maybe something along the lines of 'wizard messed with controversial spells and accidentally transported someone from our dimension to theirs' ? it's hard to find things that haven't already been done a million times already...
also i like the idea of more 'sentient' magic, good luck with your story! :>
I'm writing a self-insert fanfiction where I'm inserted into the Harry Potter world. That is probably a very bad idea, but I'm doing it anyway, because I want to.
The problem is, I can't figure out a way to get myself into this other universe without being weird and cliche (example: I fall asleep reading an HP book and wake up at Hogwarts.) I know I'm supposed to be having fun, but that would kinda... pain me to write.
But the whole premise is that, being aware of the events of the story, I try to not cause a butterfly effect but get tired of the constant injustice and decide to try and do something. And there's this whole sentient-magic feel I'm going for: I want the magic to feel as if it "knows" I don't belong in the world.... so I can't just plop myself in with a normal life and family and everything.
I won't post it anywhere unless I deem it suitable for human consumption once it's done. Which is highly unlikely given it will be my first full-length fanfic since I was 11.
I guess it's probably impossible to make this seem Not Sue-ish. But what do you think?
Edit: I definitely DO NOT want a prophecy or something about a traveler saving the world. Harry is still technically the main hero here, he just won't be focused on. Besides, I'm still figuring out whether I want things to turn out well in the end.
you could slip through the cracks of our world and into the next
it's difficult to explain, but you know how people believe alternate realities exist? why don't you have this mentioned by someone, a friend? earlier in the story/at school/at work etc. and you entertain the idea.
as you are walking home, or taking the train or driving home, something weird happens- unusual circumstances that lead up to you eventually 'falling through the cracks' of our reality into the harry potter reality. it may feel entirely seamless. like you dont even notice it until you are at the front gates of hogwarts. or maybe you're walking home through a forest or down a street- and you make a turn down a street you don't recognize, only to end up in Hogsmeade or something. and you're like "welp i aint in Kansas anymore." type of thing haha
or
if simply driving/stumbling into hogwarts land is not enough for you, (I might be skimming through an idea you're trying to avoid, but a good way to do it that is tried and true-):
is that you're driving down that dark windy road in the forest heading to your home after a long day of work/etc. and it is taking longer than you remember to get home- when you round a bend in the forest you nearly hit a deer or -insert strange harry potter creature here-, and your car crashes into a tree. you wake up from your crash to to find you're in the forbidden forest or something.
its fun to think about. i like stories like this.
hope it works out for you :)
just a quick thought but maybe your riding on a train then fall asleep. when you wake up you wake up on the train to hogwarts?
One additional thought that I had when I read through the prompt (might not be useful to you but I like these sorts of reality-bending mindf*cks so): It eventually turns out that your life exists as a book in the wizarding world - however the "you" in the story is only at the very start of their character arc and the events in "your" book have yet to happen (and are unlikely to ever happen were you to choose to read that book about your life that exists in the Potterverse).
Basically from the point-of-view of some little wizarding world fangirl who's managed to magically summon you YOU are the fictional character, whilst from your point of view you've been snatched from your comfy life.
I also like the idea of wizards messing up a spell, that was mentioned above. The nice thing about it is that since The Wizarding World is secret it might even be hard to determine whether the events of Harry Potter were fictional or not when you're actually experiencing them, since there's an element of time travel mixed in as well making it harder to figure out whether things in the muggle world are as they were supposed to be.
Good luck on the story!