AN: Sorry for lack of foirmatting and use of caps instead of bold or italics, this was written directly as a post on CaerAzkaban Y! Group.
Fifty years he'd lived in the Muggle World. Fifty years, and he'd cast not a single spell. Not spoken about any magic. Not paid notice to any of it.
And then Voldemort caught up with him, finally ruler of the Magical World. And by that, not just britain, but every single damn Magical society on the planet, and tried to kill him. Not with an Avada Kedavra, of course. Voldemort had had plenty of time to think about all the times that spell was stopped or simply didn't work.
No, he'd cast him to damnation, if his language skills with latin was any indicator.
And now, he was here, facing all the people Voldemort had killed. Because, Magical World? Population: 1.
Here to face "judgement" by them.
To see what could have been, if he'd stayed to stop Voldemort.
Everyone, muggle or magical, who'd been killed by either Voldemort or his Death Eaters, stared at him, hate in their eyes, accusing his desertion as a sentence on the magical world to fall.
Well? Stuff them. His Actions were not what led the world down into that it had fallen into.
"You accuse me of killing all of you? I'm sorry, but who was it who supported him, killed for him, believed what he believed? Who was it who despite not supporting him, nor killing for him, and not believing in blood superiority, didn't fucking stand up to him? You lot either tried to kill me or make me kill him for you!
"And you! Albus Fuckiong Dumbledore! You didn't even fucking give me the tools to do it properly! You just said 'Hey, he's using horcruxes, now hop to it oh and I trust snape URK you just fucking died.
"And you! Snivellus Fucking coward Snape! You supposedly loved my mother, and your worst memory was calling her a mudblood! If you had regretted it then, You'd have apologised! And if My dad was such the prick you kept onabout, what the fuck would my mum have seen in him! And lets not forget, you practically put a hit out on him and me and asked the fucking assassin not to kill her, but her be the prize for pointing that fucking insane shit at the one prophesized to kill that twat!
"I CALL BULLSHIT! You say My actions damned you! I SAY YOUR ACTIONS DAMNED YOURSELF! EVEN IF I HAD KILLED THE FUCKER, I'D HAVE DIED, YOU WOULDNT HAVE AN INSANELY POWERFUL OR SMART PERSON TO DEAL WITH THE NEXT DARK LORD YOU LOT WOULD HAVE PRODUCED IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS!"
Harry took a calming breath, and looked at the 'spell' that would have made him experience their sentence of damnation that he held, caught with his magic, in the palm of his hand. This lot were dead, and he was still alive, still had his magic, more powerful than the remnants, even of millions of people.
He looked up, and raising his free hand, a similar ball of light appeared hovering in the half-closed fist.
"Many of you are innocents, whos deaths came before I could have killed him. Who's deaths came after I could have killed him, yet had nothing else aside from that to do with me or the war. Look at the others, those who did have something to do with the war."
He looked at the crowded dead members of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore among them.
"Useless lot you were, you didn't fight them the way you're supposed to fight terrorists. If you'd done that, he'd not have had as many supporters actually fighting for him."
He turned to the ministry lot, "Even more useless lot. More concerned with being in power than governing and protecting your world. to the point that The Frickin Order where the only ones doing a goddamn thing."
He turned to the crowds of both neutrals and those who'd chosen the light side in mind but not in action. "You lot didn't do fuck all, you just let them and him stomp you down."
Finally, he turned back to the innocents, and pointing at those groups, he called, "BLAME THEM. They didn't stop him, when they could have. They didn't have the will to do what was RIGHT."
"Killing is not-" Dumbledore began.
"SILENCE!" HArry shouted. "Let me tell y ou what is right. Right is teaching that it is wrong to steal. Right is teaching that treating people based on who or rather what their parents are is wrong. Right is teaching those entering a new culture ABOUT THAT FUCKING CULTURE so that in the end they at least KNOW about it before making ANY arguments about how BACKWARD it is. But instead, what happens is that the muggleborns and muggle-raised, aren't taught that, only MAGIC ITSElLF, and NOT VERY FUCKING WELL AT THAT! Then during and after school, they encounter various things, and even independantly trying to learn about it they can't see why things in the wizarding world are the way they are!"
He turned to Hermione, who walked up having sensed his argument, somehow.
"When you learned about House Elves, it wasn't until fourth year you even met any. What percent of your time int he library was spent trying to find out about them?"
"Probably about half. The other half was helping you with the Tournament."
Harry nodded, and smiled a little at her, and asked, "And what did you learn?"
