbledore has surrounded hisself with yes men and women. In other words they do what ever Dumbledore tells them without question. He also starts to realize that everyone in the order, owes Dumbldore somehow. Examples could include Dumble helping Remus out for most of his life because of being a werewolf. (By the way if anyone decides to pick this up, please don't make Harry hang all over Remus. Hell, Remus has done nothing at all for Harry other than teach him the patronus.) Dumbledore could be paying for the Weasley's education at Hogwarts. Moody being so paranoid could of killed some muggles totally by accident and Dumbledore got him out of it. Use your imagination here of course.

Just to make it clear, this does not make the people in the order bad people at all, it just makes Harry realize they may not be the people who can really help defeat Voldemort. After all, is there really anyone in the order who is high enough in the Ministry that can actually tell them what's going on there? I mean why is Author Weasley involved? Better yet why is Molly even in the Order at all, what the hell can she do besides cook?

So after Harry has realized this he slowly starts making contacts with the movers and shakers (that are not Death Eaters) of the wizarding world. Buisnessmen and women, powerful witches and wizards. Who after awhile will agree to help him. He will also realize that the war is not so cut and dried, good and evil. That purebloods will have some reasons for them being netural. Maybe they belive in some of Voldemorts Ideals, but they don't agree with the way he's doing it. It would be your choice here, just open Harry's eyes that Dumbledore's way may not be the best way, and not the worst either.

Hopefully the story would end in a death (not Dumbledore's) and at that point this group of Harry's would either announce themselves publicly, or be forced into the spotlight. This would I hope set it up perfectly for either the next school year, or if it all happend in a summer then when he returns to Hogwarts for his sixth year.

I know this has been a long read but I think this could avoid a lot over the used plot bunnies that pop up in independent Harry after fifth year fics. If anyone decids to take this up and would like any more of my ideas on it, feel free to let me know as I would be happy to give more ideas on this.

Drajjen

 

I don't like It'sAllMyFault!Harry. Especially after OotP. And IMO it annoys almost everyone on DLP at least.

 

It's a decent idea, but it sounds a bit much like Draco664's apprentice/journeyman Potter series. Which does it quite well.

Just my thoughts,
Jim

 

Pretty much all the Indy!Harry stories i've read, too much angst..

 

Damn it. I was going to say that.

I'm not getting the point of the story. So he gets yelled at, works, and then what, waits to show himself? Why would he go through all that, just to wait until the perfect time?

 

Err...yes it is suppposed to be an Independent Harry plot. The plot bunny is not in any way supposed to be revoluntionary or any such nonsense as that. It was just an independent Harry plot bunny that doesn't use Goblins, Money, etc.. to get Harry going in an independent direction.

As for it being like Draco664's fics..I guess in a way it would be. I haven't read that fic in so long I couldn't really tell you what it was about other than it focused on Harry using his wand at a distance or some such.

I never meant for the fic to be an angst fic. Sure it would have some angst right at the begining but that would quickly fade once Harry had the chance to actually think through what he was being told. And this is most definatly not an "it's all my fault" plot line. If you remember when Harry went to Number 12 he was all upset with Hermione and Ron, basically because they knew more about what was going on than he did. He thinks to himself (or says it out loud, I can't remember) that he was the one who saved the SStone, did this and that etc. Basically saying he deserved to know what was going on.

The point is that the author would write in such a way that Harry realizes that he hasn't really done any thing so outstanding that he does deserve to know. As for Ginny doing it....that right there tells me that I did a piss poor job in explaining the whole thing, since there is know way you would of even posted that other wise.


I guess you guys are seeing why I don't write fics myself since it seems most everyone has misunderstood what I said. (not your fault, I just have problems putting ideas into a text format). At any rate I never meant this to be some revolutinary idea but rather a plot that didn't include going to the bank, nice goblins, Dumble manipulations etc.

Drajjen

 

*applauds*

Good answer! Of course, it was an original take on Harry getting his eyes opened, but that was about it. Basically, what I gathered from that bunny was that you want someone to come up and smack down all of Harry's achievements (of which I have no problems with). But then, you have Hary finding out that Dumbledore has surrounded himself with people who would do anything for him, and because of that, he breaks ties with them. After that, it seems that you want Harry to start becoming political, and creating his own Order/Inner Circle.

Personally, I think that it isn't a bad idea, but it would need an absolutely fantastic writer to pull it off. Nowadays, if you write a Post-OotP story, and your name isn't ip82, Midknight, jbern, Yarrgh! or Amerision, you have to be an almost peerless writer to create a great story. That whole sub-genre is so infested with cliched, shittily-written excuses for stories, that it would really take something exceptional for people to read and enjoy it. There is a small avenue for originality, and so that has to be compensated for by the quality of the writing.

In conclusion, this isn't the best challenge I've ever seen, but it is interesting, and I would read any story that uses this plotline. Maybe if you had expanded on your original idea, creating a new direction for Harry and co. to go, then it would have been better received.

 

Well, like others said, this is basically Indy!Harry, with a few small differences. The problem is, these differences don't contribute much to the goal you wish achieved (stronger Harry's character). On the contrary, this character bashing would only serve to utterly destroy the little self-confidence he has. Yes, it can be used as a motivation to change Harry's life, but so can many other things (the Prophecy, Sirius's death, Dumbledore's manipulations etc...). Ultimately, it's the same old shit, just with a longer and slightly more logical path to the really juicy stuff.

On the other hand, the bare idea of Harry seeing how much of a stupid angsty kid he'd been seems rather interesting. So, if you'd just remove post-OOTP Independant!Harry part and place something else instead (time-travel, alternate dimension, postHBP etc...), it'd be much better on the whole.