Can you tell us more about DnD, Obscurial Harry, or the love potion soulmate au?
Because I think those are wonderful ideas.
wip folder ask game!
im gonna tell you about all three because i can. this answer is gonna get a little long.
DnD Harry came about because I was, once again, musing about the spell chain lightning. And I was thinking of situations Harry could have used it in, if he'd known about it. The general outline is that, during the summer after first year, Harry overhears some kids talking about spells and thinks they might also be wizards. He very quickly figures out he's wrong, but they kind of envelope him into their group, teaching him to play and feeding him snacks.
In the actual DnD game he plays a rogue to help round out the party, but he learns "wizard spells" from one of the other players, including chain lightning. It's a sort of gray!Harry AU too, because he starts to think of morality wrt DnD aligments and doesn't really think he needs to fit the Chosen One mold, even subconsciously. here's some excerpts:
Jimmy stood up and on the grid board in the center of the table, he put down four figures along with four horses. Then he put down three winged creatures facing them. “Harpies!” Adam hissed. “Ah Jimmy, not in front of the kid!” “If he hasn’t seen a pair of tits yet then bully for him,” Jimmy said as he put down the last figure. “Besides, harpy tits are good for growing boys,” he winked at Harry and then gestured for him to come closer as he sat down. Nervously, Harry scooted over. He peeked behind the board and saw, to his surprise, just a handful of papers, a notebook and a bunch of dice. So. Many. Dice. “Do you want to play, kid?” Jimmy asked. “Me?” He nodded. “Yeah, you. Want to be a harpy?” “Uh. What do I do?” “Well, harpies like to kill and eat people,” Jimmy said. He reached down beneath the table, pulled out a book and flipped to a page. Then he put it in front of Harry and said, “Here’s their stats. Down here are their attacks. I’ll let you be the black haired Harpy, okay?” He put aside some dice. “You’ll roll these when you attack.” “Hey! Don’t turn him into a mini-DM!” Adam argued. “He’s one of us!” “Well, until he’s got a character sheet, he’s one of mine,” Jimmy said. “You got this, kid?” Harry scrunched up his face. “My name is Harry.” Jimmy grinned, ruffled his hair, and then said, “Yeah, you got this. Now everyone, roll initiative.”
Obscural-Horcrux Harry is a fun one, fun in that it starts with murder and continues to be pretty grim for Harry, though he's young enough that he doesn't quite get it for a while.
The outline i have currently is that he gets put through the muggle child services at first, long enough to settle with a family and start to bond with them, only for someone to step in and remove him from that family and adjust their memories. He doesn't take this well.
i haven't outlined exactly the point he comes across Voldemort, but the jist is that eventually he does, probably at a very low point and/or in the midst of one of his "episodes" and at this point while some people know he's a danger, no one knows how to calm him down, if they even can.
here's an excerpt from that one:
Harry woke up in a starchy bed with pale blue blankets and in a room with pale blue walls. There was a mask on his face that was connected to a tube and a machine that beeped nearby. He moved his arm sluggishly and noticed there was another tube connected to his arm with some tape and that tube was connected to a clear bag on a stand. After a while, a woman poked her head in and then, seeing him awake, she stepped in to talk to him. “Hello,” she said softly, almost in a whisper, “My name is Melinda.” Sluggishly, Harry blinked at her. “H’lo,” he mumbled. His voice sounded strange through the mask, rough and terrible. “I’m the nurse looking after you right now,” Melinda said, “You’re in the hospital.” Harry was surprised. He’d never seen a doctor before no matter how hurt he’d been. How badly must he have been hurt for the Dursleys to bring him here? Some of that surprise must have shown on his face, because Melinda asked, “What do you remember last?” “It was hot,” Harry said. He’d been in his cupboard. He’d been in there for his third day in a row, locked in after his morning of chores because the Dursleys didn’t want him running around outside in the summer afternoon and ruin Dudley’s birthday week. He’d made breakfast and been shoved in to the dark room. It had been hot and stuffy, utterly terrible. He could barely breathe and he was covered in sweat. He’d thought he was going to die in there. He thought that the Dursleys would just keep the door locked and have him rot away. No one would ever know what happened to him. He’d never be buried or anything. His bones would become part of the house, part of the room that was his sanctuary and his nightmare. “Anything else?” Melinda prompted. Harry blinked slowly. “I thought I was gonna die.” An odd expression crossed her face, one of pity, one of sympathy. “You almost did,” she said.
and finally, Revised Love Potion Soulmate AU. that one, as you can probably tell from the title, has gone through several iterations. I had a same age love potion au, but after tinkering with it for a while, it just didn't keep my fancy. and so i kept the age difference and made Tom the minister instead. it's a fun one, with some time jumps at the start showing the moments Tom hears about Harry from the first point they meet (well, see each other in person, they don't 'meet' properly for a while), and the rumors surrounding Harry.
because of Tom's background, he made Amortentia illegal to brew--and not really a spoiler, but Harry (sorted Slytherin and disliked generally by his fellow Slytherins) gets framed for making it in his seventh year and expelled. there's a bunch of other background stuff (implications of harry being born under the effects of a love potion, lily shows up later, etc etc) but as i was working on the outline, it took a funny turn.
See, after Tom realizes that Harry's his soulmate, he discovers there's a whole subculture of muggleborn wizards who just,,, live in the muggle world under their own set of wards to keep them from being noticed. and a lot of the changes that Tom thought he was making in order to keep something like this from happening kind of broke down as they were passed down the chain of the Ministry. when he realizes that they need more aggressive reform, he also realizes he's gotten rather...soft in his approach to change. there's a lack of respect from his people. a lack of fear.
so while it's a love potion au, and a soulmate au, it's also a Lord Voldemort Returns Au. here's an excerpt of their meeting (Tom's just been hit by a car, for context)
He came to on his back, cold concrete beneath him, someone’s warm hands holding his head and neck. He gasped, startled, shocked, panicked. He could taste blood in his mouth and he wheezed with each breath. His chest was in excruciating pain. Vision swimming, Tom looked up and tried to focus. He saw a face above him, saw pink lips moving, dark hair dusted with snow and the most brilliant green eyes in the world. Some other part of his body—his leg, his side, his back?—began to throb unbearably and his vision blurred back into formless darkness. Tom woke again when his body shrieked with pain and he was lifted up briefly. His neck was immobilized with some sort of brace and his body bound with a few straps and covered. He made a confused, garbled sound, attempting to ask what had happened, where was he, what was going on? Green eyes ducked down into his vision again. The face they were attached to became clear. It was a handsome man with an intense, serious expression. A warm hand squeezed his and the man said, “You’re going to be okay. We’re taking you to the hospital and they’ll have a look at you, sir. Can you stay with me? Just blink twice if you can.” Tom blinked twice. The man gave him a blinding smile, “Great job. Incredible."
thank you for playing the wip folder ask game! i now have to rush to get ready for work lol