"Nothing. There wasn't anything about them, and even when I tried asking the house elves, they didn't know anything, only that they are to cook and clean, although," she blushed a bit, "I did see how enthusiastic about it they were."
"But aside from that small glimpse, You still even now know nothing about them, why they're slaves and so on?"
"Exactly."
Harry turned back, and continued his rant.
"Nothing. And that's not the only thing about the wizarding worlds' culture that muggleraised seemingly aren't allowed to learn! And you wonder why we call you backwards!"
the innocents, mostly those who hadn't experienced this lot firsthand or even heard secondhand, the 'background' people, those who just go about their daily lives, muggle or magical, were now glaring at the thousands upon thousands of magicals who had been exactly as Harry had so far described - secretive and prejudiced.
"So many purebloods talk about how their magical lines make them superior, but they NEVER SAID WHY! It's like they either expect us to already know why or won't tell us because we're not allowed! The only obvious reasons any of us can come up with that fit the FACTS AS WE'VE LIVED WITH, are that they are so immersed in the magical society from birth, that they will know more than someone who's introduced to it at 11! And I've known kids who only had a muggleborn parent, the other a muggle, yet lived in your stupid world, and weren't no better or worse at magic in either knowledge or power, than purebloods who's nearest muggle Ancestor is from before the founders built hogwarts!
"And Blood telling? I'm a so-called "HALFBLOOD"! My mum was a muggleborn and my dad was part of one of those "Ancient" families. By that I should be just as good as a family line that only goes back a few generations before you find muggles
"And now, we're onto the next part. The fucking way Hogwarts sorts their students!"
After a moment, he smiled, and it wasn't pleasant. He turned to a seemingly random french wizard, who had stepped forward just as Hermione had earlier.
"How many Beauxbatons students came out as Dark Lords?"
The wizard shrugged, "None. Prejudice was still a problem in france, and italy and our neighbouring countries, but it wasn't ever caused by being insulted at our muggle-raised cultural ignorance. Unlike Hogwarts, we did teach more than just about magic, and how many times the various intelligent creatures had gone to war against us."
Harry nodded, and a russian-looking wizard approached, and without being asked, said, "We've had a few over the thousand years of Durmstrangs' running, but like our french counterpart, it wasn't caused by those either. We do teach the Dark Arts, and our 'dark lords' came about mostly because they liked them and were good with them, only later loosing their morality to it."
A third approached, and a fourth, all sharing whether they had or did not have the same problems of hgowarts, and a theme was clear to the innocents, and some of the many who had died during Voldemorts' terror and conquer campaign.
Soon, all that was left was a very old looking wizard, wearing the robes of a Ravenclaw student, although everyone including Harry knew this was symbolic of what he was going to be talking about, than anything about where they were.
"While a few did so because of the other reasons provided, dark dispositions... lack of morality upon entering the school, most of the dark lords became such while they were students. And contrary to some belief, only half were magical raised. The other half were muggle-raised, the racism and prejudice having gotten to them."
"And how many?"
"I cannot say, certainly a half dozen per century on average."
Harry looked at everyone.
"You wonder why I left. a Society unwilling to fix it's problems is doomed to failure. That is what happened with all of the civilisations that fell throughout time. After corruption sets in, it cannot survive. Well, corruption set in big time a long time ago. It's only because of the few who rose up and killed those dark lords that it didn't happen. Until now. Because the hero you all expected to kill this one, REFUSED. I'm not a Hero."
Looking around, he continued.
"MY first year? Supposed safest place in britain, and I was almost killed several times! A teacher hosting Voldemort, a teacher who isn't, a teacher so stuck up that the first offence commited to protect a member of staffs' career gains a punishment so far out of what it earned it's not funny, and a headmaster who is either blind to or complicit in all the bad things that go on? And no, Dumbledore, if you knew and did nothing, you are therefore ABETTING CRIMINALS in the very crimes they commit! Second year, hell, I got a beef with you lot!" He shouted to the crowd that had moved together, the students who'd been there during his second year.
"Thinking I was the Heir of Slytherin? EVEN IF I WAS THE ACTUAL HEIR, what the fuck would that have to do with the actual attacks? And giv en that I'm the last fucking wizard on earth with the blood he was born with, I'd say I'm the goddamn heir to the whole lot. Why would I attack muggleborns, when my best friend was a muggleborn!"
Off to the side, Ron Weasley sighed at his fears being confirmed, then again being dead for fifty years and spending those fifty beside Hermione had given the pair a long time to go over some of the subject.
"My Mum was! Why the fuck would I do any of that?"
