Somebody Make This: An Interesting Take on Harry Potter

Sometime in the middle of reading this, you are going to think to yourself, "This just sounds like some sort of stupid Harry Potter fan fiction." When you think that, please keep reading. I promise - it is all worth it, and the idea is an incredibly sound one (fraught with copyright problems, of course). Please, whatever you do, do not turn away, especially if you are an incredibly talented writer.

Here's how it starts: the story focuses on a Harry Potter super nerd, one that knows the books front to back and how it is all connected. This character could be a male, but would be better suited as a female, because we need for strong female protagonists. For the sake of simplicity, however, I will name this person Jason.

Jason wakes up one morning to find that he has left his bed behind and somehow ended up lying next to a lake. More specifically, Jason is lying next to the lake on the Hogwarts grounds. He is wearing wizard robes and finds a wand in his pocket. Just as he attempts to get his bearings, several Hogwarts teachers run outside to figure out where this man came from and why he thinks he has transported from the "real world" into "the world of Harry Potter." Naturally, the only one that believes his story is Dumbledore.

Upon trying to bring Jason back into the muggle world, they find that some sort of magic has bound him within the Hogwarts grounds. He can pass into Hogsmeade, and into parts of the Forbidden Forest (although maybe we'll find that out later), but overall, Jason is trapped. He doesn't really mind being trapped - he soon finds enjoyment in teaching himself magic while the students at Hogwarts are away for the summer holidays. Some of the teachers help (Flitwick, McGonagall), but some steer clear (Snape ... duh).

At the end of August, a house elf (let's call him Snorky) shows up to tell Jason that he has been brought into this world to help keep the timeline consistent with how it has been told. A force is at play that wishes to change the timeline, wishes to make the world come crumbling down, and Jason is the only one that can keep it the same, given his knowledge of how things ought to play out. This seems odd to Jason, considering he has probably already completely messed with the timeline by talking to the Hogwarts teachers and wandering around the castle doing magic, but he more or less accepts this mission because it's the only explanation he has received for why he is there. He promises to keep people in the castle at a distance and not let them know what he is doing.

Harry Potter shows up at Hogwarts, and Jason keeps his distance, watching how things play out. Dumbledore asks him to help manage the students while he is trapped there, and Jason agrees. He quickly finds a small group of Ravenclaw first years that seem to take to his personality, and he ends up helping them practice their magic and do their homework, learning along with them but always catching on much more quickly, having spent so much time learning things over the summer. He periodically comes into contact with Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, but he keeps it short. He knows they are trying to figure things out about the Sorcerer's Stone and he wants to let them do so on their own, without interference.

Well, Jason doesn't interfere, but odd things start happening that start to derail the timeline. Quirrell almost doesn't succeed in letting the troll in on Halloween, so Jason needs to do it so that Harry and Ron finally befriend Hermione. Malfoy doesn't challenge Harry to a midnight duel so Jason needs to find a way to get the three of them to discover Fluffy. Jason needs to follow Harry into the Forbidden Forest to make sure things go according to plan there, and later, Jason gets wind of a plot to keep Dumbledore away from Hogwarts on the night the three of them go down the trapdoor. He then needs to make sure Dumbledore returns to save Harry, and after that mess gets taken care of, Dumbledore then questions Jason about what he knows and what he is doing, forcing Jason to keep his mission on the down-low but insist that Dumbledore trust him.

By the way, readers: this is the first of seven books that follow Jason in his mission to keep the storyline unaltered.

I haven't thought the details of the next one out yet, but somewhere along the line, he meets Dobby and begins to wonder more about what motivates Snorky in his mission to keep the timeline unaltered. Jason starts getting wind of the force that is trying to derail the timeline, discovering parts of the castle that Harry doesn't discover in the books, all while keeping Harry, Ron and Hermione on their mission to catch the Heir of Slytherin. It slowly begins to build on how and why things are happening the way they are without giving too much away.

The third book is where things get real, because Jason has started to care about these three and knows what he must do: he needs to let Wormtail escape so he can return to Voldemort and bring him back to power. At some point in the book, he lets something happen that shouldn't and pays for it later when Snorky tells him he is going to be "punished" for not trying to fix things. Jason does end up being accused of letting Sirius Black into the castle (Snorky somehow makes this happen) and needs to regain the trust of those around him, all while trying to fix the mistake he made early on.

