Magical minds.
April 26, 2046, Diagon Alley, London.
In the late evening of a dreary spring day, a pair of red-robed Aurors were seeing to their duties.
Robert Jones, the senior of the two, was instructing his young trainee in the proper ways of handling contraband after a raid a few hours earlier.
"Oi Henson, make sure you get 'em all, the Ministry don´t want any of these things out among the public, you hear?"
Huffing in frustration and thinking uncivil thoughts about his superior and the way he just stood around and leaving all the actual work to himself, trainee Jerome Henson still decided to just get it done; No point in getting in trouble over it, after all.
Filling the last chest, Jerome slammed the lid shut and levitated the whole thing in front of him as he started walking. Unfortunately, his concentration on his spellwork cost him, as a poorly set cobblestone caught his toes. Stumbling forward, barely avoiding a painful faceplant, his wildly flailing wand-arm sent the chest all but flying across the way.
"HENSON! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?" The crash of the chest spilling its contents all over the street garnered the expected response from the older man.
-MM-
Sighing deeply at his trainees spluttered apologies, Auror Jones took stock of the situation and decided that he just couldn´t be bothered to take his junior officer to task right then. Lifting his own wand, he quickly spelt all the fallen objects back into the chest and soon had it all back in order. He figured the scolding his subordinate deserved wait till the morning and more witnesses.
Casting his gaze over the street, he realized he had missed one object that had skidded off a bit further than the rest. Walking over to pick it up, his eyes suddenly grew wide as he realized what he was looking at.
'Oh Bollocks!'
Without a thought beyond that, his wand snapped up again.
"Incendio!"
It took him a moment or two of staring dumbly at the target of his admittedly well-aimed spell to catch on to the fact that it had not promptly burst into flames because it had been protected by a shield spell.
A shield spell cast by a man that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, standing just across the street from the two Aurors.
Senior Auror Jones opened his mouth to speak as he started to move his wand towards this possible threat, when he simply froze.
The newcomer was a man of slight build, around 170 cm, with black salt-and-pepper hair. He was dressed in dark, rather nondescript, muggle clothes. His face had a few scars and deep lines, telling of a hard-lived life. His stance was casual, one hand in a coat pocket and the other keeping his wand on the object he had saved.
None of this was especially noteworthy.
The eyes, however, were.
Behind a pair of steel-rimmed glasses, a set of killing-curse green eyes had pierced Auror Jones down to the bottom of his very soul, stopping him in his tracks.
The frozen tableau lasted for but a moment before, without taking his eyes off the Auror, the newcomer summoned his save with but a twitch of his wand.
"Tell me, Auror, since when do your duties include book-burnings?" Indeed, in the mans left hand rested a small book bound in blue-dyed leather.
Drawing upon his many years of experience, Auror Jones gulped once and rose to nearly-but-not-quite attention.
"Sir! According to Ministry decree, all books by that author are to be destroyed on sight! Sir!"
Raising a single eyebrow, the man got a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Decree, you say?" Giving the small tome in his hand a once over, he continued. "Well, far be it for me to get in the way of our esteemed Ministry when they are issuing such. I may be retired from the corps, but I shall see to this myself. Consider your duty done, Auror."
Then, without so much as a by-your-leave, he turned and walked off.
Auror Jones stood very still, barely breathing in fact, until the wizard had turned a corner. Letting out a relieved sigh, he felt his sleeve being yanked by his frantic trainee. "Sir! Sir! Was… was that…?"
Sagging a bit, Jones answered. "Yeah. Yeah, it was."
The younger man was not calmed by this. "But Sir, we can´t let anyone, even him, walk off with evidence! We´ll get in trouble!"
Fealing rather old and tired, Jones turned to meet Hensons worried gaze.
"Listen, kid, this is important. You´re right, if the Ministry learns about this they can fire me. But that´s it, they can only fire me. If we were to make trouble for the single most powerful wizard alive, however, there is no telling what he´ll do to us."
At his juniors sceptical look, he felt required to continue. "Yes, yes, he´s the big damn hero and all that, but he´s gotten rather, uhm, peculiar, yes, peculiar, in his old age. Getting in his way just isn´t worth it."
