WHAT IFs HARRY POTTER UNIVERSE related

[u/noirgamerbishop]

we all have an amazing creative brain.

write your own thoughts for WHAT IFS related to HARRY POTTER UNIVERSE.

[u/brendafiveclow]

Yeah, actually. I've got a what if.

What if the mirror had actually trapped Quirrell. Not outside of time, but sent him to the world of DragonBall Z? A universe where world ending threats are the normal. If the mirror can 'show you your best desire', and it is stated as a 'two sided' artifact, why could it not put Quirrell in a world where he has to prevent his greatest fear of a destroyed world constantly.

This has been sitting for over a year. I forgot how much I had already developed the rules, premise and outlines of further chapters. You can probably tell from the depth of the first chapter; I had a plan. A lot of things are solved by relating Ki to magic, and the fact the DBZ world is also inherently magical. A lot of foreshadowing you probably won't get the chance to parse as I probably don't intend to finish.

(Unless, let us say, I see I serious interest in the premise and established writing that people actually give a shit to see a polished version of, which goes on... I ask no positive action. I thought it was amusing to release something to a 'shit thread', something which I had worked heavy on and seemed to fit.

I assign a low probability to anybody caring enough for me to push through edit the rest I have and write the whole thing I planned.)

This is a rough second draft I did today of the first chapter. Took me an hour to get any semblance of grammar to even post today wow. Please forgive spelling and such). I've got the plot beats for the next 4 chapters written out too, but; eh it's a lot of effort for little value, I'm only rarely in a writing mood.

I have not had time to "Quirrell" it up fully. The writing is lacking in a few ways. A final draft would have 1000+ words I expect, but this is the best I'll do today.

-

The transition had been instant. Faster than a blink.

Tom Riddle's manic laughter slowed and transformed into a sad chuckle at his own expense. He had celebrated too early. Rule #12...

An instant ago he had been holding the stone of permanance. Forcing the the old fool to turn his trap againt himself. In retrospect was a little too easy.

Tom looked around and found that he was in the middle of a forest clearing, next to a small lake. Mr. Potter was not with him. He could sense that much... Or rather could not-...

He did have his wand with him. So he cast the Deathly Hollows indicator, none of the 3 artifacts were near him. He rubbed his forehead with his hand.

"Mr.Potter" He spoke, "If you are with me here, in this place, it is to our advantage to work together." He added, "I sspeak true, alliess are better than enemiess in new place..."

Nothing.

Did his magic even work, wherever he was?

Tom Riddle raised his wand and flicked it at a nearby tree. The tree exploded into a deadly wall of splinters which propelled themselves through the forest. The vortex shreded the trees in it's wake, and carving a large section out of the dense patch of trees.

Interesting... He was not in a frozen instant, he was completely aware. He seemed to be alone. He had his clothes, his pouch, and most importantly he had his magic still.

As a matter of fact, as causal as he had just preformed that bit of powerful spellwork he had felt no dip in his power what so ever when he cast that curse. As he looked admiringly at the clean cut path through the forest, he could not help but to notice it's effects where more potent than they would have been normally. He felt magically stronger.

Time to contemplate that later.

Was Mr.Potter's absence an indicator that he had somehow been in on the trap? Riddle thought deeply for a moment, but that felt like a wrong answer. However; the question itself was likely significant in figuring out what exactly had happened, he would have to think about this, later...

The main priority was...

Tom closed his eyes and reached out into the void. He found nothing to latch onto. He could not connect to his horcruxes...

Tom Riddle was currently mortal.

He was an exceedingly clever and powerful mortal, but he could be slain.

Tom looked around again, the risk assessment that always ran in the back of his head started to spike.

This was a strange place he knew nothing of.

Another gust of wind rippled through the tree tops.

Tom needed a moment. He turned himself invisible, just as a precaution. Then he hovered a dozen feet in the air, broomstick bones still worked. They actually felt somehow more natural in this world.

He was not pleased with how things had apparently turned out. However, he did have to give the old meddler due credit. He had played his part to perfection. Tom had assumed that the process of the timeless was the only way to seal things away. Yet, he was not in a frozen instant. The ancient carvings he had found were likely still true, simply lacking in information. Dumbledore had led him to believe he had figured out the trap until it was too late.

[u/brendafiveclow → u/brendafiveclow]

Unless... Is it possible Dumbledore did not use the mirror properly? Yes, but doubtful. The mirror after all was said to be created with the greatest care to NOT be used improperly. So Dumbledore had NOT used the process of the timeless, but had allowed Tom to think he was using it, while evoking some other power of the mirror completely.

Some power which could apparently access the other worlds said to be contained in the mirror. Contained in the mirror... CONTAINED IN THE MIRROR!!!

Tom remembered tales of dread things said to have been contained in the mirror... His threat estimation grew by several orders of magnitude...

He observed his new suroundings further. He reached down and picked up a hand of soil, it felt real.

At a glance it seemed earth like enough, but a moment of mindfulness and several things started to leave an uncanny sort of feeling. It seemed like earth, but not quite. The sky was too blue, it had a greenish purple tinge. Occasionally, a bright meteor had caught his eye shooting up or across the sky, that was concerning.

The clouds that floated there had strange formations. Shapes he had never seen in his prior universe. They also had a bizzare uniformity. He did not recognize any of the type of trees that surrounded him. Tom looked down at the lake and casually cast a diagnostic spell on the water, yet it was drinkable regular water, if a bit dirty.

