Harry Potter's Revolution
Summary: Voldemort has been defeated by Harry after a gruesome war. Harry realizes that while the acute problem has been solved, the reasons that this could happen are still there. Change is needed. A new prophecy is made. A new time will start. It seems that Voldemort's destruction was only part of Harry's destiny. HPHG
Warnings:
Het. HP/HG pairing. Character Deaths - Previous to Story (among which are Dumbledore; the Dursleys; Bellatrix and Rabastan Lestrange) Non HBP/DH-compliant. Probably more later. Mentions of violence, murder etc. during Voldemort's second war.
Ron-bashing. Dumbledore-bashing. Dursley-bashing.
Beta: None yet. Anyway, if someone wants to beta, drop me a message. Otherwise I'll search for one soon.
English is only my second language. I am certain I have made some mistakes and stupid errors somewhere. Feel free to point them out so I can change them - just don't troll and/or flame, 'kay? I, like almost everyone, am fond of reviews. I prefer (constructive) critic though. While it is nice to hear someone loves the story, I'd still like to know what I can improve to make it better. While it's a bit less nice to hear someone hates my story, I still prefer to know why people hate it.
Disclaimer: Oops. Forgot to add it in the first upload. Oh well. I do not own, nor claim any kind of ownership on the original material, referenced in this work. I do not expect, nor will accept any payment or compensation for this work, as it is being done in the nature of fanfiction. Anything you recognize is bound to be Rowling's work or coincidence with fanfiction someone else wrote. I have, to my knowledge, not borrowed/ 'stolen' plotlines or characters from other fanfic authors. If I borrow something, I will place a note somewhere - either in the disclaimer or in an Author's Note - that 'this-or-that' was borrowed (with permission, for I will ask for permission, first) from 'some-person'.
Anyway, on to the story.
EDIT: Added some warnings to the list.
Prologue
Harry Potter woke up with a smile on his face as he saw the beautiful woman sharing his bed with him. Hermione. Hermione Potter, née Granger.
They had married only a few weeks ago, on the sixth of April, two weeks after Harry had vanquished Lord Voldemort once and for all. He softly stroked her hair, causing Hermione to move and whisper in her sleep.
He still could not believe that he had been lucky enough to find someone as loving and caring, as beautiful and understanding and patient and intelligent as Hermione. There still were days that he thought he had to be dreaming, for this was too good to be true. He didn't deserve someone as great as Hermione. His Hermione.
Then again, he probably wouldn't have believed he was a wizard either, let alone the Chosen One, or Destroyer-Of-He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, as they had recently dubbed him.
It bothered Harry that even though the man had been truly destroyed this time, with not a single chance he'd return again, most people, including the Ministry, were still too afraid to speak his self-chosen name.
Every morning when he woke up next to her, he thought himself a lucky man. Every time he looked into her beautiful brown eyes, he wondered why she had chosen him, for he was certain he didn't deserve her. Every evening or night, when they laid next to each other, he knew she was the only reason most of his nightmares had stopped.
Not that he had no more nightmares at all – God knew he had seen enough during the last weeks, last months of the Second War to scar a veteran, let alone a eighteen-year-old boy, barely out of school, carrying the fate of both worlds, Muggle and wizarding, heavily upon his shoulders.
For that was what had happened, with Voldemort and his merry band of Death Eaters on the loose while the idiots at the Ministry of Magic had been sticking their heads in the sand until it was too late.
Even when the Ministry had realized its fault, they had hardly been willing to do anything, fearing for escalation. How blind they had been, for it had been mostly their attitude that had caused the escalation.
With almost no opposition – precious few wizards and witches had been willing to risk anything, especially when it meant going against both Voldemort and the Ministry – Voldemort and his Death Eaters had had as good as free play. In the end, it had been mostly Harry and the very few that had dared to stand at his side that had brought Voldemort down. Without the inside help they had gotten from some people he would never have suspected to help him, Harry was certain he would not be sitting here, looking at his beautiful, sleeping Hermione. He still thought of their help every day, and was grateful. It had been them, more than he himself, that made victory possible.
And yet, while he had immediately been named their saviour – again – and was praised by the public and the Ministry, had been dubbed Destroyer-Of-He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and had almost immediately received an Order of Merlin, First Class, the Ministry had almost thrown those that made his victory possible in Azkaban.
