You know, I was actually thinking of Harry getting hit with the Killing Curse at age 14. I don't want to redo the graveyard scene, so I have Harry either getting kidnapped from the Quidditch world cup over the summer or Barty Crouch kidnapping him sometime during the year. Then he takes the curse after giving his blood to Tom.

If he did die at age 17 in the forest, I wonder how long that wizarding Britain would hold up without both Harry and Dumbledore? I want to write about him coming back and helping in the ongoing war effort rather than him coming back to a world where Voldemort has won and everyone he loves has met some horrible fate.

 

Edit: Just saw the last post. Never mind


No, I wouldn't read that. Too many plot holes. What happens to the body when he dies? How long is he buried? Why now? so on and so forth. It seems as though the entire set up has to be handwaved away.

 

Well, maybe, and a very big maybe at that, it could work if Harry came back as a wraith because of the connection between him and Voldemort, but then finds that his old body unusable because of the decay. Then the first part of the story could be wraith!Harry trying to regain his body (how? Fuck if I know, maybe he'll haunt Voldemort in the toilet for shits and giggles and shack up with Myrtle).

Or Zombie!Harry. I dunno.

 

I figure that wizards have a way to preserve the body with charms, and the obviously wouldn't need to drain the blood and pump it full of embalming fluid.

Dumbledore didn't rot in his tomb. So either the tomb was enchanted or his body was. I assume Harry's body would get the same treatment.

 

I'm trying to come up with a satisfying way for Harry to become an Occlumens. Is it only possible to teach Occlumency if you are a Legilimens? If so, this limits the teaching pool, and I don't really want him to learn it from Snape, Dumbledore, or Voldemort.

I don't want it to boil down to Harry just reading a book, but I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts. Could a non-Legilimens teach Harry the principles or does that come off as too easy?

 

We only see it taught with Legilimency in canon. As you're writing fanfiction, you could bend the "rules" a bit, but I'd say don't. Doing so would be a bit like trying to learn how to be a goalie without anyone kicking the ball at you. You kind of need that person. Or at least a machine that does it, which makes me think about Harry using something like the Locket or Diadem Horcrux to teach himself Occlumency. A dangerous way of doing it though.

 

How do you find the idea of Harry hiring a tutor? The bare bones premise of my story is that Harry is not in Britain; rather he is spending time on the continent, around the Mediterranean, Middle East, North Africa etc, so learning from the horcruxes is out because he has no knowledge of them.

I guess I picture it like Snapes lessons, just without the animosity and personal baggage. So it would still be hard, and he couldn't just drop 1000 galleons and learn to be a master in a few weeks.

Sidebar, how much should Occlumency lessons actually cost if you had to pay out of pocket?

 

Snapes method has always struck me as 'slash open a wound untill it makes a scab, ' I always felt this couldn't be the best way of learning, though perhaps it mirrors how he learnt (getting his mind repeatedly violated by Voldemort?) Or perhaps it is, but in a far more measured and less emotionally fraught way.

Now I'm imagining Harry lounging around a villa on the Mediterranean coast, getting taught by some equivalent of Arya's 'dance instructor.'

I'd say lessons are stinkingly expensive.

 

The real cost of being taught Occlumency by a paid tutor would be exposing his mind to that person, and that their mind might be exposed to him. It seems like the only people who have learned Occlumency in canon (to the point that they can teach it) are untrustworthy at best.

If you're going to 'outsource' it, Harry should lose something valuable that he wasn't aware he'd be risking - like the tutor insists that Harry bring them into the Chamber of Secrets to recover the Basilisk remains, or Harry discovers at the end of the last lesson that his Cloak of Invisibility was taken while he was collecting that last sack of coins.

[Or maybe, because he learned Occlumency he wasn't aware of Nagini attacking Arthur Weasley on guard duty and thus Arthur dies]