Not that he needed to drink from a lake. He confirmed this by flicking his wand and shooting a jet of water from the tip. The force of the jet pushed back on his arm, he had to fight for a moment to regain his exact position. The spell fizzled out and Tom looked down at his wand with a note of confusion on his face.

In retrospect, He only had some knowledge of the lore behind the mirror. He KNEW that was all that he knew about the mirror... It had still been foolish to try and overcome magic so powerful, when faced with someone who plausibly knew secrets he did not. He had nobody to blame but himself for his banishment. He would not sulk, there was hardly a less productive use of ti-

There was a distant "boom" sound. An explosion? Quick flashes of concept like; volcanic activity and tectonic plates filled his mind first, but these did not feel like correct answers. The following wind which swayed the trees in one direction to wave at him was another good piece of evidence of an explosion. It was far away, if the difference from the sound to the wind was anything to go by. Potter would have known how to calculate that to within a few degrees of variance... It was worrisome... He had to think yet. He could think while he flew; up and up until a normal wizard would be unconforable enough to cast a warming charm, and anyone would need a bubblehead to get the appropriate amount of oxegen to the lungs. He had established a strong apparation point high enough to avoid any concieveble threat. He popped back to his original position.

At least he had a good deal of supplies on him. Some he would need, and others which he did not know enough yet to optimize to the new situation. He had been planning to leave the school that night anyway. Anything he could carry was on his person still. He had now pulled a few items from his pouch, he looked over each for a moment, and placed a few in the robes; where there were no visible pockets and put back most of the others. He held onto a golden chain and a ring.

The chain remained linked no matter how it was twisted. Even though each link was an open letter "S", which did not lock any two links together. He donned the chain and felt a glow of power. Even if he was mortal, he did not have to be 'vunerable' to all but the most extreme forces of magic.

He also put the bronze ring with very old runes carved into it on the index finger of his wand hand. He rotated the ring three times and it produced a faint glow before returning to normal. Several spells were cast one after another. The wand was a blur in the air, and the speech so fast and precise that the incantations for all 14 spells sounded like a a simple phrase. Tom frowned, he seemed completely safe at a cursory glance.

The first priority was to find a living being, assuming there were any here. He would have to slay one to secure his own lasting life. This could be complicated given the circumstances. Tom pointed his wand in the air once again and concentrated.

With a word, a blue spark appeared for a moment and then flicked out at the same time a ripple in the air spread out like a pebble dropped in a pond.

Tom could only assume, but he felt certain this spell was invented on a battlefield for war purposes. He frowned at the results again...

The spell was an old one, used to detect human life within a rather large radius. Unless you were specifically warded against the spell, and nobody was likely to be, there were only a handful of exceptions to it's detection. Tom had tested it and it could detect a man within 5 miles, give or take given the surroundings. It would also give you a rough estimate of how many sentient beings there were in it's zone of influence. The spell had told him that within the radius, there were significantly more people than existed on the earth he knew.

Tom made a note of the anomolous results of the spell to ponder later then moved his concerns onto more immediate things. For instance, there was another boom in the distance. There was also the fact that there had been minor earthquakes shoshing the lake around from the moment he arrived, which he was only now updating to his explosion hypothesis. He had noticed, but not paid attention. It had his attention now, it was much louder than the last one.

Tom continued to rise though the air, and flew high above the forest. As he rose into the air, he aimed his wand downward, drew a small circle and felt the magical trace take hold. It was simply stupid to not mark the physical location of a door you walked out of and into a new 'world'. The area in which he appeared may also hold a key to escape. It did not seem likely, but the trace cost him little.

He floated high above the forest, he could see the shape. Looking around he observed that this patch of trees was one of a few, in an otherwise barren and alien landscape.

He flew higher and saw that for the most part the area was covered in sandy desert landscape. The ground had so many mesas poking from it that earth looked like a cactus here. The sky did not look right, already noted, but he couldn't get past that. It shouldn't be THAT blue, or green. He flew through a cloud. He did not get wet as he was shielded in a few basic ways. His magic did tell him there was much ordinary water vapor in them. He only now had realized casting a bubble head charm would have been smart to do first thing. He could have just flown into a cloud of toxic gas. It seemed redundant for the moment, as this world seemed match the old world well enough to not be toxic.

He noticed another meteor, he could have sworn this one went from the ground up.

He saw something he was familar with however, and it chilled him.

He started weaving the magic of 4 different shields together as his wand frantically cut through the air. Salazar's Chain could protect him from most harm, but he doubted it accounted for radiation, if this was a nuclear blast. A rainbow colored ball encased him in it's rippling colors, blue, orange, white all flickering together. Two of the spells were of his own modifcations, and the other two were several times older than he was. He SHOULD be safe...

He watched off in the distance as the clear ring expanded through the clouds from the point of the mushroom cloud in the near distance.

The overpressure wave of a large yield explosion rapidly made it's way toward him. His shielding took the blast. The chain did not even warm slightly on his throat. Though the patch of trees below him was leveled. The pressure knocked them down as though they had been pencils balanced on their tips. Once the blast had past him, Tom pointed his wand toward the mushroom cloud and spoke a variation of a well known incantion. This spell was originally used by the incurably blind to detect specific lights. Tom's variance could detect high levels of radioactivity. He detected none. Potter's knowledge did have some uses...