The fourth book is when he finally derails things in a significant way. He knows Harry will come back alive from the graveyard at the end of the story, but throughout the book, feels compelled to help Cedric survive the encounter. Knowing, though, that Snorky is keeping a closer eye on him than before, he needs to put a complicated plan in action to make it look like he hasn't changed anything, and that this change was completely out of his control. He slowly talks to Cedric and plants ideas in his head, making sure that he does not get to the Triwizard Cup even if he wants to do so. Jason succeeds - Cedric survives, Snorky suspects that he did it on purpose but watches him try to keep things consistent all the while, and Voldemort still comes back to power. Dumbledore is getting very curious about what Jason is up to at this point and hints at the fact that he has figured out that Jason kept Cedric alive.

Jason keeps a close eye on the timeline in the fifth book, knowing he has altered it significantly. He realizes quickly that Harry will not have the same relationship with Cho Chang and attempts to break her and Cedric up. Cedric has graduated from Hogwarts, so this isn't as tough as he thinks it is, but it is still difficult, especially since the DA isn't taking off as well as he thought it might. Cho doesn't get interested in it, and that doesn't seem to give Harry the motivation he needs. This is when things begin to fall apart for Jason keeping the timeline accurate - he ends up changing a whole bunch of things throughout the story to keep Harry on track to end up in the department of mysteries at the end, but because the DA is not as effective, the students are not as well prepared. Jason secretly follows the students when they head off to the ministry, hoping to help them out. He is, however, unable to help them out from the shadows, must reveal himself, and then cannot keep them on track.

Jason, if you remember, cannot leave the Hogwarts grounds, but manages to do so here. He doesn't even think about it until later, when talking with a rather angry Dumbledore.

Several things happen now: knowing that Sirius is going to die, Jason makes the mistake of trying to save him. In his haste to help out in that regard, Ron dies. Yes, you heard it - Ron Weasley dies. Harry's best friend gets killed in the action, and Jason knows that he has irreparably altered everything that follows. They all escape (after Dumbledore has his epic battle with Voldemort), but Dumbledore has had enough afterwards. After his talk with Harry, he calls Jason into his office and demands an explanation, cursing himself for not getting involved in Jason's mission sooner. Jason comes clean, and the book ends with an argument with Snorky. Jason tells Snorky that he will simply try and stop Voldemort, but Snorky hints that he still must not alter the timeline any further. It is then that Jason realizes that Snorky is in charge of whether or not he leaves Hogwarts, when Snorky lets slip that he is the one that let Jason leave and go to the ministry. Racked with guilt, Jason sends Snorky away, lost in his misery and he attempts to figure out hat to do next - work with Dumbledore or cooperate with Snorky.

The sixth book begins with Jason seeing things play out predictably - Voldemort is out in the open, the ministry axes Fudge and brings in Scrimgeour (who still wants Harry as the poster child for the ministry), and the school year seems ready to begin. The big difference - Harry spends the remainder of the summer after recruiting Slughorn with Sirius because, finally, he has been cleared of all charges. He still needs to go back to Privet Drive once more - Dumbledore insists - but he sees more of Sirius and gets his guidance. They can relate to each other on another level now - both of them have lost their best friend and need to work through it, although Harry must work through it while learning how to kill Voldemort.

Jason is still grappling with how much he should change - Snorky insists that many things must remain the same or else Voldemort will win the battle. Jason starts to doubt Snorky at this time, knowing that working with Dumbledore is the best move. He opts to be rather distant to both of them,  however, telling Snorky and Dumbledore only what they need to know to go forward. Both put immense pressure on him to do what the other does not wish them to do, but Jason starts to forge his own path - one that involves helping destroy the horcruxes to avoid any more unnecessary loss of life.

The force that was once trying to derail Jason has long since stopped what it was doing, something Jason really only truly notices at this stage of the game. The force returns, however, when he begins hunting for the Room of Requirement (which he oddly cannot find) so that he can destroy the diadem and make it so that Harry and Hermione do not need to return there later. Late in the story, when Dumbledore is getting ready to take Harry with him to the cave by the ocean (no, Jason still hasn't helped out there because he knows it's a path that will eventually lead them to the correct horcrux), Dumbledore asks Jason one more time to confide in him details about the future, if they can save lives. In a moment of weakness, Jason simply tells Dumbledore not to return to Hogwarts, and to keep himself and Harry safe until the school year has ended.

