Rules: If you want to use this prompt, please refer to it somewhere in the summary. Review stating that you would like to use this prompt.

Author's Notes: This is Miaplacidus, or just Laci for short. This is a series of prompts for writers with writer's block, to let of the stress. Personally, I'm not really someone who writes on demand. Sorry everyone if I'm not updating often (or at all), but I'm in a year long writer's block because of writing a couple ten too many formal essays. This is just to take the cap off the pen of imagination.

Title: What We are Now

Warnings: AU, universe without the prophecy.

Summary: Professor Harry James Potter, was Head Boy during the Battle of Hogwarts. Hogwarts fell, taking the wizarding world crumpling along with it. Professors were switched with Voldemort's most loyal followers, along with Harry Potter. Used to demonstrate the Dark Lord's kindness, Harry Potter was to become the new Transfiguration professor.


Harry James Potter strode through Hogwarts, his shoes clicking against the polished floor. His crimson robes, lined and embroidered with gold, billowed behind him as he walked, face devoid of any emotion. The corners of his mouth tightened as he passed a group of Slytherin students, sneering as he strode by.

"Halfblood."

"Protecting those weaklings when he should have been trying to redeem his family name."

"Blood traitor."

"A Potter. Nothing good came of that line, ruined at the hands of a mudblood."

The hisses came from the Slytherins, their usual composed faces contorted with disgust. The emotion seemed out of place on the faces of children, their angelic features marred by the hatred embedded into them since youth.

Nothing was the same from when Dumbledore was still the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

Hogwarts had changed; along with the rest of the wizarding world. After Voldemort's triumph at the Battle of Hogwarts, Britain had bowed her head in defeat. The rebels had stopped resisting, submitting themselves quietly. The Muggleborns and blood traitors were cast out of the Ministry.

Hogwarts once cared for its students, the ghosts watching over the students, the paintings guiding lost students, and the house-elves working happily in the kitchens, singing their own tune. Now all that was left was a shell of its original being; the ghosts were banished, the paintings removed, and the house-elves frightened into servitude. The students would wake up to find a crumbled bedpost, a missing step, or a patch of devil's snare growing in the hallways.

Hogwarts had lost its magic, becoming simply nothing but a dark and forlorn castle. No longer did the happy memories linger, or the sense of home. They were whisked away like leaves on a breeze, leaving behind painful reminders of what Hogwarts had once been.

The wizarding world no longer saw Hogwarts as a beacon in the darkness, but as the ultimate symbol of the Dark Lord's reign. Hogwarts was the stronghold, the place which never fell no matter what disasters befall it. But too, it eventually fell to the Dark Lord, and the small flame which fueled hope finally extinguished.

It was over. The Light was annihilated, and wizarding Britain was never to feel the warming rays of sun ever again.


A snow white owl tapped on the grimy window of the study at 12 Grimmauld Place, pecking insistent at the grimy glass. A piece of manila paper was rolled up, tied to her leg with a red ribbon. The aggravated bird shrieked as no one answered, her large yellow eyes peeking through the glass and musty curtains.

The curtains were moved to the side, as the face of an old man wizened by age peered out. His eyes lit up with surprise behind the half-moon spectacles, as he toke in the sight of the owl. A dull click was heard as the wizard proceeded to open the window, letting the owl hop onto his arm.

"What a pleasant surpruse, Hedwig." The old man murmured, stroking her feathers and carefully removing the letter from her leg. He unrolled the letter, his eyes taking in word for word.

Dumbledore,

I'm afraid I cannot do this anymore.

I pen this letter with a firm hand, and my decision is final.

I will remain at Hogwarts, but this will be the last form of any communication between us. It is too dangerous, and I cannot endanger my students any longer. They need a someone to stand up for them, against all the prejudices, the insults, the injustices forced upon on them. That person has to be me. The other professors will not care, with their noble blood flowing in their veins, eager to please their lord.

This must stop.

I would be glad if there was another way, but this is too dangerous.

I cannot risk it. I would not risk it.

I openly admit to being a coward, but there is no other way. The Hufflepuffs' Head of House sneers at his own students with disgust, especially the Muggleborns.

Do not attempt to contact me, you bumbling old man with twinkling eyes.

HP

Albus Dumbledore sighed, setting the letter down and looking up at Hedwig, who perched on the bookshelf, regarding him with wide and unblinking gold eyes. She ruffled her feathers, taking flight the moment Dumbledore met her eyes.

"I must let him go, must I not?" Dumbledore said as he strolled to the window. He gazed at Hedwig until she was no more than a mere dot in the horizon, a black spot in the evening sunset.

"Goodbye, my boy." He sighed as whispered the words into the fading twilight, gazing forlornly into the darkening sky. He turned around and walked back into the depths of 12 Grimmauld Place, away from a young boy who was once filled with happiness and kindness. Away from a teenager who was forgiving and just. Away from a young man who stood proudly in the darkness, turning a deaf ear to the hushed insults that surrounded him.

"You are anything but a coward, Professor Harry James Potter, Head of Gryffindor House. You are the son of Lily and James Potter after all."


Emerald eyes smiled for the first time since the Battle of Hogwarts as he stroked a snowy white owl, while offering her a streak of bacon in his other hand. The young man raised his head to look at the last rays of the setting sun, a red sliver peeking above the horizon.

"Thank you, Headmaster Dumbledore. Thank you."


Disclaimer: I, Miaplacidus, do not own Harry Potter in any shape, way, or form.