Choosing a Darker Path - Beginnings

by magicweb

Follow Harry Potter as he finds his true calling in the Wizarding World. Follow him as he carves his own path and proves that he is the most powerful wizard that will ever live. includes a Dark!Harry, Manipulative!Dumbledore and Harry/Draco. This is a SLASH fiction. If you are not into that sort of story, that is fine but you might not like later parts of this story.

1. Preface

Series: Choosing a Darker Path

Book 1: Beginnings

Series Preface

Hello everyone, this will be my first attempt at fanfiction, so hopefully I won't make too much of a fool of myself. I present to you a fanfiction of the ever-popular Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling.

I would like to begin by describing what this series is going to be and what is not going to be. Too often I feel that a story description does not really give the reader the best idea of what they are about to read and with the large number of stories out there I feel that it would be beneficial for my readers to understand what type of story that I am trying to present to them. This is especially true for this series since it will be quite long. To that end, the following will outline some elements of the story and the world that I intend to portray with Choosing a Darker Path. If you would rather read this story blind without the minor spoiling that may be below, please feel free to skip this and proceed to the prologue.

Genre: This is primarily a Coming of Age story. It will contain elements of Action & Adventure and later on, Romance.

Scope: The story will start from the Pre-Hogwarts years to after graduation form Hogwarts as Harry's goals in this story extend beyond the present conflict that is forced upon him.

Rating: This is a mature story, it is intended for mature teenagers or adults and as such will contain elements of violence, profanity, sexual themes, horror themes, etc. My goal is to tell a much darker and realistic portrayal of the conflict presented in Harry Potter. The main stories presented a rose-tinted view of war and hope to correct that with a more grounded telling.

Main Paring: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy (There will be other relationships mentioned for other characters and harry will of course be attracted to other people but this is the main relationship that is explored in this series.)

Paring Type: Slash (This applies to the main parring. Non-Slash parings are mentioned as they are the norm but this is the paring that I am going with for the main character)

Protagonist Characterization: Harry will be the protagonist of this story and as such it will be primarily from his point of view. Since this is the case, it is important to keep in mind that my portrayal of Harry is a much darker version than cannon. It is my feeling that Harry's reactions to his early life situation, while possible for a child to experience, is not the way I wish to see him and I intend to explore a more cynical, intelligent, independent, cunning and ruthless Harry. Obviously for the plot to progress as I have outlined it, Harry will be homosexual in this story instead of heterosexual, as portrayed in cannon. It doesn't really affect his outlook and attitudes on most topics but does affect his choice in romantic partner.

Other Characterizations: I will try to keep the characters as close to their book counterparts. However, keep in mind that Harry will likely not view them the same as he did in cannon due to his own change in perspective. Obviously for the sake of the plot I wish to show you, Draco Malfoy will be homosexual instead of heterosexual. This is simply a change that must be made to serve the story I would like to tell. This story may contain some implications about motivations of characters that may not line up with J. K. Rowling's opinion on the characters. I will try my best to paint the characters by their actions and not their supposed roles in the original story.

Story Structure: As with cannon, I will likely comprise each story in the series to correspond with a school year in Harry's life. This may shift slightly depending on the needs of that time of the story but will generally remain. I believe that it is a fairly good structure for this type of story. Due to this structure, this series is going to be long and somewhat of a slow burn. However, I feel that the time I spend on each year will allow me to flush out the characters and explore some aspects of this world that the books do not. Another thing I am interested in allowing the reader to actually learn about the magic shown in the Harry Potter series. I always felt that we didn't really learn that much about magic in the books even though we spent 7 books with the characters. So, throughout the story there will be detailed explanations of magic and they will become more complex the more Harry learns. I will start with an amount of explanation that I feel is still enjoyable to read and may scale back or increase it depending on reader feedback.

Setting: I am from the United States and as such I have a limited perspective on British Culture and Language. I will do my best to include places, slang, culture references, etc. as best I can to try to keep the setting authentic.

Author's Notes: I welcome any constructive feedback that you guys would like to give me on this story. If you guys like the story, I would love to hear what you like about it. On the other hand, if something isn't working I would really like to hear about it and I may even change how the story plays out based upon feedback I receive. While I would like to tell the story that I have in mind, I would also like to tell a story that others enjoy. As far as schedule goes, this will be mostly written as I get it done. I would like to release at least one chapter every week if I could but I do not want to hold myself to that as I don't want to feel obligated to write something, as I believe it will cause quality to suffer. However, I do plan to release the prologue and chapter one of each story as I begin them, that way you guys have something to read upon release of each story. As far as chapter length goes, I will try to keep each chapter to about 7,000-10,000 words. This number could vary but is what I think will serve as enough content, keeping in mind the episodic schedule that fanfictions are released. Of course, if you wait for a few chapters to come out and simply binge it then this length would not matter to you that much I imagine.

A final note is that since this is my first story and I am new to this I do not have a beta to look over things so I hope you guys can trust my judgement and proofreading skills for a little while. I would love to get a beta or maybe even a few if the story gets a decent amount of views. If you are interested in this, send me a private a message and we can talk about it.

Well that was a lot to cover there but I feel it is important to get all that out of the way. Hope that everyone enjoys Choosing a Darker Path!