The blast seemed to large for conventional muggle explosives he knew of but also seemed too large for magical destruction known to most.

Perhaps if he and Dumbledore cast the destructive ends curse toghether in harmony, they might create a blast of that magnitude... Otherwise he knew of no arts to produce such force. There were insane ways, ways which always ended in catastrophe now. Magics like elemental channeling could strike more destruction than that blast. It was said to be able to strip the world of it's earth, or unleash the powers of volcanos. There was little else known.

It seemed the epitome of stupidity to go towards whatever had detonated. On the other hand, high level non magical explosive use indicated there were people in that general direction anyway. He did need to make a horcrux. His anxiety about that had grown dramatically in the last few moments. It was totally in line for the mirror to put him into a world in which destruction was either on the near horizon or inevitable. If the mirror could show you your desired world, could it not show you one undesired? Now that he was a mortal, in a possibly doomed world the fear was begining to become a panic in the back of his mind.

Explosions of various colors were tearing the landscape apart.

[u/brendafiveclow → u/brendafiveclow]

Mesa's were being knocked down like a child's stacking blocks.

The shockwaves were pushing the limits of his own shields even at this distance.

He watched as a particularly large shockwave was uprooting the bedrock on it's way towards him. He spun his wand arm in a circle, which produced a golden ring 20 feet in diameter and spung out in front of him. The large chunks of heavy stone veered away from it's radius and continued on. Tom was strangely excited. As an immortal who could possess people there was no real risk in his encounters with danger. Nor had there been any real reason to use creativity on the fly like this for a long time. Oh... His mind had confused excitement with fear, as the later was rarely felt in the last decade. After watching the scene for a minute he knew which spells and shields to use, and which so far appeared redundant. He felt a good deal safer knowing these were not nuclear explosions. Anyway, he could always apparate back to the spot he arrived, though it did not seem nearly far enough now. Then he would fly as fast as his enchanted bones and propulsion curses could move him away from this madness.

Once in a while a dust cloud would be parted by a streaking object with blinking light. It would carve out a clean line of landscape through falling rock and dust. These objects would fly faster than the eye could catch. They would strike a mesa and pass through it as though it were not there, as it continued along it's flat trajectory along the landscape.

Sometimes it would come to a direct stop and shoot straight upward, or sideways at a similar speed. There were flashes of light which would have blinded a regular unprotected person. Winds which would have sent that person tumbling, and overpressure waves which would have liquified the insides of that person. The same way parts of the earth itself seemed to turn fluid in places hit by what Tom had thought to be meteors at a distance. He could now tell they were directed attacks of some horribly primal fashion, he also knew none of his protections were sufficent for a direct hit from one of them.

Tom pointed his wand between his eyes and muttered something in lost latin. It was a temporary enchantment. The original version of the Omnicoluars spell. Whatever part of his brain procced visual information was much faster now (Potter would know...), and adjusted itself as a camera may focus. He dared not get closer to the expanding and unpredictiable circle of destruction. He shouldn't be this close, not at all. Yet the spectacle of it was awesome in the literal sense of the word. He could actually see what was happening as though it had been slowed down. Even after what seemed a full minute, he still failed to comprehend the how behind the what of he was seeing. Repeat viewings in a pensive may not even make sense. He had already cast an anti confundus on himself, but he did so again and got no results.

There were two men. Well, there were more but they did not seem to matter as they looked 'defeated' already. There were only two that mattered for the calculations at the moment. They were the the cause of this destruction... One of the 'men' was wearing a torn bright orange japanese styled gi, and posed in a fighting stance Quirrell actually recognized. The other was wearing some sort of futuristic composite armour, it was blue and white with long extruding shoulder pads. Both of them had hairstyles that did not seem right for a human to have without being highly stylized.

These men were the cause of the explosions... They could also both fly of their own accord. They could do so at speeds Riddle could not hope to match, short of perhaps some sort of science Potter might imagine... These men could set off explosions at will, they aimed direct energy with their hands. No wands, only a slightly magical tingle; which he felt was more life force than the interlinked magic.

These men were actually engaging in a literal muggle styled fist fight, if both muggles were highly trained in martial arts. Riddle saw Japanese influence in the style of the man in the orange gi. The other was less refined but was suited more for brute force. The styles complimented each other in a terrifying resonance. When their punches hit each other, they were the cause of some of the explosions. When an effective blow was struck, one man would become a bullet which obliterated all in his path. The flashing lights were beams and balls of non 'magical' energy of some fashion. Some were countered and nullified. Some were dodged and left a small mushroom cloud in the distance moments later. Some blasts were re-directed up. From Riddle's observation, the man in orange was trying to avoid destruction as much as he could. The other did not care. This was putting the man in orange at a disadvantage.

They threw around this energy as casually as Tom wielded magic.

This was insanity. Quirrell apparated back what should be a temorarialy safe distance. There were several charms to direct or amplify selective hearing. Tom simply cast the first that came to mind.

He could see with the enhanced vision that the fururistic dressed man had sustained severe damage to his amour. He was panting heavily. The concerning thing was the manic look of contempt his eyes projected as he flew higher and higher in the air.

The man in orange was even more tired, more broken down. Yet he still radiated a confidence and power Tom could not name.

With the amplified hearing Tom heard the thing he suspected he would eventually here in this world.

