Good afternoon,

Recently I've been majorly depressed by the sheer amount of Harry-see's-someone-who-dies-and-feeling-guilty-turns-to-the-dark-arts-to-become-powerful fics.

So I decided to issue a challenge, instead of trying to write one as I'm focusing on different sort of fiction, and don't want to bite off more than I can chew.

The challenege is simple, and goes like this:

Harry, feeling guilty about the death of Sirius in the DOM, and more importantly, remembering how useless he felt at the time, decides to try to do something about it.

Remembering the duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore, Harry ask's Dumbledore for training in Occlemency (is that how you spell it?), Dueling and Battle Transfiguration.

Dumbledore agrees.

Rules:

- Training must mostly consist of Occlemency (Mind shields, concentration), Dueling (Proper technique, Appartion ect) and Battle Transfiguration. There should be little Charms and or Dark Arts, but if some training in these subjects is used, it must be as little as possible, just enough to understand them and counter them in battle.

- Romance, if any, must be limited as a side story or simply as background.

- And last but not least, there must be little, if no 'Rituals' that suddenly enhance Harry's power. Though such concepts as 'Wit Sharpening Potions' can be used to give him a slight edge in learning.

I've also been majorly annoyed by the amount of HypocriticalHarry!'s out there. Harry get's all self-righteous and emo about Dumbledore keeping secrets/manipulating people or being down-right evil...and then goes all dark himself.

So this is mostly to see if someone out there can't write a good fic where Harry becomes a Protege of Dumbledore, and forgives him, realising that if you want to traverse the halls of power, you're going to have to sometimes do things that you'd rather wish you wouldn't.

That and to see if it's possible to have powerful harry who doesn't need the Dark Arts, but who could be equal to Voldemort without 'Love' being the only equalizer.

Anyway, tell me what you think. Good or Bad?

 

Bad.

You've pretty much just wrote out a thousand different stories on the internetz. What? Harry forgives Dumbledore, becomes his apprentice, and trains to uber battle with Voldemort. Not exactly original, I'm sorry to say.

Yes, you tried to cut out some of the cliches, but the whole story is based on a such cliched plot that it was kind of pointless.

Ummm ... I hope you understand that most Dueling is comprised of Charms. What do you think practically every spell in canon(think Stupefy, Reducto, Expelliarmus, Petrificus Totalus) are? They sure as hell aren't trasfigurations. Transfiguration may be his primary defensive tool and a large part of his offensive repetoire, but in the DoM many of those spells shooting at Voldemort weren't rocks turned into starving dogs.

I can respect your opinion on not liking darker Harry fics, but none of them on this site are Emo. We bring Harry to the dark through means that have nothing to do with him cutting his wrists or making his hair grow out so it covers one eye.

I'm sorry to tell you, but that's not a plot bunny, that's a general plot device used to start a story. Their's no where to go after that, besides if the author makes up the rest of the story completely from scratch. If it's a plot bunny(and this one isn't an original plot bunny) then it should give some guide-lines onto what happens in the rest of the story.

 

Reducto and Petrificus Totalus are Dark Arts, according to JKRs definitions she wrote on her site.

But yes, good duelling consists of a mixture of Transfiguration and Charms, with the occasional curse to liven things up.

Your idea about making a Harry who isn't obsessed with learning the Dark Arts and nothing else is good. However, this is not a story in of itself: you still need a plot, other than Harry training.

Also, there's no such thing as "battle transfiguration". What Dumbledore used in the Ministry was simply normal Transfiguration - the type that it learnt in OWL and NEWT classes - applied cleverly. Since Harry can't even manage these classes in canon very well, I doubt extra training will do much good. You'll need to come up with a better plot device than "Harry wishes he was better at stuff" to change 5 years of mediochre performance around.

 

Taure, think about what you just said. Petrificus Totalus, a spell Hermione used on Neville in their first year, would be classified as the Dark Arts. Reducto, a common spell Harry learned for the Tri-Wizard tournament that most everyone would know around fifth or sixth year, would be classified as the Dark Arts. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't seem correct, even if Rowling says something about the 'definition of a Dark Art' on her site.

 

The Reducto is known as the Reductor Curse

The Petrificus Totalus is known as the Body-Bind Curse

From JK Rowling's website, under Spell Definitions:

 

Maybe lexicon fucked up, and Reducto and Petrificus Totalus are jinxes or hexes? Maybe they thought that Reductor Curse or Body-Bind Curse sounded better than Reductor Jinx/Hex or Body-Bind Jinx/Hex?

 

Or maybe she decided that she would go with the normal fanon idea and make the reducto an UBER!REDUCTO CURSE OF DOOM!!1!11!! that can be used to destroy spines and take down death eaters because it is a curse.

 

Did you see the OotP movie?

Remember, the Reducto is not a fourth-year spell. Harry learnt it ahead of his time for the tri-wizard, and even the DA were learning it ahead of when they otherwise would be.