The crowds were getting bigger, Apparantly the near-infinite population of the afterlife was getting more than interested in the proceedings. Then again, few people, muggle or wizard, ever got to spend more than a few minutes this side of the veil before returning. So word of a living wizard being sent into the realm of the afterlife - still alive that is, so body, magic, mind and soul, rather than just the mind and soul part, was getting a lot of attention indeed.
Severus Snape thought about that, and given that he'd also had a lot of time to think, he finally admitted that Harry hadn't ever been an attention-seeker, so he did see the irony. A second later, Lily Potter hit him, James Potter finally releasing her to do it.
All this was going on as Harry continued, oblivious.
"You know what, See this?" He moved the hand that he had unknowingly lowered before, his ball of light still there. "This is what *YOUR* Actions, what *YOUR* sins cost! I daresay most of you won't feel a goddamn thing if there was nothing you could have consciously done different to make things better, but then MOST of you died before you could have gotten to that."
Given the sheer numbers involved by now, that was true.
With that, Harry released his 'spell'. A sort of legilimens, memory charm, whatever. They all experienced what would have been. those who contributed to the 'not have been' thing by way of either action of inaction, felt the pain. Those who's actions as they stood hadn't affected it instead saw what could have been for them, feeling bittersweet pangs.
"Now, Voldemort should be along shortly. Where he met me was booby trapped. Given his last protection from his own death came here with me..." Grinning, Harry threw a... blob? which landed at the feet of the combined Marauders - all 6 of them, That is Remus, Sirius, James, Lily, Fred and George - and then winked, "Do what you will, as it's here, he's tied here."
Everyone was silent.
Seven minutes later, Harry's perception, 9 versions of Voldemort appeared - the last appearing from the blob. Each appeared as different ages. The youngest four appeared from within the crowds. To mark that they'd been the bits of horcrux, they held the objects they had been. Harry walked to the one carrying the book, and punched him.
"That's for possessing Ginny and siccing that snake on Hermione."
"Ow. Right. Ow."
"Um, 9, Harry?" Dumbledore asked.
"Diary, and Ring, Locket, Cup. You dealt with the Ring, while the Diary was me, and the Locket got dealt with by the git who tried peddling it, actually. The buyer wanted to make sure it wasn't booby trapped, and finding it had a horcrux? It wasn't one for long. The cup was destroyed in exchanged for returning a load of goblin-made items to the goblins."
Then he pointed to 3 of the 4 Voldemorts that appeared out of nothing, still the younger ones.
"Those lot were destroyed by me over the last 40 years, whenever I came across them on my travels."
Then, he pointed to the one that grew from the blob. "And that, is the damn shade he'd accidentally created when trying to kill me."
Dumbledore tried to speak up. "A Shade? You mean Hor-"
"No, I do mean it's a Shade. It's not a bit of his damn soul, but it is just as damn effective as an Anchor. Its a piece of his magic. Given that I wasn't possessed like Ginny since that night, it couldn't have been a bit of his soul, yet where ginny wasn't a parselmouth when he wasn't actively controlling her, I was and never had been possessed by the shade? No. It's his magic. Which provided the mental link to him, which none of his damn horcruxes had, by the way!"
The last, the oldest looking one, and the only one that appeared snake-like, was looking at him in shock.
"And we get to MR Wraith himself. Now, if you'll excuse me, as his spell that sent me here with body and magic wasn't intended to kill, I'm very much alive and can return as though this was just another location on earth. Do what you want with him, as less than a whole mind and less than a complete soul, each piece cannot do anything, while you lot do have complete minds and souls, well... Cheerio."
With that Harry seemed to just disappear with a pop, only sign of his presence had been the ball of light they'd tried to use to see "what his actions cost them".
the 9 Voldemorts shit themselves, feeling weak and powerless in front of the millions of angry glares sent at him.
Harry reappeared in the empty halls of Hogwarts, and felt the magic of the castle respond to him, and the eyes of the portraits too.
"Hey, there'll be some magicals born around the world soon, and as they'll be the only ones other than me, wanna help me build the next society?"
Harry strolled to the headmasters office, whistling as he did, wondering about how much hassle it would be to visit each new magical child in ten or so years, all around the world, and to start a new school that will, for now at least, be the only one in the world.
It's not like there were any magical kids still alive to make a class any earlier, Voldemort had perfected methods of finding them to kill them long ago. Harry'd used the opposite to hide, until recently.
Then, Harry frowned, and wondered what would be involved in remaking the Hogwarts Train and rails, to get a high-speed maglev between hogsmeade and the various airports he'd need to use.
"Damnit, world building's gonna be hard." Harry complained.