Turning from Henson to stare at the corner where he had last seen the man, he repeated: "It just ain´t worth it."
-MM-
In the Highlands of Scottland, far from any human habitation and warded seven ways to hell and back, in a way that would have had the long late Alastair 'Mad-eye' Moody squeeing in delight, was a little green wooden house.
Sitting on an otherwise empty grass knoll, it was not very big at all. The only thing it really had going for it was the view.
Just like the owner wanted it.
With a nearly soundless pop, Harry James Potter apparated into his home. Appearing as he had just inside the front door, he hung up his coat and removed his shoes.
His prize in hand, he then walked over to his recliner to investigate what had the Ministry in such a tizzy. It might be good for a laugh at least.
With a tired groan, he sank down in his seat and closed his eyes for a moment. He might have been retirement age for a muggle, but as a wizard, he was just entering his middle age. As such, he really shouldn´t feel as old as he did.
'It´s not the age, it´s the mileage.' He couldn´t remember where he had heard that little gem, but he felt it was just too true in his case.
Opening his eyes again, he took a moment to gaze upon his home; The ground floor was for the most part a single room done in soothing earth and green colours, with the exception of a bathroom in one corner. His kitchen was also fitted in here, all laid out in that modern, open floorplan. A spiral staircase by the front door led both up and down; the top floor had his bedroom and a never-used guest-room. The vastly, magically enlarged basement was for storage and whatever else he might find need of space for.
Despite the small size of his dwelling, it often felt cavernous to his sensibilities; It was all for no-one but him. He had not had a visitor for many years, let alone any actual guests.
A rueful smirk crept upon his face. 'At least it´s easy to keep clean.' With his skills, a thorough scrub of the whole building was a two-minute job.
His eyes then went to the only real exception to the normalcy of the place; every wall was covered in pictures, both magical and mundane, that documented his life. His achievements and triumphs, friends and foes, but most importantly, his family.
It was a grand vista of all that he had lost.
Grimacing, he decided to put the distraction he had arrived with to good use. Turning on his reading lamp, he finally got a solid look at the book he had saved from being destroyed, even as he harboured unkind thoughts of a Ministry that had apparently fallen back on good ol´ book-burnings.
~Mind, magic, and all that entail.
By Farlig Sanning.~
'Farlig? Peculiar name, that. Guess it´s most likely a pseudonym.' His curiosity peaked, he opened the book and found, to his astonishment, a chapter index. That was not something that most wizard authors felt was necessary. Skimming down the listed chapters, he felt a flicker of annoyance; Finding chapters named Logical magic, Practical mind-arts, Historical samples and Hiding from the terrible muggles, he still didn´t know quite what it was all about!
'Nothing for it, then.' He decided to do the sensible thing and start with chapter one, thankfully named Introduction.
~I the author, as have many of my ilk that straddles the line between magic and the mundane, learned early on in my life that wizards and witches are fundamentally different from non-magical folk.~
'So a muggle-born or a half-blood, then.' Intrigued by the notion, as he already felt more connected to the writer, he read on.
~Now, many a reader might scoff at this, saying that the difference is obvious, but I am not talking about the fact that one group is magical and one is not. No, I mean the difference in overall behaviour. For example, those who are exposed to magic folk for the first time almost unanimously decry how non-sensical and lacking in logic the average wizard is.~
Snorting to himself as a young and rather perturbed looking girl with bushy brown hair popped up in his memory, Harry could not help but agree. 'Yeah, Hermione had that figured out as a pre-teen.'
~As I grew older, I came to be independently wealthy and so I took to travelling the world, to see as much of the magical parts as I could. During my travels, I met all sorts of magical people from all walks of life, and while they are just as diverse as their mundane counterparts, a few distinct behavioural patterns began to emerge:
With the exception of a few very old and/or extremely self-reliant wizards, a great many magicals comes off as easily frightened and in need of comfort from authority.
