Challenges: Screaming Faeries Greek Mythology Mega Prompt Challenge on HPFC; Philaria's 85 Shades of AU Competition (Draco Malfoy) on HPFC.
Characters: Draco Malfoy.
Prompts: 13. Uranos: Write something completely AU.
10. Voldemort never existed / 19. Alternate history / 28. Hogwarts was never founded / 32. Slave / 49. Subservient wizards / 59. Rebellion or revolution / 61. Muggles rule the world / 64. Runaway / 68. Criminal or fugitive.
Word count: 2,029
A/N: The 85 Shades of AU Competition prompts will not be listed again, but they apply to the entire story. This is a massively AU story in which, among other things, history has been re-written, Draco Malfoy is the protagonist, and wizards are subservient to muggles.
London's skyline has long had the appearance of a grand Gothic style palace. Its' turrets are skyscrapers and the jagged form of Big Bens' clock tower, stabbing the sky far above the bleak black line of the horizon. Understandably, perhaps, it seems memorable and impressive, the sort of setting one recalls for its grandeur and uniquely distinct shapes.
England is ruled by a monarchy that, for the longest time, ruled figuratively. The family were more an image than anything else, designed to stand over the people as their symbol. Their home lay in the unique city of London, and they had been aware of the wizarding portion of their population since long before the founding of the Ministry of Magic in the early seventeenth century. They'd kept the existence of such powerful individuals a secret from the large majority of their subjects.
George II, who succeeded his father of the same name, was not pleased with the lessened power of the monarchy under his predecessors reign. Desperate to prove that his family was worth keeping in power and the Prime Minister secondary in every sense of the word, he spent years plotting what he called the ideal course of action. Finally, in 1751, he decided quite abruptly that his plans were complete, were finalised. In a decade-long fit of fear-fuelled pique, he did something that could never be undone.
He revealed the existence of the wizarding world to the masses.
For a good thirty years, the two populations co-existed in a rather strained harmony. Wizards opened their doors to muggles, creating a sense of unity between the separate groups that should have spearheaded the creation of a new era, one destined to succeed against all odds.
Then the first wizard died, stabbed to death by a muggle lord. The claim was that the magical person attacked first, using his magic to threaten the powerless lord.
The tenuous balance between the groups shattered; the world fell apart. England, divided between those with magic and those without, collapsed into the chaos of civil war.
Eventually, after almost a decade of continuous combat, the nearly eradicated magical population collapsed under the violent oppression of the muggles who so outnumbered them. The then king, declaring the genocide of such 'usefully gifted people' a 'crime against God Himself', arranged what he deemed to be the next best thing.
The entirety of wizarding England was stripped of rank, title and wealth. Each and every witch and wizard was made subservient, their wands taken and their lives ted to lines of the non-magical people who had so easily thwarted them. In the future, the oppressive mode of ruling would become the accepted norm throughout Europe and its' colony nations: Scotland, France, Canada, Australia. Nowhere was safe, not really. Every magical person across the world was at risk of falling victim to the regime, though some nations less so than others. Less populated areas would become a haven to magical people and to those who sympathised with them, but that was the best that could be expected. Facilities designed to trap magical individuals, prisons by another name, halls lined with cells that would encase anyone the government put in them, from children to old men.
The rest, as they say, is history.
"I want my son back. You don't understand, he's just - just misguided. I promise, he's not going to make trouble."
"Mrs Malfoy, you're lying to me. You don't think your son is harmless at all, do you?"
"I -"
"Leave her be."
"Lucius, there's really no need -"
"Please, Narcissa, do be quiet for a moment. Narcissa, for all her perceived faults in your eyes, is a mother, first and foremost. Her priority is our sons' safety, perhaps understandably so, thanks to how we're treated -"
"Lucius, not the best time!"
"I know, I know, do be quiet. Regardless, I can promise you that she has no idea where he has gone. Draco does not trust us as his parents. He believes we would conspire against him."
"Conspire? I'm afraid I don't quite know what you mean."
"Report any eye-opening experiences to your people, the muggles. If he begins to question the way things are, then you're to find out. As soon as possible."
"It's your role to do so, Mister Malfoy. Of course you would tell us. You would never risk being locked up in a cell for your sons temper tantrum."
"He's almost seventeen. Almost an adult in the magical world."
"Just as well, then, that magical people are nothing more than abnormal samples of humanity."
"We are not abnormal."
"We'll see, Mister Malfoy. We'll see."
The night, in typical English fashion, was dreary. Rain fell heavily on anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the downpour, the torrent falling hard enough to bruise any exposed skin. Streetlights gave some depth to the enduring darkness, the only other punctuation coming from uncovered windows hanging like mocking echoes of stars far above the sidewalk.
These lights caught a sort of bustling nightlife that seemed to exist only as they slipped through the spotlights cast upon the pavement, ceasing to exist in the shadows. These figures, who looked like humans trapped in varying stages of misery and their own deaths, seemed to prefer the shadows. Every hunched figure, moving swiftly and gracelessly, crept as closely as possible to the edges of the light, without stepping into the shadows right away. Hiding in the dark might be what they had to do to survive, but it was also a crime.
