What If... Terry Pratchett wrote Harry Potter?

[Crossroads Inc.]

The year is 1996!
Out in the cosmos, an "Inspiration Particle" is hurtling towards Earth, specifically, an area of Britain...
This particular Inspiration Particle, contains a rather sizable amount of ideas! It contains concept of a young wizard who is destined to save the world! Of a whole school of Wizarding with kids whop thwart various nasty people out to bring back a Dark Lord! who threatens their world! It contains notions about Dragons, Elves, goblins, magic wands, and for some reason, magic talking hats...

However... Due to some random fluctuates in "Quantum" it does not strike the head of one "JK Rowling" but it instead hurtles down into the mind Terry Pratchett!

One wonders... Could the basic story of Harry Potter work on the Discworld? Would the series have been as popular? Or less so? Could Terry have pulled it off in a similar way as Rowling? And most importantly... Would The Luggage get involved at all in the battle?

[Khaat]

First: wizards on Discworld assassinate their superiors to advance. Not that this would have been a bad thing, mind, since Hermione should be the best assassin outside of Ankh-Morpork (if we were to discount magic in this calculation). Harry getting by on the skin of his teeth is totally a Pratchett-ism (perhaps his scar is actually just the spell that took up residence in Rincewind?)
Second: Tom Riddle would have been thrown over the side, so he can be as immortal as he likes (as he drops past the elephants and the turtle....)
Third: Death would never have put up with this "horcrux" nonsense! And neither would Granny Weatherwax!

[Vendetta]

This particular Inspiration Particle, contains a rather sizable amount of ideas! It contains concept of a young wizard who is destined to save the world! Of a whole school of Wizarding with kids whop thwart various nasty people out to bring back a Dark Lord! who threatens their world! It contains notions about Dragons, Elves, goblins, magic wands, and for some reason, magic talking hats...

Upon which its recipient says "What? Again?"

[Elheru Aran]

The series would probably be over in a couple of books, not seven. There would be a lot more dry wit, Commander Vimes will probably show up at some point to snark about how the Wizards can't manage to keep Voldemort down, Death shows up awkwardly a time or two, and when Voldemort's antics annoy Lord Vetinari enough he'll quirk an eyebrow and Riddle will find himself on the wrong end of a sharp dagger in a dark alley.

Because unlike Rowling, Pratchett doesn't have the inane patience to allow his characters to be... you know... morons. Silly, perhaps. Occasionally doing some stupid things, sure. But they are, for the most part, not complete nitwits.

[Crazedwraith]

Why would Terry make HP part of Discworld? He has other series you know. And people have done a good job of pointing out how it wouldn't fit at all.

Yes if he wrote it, more irony and more satire of the school system and boarding school boys novels I'd guess.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Well, that was sort of what I had been thinking..

I have never like Harry Potter as presented, mostly for the insulting notion that the vast magical world, and all of it's power and benefits, exists within "The real world" and seems to do absolutely nothing about the affairs or problems of "the real world".

I figured if anyone could make the over all plot of HP "work" it would be Terry... But yeah, by default, the story at best would be less then half of what it was just by virtue of his characters not being morons, or things being prolonged for sake of "plot".

[Elheru Aran]

Why would Terry make HP part of Discworld? He has other series you know. And people have done a good job of pointing out how it wouldn't fit at all.

Yes if he wrote it, more irony and more satire of the school system and boarding school boys novels I'd guess.

I think the notion is that Terry would write HP *instead* of JK Rowling...

I could see Harry and Ron being nitwits herded about by Hermione in that setting; Terry isn't always very kind to his young male lead characters.

Speculatively, it could be set up so that Hogwarts is a competing school to Unseen University, either in Ankh-Morpork or somewhere remote like the Ramtops or Uberwald. The Ramtops would bring the Witches into the mix, which is an easy way to pull out some version of Hermione. Perhaps Voldemort is a wannabe Sourceror?

I can see how it would work, but either it'd be a Pratchett-style pastiche of Rowling, or it'd be nearly unrecognizable. Not sure you could have a harmonious balance between the two.

[madd0ct0r]

Set in the same style as good omens, Ron is a character who believes he's in a classic jennings style boarding school romp, twisting the story that way when ever he passes through.
The bulk of the story is ursula la guin / diane wynn jones vs the grey and scabby uk comprehensive in london. There are many londons though, some more dangerous than others. Voldemort remains almost the same, but with his fear of death and patheticness slowly unveiled. As in rowling, fear and state fascism is the real enemy. The role of schooling in brainwashing kids to know their place is challenged by the lessons in different versions of london. Magic used is the bleed through of one versions physics into another.

Meta story is about growing up and seeing your simple childhood world fracture into the complex, only partially interlinked circles of the adult world.

[The Romulan Republic]

As has already been noted, their is a substantial difference between "Pratchett writes Potter" and "Pratchett writes Potter as part of the Discworld". Though Pratchett was very creative, and the Discworld could contain a lot of different kinds of stories, I'm not sure how well anything at all recognizable as Potter would fit into the Discworld.

If he did take the basic Potter premise and try to write it as a Discworld story, then I suspect it would be a new sub-series or standalone (rather than part of an existing arc/series like the City Watch books, the DEATH books, etc.). If he did combine it with any other existing characters, though, it would almost have to be a DEATH/Susan story (although as others have noted, tie-ins with Unseen University and the Witches certainly work too).

Death is thematically key to the Potterverse, with ones' fear of death versus willingness to accept death for oneself while protecting others from it being one of the key distinctions between villain and hero. The backstory for the Hallows even includes a (possibly imaginary) anthropomorphic personification of Death. And as Khaat said, I can't see DEATH liking Voldemort's attempts to evade him.

DEATH's granddaughter Susan, meanwhile, works with children, and I can totally see her in a magical boarding school, and maybe become one of Harry (or Hermione's) mentor figures.

Probably no Vimes, or a very small role for him, unless its in Ank Morpork. I feel like if Vimes showed up he'd probably take over the story somewhat. Anyway, Ank Morpork doesn't seem like a logical location for Hogwarts (unless Pratchett just ditched the Hogwarts setting and had it take place at Unseen University). Elheru Aran mentioned the Ramtops. That might work. Uberwald seems a bit too wild for Hogwarts to be located their, though maybe that's just me.

I'd have liked to see Vetinari, though. Mostly because of the contrast between Voldemort's Dark Lord classic approach, and Vetinari's deconstruction of a tyrant. Having Vetinari be the ultimate mastermind behind Potter's adventures would be interesting, and might fit Vetinari's established MO.

Speaking of Voldemort, I can see him going in a couple possible directions. If memory serves, classic-style Dark Lords are something of a joke in Discworld, and Voldemort has too much of that type in him. So I suspect either he gets taken in a very different direction, and gains some IQ points or at least some common sense, or he's relegated to a secondary villain at best. Not sure who would take his place as arch villain. Malfoy? Dumbledore?

Pratchett would probably pull some twist on the whole prophecy/Chosen One thing too (look at how he handled the "Return of the King" plot line with Carrot).

Edit: Their would, of course, have to be major differences due to how magic works in Discworld, including the whole witches/wizards distinction someone mentioned earlier.

Also, Khaat, I absolutely love your idea of chucking Voldemort off the edge of the Disc.