Wizards and witches have a hard time with critical thinking, both in criticising others and in accepting criticism of themselves. Any information, even from an at best marginally trustworthy source, might be accepted without so much as a twitch. At the same time, the slightest word against their own beliefs is often met with outrage.
Screaming tantrums is another thing that the magically raised are far more prone to than mundane people.
Magic also seem to foster a certain kind of laziness; Not just in the usual, everyday way that one might suspect a person skilled with a wand might develop, but rather a mental kind of laziness. A wizard will happily follow in the rut made by his predecessor, never a thought of doing things differently. If asked why, answers to the questions often follow the pattern of 'that's just the way it is', 'everybody knows that' or 'it's always been like that', even if that is palpably false. The point is, the asked has most likely never even considered making a true change.
Lastly, as previously mentioned, logic seems to be beyond the grasp of anyone raised in the magical world. I have heard some people state that this is natural, due to how illogical magic itself can act, to the point of even making a mockery of the normal order of cause and effect. I find this an insufficient explanation, as surely any averagely intelligent grownup can differentiate between casting spells and everyday life?
During my travels, this lack of mental maturity and straight-up childishness so prevailing among magicals had me mystified for a long time. It was not until a small injury forced me to seek help at the local hospital that I found a clue as to why this is so.
Sitting in the waiting room, I happened to overhear a discussion between two gentlemen. One told the other about how a disaster at his son's place of work had caused him such harm to his magic that he may lose the use of it permanently. I will never forget what the other man said in his attempt to soothe the distraught father:
"Let's hope the boy gets better, hope is not lost! Still, it would be terrible if he loses his magic, I think I´d rather die, meself."
I´d rather die. That was the thing I had failed to understand. To a muggle-born, the ability to use magic is often seen as a nice add-on, something that they may well cherish but not consider a key aspect of their existence. To one born into a wizarding family, however, magic is the very linchpin to their life. In magical society, magic is the end-all and be-all, the single most important thing in existence. After all, it is a well-established practice among many of the more traditional magical families to dispose of squib children in one way or another.
With this, in hindsight obvious, insight I quickly found a way forward in investigating wizardly behaviour. In realizing that it was not the fact of having magic that affected the behaviour of wizards, the obvious difference would be how they grew up. After only a small investigation, I found several clear disparities between how children are raised in magical society as opposed to non-magical.
1. Consequences of actions. Short of death, there are not many things magic can't fix. A child growing up with magic is thus often shielded from the consequences of their actions. A non-magical child will have to learn that a favourite toy that is lost or broken is often gone forever and if you do something foolish enough to break an arm or a leg, you might be stuck with a cast for months on end; Whereas a magical child in the same situation has the toy back with a "reparo" or an "accio", a broken bone healed by the next morning. Naturally, this is not conducive to growing in maturity.
2. A sense of security. Small children are incredibly vulnerable creatures, and they demonstrate the subconscious knowledge of this by being easily scared and seeking safety in patterns and repetition. Anyone who ever had to take care of a child knows of this; The demand to hear the same story over and over, to have the same food every day, the need for that cherished blanket or stuffed toy. In this, non-magical children have it much easier, as magic can change everything on a whim. A parent prone to alter the colour of the walls every other day just because all it takes is a swish of a wand, rarely consider how this might affect their offspring. Since the physical world may seem so impermanent to wizards, they instead seem to seek their safety in a great many social norms and traditions, subsequently treating them as if they are laws of nature and not things made up by man.
3. The power of the word. In the mundane world, words may have power, but never as much as in the magical world. With a wand and the right words, a wizard can literally impose his will on the world around him. Imagine, if you will, growing up with parents that have that kind of power; Where your grownup guardians can´t just lay down the law for you, but can in fact redefine reality itself. Is it so strange, then, that wizards are notoriously bad at challenging what they are told by their authorities?
All taken together makes for children decidedly different from their muggle-born counterparts even before they reach school-age. Unfortunately, it only gets worse in school.
One of the very first things I was thought about casting a spell, was that it needed focus, visualisation and confidence that it would work! To empower your spells, you have to believe in yourself! Of course, this is true for many things; If you do not trust in your ability, your chances of success suffers, no matter the nature of the task.
