Check first chapter for disclaimers and warnings.
XXI – The World"Shit. Fuck. Damn." the young woman cursed, holding the foot she injured (slightly) on the protruding foot of her hotel bed.
"Three times is the charm, darling." commented the other young woman in the room – who had been until that moment reading a book while lying on said bed.
"Ha! Three times! Like the story of Ginny Weasley?" asked the injured one, massaging her foot while sitting next to her girl-friend.
"Who?"
"Sorry. Forgot you weren't… like me, for a while."
"A witch? It should be me, the one who forgets that, because you don't seem to do much magic."
"Interesting that you should say that, because that's the same story."
"Oooh! Story time, sweetheart?"
"I don't know… Aaaaah! Stop! Not the tickles!"
"Story, then."
"Okay. So…"
"Once upon a time…"
"I'll skip a bit. You know the books anyways."
"I'm all ears."
"Ginny Weasley was an energetic witch. She was married to Harry Potter, and the two had tried to have kids. Three times."
"As you said before?"
"Not quite. It didn't work. The first time, they had a stillborn son. They thought it was a bit of bad luck, because that happened, sometimes. The second time, still a stillborn son. They fell into a deep depression, and almost separated. The third time…"
"It was a girl?"
"You might be psychic, or it's because I already told you the story. Yes, it was a girl. No, she didn't survive. And neither did the mother."
"You're making me cry. It's a sad story?"
"Yes, but not only for Ginny or her man."
"…and? Stop the suspense, please. What happened?"
"For him, it was difficult times. It took the combined will and magic of his friends Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood to extirpate him from the depths of alcoholism he had fallen into. And prevent him from killing himself. Repeatedly. He finished by having one or the other spending the night in his bed, each night, their arms encircling him so as to awaken them should he get up for another suicidal bout."
"In bed?"
"Yes. Admit it, being held while asleep is quite calming, right?"
"Of course. But not only."
"True. And it was true for them too. When he was calmed enough, he must have noticed the warm and feminine bodies held against him. And he fucked them – it was not pretty, but any sex in that situation is never pretty."
"…I guess."
"It didn't help that they had their own problems. Hermione had been repudiated by her husband Ron Weasley after she had failed to give birth to their daughter – not only that, but she interrupted the pregnancy herself, you imagine?"
"I imagine he must have been shocked, what with the mindset you told me the Wizarding World had. Quite a bunch of patriarcally-retarded snobs."
"And rapists, too. Luna had been unable to even conceive – which should have been evident even since her school days, since she had been raped there, during the year culminating with Voldemort's defeat."
"The bad man!"
"Whatever. Now, Hermione gets pregnant, and goes to a non-magical hospital. It doesn't work. And to avoid the fate of Ginny, she gets an hysterectomy."
"Wow! Talk about extreme measures!"
"Yeah, I know. Anyways. After her grieving period, she went into research mode and didn't let out until she scoured the whole problem. Apparently, between the purebloods' customs and Hogwarts' heavy magical field, our generation of magic-users might be the last to live. It was as if we had spent seven years near a collapsed nuclear reactor."
"Chernobyl?"
"Not quite. But, yes. Our magic helped us survive, but it's also a hindrance, because we didn't see the effect until much later. We can't give birth to magicals. And we are now limited to a normal human life, while, before, magical humans could live up to two centuries without noticeable problems."
"Two hundred years? That's…"
"I know, I know. But back to Harry Potter."
"You know, that name reminds me of something…"
"Yes, and I'm coming to that. Apparently, according to someone I know, he made a magical vow, then, something he couldn't break without repercussions. He vowed to bring back the magic kids."
"And?"
"And the vow made him want to fuck all the witches. It helped that, at the beginning, most of us were seduced by his heroic actions, his fortune, and his young looks."
"You too?"
"I said "most of us". But, yes, me too. He would fuck a few times, grants a boon if we fell pregnant, and assist in delivering the baby."
"You said it's a sad story. It didn't work."
"No, it didn't work. In despair, he then banged all the witches he could find, granting wishes more expensive each time. I believe he sponsored another all-girl Quidditch team after the Holihead Harpies. They called themselves the Soaring Swallows."
"Subtle."
"Shut it, you. At least I'm not in the Anti-Acronyms And Anti-Alliteration Annoyed Authors Association. Now… where was I?"
"Harry Potter having sex with every witch?"