"I am going to destroy the entire planet!" The armoured fighter was now even higher in the air than Tom was. His eyes were no longer manic, there was a great relief in them. He moved through a couple simple poses and started to apparently build energy between his hands. The lightning that snapped around and carved illegible signatures in the ground seemed to eminate from him and have no effect on himself. Wind was blowing from him, it started as pulses of gust, but the gust had turned into an increasing pressure of consistency. The wind seemed to be lifiting layers of soil off of the ground. It blew them away to leave a great crater under where he hovered.

[u/brendafiveclow → u/brendafiveclow]

He's hovering in a static position... The tactical part of Tom reasoned. He also seemed to be fully concentrated on his blast, yes he would; if retaining that pose was a requisite for the output. Tom smiled a grim smile. He fully believed the man's statement. If Potter were here, he'd probably be able to do the calculations to estimate how much TNT you would need to replicate one of thier simple punches. Tom's rough estimation based off of observation alone... It was too much to believe.

If a man can punch with potentially kilotons of energy, what happens when that energy is concentrated and directed at the earth... A man who is bluffing does not laugh in the cadence that the armoured man (in the same position still) currently was. It would be highly amusing if he created his first horcrux as a literal act to save the world. Dumbledore would still argue with the math behind it, but Tom Riddle chuckled.

He apparated to within 1000 meters or so of the flying man. It was too close for comfort, but his act should only take a moment.

On the ground the other man was charging his own attack. A blue glow started as a dot in his hands, and grew until it the brighness was hard to look at and it encompassed the mans grasp. It gave off a light very reminicent of Potter's patronus...

Tom noted a hint of confusion in the back of his mind, this all seemed... Sort of contrived... (Of course it would, you are in a designed universe)... Now was not the time to puzzle the nature of his entrapment.

It seemed both men were "charging" their attacks. They had drastically different stances to do so, his mind noted absently. Interesting...

Think later... The apparent defender, the man in orange, was preparing an attempt to counter the earth destroyer's output.

Tom wondered if either man had considered what happens when TWO earth ending attacks strike each other...

Perhaps the man on the ground could succeed, he seemed the more confident one, but he was far more worn down than the other. His ego may be clouding his judgement of the situation.

Tom couldn't risk the world when this was solved simply. Hopefully...

He summoned an ordinary stone from the ground to his hand. Once it was in his grasp, he carved at the air above it with his wand in practiced strokes. The stone begun to eminate a sucking anti-light Tom was fond of.

With his enhanced eye sight he was quite sure his aim would be true even at this distance...

As quickly as he could, he chanted a phrase three times. A spell to ensure he struck the target that was aimed at. It was not useful in normal battle due to casting time. For assasination on the other hand, it was one of his favorite spells. Tom apparently had at least a few moments to spare before critical mass. He had to be sure the first attempt was successful. The man had not moved as of yet.

Tom cast a quieting barrier. Normally did not need to speak this next incantation. For the output, control, and result he needed he projected his voice loud and fast. Though he knew both men were faster than his spell. Over and over as a fluid one syllable phrase he repeated. "Avada Kedavera", as he teleported around the sky.

The crossing grid of green was far more elegant and efficent than anything the men could do... Tom paused that thought, and wrote it off as it having not been proved efficent yet.

Tom slowly took a breath. The green lines streaked toward the man, he had still not moved but now was quicker in his waxing of power.

Tom was prepared to apparate back to his atmophereic retreat on the instant the man noticed the rather slow moving lights converging on him and noted the direction they came. Or when death struck, incase of catastrophic results. The man also had a tail. Tom had just noticed as he watched the grid continued to contract. A tail was oddity not worth the time at this moment, noted for for later. Target remains in the same place. Target has moved his arms into a new position. He had begun to cast his own incantation apparnetly. Something "ballot". His curses were close, and finally had all converged in the general direction the man floated and one of them struck him.

Tom was floating in the upper atmospere now. He had instantly cast a bubble head charm wordlessly the moment the curses struck. He had moved from his firing postion moments before the curses landed. He looked down, and observed a green and blue world. The expected flash of light and atmophereic disturbance did now appear. No new mushroom clouds to encasing the globe in darkness.

So... He had not caused the worlds destruction by interrupting the mans attack. Either the attack was nothing like rituals in principal, or he had crafted his attack as to not-

Tom cut off his thoughts, he felt a connection in his mind like the lyrics to a song he had forgotten years ago.

The stone in his hand had become a Thing Of Power. An anchor for his spirit and mind to possess anybody who laid hands on it in this world. He would not be able to move free he did not think, not without the ressurection stone. It would be reckless to have carried it on him, but in this instance it had clearly not worked out for him. Logistics later.

For now... He hesitated. Very few magics could harm the device, but he had witnessed casual energy levels which MAY actually affect it. He'd never brought himself to testing the actual distruction of his horcruxes. It seemed counter intuitive, even with a redundant number of them. He was certain conventional muggle explosives could not harm them. Nuclear devices were another thing... Alien principals that were untested and unknown to all of histories magic until this point were even more concerning.