Now remember, there is nothing more important to wizards than magic; So if their magic is dependant on their self-confidence, then they will be very protective of it.
Now suppose, that a pre-teen magical child equals their beliefs with their self-confidence, which is now part of their magic. Further, after growing up in a place where words are magic, they subconsciously make no difference between spells and regular speech.
In conclusion, magic = words + self-belief, also magic=supremely important. Few wizards ever fully grow out of this simplistic, not to mention faulty, mentality.
This can explain a whole host of peculiar wizardly behaviour. For example, if you subconsciously feel that words are magic, then you will be compelled to believe whatever you are told or else deny another's magic, a truly horrible faux pax.
This is exacerbated if the speaker is an older/stronger wizard or he holds some form of authority. How could it be any other way, if he (cast the spell) said it? Worse, it goes the other way too. If a wizard is told something that does not agree with his own beliefs, he will simply not take it into account if he feels that the speaker is somehow beneath him, be it in years, strength or authority. A polite wizard will just wave off the new information with a "Nonsense!" or similar, while a less polite one will likely accuse the speaker of lying or worse.~
Leaning back in his seat, Harry put down the book and removed his glasses. With a deep, long groan, he rubbed his face with both hands. 'Bloody hell, that would explain so damn much!'
In his memories, he saw professor Mcgonnagal punish him for bullying Neville and refusing to hear anything to the contrary, he saw her send away him, Hermione and Ron with a "Nonsense!" when they came to warn her about the stone.
Snape, sneering "Just like his father" even though anyone with two brain cells to rub together could see that, appearance aside, he was in many ways the polar opposite of his father.
Far too many people fawning over that fraud Lockhart, despite him demonstrating his true colours in his first class.
Filch, in distress, yelling "You! You did this!" and fingering the first people on the scene, instantly believed by almost the whole school.
Ron, refusing to believe he had not gotten himself into the Tri-wizard tournament because, of course, to Ron fame was a great thing indeed.
Hermione crying due to all the hate mail she received because Rita Skeeter had written about her 'affair' with both Harry and Crum; Even from Molly Weasley who really should have known better.
Fudge, insisting that "He can´t be back, it´s impossible!" when Harry tried to warn him about Voldemort's return.
Dumbledore, despite Harrys repeated warnings about Malfoy being up to no good, finally paying the ultimate price for his negligence.
'Damn that old man! Always thought he knew best, no matter who had to suffer for his plans! Never listened to reason! And for what?' A long, hard-lived life had long since soured Harry on Albus Dumbledores ideas about light, dark and forgiveness. Malfoy may have turned out… less bad, but had he known back then what he did now, even if it had only been to spare Katie Bell from the cursed necklace, he would have made the blond ponce… disappear.
Harry did not think that the man Draco Malfoy had grown into had been worth all the shit that it had taken to achieve.
'Draco was always a coward. Always. Just because he learned the dangers of pissing off the wrong people and is too yellow to follow his own convictions, does not make him good. Just not dangerous.'
Thinking about the blond Slytherin made Harry remember another blond he had met about a decade ago. He had been at the Ministry for something or other when a young, fair-haired man had approached him and told him about a ritual he would be required to attend.
Being tired and cranky, Harry had questioned why his attendance was suddenly so important and gotten the answer that he HAD to attend, because it was TRADITION that all wizards in his position did so. Feeling less than charitable, Harry had asked: "You do realise, that traditions are just crap we keep doing because some yahoo made it up a long time ago and not something written in stone, right? The sun won´t fall out of the sky if I miss this."
Harry would never forget the look on the younger mans face; Eyes wide, mouth agape, he just froze in place like he had been hit by a full body bind. It got eerie after a few moments, to the point that he had caved and agreed to go; The poor boy had sagged in relief and led him away to hear a long rambling speech by an ancient witch and to watch her cast a spell on a stone tablet.
He never learned what it was all about either.
