Not exactly the Harry Potter you may remember.
"Albus, please... I value your wisdom above all things, but about Tom Riddle, you will never understand."
— Severus Snape
Voldemort's Children
is an ongoing Harry Potter fanfic webcomic by Eli Dupree, set in an Alternate Universe where... well...
The story starts with Hermione Granger, the Head of Auror Office, interrogating Harry Potter, who has been arrested for killing a lot of people. It quickly becomes clear that this version of Harry hasn't escaped the effects of ten years of abuse. And that's only the beginning...
The author describes Voldemort's Children as "A reimagining of the Harry Potter series from a neurodiversity and social-justice perspective", and their annotations often begin with a question about a moral or philosophical issue.
The art style is unique in never using panels; each page is a continuous flow of images and dialogue.
As a story comic with its own continuity, it should be read from the beginning.
On indefinite hiatus since July 24th 2012, though according to the author's update on 2016, the story is 80% complete and that they've already scripted out and sketched the remaining pages for the comic but are unsure if they'd ever finish it due to their hand problems.
This comic provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Dumbledore leaving Harry with the Dursleys may not have been the best idea. Similarly, Lucius Malfoy being friends with a Dark Lord seems to have lead to some fallout in Draco's upbringing...
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While Severus Snape is still a cold and strict teacher, the authors notes mention that he's far less petty than his canon self. This is supported by Snape mentoring Harry after discovering the boy using Legilimency to answer a question in one of his classes.
- Big Bad Friend: Harry Potter is the main antagonist of the story who was once friends with Hermione Granger. She's now interrogating Harry for answers about the various killings he's committed.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Despite Harry's status, Hermonie still has this to say about him early on:Hermonie: "The Auror Office believes that Potter is not a Dark Lord, but merely a self-aggrandizing serial killer motivated by petty revenge against those he believes have wronged him. Have we become so complacent since Voldemort's fall that this is what we imagine it must be like to live in a Dark Lord's shadow? Potter is running to hide from our Aurors even as we speak. In Voldemort's time... Aurors ran from ''him''.
- Bizarrchitecture: Harry's map of Hogwarts during Page 15, which noticeably has 2 locations crossed off because he was scared of going to those places.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: When Draco reasonably chooses not to sit next to Voldemort on the bed, Voldemort then grabs Draco by the hair and uses a combination of Silencio and Crucio to torture Draco while keeping him silenced.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Harry burns Dumbledore's entire office and then doesn't seem to have any trouble standing around in the only spot that isn't on fire.
- Criminal Doppelgänger: Once Tom Riddle takes off his cap, the first thing the viewer will notice is that he looks rather similar to Harry Potter, which has interesting implications within the narrative.
- Deconstruction:
- This comic goes with the idea that Dumbledore's idea to send Harry to be raised by his remaining biological family was horribly misguided, leading to Harry living in an abusive household for 10 years. His time at Hogwarts and learning memory reading magic in addition to school bullying and learning revelations about his past and Voldemort's influence over the lives of everyone causes Harry to go down a dark path.
- The authors note for Page 91 points that International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, a system that basically forces new Hogwarts students not to tell anyone about their new lives and leave their friends behind is rather similar to abusive relationships. It also mentions that the system is discriminatory towards Muggle-born students simply because they lack the innate advantages that a magic-born child possesses, and are expected to adapt to a social system they have no proper understanding of.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: The Aurors made sure Voldemort stayed dead when Harry was still a baby, short-circuiting the plot of all seven books.
- Fake Memories: During a tutoring session on Legilimency, Snape challenges Harry to read through Snape's memories. Upon asking what Harry saw, Snape then asks Harry what Snape had said in the memory. When Harry points out that Snape only asked what he saw, Snape tells Harry that he saw nothing because he altered the memory so that Harry would see what Snape wanted him to see.
- Godwin's Law: Averted. The author specifically went out of their way to avoid using the "Wizard Hitler" comparison for Voldemort on Page 43, instead deciding to have Lily compare Voldemort to the IRA instead.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Though the main story details Harry Potter Slowly Slipping Into Evil, the story makes it clear that Voldemort's presence is felt everywhere, with his actions being instrumental in bringing Harry and Draco together.
- Hidden Eyes: Other than Voldemort and Dumbledore (see The Faceless below), other characters (especially Harry) have a similar appearance when they're doing something particularly dark or intimidating.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Subverted with Zabini, who isn't intending to survive the Fiendfyre (s)he conjures when Draco and Luna attack.
- Irony: The authors notes for Page 89 mentions that Dumbledore used mind magic to shut down Mrs Cole's questions about Hogwarts, which tends to be in line with how a good chunk of Harry Potter fanfiction tends to make Dumbledore far more morally ambiguous, and gives him a hefty case of Good Is Not Nice. As the author points out, they find it ironic that they had to make Dumbledore a nicer person for their story to work when other Harry Potter fanfics goe the opposite direction.
- The Faceless: Voldemort and Dumbledore have the top halves of their heads concealed in shadow whenever they appear.
- Flashback Effects: An old ministry broadcast appears in monochrome.
- Morality Kitchen Sink: Almost every stripe and shade of hero, anti-hero, bystander, anti-villain, and villain imaginable, from the (usually) morally upstanding Hermione Granger and zir assistant and close friend Tonks to the murderous yet ethically-deliberate Harry Potter to the seemingly incomprehensible Luna Lovegood and the cruel yet possibly broken Voldemort. The work excels at providing characters of a veritable rainbow of moralities.
- Nested Story: "You know you're reading an Eli Dupree comic when you enter two nested narrative frames on the same page."
- Never Learned to Read: Harry's abusive past has left him barely literate when he enters Hogwarts. His meeting with Luna Lovegood eventually allows him to catch up, causing him to develop a slightly more advanced vernacular due to wizarding books being a case of Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.
- Our Time Travel Is Different: The Time-Twister. In this story, it allows the user to travel back in time by 1 hour. Hermione used hers to study more during her time at Hogwarts and she still has it, even years later., Voldemort is seen wearing one around his neck, and is mentioned to have used his so often that he's done a lot of damage to spacetime, and may also explain his rather bored demeanour.
- Painting the Medium: Each character gets a distinct text style for their speech. For example, Harry's is sharp and ragged, Luna is a sort of nebular green, and Dumbledore talks in script.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Harry is (so far) implied to have gone on a killing spree as a result of prior mistreatment. Despite swearing to himself that he would kill Dumbledore for forcing him to live with the Dursleys for 10 years, he cannot bring himself to kill Dumbledore and ends up sparing him anyway.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Harry certainly believes this to be the case, because most of the people he killed were people who keep and own slaves.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Far towards the cynical end.
- Slowly Slipping Into Evil: The first five chapters involve Harry telling Hermonie and Tonks about how he became a Dark Lord. It involves him discovering that Dumbledore lied to him, a meeting with Luna Lovegood, dealing with school bullies, a toxic atmosphere and liberal use of Legilimency for him to go down the dark path.
- Telepathy: Harry discovers early on that he is a Legilimens, prompting Snape to mentor the boy. Later on, Snape chides Harry for his lack of subtly after using it to discover that Draco fears him, before Snape tells Harry to use Legilimency on him. During a fight with Draco Malfoy, he uses this to discover that Voldemort had a far happier childhood before he met Lord Voldemort.
- The Hero's Journey: Either averted (unlike canon-potter) or horribly twisted and deconstructed.