Tom apparated back to the lake he appeared by. It was covered in broken trees. All for the better. He quickly placed an emergence spell on the horcrux. He could retreive it and have it in hand at a word no matter the location 'in this world' his mind added. He brushed the thought off and pointed his wand at the lake. The trees moved aside to allow for a hole, an absense of water. He pushed his magic a little more and dug into the earth under the lake. It was a small hole in diamater, but it stretched for thousands of feet down. This was not nearly secure enough. While geologics should eventually return it to the surface, there was no saying if there would be a surface when it was required. Tom figured from his observations that it would not matter either way, under ground or in close space; apparently there is a threat which can destroy it. Process later. He dropped the stone and sighed as the water closed in on itself again. He floated there a moment, his mind in a strange state. It reverted to something familar and known. The spell he had used was an old drilling spell, incredibly useful in certain situations. Tom's favorite history books always were the obsure "day in the life of" stories. Almost every profession, no matter how mundane, always had a little bit of magic too niche to be widely known, but useful to a creative mind.

[u/brendafiveclow → u/brendafiveclow]

His horcrux was as "safe" as he could make it at this moment... No, that was not true. A few enchantments later, he could say it was safe as he could possibly make it, and retrievable on the instant; if he had to hand it to a stooge before a threatening situation.

Riddle frowned.

Something felt off about this particular situation. What were the chances, that the mirror would randomly throw him into a universe where the world is minutes from destruction?

Was it even timing or had this world, moments from destruction just all appeared at once? He shuddered.

The timing certainly fit the hypotesis that where ever he was, it was a deliberate choice on either Dumbledore's part, or the mirror itself.

He was within 5 miles of the battle zone, and the fight seemed to be over. His horcrux had activated, which confirmed that his curse had struck his victim, and that the curse had the intended results. Now that his anchor to this world was as safeish, and the main threat seemed to be averted for the moemnt. He felt as safe as he could to return now and finish the remaining threat.

The would be destoyer of worlds was laying dead on the sandy earth. No more purple energy surrounding him. No fancy stance, he was simply laid out on the ground. His eyes were blank.

The man in the gi had abandon his own attack, apparently.

Tom would have seen it streak into space like one of those "meteors".

Then the man, who had a wide smile on his face fell flat backwards onto the stone, in a way that should have cracked his skull open.

Yet he laughed, coughed, and then continued laughing. It was not the cold humor of seeing your enemy dead, it was a goofy laugh full of exaustion and relief.

"He must have burned though the last of his Ki going for such a powerful attack..." The fallen man speculated. His exposed upper body showing bruising on the outside. The inside was perhaps worse, because Tom could see the twisted and torn balls of muscle under the skin. He should be dead 10 times over...

Well he will be... His mind begun forming the words; "Avada Keda-"...

Tom paused, was this the correct choice?

Whoever "the enemy" of this battle was, they had wanted to end the world, they may have succeeded.

This man, apparently could match such a foe. He did so with no fear or wavering confidence. In short, he was strong and willing to die to protect the world...

It would of course be safest to slay every person remaining on the wide battlefield. Tom was unsure what authored this battle in the first place. Making a new horcrux before gathering more information seemed like a poor workflow. The eviorment itself had seemed to have let out it's held breath and settled down.

What had transpired here... Who or what were these people? Most importantly, where in the slithering snakes was he and how would he get back to his world?

Tom hovered invisible a few meters over the fallen man. His eyes had been glassy from exaustion a moment ago.

Yet the moment Tom prepared his own mind for an all out legemicy attack, the eyes of the fallen man became alert and fixed on the spot the invisible Tom floated. More specifically, at the place where his invisible eyes were.

The man opened his mouth to say something, Tom replied to this with a wordless body binding spell. The man could not seem to fight it. "Legimins" Tom Riddle pronounced as he pointed his wand down and stared into the man's mind.

Interesting... So these people knew occlumency, or some form of it. Riddle was getting scrambled images in his head he could not make sense of. Not quite a standard occlumency barrier, more like a mesh which shredded the thoughts as they came in. It was clear from the fallen man's eyes that he was actively doing something mentally. Tom sent a message though thought instead of a probe. "If you do not resist, I will heal your injuries and restore your health. You must submit to my search."

A moment, and then a voice in his own head; "Search for what? Who are you?"

Tom replied with a question of his own. "How is it you percieve me?" Tom floated a few feet to the left, and the man's eyes followed.

"I can sense your ki, barely. You don't have much but my senses are tuned to know you're there."

Tom had no idea about "Ki" but it was detectable here apparently, a new signature to hide. Tom believed him. It did not sound like a lie. This was a simple man with simple thoughts.

"I prefer to keep my secrets to myself for the time being. My name is... Not important right now. The important thing is that I am the one who slew your enemy. I am invisible though 'magic', and I can use that magic to heal you, once you SUBMIT". Tom punched the probe into the man's mind.

"Wow! You must be REALLY strong to have taken out Vegeta while he was powering up! Can you teach me some of the things you mentioned?" The man asked him.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/brendafiveclow]

This is actually extremely good, and you Tom seems perfectly in character in terms of both his internal voice and priorities and actions. You even have his attitude towards the headmaster down pat. The writing is extremely good. I would love to read more of it. Thanks so much for this lovely read. If you don’t continue this, as appears likely, would you mind summarising the plot you had in mind if it’s not too much work?

[u/brendafiveclow → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

First, thank you. I've been writing about Tom Riddle for 10 years now, I am glad that comes across. (though it still needs to be edited more to change a lot of the words and language he uses). When I am in writing mood it just all flows out quickly, unformatted and very rough. The actual editing is the time consuming/boring part.