"Ah, yes. At the same time this happened, the Wizarding World opened up to the non-magical world. It wasn't easy, and his ways didn't help. Because when he finished with the witches, he started branching up in muggle towns too. He'd create an enterprise or two, in modelling or anything that would interest the women, and he'd soon find himself almost drowned in pussy."
"Elegant. I swear you have a way with words. Perhaps it's your tongue…"
"…mmmmh. Stop, I haven't finished. You might remember his name because of his trial. You see, after spending his fortune just to have women throwing themselves at him, he was quite penniless."
"Let me guess. There were some who wanted a slice of the hot pie, and were jealous not to have had some? Or some who had gorged themselves and were now as penniless and wanted a free refill he wasn't able to give?"
"Something like that. You have a way with words, too."
"Still… he didn't do it for the sex, I believe. Did it work?"
"No. But not for the same reasons. Even when he vowed to take care of kids, even if he was upfront with his reasons, and provided cash each time… that's when it hurt the most. Each of them took the money, only to get themselves an abortion or something."
"As is their right."
"True. But the money offered, the jobs offers, the whole companies created for them… it wasn't for the sex. It was for a legacy. They didn't fulfil their part of the contract. In a time where everyone is interested in their own person, they didn't think about a whole world being destroyed in front of them. Almost like a genocide. And when he tried to argue his case…"
"I remember the name, now. They put him in prison."
"It didn't help that his Vow had started taking effect. Whereas, before, he was young and fit and able to seduce women with a wink, he was then ugly as sin. And almost all the women who had been with him were disgusted, with him, and with themselves. And they piled up on him, in the media, in the court, everywhere."
"I saw the pictures. He was truly ugly. And old. How old was he, then?"
"Only fourty. It was the Vow. Needless to say, it worsened in prison. I believe he had written things, there, but nobody wanted them published so everything was burned."
"That's strange, still. Burning writings. Wasn't it something the Nazi did?"
"I know. And we won't know what it was about. Perhaps it was only the mad ramblings of a man seeing his body and magic eaten by a Vow. Perhaps it was his insights about the slow death of the magical world. Whatever the case, he died before the rest of us. Before the other wizards, too."
"Is it the same in the magical worlds? The life expectancy, I mean."
"Yes. Witches outlive wizards, even with our now-reduced lifespans."
"So he died. That's sad for him and his fight."
"You said "his fight". It wasn't his at all. He was just the first to see it. But we continued it too. Except we can't find any fertile wizard, now. Even when relaxing our usual criteria, such as the guy's age, money, appearance, hygiene, attitude towards kids, faithfulness, and the fact that he puts the toilet seat in the correct position for us… we found none. And inbreeding didn't help, because several are real morons who still don't know they are doomed."
"I'm sorry to ask, but… have you tried with non-magical men?"
"It doesn't work either – they lack that "spark", you know."
"I know, since that pushed you in my arms. Mmmm… delicious." A pause. "That Harry, were he present, he would tell you "too late", wouldn't he?"
"Maybe, maybe not. He wasn't lacking in manners, you know. Perhaps we should have listened. And not piled on his shoulders all our disappointment in ourselves."
"…and they wailed, and gnashed their teeth, and put the blame on the wizards' shoulders."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm just imagining this retelling in the next Bible. Thus the language."
"Oh. Proceed, then."
"Where was I? Ah, yes… they put the blame on the wizards' shoulder. But the wizards didn't care, because they were already dead. The single benefit of a shorter lifespan."
"…"
"The end."
To be finished in the Epilogue…Author's Notes: Some suggestions awoke the muse and she granted me (and you) the following scenes.
The Christmas of 1991 was supposed to be quite the haul for one Ronald Weasley. After all, wasn't he supposed to be the very best friend of Harry Potter, the last heir of a great fortune? He even recruited his mother to make him a Weasley jumper, for Harry to feel even more indebted to the red-haired family.
When the day came, Ronald inspected his pile of presents. And Harry's. It wasn't in the manner of Dudley Dursleys, because Ronald wasn't going to throw a temper tantrum if he ever had one less present than the previous year. But it held the same expectation… and the same disappointment.
Instead of a large present with golden things inside, he merely got a box of chocolates. It always sated his ever-present appetite, so he started eating them without waiting for his "friend" to come down from the dorms. And noticed that he had taken all of them by the time Harry came down.
Since Molly Weasley tried very hard to impart some sense of tact to her brood (also called "manners", something they all lacked in some way or another), he saw the empty box and threw it to the fire. Harry saw only the last gesture, and he became quite sad – for someone with no outside contact, it was quite a feat to have gotten hold of that box, and he had hoped for a moment of camaraderie with his friend, both of them eating the things in front of the fire.