Harry himself had had to explain, time after time – to the Ministry, to various reporters from various newspapers, magazines and even one from the WWN, the Wizarding Wireless Network – that yes, while most of them had indeed once been Death Eaters, and yes, most of them were from Dark families indeed, and yes, indeed had two of them even been in Voldemort's Inner Circle at the time of his defeat, no, they were not evil, nor loyal to Voldemort. That, in fact, without them, his final and ultimate defeat of the Dark Lord Voldemort had been impossible.
During the first two weeks since Voldemort's defeat, Harry had truly started to doubt the average intelligence of the ministry employees and of those in the wizarding world in general.
Again people had almost been thrown into Azkaban without even as much as a farce of a trial, and this time more then just one, too.
Again it seemed that the guilty were innocent as long as they had money and pure blood, and that those with both were only proclaimed guilty when there truly was no other choice. Rodolphus Lestrange had been a good example of this. While his wife and brother had both died during the war, he had survived. Even though rich and of an old family, it was unavoidable that he was convicted. Lucius Malfoy, on the other hand, had almost walked free once again, but Harry had managed to prevent that from happening. His last words after conviction but before Aurors took him to Azkaban, had been towards Harry, swearing at him and damning him, Lucius Malfoy's arrogance and regal attitude forever gone.
During the trials in the first weeks since Voldemort's death and the fall of his Second Reign of Terror, Harry truly had had to intervene far more often than he was comfortable with.
To him, it had truly seemed that little had changed. Corruption and bureaucracy still thrived, closed-mindedness and greed still ruled the wizarding world and the ability to think for oneself seemed to be truly a rare talent.
So he had realized that something had to change. Yes, the world was at peace once again – but for how long? Dark Lords and small periods of peace had followed upon each other for generations now, for the wizarding world had known no true peace since before Grindelwald.
While the problem might seem dealt with and the case resolved to most, Harry knew that the surface of the true problem had merely been scratched. As long as corruption and bureaucracy ruled, together with prejudices both on the Light and Dark side – for Dark not necessarily meant evil and Light not necessarily meant good, so had Harry learnt all too well – and stagnation and soon retrogression were all the wizarding world had, there truly was no hope. Wizards, so had Harry noticed, did not look forwards, to the future. They looked to the past, and the past only. There had – with the exception of some household charms, prank items, improved broomsticks and the Wolfsbane Potion – hardly been any inventions in recent times.
It was pure blood that witches and wizards sought after, so instead of looking what they could do for the future of the wizarding world, people spent hours after hours tracing the history of their families, hiding the blemishes of squibs and halfbloods in their family trees, and priding themselves on the purity of their blood.
It were legends people sought after, Merlin and the Four Founders of Hogwarts were praised and adored as if Gods. People prided themselves on following tradition – doing exactly the same thing generations and generations of wizards and witches before them had done, making choices based upon history and legend, tradition and purity of blood. They held the same opinions that their ancestors decades or even centuries ago had held – with as only reasons that those ancestors had done those things, held those beliefs.
Even the ambition and cunningness of Slytherin had become nothing but a lie. A strong desire to achieve something had been replaced by the strong desire to do exactly the same that had been done for centuries. Cunningness became flaunting with money and influence and a long, pureblooded familytree. Slytherins in general held the old ways, the traditions of old, closer to them than any other House did.
Oh yes, the wizarding world had once indeed been centuries ahead of the Muggle world. This was where the prejudices against Muggles and muggleborns had once been based on.
They had, in a way, been true then. They truly had been farther than any Muggle.
But by holding close to tradition and opinion of their ancestors, the old families held close to both the belief that the were higher than Muggles, farther, had achieved more, and the belief that they should live the same way their ancestors had done. They truly lived close to how they had lived four, five centuries ago, with only small progress, while the Muggles had progressed far. Now the Muggles were ahead. A lead of several centuries had been turned to its exact opposite.
The wizarding world truly had stagnated.
Change was needed, and he disagreed with the stance of the Ministry. While progress for the sake of progress normally hardly was useful, even that would be useful in the wizarding world of modern times.
Therefore he had spoken with a group of people he had either trusted since long or had learnt to trust during the war. In the end, there was one thing they had all seen. Something had to change. For while the acute problem might have been dealt with and Voldemort was indeed defeated, that which had made it possible for such a war to happen, had not changed.
A second Voldemort could easily stand up one day. They had peace, true, but it was an unstable peace. A new war could happen tomorrow or in a year, or in a generation or perhaps even only a century from now, but if nothing changed, a new war would inevitably happen.
So together they had made a decision. The wizarding world had seen war. Now they would see revolution.