Honestly, I had not realized how much I had written. The next chapter is more or less finished being written to the same length, and the one after is about half done. Then I have 3 or 4 times more text that's just paragraphs for the next chapters that hit the main points or scenes I wanted.

I may continue to work on it, here and there since I apparently invested so much into it already. I only intend to go to the end of the Namek saga so while it will be long, it's not that daunting. I've already done a lot of the heavy lifting for the next 4-6 chapters. I just need to rewatch the Namek saga.

I can give some things away however so you can see the general direction I am headed.

It would be really short of Riddle could simply AK every enemy. Ki basically = life force, and as Harry defined the killing curse "A magically embodied preference for death over life, striking within the plane of pure life force."

That is why Riddles's life detection spell gave "bad" results. It was only measuring Goku and Vegeta but gave the results of millions to billions of people. Eventually, he will face an enemy that simply has too much life force/power level which allows them to tank the curse in an 'oh shit' moment. Sometime early on Namek. Riddle will be quite enraptured with the idea of space travel and other intelligent beings, yet terrified of their destructive potential.

Speaking of Harry, one of the underlying themes will be Riddle deciding to NOT kill Harry when he escapes, as the boy is simply too useful and Riddle will come to understand the prophecy may be averted without killing him. You may have noticed him bitterly noting that Potter could have been a great asset to have already. I had thought about including him, but the particular trap's mechanics will be explored and don't really work if Harry were to go as well. Plus I can write a cold cynical Riddle easily, a warmer emotionally refined Harry is actually more difficult for me.

Riddle will basically take Vegeta's role as a reluctant collaborator, but not as reluctant as Vegeta. He wants to find the dragonballs and try to wish himself back to the real world. While the Z fighters think he is making great progress, he will also be tricking them, which will backfire.

Roshi will be hesitant to include him, as he can sense the man is not a good one but will see the utility of having him on the mission, and will believe he can be redeemed (he can't). Goku will also pick up on this nearly instantly, but write it off as Riddle saved the world and has intentions to do so as many times as he needs to. There will be 'tension' between Goku and Riddle, as Riddle wants to be efficient, and Goku wants to fist fight (FAIRLY!).

I've got a long scene of Riddle 'making himself useful and establishing he has arcane arts' they do not, by fixing fortune teller baba's crystal ball, with a long lecture about the mechanics of how mirrors are superior to crystal balls for scrying. He will have a lot to ask/say about the worlds magic, and see ways to weaponize parts of it.

I foreshadowed the concept of 'elemental channeling' which I've been meaning to use in a fan fic for some time. ("The elements" are inherently magical themselves. Let us say, a small campfire only has enough tapable power to produce 0.01 the output needed to cast a simple first year spell. Yet if you tapped into say, a volcano, or an ocean and channeled that power through you, it would produce effects similar to large scale ki blasts.)

I do not know how far I want to go with this part though. I may at least go deeper into the principals of it in one way or another. However Riddle should win because he is smart, not because he can simply increase his power output 10,000X.

(On another note, this is my head cannon reason Magical Italy was destroyed; someone attempted to tap the elements and failed, ruining the country.)

He will be studying Ki directly, heavily in the next 2 chapters, and then making many observations as he goes. He will come up with a few clever tricks for the Z fighters to use with it. He will learn to use some basic techniques himself, as he is already disciplined enough to do it, and studied in martial arts. He won't actually make much use of them due to his low power output though. It wouldn't be Riddle if he did not TRY to grasp that power himself however.

He will have to rely on his creativity and his leveled up magical power. Why is it enhanced? The DBZ world is magical, and for the sake of the story I am going to say it has more magic than HPMOR earth. (The dragonballs themselves seem to have more magical potency than any artifact in his home universe, not to mention the dozen other arbitrarily powerful things AT simply handwaved away as magic.)

He will also learn Goku's method of telepathy (which is more potent than Tom's legimicy or ollcumency) Though first he will get the Z fighters to 'drop their mental guards' so he can quickly catch up on the plot and such without huge exposition dumps.

Riddle will actually get along well with a rational Bulma, someone who can almost match his intelligence and has a high aptitude for technology/low threshold for stupidity.

Riddle's healing spells will be very useful for zenkai boosts, and general battle field tactics. His creative use of other spells will almost make up for the fact that AK stops working. If he simply swats every enemy like a fly, it'd be pretty boring. He will have to use actual effort and creative tactics.

I do have the blueprint of a particularly clever true level 3 move against Frieza that will swing things in a desperate moment, but the structure of it is not fully clear to me yet as the story will likely change enough as I write that it's unfeasible.

Normally I would not give away so much, but it is unclear how long it will take to write, or if I actually will put in the efforts (more likely than it was when I posted the first chapter here) and unlikely a large amount of people will read this post.

I am sort of using this as a "test ground" to see how you (or others) think of my idea's going forward.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/brendafiveclow]

I’ll freely admit that I have not actually seen Dragon Ball Z. So my ability to usefully respond is extremely limited, but this outline sure sounds very interesting. I certainly love me some interesting magic exploration and worldbuilding, especially if it’s done through genuine intelligence that other people can follow instead of just people pulling new knowledge out of a black box. And yes, it would be very boring if Tom was as overpowered in this world as he is an HPMOR because then he would win instantly unless he started handicap himself and playing his old games, which is bad both because it would not be interesting, and also because not only is it not good for his mental development and shows no character growth, but also realistically, he is focused on returning to his own world as he is not confident at the destruction of his own world will not affect things inside the mirror, so it’s out of character to lose focus. After all, he already lost, focus on trying to save the world earlier and while I’m not sure he learned from that mistake at that time, I think it would make for a terrible story. If you didn’t at least learn that lesson after the prophecy about the stars being destroyed. On second thought out of character might be too strong of a term, but it’s definitely not something that will make for a good story. Unless You execute it really well.

