Harry Potter Shards of Souls

[jwang]

With all the Manipulative!Dumbledore stories floating around, I've came up with an idea. Instead of simply having him as a person who makes roads to hell due to good intentions, why not make him a person who purposely paves a highway to hell all to further his ideals? In fact make him a Dark Lord that has existed for a long time by possessing other people, or even better, THE Dark Lord spoken of in Trelawney's prophesy! After all, it isn't specified WHICH Dark Lord, and besides, "You-Know-Who" is too vague of a title to specify a specific person.

Now in order to mark Harry as his equal, we could make Dumbledore a bit like Orochimaru by making him view Harry as a potential vessel to possess. After his "death", as per his plans, Dumbledore's portrait in the Headmaster's office, which in actuality is a Horcrux. However, he underestimates Harry's willpower, and in an amazing show of willpower and magic, Harry manages to throw off the possession attempt, and as a result gained the knowledge and power contained in that shard of soul, which is quite a bit, since Dumbledore put most of his investments into this piece. However, not all of Dumbledore is gone, as he had a contingency plan in place in case things goes wrong. Cue the takeover of <insert name>, preferably somebody that Harry trusts. However, this part of Dumbledore only knows how to gain power, and how to reclaim what was rightfully his, and so is not as powerful, only more cunning and ruthless.

For an extra bit of twist, make ol' Tommy-boy one of the past potential candidates for Dumbledore to possess, only in the process of making him the ideal vessel, he became a corrupted and lesser version of what Dumbledore actually is. On a subconscious level, Tom fears Dumbledore because he knows he is merely a lesser copy, which is why he delved into the Dark Arts in the first place.

 

[ttestagr]

So you're basically making Dumbledore Karla the Grey Witch? That works, as a villain she was far more badass than anyone in Harry Potter.

 

[Mighty Bob]

So you're basically making Dumbledore Karla the Grey Witch? That works, as a villain she was far more badass than anyone in Harry Potter.

Heh, I was thinking of Fistandantlus and what happened with Raistlin when I read this, but Karla fits in there too.

So did this Dumbles have an ultimate goal he was working on while chugging through the ages, or was immortallity and fame/influence his only real goals in (un)life? Would Harry's personality/outlook on things change drastically from this influx of power and knowledge?

I'm assuming that a big point of the story would be Harry still needing to nuetralize Voldemort whilst doing whatever he can to fend off the other Shard and it's attempts to regain what was lost. Anything else for the plot?

 

[Reozul]

Very nice Idea.

I guess Dumbledores "goal" is simply always being there throughout history and manipulating and steering mankinds (or at least wizardkinds) evolution.

Two people who could know (have known).

- Flammel (600 years old)

Maybe dumbles sees Flammels longevity as threat and rival.

- Merlin

If dumbles already was around at that time

Question is.
Why did he put harry through all those "tests" throughout the years?
He already is mighty old and loosing a potential vessel under such stupid circumstances would make him have to start all over again.
Granted, by my own calculation dumbles own power stretches his aging enough that he ultimately could get to the age of 200-225 but still, wouldn't he get somewhat anxious?

P.S. Maybe Grindelwald was his first try, and he is getting sick of all the potentials going psycho?

 

[ttestagr]

You know now that I think about it, Dumbledore would make a perfect Karla like villain. She can be considered evil, but doesn't classify herself as such. She's also willing to fight against large threats that pop up (though nothing in Harry Potter matches anything in Lodoss.)

Dumbledore wouldn't be looking for personal or political power here, but instead looking to manipulate everything into what he thinks is the best situation. His attitude and actions towards Harry and Voldemort would also be logical. Riddle was his choice as a new body because he was able to predict how destructive he could be and he taking him over would neatly cut out any influence he could have had on history. Riddle got too strong too fast though and was able to escape Dumbledore's influence, and Harry as the replacement is the result. Dumbledore actually wants Harry safe and fairly happy, and makes conscessions between the two which result in his upbringing and relatively normal education. All in all it has worked, he is safe and is fairly happy for most of his time at Hogwarts. He has planned out Harry's eventual defeat of Voldemort to the letter, not relying on something as iffy as a duel or a test of skills but by undermining Voldemorts new body and is pleasantly surprised when Voldemort does it himself instead of making him do so. This is his plan because he also doesn't want Harry too skilled, just in case he is forced to jump into Harry's body. Note that such an action would be a last resort, Harry isn't the future problem Riddle was and Dumbledore has quite a few more years to see if one shows up.

Harry would eventually break away because he doesn't agree with Dumbledore's policies and his goals. He would choose to fight though, but also noting that Dumbledore isn't a sociopath or evil like Voldemort. Harry doesn't have that much of a problem killing Voldemort, because he seriously needs a case of death. Dumbledore will be different though, Harry would have to decide if his goals for the wizarding world and stopping Dumbledore's is important enough to kill him for.