I vaguely recall seeing a thread like this before, but I couldn't find it. Are there any decent stories out there that feature someone other than Harry doing the time-traveling? The odder the traveler the better. I vaguely recall reading a story where Ron traveled, but what about people like Luna, Daphne, Tonks, Neville, Draco, etc.?

I'm kicking around a plot bunny that has potential, and I want to see what other writers have done with the idea.

 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13552503/chapters/31096425

I almost put this up for review yesterday. It's missing the epilogue but it's long and finished and the quality of writing is very good. Timetravelers are Hermione, Luna, Ginny and sort of Sirius.

H, L, and G come from the year 2002 and Sirius comes from 96 and they end up in 1978. They have the usual debate of whether or not to change the past, but fortunately decide that they will do it. It's got a happy ending, but quite a lot of people die and lots of events change on the way there.

 

Jeram's Far Too Many Timetravelers has, well... far too many timetravelers.

 

Mentor!Snape, rather cringey: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6413108/1/To-Shape-and-Change

Fudge: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4487319/1/The-Greatest-Minister-of-Magic

Perhaps there'll be more on this list:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanficRecs/HarryPotterPeggySue

 

Abandoned, but perhaps my favourite Snape fanfic:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6306296/1/The-Apprentice

 

There's that one Blueowl fic To Shape and Change. It's thoroughly meh.


https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6413108/1/To-Shape-and-Change

 

There is A question of When, the Romilda oneshot Vlad wrote a couple years ago.

It's in the Library https://forums.darklordpotter.net/threads/a-question-of-when.35996/
I personally really liked it.

 

Cough cough. Anyway my concept is particularly odd, so I wouldn't worry much about it if you're writing your own. I originally wrote it as a one-shot for just Hermione/Ron/Draco time traveling because I hadn't seen that combination before and Harry as the straight man is a funny idea to me.

 

I remember this being surprisingly good, but it started to drag and never really went anywhere before being abandoned.


Carpe Noctem has Voldemort traveling back and The Red KnightRon. Both have been posted here somewhere iirc.
There is also Realignment by @Puzzled in the WBA. While it's Harry that traveled back, most of the story isn't from his perspective. He is more the inciting incident then a major character.

 

Thanks all. I'll take a look at some of these. There's no way in hell I'm writing a story from Snape's POV though. Unless it's to mock him or make him shag a sheep.

Incoming dissertation:
For my bunny, I'm thinking more along the lines of a world where the shit hits the fan during the horcrux hunt. Maybe Ron is captured and killed when they invade the Ministry. Harry loses it and gets reckless. Or maybe Snape reveals that he's a horcrux earlier and he gets reckless. He dies early before they have a chance to find the cup and the diadem.

Things might get post-apocalyptic in a hurry. Hermione survives on the run with the Order and other people fleeing Voldemort. When things get bleaker, she designs a time-travel ritual with, say, Flitwick. But they don't perform it right away because it requires a human sacrifice (not the person traveling). Eventually she's one of the last people left, and she goes through with it, sacrificing herself to send someone back.

The trick is that it's someone who wasn't part of their crew in Hogwarts. It's someone she befriended on the run, maybe a former enemy. Someone like Millicent or Daphne or Blaise or even Pansy, who now realizes that Voldemort is a monster. (I refuse to write about Draco except to murder him).

The story itself would be from the POV of this person who's sent back to, say, sixth year, with the task of convincing Harry that they're not his enemy, and that they must take extreme action or the world will end. The traveler wouldn't be omniscient, though, and couldn't tell him where all the horcruxes are, or how to get the one out of himself.

He/she might have a few very violent bones to pick with other students, leading to some dissension among the new ranks. If Harry becomes aware of the future through pensieve memories, and realizes he's a horcrux, it might turn into a suspenseful bloodbath. It might involve a romance with the traveler too, but that's not the essential part.

Could be fun. And it would be a chance to flesh out a different character and see what the trio looks like from their POV.

I've just never seen someone else's take on that set-up. Does it ring any bells for anyone?

 

It's similar to some things I've seen (and thought of), but I think a story from the POV of a non-HP friend that in the future is closer to Hermione/Ron or something has promise. So there are a few approaches there.

One is the mild antagonist, Michael Corner, Cormac, Zach Smith, or even Percy, people who have crossed paths in troublesome ways.

There's heightened exes: Parvati, Padma, Cho, Krum, Romilda* (sort of)

There's direct antagonists (people with beef): Marietta mainly

There's antagonists by proxy (Slytherins): Everyone other than Draco in Slytherin

Or there's the acquaintances: Seamus, Dean, etc

Depending on who it is, different challenges can arise, different dramatic connections. Just don't forget the cardinal rule of writing time travel stories: DO NOT HAVE A ROMANTIC PAIRING BETWEEN AN ADULT AND A TEENAGER REGARDLESS OF THEIR "MENTAL" AGE

 

Thanks for the breakdown. There are so many different ways to go. It's fun to consider them all. Fear not, there would be no breakage of the cardinal rule. I'm thinking the traveler would go back at around age 19, after two years of Voldemort's rule. A pairing wouldn't be the point of the story anyway. But it might be fun with someone like Pansy, who would still resent Harry even as she's forced to be his ally.