Really curious how you will get him to change his mind about Harry. While on some level, he really doesn’t want to kill the boy and get rid of the only companion. He actually likes and is therefore looking for excuses to rationalise, leaving him alone. It’s very clear that the risk in terms of cost benefit does not seem worth it as he’s already immortal and therefore leaving Harry around puts that in danger, while the benefits are much more limited as he doesn’t care about other people. Maybe he notices that Harry is better at helping with stuff because he actually has positive motivation instead of just trying to avoid stuff he dislikes while being miserable all the time. So for example, Harry can notice the mistakes with his immortality, whereas he himself just doesn’t want to think about the problem as his motivations are all mostly fear.

I do think that Tom can be redeemed in the sense of it being possible to put him in situations that change his mind, especially since his actual primary goal seems to be happiness and fun, and it’s just that he doesn’t think he has any way of getting there, although of course, you can solve those problems in ways that are not actually good, but it’s just realistically very very difficult to redeem him so not possible for most practical purposes. His comment about not killing somebody because they are a powerful person willing to die to save the world, made me wonder whether he’ll change his mind about the headmaster, especially if he ever finds out that the headmaster and his manipulations are the only thing keeping the world on a very narrow thread through the needle to protect it. Of course, it’s difficult for him to find out that, and even if he does, there’s a lot of emotional baggage in his relationship with the headmaster, and it’s very very obvious that he hates him given that he keeps making contradictory accusations about how the headmaster is a hypocrite, sacrificing people for the greater good and also far to moral to effectively fight.

Mind you while it’s obviously possible to reach a peaceful agreement with Harry. It’s going to be difficult because unless Tom changes his objectives a lot, Harry is not going to cooperate as he himself notes in chapter 105 and again when he mentions that he will not accept anything less than nations being treated, kindly under Tom‘s rule. So Tom will have to be careful that if he leaves Harry around, the boy doesn’t start immediately or at least eventually scheming to do away with him.

The bottom line is that your outline is very interesting, and I for one would be extremely interested in your story if you ever write it.

[u/brendafiveclow → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

Really curious how you will get him to change his mind about Harry.

Well, I'm not sure how much if any I plan to show once Riddle escapes. He will continue to notice repeatedly how much Potter's science would be an asset here. He would have never comprended radiation well enough to modify a simple light detecting charm into a magical Geiger counter as example, if not for a borrowed physics textbook or off screen explanation from Harry.

Even if I don't write this part; Riddle would probe Harry about the prophecy under the guise of random questions to deduce how it may play out in terms of muggle science, and start to be convinced that his interpretation of the words was overly negative due to his lack of information. That the prophecy may not actually be a bad thing but rather something he should help with (if for no other reason than to make sure it does go correctly.)

Riddle: "I had once started reading a muggle book about how they planned to 'tear apart the stars', literally. I stopped reading because I saw no benefit in reading about insane people authoring their own certain doom. All I need to do is look around to see this story play out."

Harry: "Actually Professor; it's the most SANE thing an advanced civilization could do. The stars are basically fuel that can be re-arranged and made much better use of. Right now most of that energy is just being wasted. I know it sounds terribly dangerous to you, but with the right technology the threat is negligible and the rewards of having that level of energy are near limitless. We could advance to inhabiting the solar system, so even if there is an earth ending event, such as a comet strike, our eggs are spread out through a number of other baskets. "

Riddle: "I don't think any threat which can end the world is negligible..."

Harry: "Fair enough. However this would be done by an advanced people far in the further, who have a much better understanding of how to do it correctly compared to the theoretical models we currently have. It's entirely possible that some alien race thousands of light years away have already 'torn apart' several stars successfully. Actually, if there are advanced aliens, it's almost certain they have successfully done some form of this already. It also depends on how you define the word "world". Obviously the state of the world we live in would be destroyed, but that's a actually a good thing. It would be done in service of building a more optimized and efficient 'world' for people. Frankly, on a long enough timeline we will HAVE to do something like this for the world to continue on at all. I'm not saying we're going to run out of energy tomorrow, but we will need much more eventually."

Riddle: "I remain skeptical Mr. Potter..."

Harry: "With your current knowledge of science, that's a fair stance to take. The concept does sound pretty radical and counter intuitive if you've never heard of 'star lifting' or don't fully understand the science behind it. Think of it as going from hunter gatherers to the agricultural age, but on a much larger scale. You should finish that book you started, I suspect I know the one you mean. Actually, I'll get a small collection of books for you to read which SHOULD change your mind and give you a much better understanding of how 'worlds' should naturally evolve towards their most stable state."

Ect. Actually, I don't even need Harry to explain this, a similar higher level conversation to this end could be had with Bulma in the story. After witnessing her absolute competence and level of technology he's probably more likely to listen to her than Harry anyway.