This leaves Jason (still unable to locate the diadem) to help defend the castle, which he can do now. He has spent every summer training and learning magic, practicing and making sure he can combat fully-grown wizards. And he does this well, along with the Order and the DA. Unfortunately, Dumbledore returns with Harry, as he was supposed to do, and still gets killed. Jason feels responsible for not preventing this and tells Snorky he will no longer work to keep the timeline normal. He will simply work to help Harry and Hermione stop Voldemort by finding the diadem and help keep order at Hogwarts. Snorky laughs at this, knowing that he cannot possibly work from the shadows with what will happen to Hogwarts in the seventh book. Unable to figure out Snorky's motivation, he prepares to be trapped at Hogwarts with the changing of the guard, wondering what Snape will do with him.

Unbeknownst to Jason, Dumbledore has already told Snape about Jason, so Snape is ready to keep him safe. He does it throughout the seventh book very carefully, only helping when he can get away with it and never openly revealing his motivations to Jason. Halfway through the book, things change quickly: the Carrows try to kill Jason, Snorky defends him and falls in the battle, and the DA comes together to defeat the Carrows and help Jason get the diadem. This leaves Jason free to leave the Hogwarts grounds, even free to maybe go home to his own world if he wants to figure it out. He opts to find Harry and Hermione and help them find the remaining Horcruxes, now able to tell them whatever they need to know.

That's when the force that had once tried to derail him, the same one that tried to defend the diadem, finally shows itself. It says it can get Jason home to his own world, but only if he chooses to leave immediately. After some thought, Jason declines, knowing he has made it nearly impossible for Harry and Hermione to kill Voldemort on their own. Losing his only chance to get home, he seeks out Harry and Hermione to help them out.

And help them he does - they manage to destroy every horcrux except for Voldemort himself and the one inside Harry. This is when things get real, because the force that brought him to this world is the same one that tried to derail him for so long - it's the horcrux inside Harry. This horcrux has grown so powerful it managed to pull Jason out of the real world and into the story in the hopes of having him alter the story line and allow Voldemort to succeed. However, Snorky got to Jason before he could do any irreparable damage. The force, the horcrux, does not know to whom Snorky reported, but Jason manages to help get Harry to Voldemort for Voldemort to kill him (and kill the horcrux) despite the work of the mysterious force.

But then the worst happens: Voldemort refuses to kill Harry, finding out from this force that Harry is a horcrux. So Jason must do it, prompting Voldemort to kill Jason. Jason then visits a type of place like Harry does, greeted by none other than Dumbledore himself. This version of Dumbledore has been dead a long time - he died in the original, unaltered storyline and, sensing the awareness of the part of Voldemort within Harry, decides to communicate with a house elf to have Jason fight to keep the storyline intact. He is only able to communicate with this elf once, which explains why the elf became so misguided later on and insisted on keeping the storyline intact after it had become irreparably harmed. Jason has the option of going home to his world or helping Harry fight and defeat Voldemort, because Harry will wake up alone with Death Eaters. Jason, after a painful internal struggle, decides to help Harry.

He ends up helping Harry defeat Voldemort (I haven't worked out whether this is again because of the Elder Wand or not), and the world is saved. Jason is trapped but makes the most of it, marrying another wizard in the epilogue. Harry marries Hermione (to please an incredibly vocal part of the Harry Potter fanbase), the Weasleys are a god-family to their kids, and they all live happily ever after.

Alright, so this all seems kind of strange, but really, a horcrux becoming so powerful it can breach the book and come into the real world? That is probably one of my best ideas ever.

There are still a lot of details to hash out - the whole Deathly Hallows business, how Harry and Hermione continue without Ron, how the rest of the castle perceives and interacts with Jason - but really, this could be amazing. I know there must be some writer out there ready to dedicate the next decade of his or her life filling in the details of this epic saga. I just hope that person somehow stumbles across this blog.

Nerdy Month in Review: August 2015

This August was perhaps the craziest month ever in my life. Between taking care of two kids, preparing for the school year, and taking the family out to Chicago and back, I had little time for my usual nerdy endeavors. I did fit a few things in, though, and I'll sum them up here.

TV
I cannot remember the last time the little lady and I watched Avengers, but the last episode we saw was from the aftermath of the Skull invasion. It was a really fun episode in which we are introduced to Spiderman and the "web" of lies concocted by J. Jonah Jameson at his expense. Spiderman and Captain America were able to relate for most of the episode, since most of the world has no idea that Captain America was being impersonated by a Skull and did not actually want the entire population of the Earth to bow down to them. The headline for The Daily Bugle at the end of the episode, though, as read by Spiderman, really put the episode over the top: "Captain America defeats Spiderman and the Serpent Society!?!?" Comic gold.

