Just a collection of novella-length stories set after the second-to-last chapter of the last book. Ignores the last chapter of the real series, aka the epilogue, and goes in an entirely different direction. Harry here will almost exactly be the sort of person that Snape accused him of being. He'll drink, snort, smoke, fight, and fuck his fill along the way, at least at first. Story will have a strong narrator's voice throughout. It'll be told through lens of a 'rough draft' of a series, with notes along the way. This introduction will 'set up' the world in general.


TMwS


When you're on top of the world, the only direction for you to go is downward. Some might say that's a bit of a depressing outlook, but in my opinion, isn't the plummet the best part of a roller coaster?

For Harry Potter, that drop was the sky-scraping sort you find only in the skeeviest of carnivals and terrifying of nightmares. Of course, since it was Harry we're talking about here, he flew down it with a wide smile, a boisterous laugh, and his arms held high. The man fell down the social ladder with debauchery and deviousness in such ample amounts that it might make you gasp. Drugs, liquor, women, violence? He swam through such things like a fish in water, like a bird through the sky. Throughout it all though, deep down, there lived the part of him that was still a hero.

Everyone knows the Boy Who Lived's story, and many had expectations about where he would go from there. But there's so few tales about what really happened when the dust settled after his final collision with the Dark Lord Voldemort. (There will be no editing or censoring of his name, no matter what you say, Janet.) What really happened when the war was over, the dead were buried, and those left alive had to sift through the wreckage. What really happened to Harry Potter.

Of course, there are some things that are already common knowledge.

He went back to school, and graduated with grades that could also be compared to a roller coaster with the way he would O subjects like Defence and Transfiguration only to D or T subjects like Potions and History. The Ministry was obviously willing to turn a blind eye to such things in exchange for getting the most valuable wizard in the world on their side, but Harry had other plans. He instead signed on with the Chudley Cannons and took them to back to back cups. (Please verify what it is that quidditch teams actually win.) After that, he retired.

Some tried saying it was due to an injury that he left the sport, but those rumours were quickly put to rest when he became a freelance cursebreaker. Harry plundered crypts from Zimbabwe to the Appalachians, explored pocket dimensions stemming from all sorts of artefacts and doodads, and could command commissions that forced entire nations' budgets to be rewritten. It was somewhere during these years that he divorced his Hogwarts sweetheart, Ginny Weasley.

Ginny is a sweet, brave, caring, and wonderful woman. She stood by Harry throughout his quidditch years, even despite the fact that she played for some other team, and did it with a smile. It turned out to be a lot more difficult to just grin and bear it when your husband only came home every few months, and was typically too bruised and battered to do much besides drink and sleep. And so they fought, ultimatums were made, and their divorce was far more amicable than you might expect to see between two world-famous athletes.

It would be easy to blame that break up and the ensuing heart ache for what happened to him next.

It wouldn't be correct, but it would be easy.

No, if the break up had any effect on Harry, it was that he was no longer weighed down by the constraints of matrimony, and was finally free to truly explore both the world and himself. He no longer worried that his wife might have to come and pick him up out of that comfy looking gutter. He no longer stressed over the fact that he might have kids to someday miss him. He no longer wanted to go home. He was finally free to just let loose.

Now, that might be a bit too romantic of a way to say it, especially considering the amount of nights he spent sleeping one off in a jail cell or somewhere else far less comfortable. On the other hand, that's certainly more in line with the way he himself would put it, assuming you could even get him to speak on such matters.

I had been planning to write these stories down for quite some time. I kept waiting for that special, 'sunset' moment to happen in Harry's life so that way I could know what the ending was before we got there. I wanted to know for sure that he would have a happy ending. Unfortunately, I think I've waited long enough. In some ways, his life today is definitely better than it was. In other ways, it's only gotten worse. You could say the same about the man himself.

So here's to hoping that this story has a happy ending. That he gets the (new) girl, rides off into the sunset, and lives happily after. Until then, I'll be writing, and waiting. Chronicling the stories of the Man Who Survived in the wake of the Boy Who Lived's fading away.

For our first story, let's go with something rather eye-catching. Something to capture your imagination, and help really set the stage for what's to come. This story takes place in 20XX. (Have someone find the year, just look up the Great Transylvania Train Fire.) Harry had been divorced from Ginny for several years now, nearly as long as they'd been together. His love for the broom was still there, even if he wasn't legally allowed to ride one on public land. He had more than cemented the reputation he'd developed for being the two-time savior of the wizarding world. He wasn't quite the myth he's become, but neither was he just some has-been quidditch player.

This is the tale of when Harry met Dracula. Yes, the Dracula.

Harry Potter is:

The Man Who Survived The Vampire

(a working title)


TMwS


And that's the Introduction/Prologue! I'm posting the first chapter immediately afterwards, just need time to do a last-second read through and navigate my way through the sites. Hopefully you have a better idea of what you're getting into, and will leave or read on appropriately. To set the right expectations here, there won't be any harem or smut scenes despite Harry's lascivious nature. There might be 'low points' in terms of the energy and mood, but I don't plan on keeping them around for long and thus don't think the angst tag is needed. Updates might be infrequent as I focus on my current main work: Back, Black, and Ready to Snack. The eventual pairing should be obvious based on the tags, even if it takes us a few stories to get there.

But if you enjoyed this and wanna read more, gimme a few minutes and I'll have chapter 1 uploaded. The chapter after that might take a while, I've worked on this in short spurts between working on my other fic, but since I plan to have this done in sections I don't intend to leave anyone hanging too long on any individual story. I want to provide good 'stopping points' between each section. Anyways, there's the beginning of The Man who Survived, let's go! Lessthanthree