Alternity: A Harry Potter Alternate Universe

Alternity is a transformative work of fiction in the form of journals written by the Harry Potter characters. It is being written collaboratively in real time, and is thus playing out over the course of seven years. It explores an alternate version of the events of the Harry Potter series, examining the moral universe that is depicted therein - and how each character might have been different, or the same, if what-might-have-been had come to pass. Read the most current Alternity entries now!

The story so far...

As a result of one tiny change, back when it all started, Lord Voldemort didn't try to kill baby Harry Potter. He adopted Harry, renamed him “Harry Marvolo,” and has experienced great good fortune ever since. Wizarding Britain fell before him; the legitimate government came under his hand, and he set himself up as the Lord Protector of the realm. Activating the ancient magic of the standing stones, he sealed the British Isles off from the rest of the world, and set to work exterminating, enchanting, or enslaving all the Muggles in his purview.

Harry lived the first ten years of his life ignorant that he had been adopted, and ever since has been piecing together information about his birth parents - as he fulfills the duties of the Lord Protector's only son and heir apparent. His childhood has been one of privilege and progress: the old Muggle buildings are slowly being razed and replaced with palatial wizarding structures; despite rationing (the British Isles are not exactly self-sufficient) Harry has never known want.

But life is not so lovely for everyone. Muggles and Muggle-born witches and wizards are held in work camps or used as personal servants for high-ranking purebloods. Even the majority of purebloods have found themselves lacking the luxuries they once found commonplace: coffee, chocolate, citrus, cotton. Transfigured goods can only carry one so far. Wizards and Muggles living outside of the British Isles view them very much like we view North Korea today: fanatical, dangerous, and unappealing to most sane people. Dumbledore has fled the scene, along with scads of other witches and wizards who disagreed with the Lord Protector's politics.

A resistance movement, the Order of the Phoenix, remains active, primarily in England and Wales. They have managed to carve out a small sanctuary for themselves in a place called Moddey Dhoo, and some of their double agents pretend to work within the Lord Protector's government: primarily Minerva McGonagall, who has taken the Dark Mark and is now headmistress of Hogwarts, and Arthur Weasley, who oversees the Muggle work camps. Others are active in Ireland and Scotland.

The year that Harry Marvolo began attending Hogwarts, the Lord Protector devised a system of magical journals, in order to better keep tabs on his subjects. Fortunately, the Order was able to crack the spells: they can use the journals to send messages to each other privately, ORDER ONLY. Shortly after, inspired by the Marauders' Map, Fred and George Weasley created their own method of private journal communication: people under the age of majority, in-the-know, can declare that I SOLEMNLY SWEAR I AM UP TO NO GOOD. Eventually, private messages between one or two people were added to the journal spells - but these messages may be monitored by the Lord Protector's servants and cannot be trusted to remain secret.

The story begins on September 1, Harry's first year at Hogwarts. We are currently playing the summer between years 3 and 4. If you aren't familiar with the Harry Potter books, you might want to read our Introduction for Non-Potterites as a cheat sheet. To get caught up to the current state of play, you can read our trimesterly recaps: Year One, Autumn; Year One, Spring; Year One, Summer; Year Two, Autumn; Year Two, Spring; Year Two, Summer; Year Three, Autumn; and Year Three, Spring. Then, read the weekly recaps of posts to get caught up to the current moment.

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The format...

Alternity is somewhere between a story and a role-playing game. On the one hand, the player-authors co-ordinate plotlines and goals ahead of time. There are no winners or losers. Everything is written out in journal entry format; there is no external chatting or face-to-face roleplay. Only player-authors are allowed to take part; audience participation is only invited in the fan community. However, the writing itself is spontaneous and not highly edited; comment threads often take on lives of their own.

The best way to read Alternity is to bookmark Alt_Player's Reading List and check back to it daily. This enables you to see all the journal entries written by each character, and click through to the comments. They appear in reverse chronological order, just like a weblog. There are typically one or two new entries each day, but some days there may be many more.

The original incarnation of Alternity, circa 1999, was a shared fanfiction universe. Some of the original authors included Slytherin Dragon, Tinderblast, and Colin, as well as Flourish (who spearheaded the revival); there were close to twenty collaborators. While it was prominent in early Harry Potter fandom, most of the original Project Alternity notes and stories have been subsequently lost to time and the internet. The basis of the universe, however, has remained the same. At the time, it was extremely difficult to collaborate on a project of such magnitude across time differences and distances. Since, various tools have made it easier to do so, and paved the way for the current incarnation of Alternity.

One of the key inspirations for this reboot of the Alternity universe is the influential LiveJournal roleplaying game Nocturne Alley. Some Alternity players took part in that game, as well as being active in its fan community. While not everything about Alternity is exactly the same as Nocturne Alley - its run has already been longer, for example, and its plots are much more defined - it is certainly part of our lineage.

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The player-authors...

We prefer not to reveal who plays who on Alternity. It more or less ruins the fun and breaks the illusion. We'd rather have our readers feel like they're actually getting missives from an alternate Hogwarts. We can tell you, however, that we have seventeen player-authors. We come from English-speaking countries all over the world; our youngest players are in high school, and our oldest are their parents.

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Casting call...

If you'd like to become a player-author and collaborate with us on Alternity, it's a fairly simple process. Simply send an email to our moderator, Flourish, at flourish at blotts dot org. Include a little bit of information about yourself (age, interests) and what kind of character you would like to play. Include a writing sample; ideally, this would be a sample Alternity journal entry, but it could also be any piece of writing in the first person that captures how you'd plan on writing for the Alternity project. This writing sample is vitally important, and we may ask you to submit another sample if we are not satisfied.

We are currently casting a variety of roles, but we are especially interested in characters that are in some way conflicted - not purely good or evil.

Please keep in mind that Alternity is not focused on romance (although romance may be a part of some plots). Also, remember that Alternity is rated PG-13 and will never delve into explicit sex or detailed, gratuitous depictions of violence. While we address many controversial issues in our game, we seek to do so in ways that are comfortable for all our player-authors.

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Tidbits and cookies...

We've had a few cool images, letters, and extra stories, come up throughout the game. Here these supplementals are collected for your perusal...

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