But he, too, had been raised with some manners. And the sentence his education burned into his mind was: "never complain". So he smiled, and they discussed while opening presents. And when Ron saw that Harry had gotten an Invisibility Cloak, of all things… he became green with envy.
"I would do anything for an invisibility cloak." was what he said then. But Harry took it as something an admiring friend would say, not an envious thief.
Because Ron didn't even wait for his birthday to get himself the present he thought he deserved. He took it.
Well… he tried, but he chickened at the last minute. So he asked for help from the twin terrors he had the misfortune to have as older siblings. Fred and Georges were starting to get ideas about pranks, and always needed money to buy potion ingredients (and grease some other needy palms). And Harry's trunk also held a world-class broom.
Ron didn't really need the cloak, but it was the kind of thing he dreamed of possessing. Much like the broom. But the twins… they had wild dreams of the mischief they could achieve with such a tool.
Still, the two troublemakers weren't (really) ones to steal stuff, and they were only swayed when Ron portrayed himself as the one betrayed: and to think, he had even asked their mother to make him a jumper!
After a bit of discussion, they swiped the whole trunk while Harry was using the loo, during the train ride to London. They only left behind a card saying that, as a fangirl/groupie, someone named Stephanie took it – a card they transfigured as a replica of the trunk, and as heavy. Of course, not wanting to be found, they only kept the Cloak and the broom, burning everything else. Including Harry's only photographs of his parents (they didn't know he had none). Of course, Ron took the few coins he could find, his disappointment when finding so few of them quickly eclipsed at his joy of finding Harry's Gringotts key. And the muggle paper money burned with the rest.
Harry, who had been sitting on his trunk waiting for his relatives to pick him up, was surprised when the trunk disappeared. And the wind made the transfigured card fly, leaving him with no clue as to what had happened. He had no other choice but to find bobbies to help him home, to the intense disappointment of his family. So he was kept under lock and key, because Vernon thought he could starve the magic out of him.
With Dobby making itself quite the little pest, and no Weasley coming to his rescue, Harry had no hope of returning to Hogwarts that year. Sure, Dumbledore and his clique descended upon Privet Drive like a horde of outraged freaks, on the second day of September, but the Boy-Who-Lived was too emaciated to be a productive member of the wizarding student body.
And Ron was secretly happy, too.
Meanwhile, the twins had started the year with a bang, literally, throwing fireworks every which way. They had already startled the old Professor of Care of Magical Creatures so badly he had a heart attack (and they laughed when he collapsed, holding his chest). They had already startled Binns' ghost so much he had moved into another classroom (and nobody cared). And they had already made themselves so successful pests that McGonagall's hair became entirely white – even Snape got some white, too.
Harry was the only one not touched by their pranks, because he spent the first three months in the Hospital Wing. And another three months afterwards, because another prank made him fall down stairs (something happening often, but his frail constitution made him break several bones, including ribs and the base of the spine).
Dumbledore still finds them funny, though, and doesn't act on his Deputy's rants (on which, miracle of miracles, Snape was completely agreeing).
That's why they were still there the following year, their fifth. Having had some success, they had splurged and increased the frequency and intensity of their pranks… and their need for resources increased as well. And Ron had a key to a vault full of gold. The three of them made away with most of it, hidden in two bottomless trunks, shrunk and in their pocket (Fred's and Ron's because the ever-jealous Ron wouldn't let Fred be the only one having all the cool toys – and the gold).
Ron became quite paranoid, and bought numerous security measures for his trunk, but nobody thought to steal it or its content. He was even seen as generous when lending books and clothes to an impoverished (and mute, because his vocal cords had suffered during his internment) Harry.
McGonagall finally noticed that Harry didn't have a trunk, and asked about it. He painstakingly explained about its disappearance, and she frowned. Didn't he have some security option on it? As the Boy-Who-Lived, it should have been a given.
Harry's blank look, at that moment, made her want to strangle both Dumbledore… and Hagrid. The half-giant was too trusting for his own good, and Harry's too, apparently. Caring about the boy, she bought him a more secure box, and clothes that did fit, and books. And gave him her own photographs of his parents, for which he was eternally grateful.
However, in his reduced state, he couldn't fight a Basilisk, and died when Ron pushed him forward, when they were both trying to save Ginny – Lockhart broke his neck when falling down the chute starting in Myrtle's bathroom.