And, Draco knew, they did; they all did. Every person in that street was afraid of the light. They had all been bred to believe in their inferiority, to believe that it was a crime for someone guilty of possessing their 'defects' to be seen. There wasn't a person in that street who thought they had any value as an individual, as a person. Those who dared to believe as much were crushed and locked away or, more frequently, killed, made an example of. Confidence was bred out of the people who really needed it.
Now that he thought of confidence, the whimpering recaptured his attention, calling him from the window. He turned to the child to offer what he could in the way of comfort, wrapping his thin arms around her tiny form and rubbing her back as gently as he could, so as not to disturb the bruises. The worn violet fabric of her ancient dress, two sizes too large for her miniature malnourished frame, caught on his pale fingers and made them itch horribly. He supposed that the coarseness must be something she had adjusted to, because even when she cried, she showed no sign of discomfort.
"H-how are you so strong?"
He gazed at his reflection in the mirror behind her head, his eyes a hard, careless gray in the dimly lit box of a room. His almost white hair was limp against his skull, making his sharp features seem sicker than they were, but also much more determined. The little girl, whose name he didn't even know, was convinced of an illusion. He didn't see the brave, strong man she apparently did.
Why shouldn't she be convinced, though? After all, everyone else seemed to see it more than the reality. He knew he would continue to pretend that this thing was real, this facade he had created. He couldn't afford to sacrifice it, not if he wanted to follow through on his plans. If they wanted to believe some kind of happiness was possible in their kind, so be it. But the truth was cruel.
As if any wizard of almost seventeen years of age was okay in the world that had been created for him and his like.
"I know that I want to live," he told her, finally, his hoarse voice stabbing through the half light. "I know who I respect, and I'm willing to do whatever I can to earn the same treatment."
"Respect?"
"You're old enough to know what that means. Don't pretend otherwise."
It's - it's when people look up to you, isn't it? When they don't w-walk all over you while they try to prove a point."
He lifted one corner of his mouth in a mockery of a smile, nodding once. "How badly does it hurt? Scale of one to ten."
"F-four."
He didn't believe that for a second. The bruises coloured her skin from when she had been grabbed quite violently, cuts remaining from when her non-magical owner had cast her through a window, and more bruises from when she had hit the ground on her side. She must have been in agony.
"I can teach you how to heal today," he said quietly, "you and the others. Come on. It's time to go to class."
Class was an overstatement of what it was. In reality, it was a small group of wizards and witches, all under the age of thirteen. His role was to be their tutor and role model, to teach them to control their magic before they killed someone during a rebellious fit.
A necessary precaution, and the muggles were idiots not to see it. Throughout history, there had been dozens of simple, life-ending mistakes that could have been easily avoided with a little training. There was the incident when the daughter of magical author Beatrix Bloxam had blown up her muggles' residence. Leopoldina Smethwyck famously killed a muggle boy when she attempted to charm a broomstick to fly in an attempt to impress him. Sacharissa Tugwood wiped out half of Suffolk in a freak accident at barely twelve years old, taking out two magical families and one hundred and thirty-eight muggle homes. They needed training, but they wouldn't get it. The muggles were simply illogically afraid of some kind of revolution.
A revolution they desperately needed if the magical population was to survive at all.
It was cold. The rain was still heavy, pressing in on him with a kind of suffocating omnipresence. He was drenched to the bone, shivering as violently as a child left in a freezer, but he couldn't risk the time it'd take to stop and cast a warming charm. He had to lead the bastards away from the makeshift class, even if it was just a sewer. It was him, after all, that got them caught when he approached their idiot parents for permission. They were just untrained wizards and witches who weren't trained to deal with the tortures the muggles would employ to protect their so-called haven.
Of course, he wasn't trained either, and as far as he was concerned they'd made a massive mistake in turning him in. Especially during a class. Did the overly trusting fools honestly believe that the muggle forces wouldn't harm their children, just because they were muggleborn brats? He doubted it. Even a rock wasn't that dumb.
Better that he deal with the abuse than some innocent seven year old.
The brick wall loomed before him without warning, at the exact same time as the clock struck midnight. It was the fifth of June, and he could feel the cruel electric shock of a taser in his back. Falling to his knees, he craned his head around to fix his burning eyes, watering from the pain, on his attacker. There was nothing clear about them at all, just indistinct black shadows blurred by the rain, merging into the darkness like a sneaking spy. They didn't even have faces, keeping them hidden behind thick balaclava. Only their eyes marked them as human at all, the same cruel carelessness showing them as a group.
"You're under arrest for crimes against the non-magical government. You are accused the practice of magic, and of attempting to teach magic to others. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you by whosoever is allocated to write out your sentence. You will not have a trial. You have no right to an attorney. You have lost your claim to freedom."
Happy seventeenth birthday, Draco. Time to say hello to your end.