This little Halloween one-shot was written for the HP Dark Arts Potions Challenge on LiveJournal.

I'm indebted to 4fan ci for the idea, which came out of a very entertaining discussion. I'm also very grateful to Igenlode Wordsmith for all his help; any remaining mistakes are my own.

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Last Man Standing

-oOo-

Yeah, I'm related to Harry Potter. He was my great-great-great-something-grandfather, I've forgotten which. Been a while since I was talking to someone who knows about our other history.

My dad was as ordinary as they come. Or so they say, I never met him. Buggered off before I was born. My mother, though, she was something else. Never went to Hogwarts – it had closed down before her time – but her own mother taught her all she knew.

Then it was passed on to me, in due course.

Lots of things were passed on to me, in a manner of speaking. I've got quite the collection of spellbooks and grimoires. Most of the time I stay well away from them, to tell you the truth. Had a few bad experiences when I was a teenager. They're not half bad-tempered, some of those books – but then any magic can backfire if you're not careful.

You would know, of course.

There's no one left now to pass on the few tricks I did learn. It does get to me sometimes, course it does. None of the children can levitate as much as a button, so it'll die out with me. Far too late to do anything about it now, though.

They did try, did you know that? Have you heard about Hermione Granger? Ah, I told myself, here's someone who knows their history.

Well done.

The Granger woman spotted that there was something fishy going on. Fewer and fewer kids turned up at Hogwarts every year. The wars had taken their tolls, you see. All those young people killed. Small wonder there were fewer babies born in the years after the last war.

But it never picked back up.

I've got an old newspaper clipping somewhere with Granger being interviewed. "Tipping point", she called it. The point of no return. Those babies who never were born couldn't have children of their own either, could they?

They were hoping to turn it around. Immigration subsidies and Lord knows what else they tried, before they realised it was a global phenomenon.

I've got another clipping with Rufus Bones. Only about a hundred years old, now. My grandmother knew him well, that's why she saved it.

He wrote about the 'magical gene' self-selecting out – that magic is liable to get you killed before your time, so it stopped being an advantage evolutionally speaking. Magic being magic, it happened very quickly: what took hundreds of thousands of years for the Muggles was done in just a few centuries. The magic got rid of itself, as it were.

It's a funny old life, isn't it? I heard all the stories about wars and Ministries of Magic, but all of that was gone before I was born. When I was a lad we used to meet up and celebrate the summer solstice, all the witches and wizards in the country. I was the only kid there, but it was great fun anyway. It stopped when old Mrs Longbottom died and we couldn't use her caravan anymore.

I didn't see any of the others for years after that, so it was only at my mother's funeral I realised it was only me and Barnabas Fletcher left.

Barney met a nice widow from France – a squib, she was – but then he had that hovercraft accident. Sad story.

Drunk drivers should be shot, in my opinion. No respect for others.

I'd met Mildred by then, but somehow I never got around to telling her about magic. You can look disapproving all you like, it's not you running the risk of being sent to Bedlam if she takes it the wrong way.

What do you want me to tell her? "Yes, love. Magic exists. There's no one left other than me who can do it, though." Can't blame me for keeping it to myself.

She's a good sort, Mildred. We've been together forty years now. We've had our ups and downs, there's no denying that, but we're still together and that's something to be proud of.

I don't hold with divorce.

There was a time when the kids were young, when I thought we were done for. Fighting and bickering constantly, we were, at each other's throats most of the time. It got so bad I dug out one of the old books – Moste Potente Potions, I think it was called. Had the devil of a job hiding the cauldron from Millie, but it got us through.

It got us through.

Will you stop it? It was nothing like what that fellow Riddle's mother did, bewitching a Muggle into thinking he loved her. It just got us through a rough patch, and then we were back to normal.

It got me thinking, though. What else could do with a little- with a magic touch, let's say?

That's when I got the job in Downing Street. Officially I'm a cleaner, but what I really do is to tweak things. Just a little.

Do you remember that electricity strike? The Nets were down for more than an hour. Well, that sort of thing makes no one happy, so I nudged the Prime Minister a little. Just to make him more amenable to come to an agreement with the unions, see?

Worked a treat, it did.

There's been some hairy moments, I don't mind telling you that. It's tricky when you're on your own and don't have anyone to be on the lookout for you. I got around that pretty neatly as soon as I realised that I could use the Imperius Curse.

Once I had Perkins on my side – and Gupta at the weekends – it became a lot easier.

Got quite a bit of practice with the old Imperio, I did. Just because the wizards were gone didn't mean that Magical Britain was dead and buried, you see. They'd done what they could when the Ministry for Magic was being wound down, but nowadays it's rare that a month goes by without something for me to sort out.

Dragon-sighting, masterless house-elves cleaning up somewhere they shouldn't, that sort of thing. Wards wear out and spells fade after a few hundred years, but underneath the magic is still there.

If it wasn't for my little list of helpers I'd never find out, much less be able to do anything about it, so you can wipe that scowl off your face, thank you very much. There's only fifty or so of them, and all I've made them do is to let me know if something suspicious happens in their area.

It's for everyone's good.

I've got it set up quite well now. No idea what'll happen once I retire, but hopefully I'll carry on for a while yet. It keeps me busy. Oh, and Millie and the kids, of course.

Only sometimes, I wish I could have seen it: Hogwarts, full of young witches and wizards, and with the creature in the lake and all. Imagine Hogsmeade – a whole village full of people like me! Or watching a Quidditch match. That would've been something.

No use complaining, I suppose. We do what we have to do, and that's all there is to it.

It was nice to meet someone else who knows, though. It's been a while, as you can tell by my babbling. Told you everything there is to know about me, I guess.

Oh, my name? It's Malfoy, Albert Malfoy. Pleased to meet you.