Ron was promptly eaten, too (because the beast's scent was almost as good as its eyesight), and Ginny was crushed beneath the mammoth creature, interrupting the energy transfer due to grant the Horcrux a new body. That left three corpses in the Chamber of Secrets, as well as a murderous half-soul half-body dark lord in his teenage years. And a murderous snake. They couldn't touch each other, but they could speak to one another. And they slowly grew mad together.
As exceptional as a triple death was, the school didn't close. Rumours flew high and low about the three students who had disappeared, but nothing was accomplished. Except for Molly Weasley's heart attack – which meant she spent the summer recovering (and mourning) instead of curbing the twins' attitude. And inspect Ron's trunk, where she would have found the gold and the key.
At that time, Fred and George had finished testing all they could with legal substances, and were branching upon the illegal, especially variants of the infamous Amortentia (especially as they were also teen-aged boys, discovering the niceties of the female body, and always wanting more).
They grew quite careless, too, which meant Hermione stumbled upon their illegal cache. It took some time for the girl to notice that the products used (and brewed) were outlawed, but she did. Shocked, and panicked when she heard the twins enter, she ran and almost made it out. Her last steps in the room had been close to some botched potion vials, and one of them was dropped on George's hands.
Surprisingly, for the three of them, she stopped running as soon as the twins exclaimed "Hermione! Wait! We can explain!" On the second word, in fact.
And they discover that, while she's horrified all along, she has become totally subservient to George – Fred is jealous, a little, but he knows another little number that would be perfect to satisfy his carnal needs. And the potion Hermione dropped was refined to perfection, even allowing the Controller (the one splashed by the potion) to control what memories the Submissive (the one the Controller called immediately after being splashed) retained or lost.
Of course, Hermione kept her genius about potions. But they made her forget about everything else, and she was relegated as potion maker for them, even dropping out of school when they finished their own schooling (at the OWL level, they weren't going to do more than the bare minimum).
During the last months they spent at the school, they sold their "Liquid Imperious" to many males, leaving many females in quite a poor state. Those who didn't look like the beauty canons of the times were left quite alone, allowing them to blossom into beauties later… only to be grabbed as targets when the Twins' market branched into the outer world.
And since it was quite illegal, they sold it under the (invisibility) cloak. And guess who bought most of it? You got it: the elite. The purebloods.
The problems began when they stopped playing and started wanting a family. They quickly discovered that anyone splashed by the Controlling ointment would become sterile. Immediately. No recourse. No refund. Do not pass Go.
The Twins had been the first to notice this, of course (what with Hermione not being pregnant despite the numerous times they abused her). But they still sold the thing. And invoked the "inherent dangers of use" written on each label (on the inside, with inversed character that were not visible unless exposed to fire).
Needless to say, those excuses didn't fly high when opposed to angry statesmen (instead of, say, annoyed students and powerless teachers). Especially those purebloods who had "happened to not having been in control of their body during You-Know-Who's rise to power". For people who supposedly only did horrible things when controlled by a dark lord, they sure remembered those acts all too well, since they repeated them.
Needless to say, the Twins' agony was quite long. And the knowledgeable ones made sure it extended into their next Great Adventure.
A couple generations later, there was no more living pureblood left to hold to positions of power. The diminished witches had found other men to have half-blood kids with, and the Wizarding World of Britain became another one where the prior culture of entitlement disappeared.
Good?
Of course!
But don't forget that the Wizarding World had some oral traditions, too, and they were soon lost. And the part that was not good at all was how the traditionalists among the purebloods returned the magic to the land when people died.
Now, witches and wizards were immersed in muggle culture, and they cremated their deads instead of burying them, wrapped in linens, in the soil behind their house. Notice how, after fighting the muggles who practised witch burnings, the Wizarding World included the practise of burning their bodies. Without noticing that the wild magic evaporating in the air was lost forever – why do you think they were burned, to begin with?
With no more wild magic returning to Albion's soil, the ancient spell of Merlin ceased to function, and the Book of Names of Hogwarts stopped recording the names of the magical newborns…
…although it was of no consequence as no more muggleborns appeared – another consequence of stopping that particular tradition. That led those with magic to become more and more separated from the non-magical ones, instituting another world of entitlement, to replace the old one.
After all, protecting one's possessions (or interests, which are an extension of possessions) isn't a pureblood trait, or even a magical one.
It's a human one.
And beyond that, it's a natural one too: animals do the same. They protect the product of their hunt. They protect their territory. They protect the weakest among them, whenever possible.