I have continued to watch Dexter, but I am still on season 2. Getting in Dexter is tough because there are two young 'uns that cannot watch it, or even walk through the same room while I watch it. So, I need to tuck myself into our breakfast nook in the kitchen with my headphones and laptop while they are playing outside or off doing something else. I had forgotten how great the relationship between Dexter and Doakes is in that season - the writers really did a great job of building up that tension throughout the entire season. I am about to watch the episode in which (spoiler alert!) Doakes ends up discovering Dexter for what he really is, and the episode that follows that is, if I remember correctly, one of the best. I am looking forward to it, but not looking forward to seeing more of Lila at the end of the season.

Season 2 is not my favorite season, but seasons 3 through 5 mark what I believe is the best ark in the entire series, and I bet I'll get some writing in on that.

Video Games
Remember last time, when I said I would play more Legend of Zelda, and more Mario, and more games in general? Yeah, no.

The only game I play regularly is Candy Crush Saga because it's the only game I have time to play, in between being a dad. It's a fun game, and only recently have I found that there is actually a little bit of skill required to get the three star rank for which I always aim. I mean, you don't need much skill - it's still mostly luck - but I have started to develop strategy for levels instead of just mindlessly playing it and hoping for some of the good pieces.

I did sit down and play a depressingly bad game called Chicken Shoot. Seriously, it's bad, and racist, and not well tested, and racist. I would say it's so bad it's good, but it's also racist. Like, really racist, and pointless. I think I might start a series of posts titled "Game You Never Knew Existed," and Chicken Shoot will face my wrath in a much more extended entry, perhaps with some video!

Movies
I spent a rather lengthy blog post on it, so I won't elaborate here, but we did watch Return of the Jedi with the little lady. Please reference my incredibly long rant about the movie from the previous blog post if you are curious as to how I feel about the experience.

We have also been watching the Marvel movies with the little lady, making sure to have good conversations about the violence in them so that we continue to be good parents as well. We watched Iron Man, which continues to age better than I thought it might. Robert Downey Jr. has the role down so well from the get-go that I can't help but feel like it was written for him in the first place. I also constantly forget that Terrence Howard played Rhodes in the first movie. I always get annoyed at switched like that in the middle of a franchise, but really, Don Cheadle has way more fun being a superhero than Howard would have had.

We also watched The Incredible Hulk, the forgotten Marvel movie that, as far as I know, remains canon even though most people pretend like it never happened. I believe there is a Marvel One-Shot that takes care of the loose ends (the fate of Abomination, the tease about The Leader), but I haven't read much because I want to see it, but I also haven't gotten a chance to see it. They should just put them all out on one DVD, or put them on Netflix.

Anyway, that movie isn't great, but it isn't bad. The humor seems ill-placed in it for some reason that I cannot quite identify, even though I feel like each moment succeeds in and of itself. I am glad Edward Norton was recast - Mark Ruffalo plays The Hulk perfectly, with his mannerisms and attitude. I am looking forward to the return of General Ross in Captain America: Civil War - he seemed like such a caricature in this movie that it wasted William Hurt's talents. I hope he's got some good things to work with in the new film.

Books
Reading is tough, since it takes me considerable mental energy to do it and do it well. I enjoy reading, though, and have managed to work my way through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and am almost done (I think) with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I really hate that there is hardly any narrative thread - I like stories that are clever, not clever (and, I will admit, often humorous) little tidbits that are attempted to be thrown together into a story. It's the same sort of problem I had with Stephen King's It - make a collection of short stories and lose the need to connect it all, since the connection kind of sucks. I am enjoying the books, to a certain extent, but after reading It and Faithful and now this, I am really longing for a story.

(Hopefully) Coming Up in September...
Well, there will be more Dexter, damn it. I will have to wait until at least the little one goes to bed, and even then still sit somewhere all on my own to get through it without interruption, but it will happen. I think getting all of the way through season 3 is an overly-ambitious goal, but getting into season 3 should be doable.

The little lady and I should also continue getting through Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. She'll want to do it - I just need to remember to remind her.

I will read more - I have consistently read every night before going to sleep for about a week and it will continue. I hope to start Stephen King's Joyland by the end of the month.

Video games? Look for a post that describes a regular Twitch playing time, hopefully every Saturday morning (since it's the only uninterrupted time I can get the TV). Also, as I mentioned, I want to start the new series of posts called Games You Never Knew Existed. I hope I can make it happen, at least once a month, as well as continue going through My Collection of Unfinished Games.