 

Edited in: I hope this is a condemnation of an adult time traveller dating children and not one of an adult time traveller dating an adult.

Original post: A person who wakes up in the body of their younger selves is mentally the same age they were before they did the time travel. While there are legal issues and social issues with the perception someone is doing something wrong (which should be addressed in the story rather than people taking them at their word and brushing it off) there isn't a moral one.

The only other issue I can think of is the physical age issue... which is why the time travel story I'm writing right now has a metamorphmagus Harry who is mentally the same age as Tonks whom he dates.

Edit: I initially wrote this thinking you were criticising an adult time traveller dating an adult. But duh, obviously you are talking about the other thing (I would hope). My mind jumped to defend what I was writing right now instead of thinking for more than two seconds. I don't like stories that regress the main character and don't read them, so when you said mental age my first thought was they were still mentally an adult.

 

Yes, I'm talking about mentally adult people in teen bodies being involved with mentally teen people in their normal physical ages, that should never be written. I mean, I just ran across this story where the final word "triggered" me in that I was quite mad about it:

It is also problematic to have an adult date a time traveler in the body of a teenager. If they can age up physically or something, I suppose that's okay, but it's certainly "squicky" -- meaning it feels weird. I guess the real question is: How important is it to really have a "ship" in the time travel story while the time traveler is still a teenager? I know it's already a bit odd to read about teenagers being attracted to teenagers, but that's a pretty established fiction baseline, and I think there's clearly a line where it gets creepy. We all know teenagers think about sex all the time and many are sexually active, but that doesn't mean it's ethical to write or show it. That's why TV/Movies that show that stuff hire people 18 and older that look younger (or sometimes don't really look younger).

 

Maybe this isn't the place for it but it's a Peggy Sue that sees Harry initially happy that he is the past and can correct so many wrongs, but it immediately goes downhill when he can't connect with his old friends or anyone because the difference in ages and experiences between him and them is too great, the sorting hat thinks he has enough Gryffindow courage and places him somewhere else, he's bored shitless redoing school again, and hates being treated like the small child everyone thinks he is. Despite this he gets Dumbledore's help, and goes about dealing with the horcruxes and breaking Sirius out of Azkaban, throwing the timeline out the window.

After the breakout the Ministry investigation discovers one of the dastardly criminals who broke him out was a metamorphamgus. This turns out to be something James and Lily hid when they went into hiding (mostly to spit in the face of the usual manipulative Dumbledore trope about him suppressing Harry's special powers).

This drags Tonks in to help train Harry with his new-found powers. Tonks is no slouch and Moody's protégé, so she figures something really odd is up pretty quick, so Harry whose only really friends are Sirius and Dumbledore spills the whole taco of beans to her. Once he's got a hold of his powers, Dumbledore lets Harry leave on weekends who spends most of that time with Tonks who accounting for time travel is the same age as him. Cue Harry/Tonks.

It started out as an excuse plot to ship Harry and Tonks as the same age as each other, but then I remembered I had wanted to do a time-travel story with age dysphoria for a while so it snowballed into a more serious story of Harry struggling with the time travel thing.

In a way it's story subverting all the Peggy Sue fics that have Harry redo all his schooling for some reason to preserve the timeline and letting bad shit happen for dumb reasons, all while being okay having an adult mind yet being surrounded by 11 year olds.

Anyway, I don't think the concept is squick. The closest thing to squick in the story is Harry meeting girls he liked or dated in a previous life and realising they're now little kids, feeling disgusted, which rightfully destroys any feelings he previously had for them. And that's more Harry feeling squick and never going there again.

 

Right, that seems like it's the right sort of direction to take.

 

Not sure if this is your story, but I just read one where Percy goes back on time. It’s really interesting how a war traumatized Percy gets thrown into his younger body and it messes with the Weasley family dynamics.

It’s a oneshot that leans into a new chapter by chapter story
https://archiveofourown.org/works/16064342
House of corpses
Irisen
Summary:
Percy goes back in time.
He doesn't do it to save the world, doesn't do it because he is a Gryffindor, doesn't do it to help the Order of the Phoenix defeat Voldemort.
He does it because Ginny died and his shirt is still drenched in her blood.
He does it because he's selfish, because he's the last one standing in a world destroyed by years of war.
He does it and he succeeds.

His family, however, doesn't understand why his behaviour has changed so much.