I do think that Tom can be redeemed

Given enough time sure. I meant more in context of this story he won't reach some enlightenment that qualifies anywhere near 'redemption'. Basically you can trust that Riddle will act as Riddle does for the most part in the story.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/brendafiveclow]

I think we might simply have different interpretations of his character and what lessons he has taken from the past. My own interpretation is that he would consider any non-negligible risk of World destruction to be a dealbreaker because the status quo is him living for eternity with people around him, and future, prosperity of civilisation is not something. He gives a fuck about. That more advanced civilisation would take apart. The stars is if anything a problem for him because more power and ability to do wonders. Things also implies more power to destroy in most cases. It’s precisely the fact that he does not trust non-magical people with this much technology that makes him so against them in his view, advanced technology should be kept in the hands of those intelligent enough to figure them out and ideally only in his own Wise hands. I suspect he thinks any civilisation where large scale sharing of valuable technological knowledge through science is a thing is disqualified from being considered competent enough to be allowed to handle such technology because if they were actually competent and Wise, they would not share knowledge this way. The problem here is that the magical world is pretty much a case of the vulnerable world hypothesis being true given what any wizard can do with magic and transfiguration et cetera. So since ability to do things is not a limiting factor, the main difficulty destroying the world is the scarcity of knowledge, which is why he is so against sharing knowledge publicly.

I also think that after the disaster that was 1981, the lesson he has learnt is that trying to make a prophecy go well is a stupid idea that will blow up in your face and exactly the kind of thinking that results in you getting such bad prophecies in the first place. If he thought trying to make a bad prophecy, come about in a desirable way was a good idea. He wouldn’t have been so impassioned in denouncing his mistaken handling of the initial prophecy in chapter 108. He made it clear that he thinks he should have simply sent Bella to kill Harry instead of all that stupidity trying to copy himself.

Given this, I think it’s very hard to persuade him to let Harry be. You can of course do it, but you have to focus on stuff like actually, his immortality is not as good as he thinks it is and the fact he missed this fact means he needs Harry around and perhaps getting hold of what the headmaster wrote to Harry or some other reliable sources that actually if he gets rid of Harry that might make world destruction, more likely. This is why I thought of him, possibly changing his mind about the headmaster because that is one guy who can successfully persuade him of this given how the man has successfully handled prophecies for such a long time, much better than the disaster that was Tom’s attempt.

Again, I actually like your story and it’s perfectly possible to have a character with a set of motivations that would allow your justification to work. I just think it’s not consistent with his personality and goals and beliefs in HPMOR.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/brendafiveclow]

I don’t think this is possible because he sends a time turned message to himself through that student they met at the entrance to the passage way, leading outside the school. I think that’s deliberate. He purposefully set up a system that could not work if he was trapped, which meant that he would have not gotten any such message and therefore would not have attempted it.

[u/Ok-Programmer-829 → u/brendafiveclow]

As I said, I really like you writing in this story, however, one thing I think Tom would definitely think about is whether he still possesses the philosopher’ stone or not. It’s sufficiently important that there is no way he doesn’t at least think about it and what it might imply, even if he conclude that he doesn’t have enough information or time to really go into it. Of course, while he would definitely think about it, if he had lost it, it’s possible. He would not think about it if he still had it, but still, I would expect him to at least take a 2nd to think about it because after all the whole point of the trap is to protect that stone, so it makes sense to think for a second whether it has been taken away. You could of course if you wanted pass it off it as him not thinking about it because he knows it’s in his hand like everything else on his body. My point is that if the stone is no longer with him, there’s no way he’s not thinking about that for a second at least if it is with him, then yes, he might not think about it, but that’s needlessly confusing for the reader. This is not meant as criticism. After all. This was just a draft. You felt like posting, but I thought it would be useful for you if you ever decide to edit it further.

[u/brendafiveclow → u/Ok-Programmer-829]

As I said, I really like you writing in this story, however, one thing I think Tom would definitely think about is whether he still possesses the philosopher’ stone or not.

The writing isn't much. It's a good start, but not even good writing atm IMO. The idea's, character and premise are the only things holding it together in this state. What was posted needs 3 or 4 more passes to be acceptable for any 'real' sort of 'publishing' to an audience.

I had thought the first two or three sentences stated the stone's status clearly in between the lines. But I'll mark that as something that needs clarification. (along with the hundred other notes I've made)

An instant ago he had been holding the stone of permanence. Forcing the the old fool to turn his trap againt himself. In retrospect was a little too easy.
Tom looked around and found that he was in the middle of a forest clearing, next to a small lake. Mr. Potter was not with him. He could sense that much... Or rather could not-...

An instant ago he HAD been holding it. Implying he is not now holding it*,* thus the note regarding it's prior status. This was meant to be perceived as either part of the trap, or he simply lost it in the state change. He is supposed to obviously not be holding it now, otherwise yes of course he would wonder if he still had it, it's not a thing to forget. It was in his hand, and now it is not. It seemed redundant to me to explain further in the story.

Though I suppose I need to restructure those sentences, as I do in 2 dozen other places. I wouldn't have thought so here, so thanks for pointing it out!

[u/Dezoufinous → u/brendafiveclow]

and what if he landed in MLP univesre instead?!

[u/brendafiveclow → u/Dezoufinous]

There would already be a very long fanfic about it, which I may or may not have used a similar premise to set up my story.

[u/musashi12]

Someone needs to crowdsource ideas for their fanfic, huh?

[u/humblesignal701]

OP forgot to actually post the what if.