Harry sighed deeply. 'I get it now. Magic makes reality flexible, so wizards trust in traditions to keep them stable. And when I, the strongest wizard in Brittain, told that guy that traditions are nothing to trust, it was like an immovable object being hit by an implacable force. No wonder the kid froze.'
A snort escaped him as another memory bubbled up in his mind; When he was in his late twenties, he had employed the services of a tutor of wizard manners. He had felt at the time that his constantly increasing duties in high society demanded that he be better prepared than he had so far been. It had... not gone well.
The elderly witch instructing him had been very knowledgeable in her field, no question, but she had also been snobbish, rude and bad at answering questions.
Just as the author of the book had described, she seemed convinced that the very specific forms that she was teaching were the only possible correct way and that it had been so since the beginning of time. His assertions that China, for example, could trace their high culture far further back than any European country and it was quite different from her lessons had the lady storming off in a huff.
Later that evening, he had eaten dinner with Ron and Hermione and had taken the chance to offload his woes on his friends. At his question why anyone would feel it necessary to complicate the act of getting food into your stomach beyond not making a mess, Hermione had huffed and given him an answer he´d never forget.
"It´s simple, Harry. For simple, poor people just getting food into you were quite sufficient. Rich people such as nobility, though, had much more food and time on their hands. So they entertained themselves by making up more interesting food and ways of eating it. With time, knowing these special ways of eating became a way of distinguishing nobility from the hoi polloi, and thus became an absolute necessity. You know, to, uhm… find a mate."
He had been stunned at the time; Snobs behave like snobs to identify themselves as snobs to other snobs, so they can make more snobs! He had never tried to learn all that high society stuff ever again; people like Malfoy and Fudge had thoroughly turned him off of being snobbish. People would simply have to accept him as he was.
Or not, as the case may be.
Grumbling to himself, Harry picked up the book again. It had already proven rather illuminating, maybe it had more to offer.
~With my new understanding of wizardly psychology, I found that a great many other things in magical culture made far more sense. The abundance of dark Lords and Ladies, for example. Certainly, the mundane world has their Hitlers and Stalins, Genghis Khan and Peter the Great or any other warlord you care to mention. In the magical world, however, these kinds of people crop up with alarming regularity.
Any witch or wizard with an above-average sense of entitlement can fall into this category; all they would need to do is study enough to be demonstratedly stronger magically than their peers and then magically redefine the world (tell people how they think the world should be) to gain followers among like-minded people. Or maybe just tell people what they want to hear. It is all about lacking mental maturity and failing to separate words from magic.
This is probably also why so many dark Lords go for the spiel of "Ruling the muggles like our ancestors." It gives their followers a sense of pride and purpose all in one, along with a supposed moral high ground.
A lengthy trawl through magical history has proven such claims false, however. The instances of wizards ruling over mundane people are few and far between indeed. Historically, wizards either integrate with mundanes or try to go it alone, which rarely ends well.
With integration, the wizard normally takes the role of the medicine man/shaman. They are the oldest known form of human magic users, only one step below the chief/boss/big kahuna. They are very important to their tribe/people, and garners great respect, but they are never the leader. They can´t be, because they have their hands full with being the medicine man. Being good at magic is a full-time job.
This pattern repeats all over the world. Where there were kings, there were court-wizards, sultans had their viziers, emperors employed eunuchs and alchemists. Merlin himself served as court-wizard and advisor for King Arthur Pendragon. Even the bible states in no uncertain terms that the ones who warned the Pharao of Moses birth were his wizards.
(As an aside, should you ever become involved with a prophecy, try to forget all about it. If it is a true prophecy, it will come true no matter what and if it isn´t, well then it´s best forgotten anyway. Whatever you do, do not try to prevent it or the very actions you take will likely make the prophecy self-fulfilling, just like it did for the mentioned Pharao or Oedipus from the Greek tragedy. Neither is it a good idea to try to help it along or you risk ending up like the titular Macbeth from Shakespeare's play. No, the only sane response to a prophecy is to attempt to minimise the damage or try to forget it.
Oedipus´parents might have, for example, found a very young widow and asked her to adopt their son in exchange for a hefty stipend and just leaned back to watch the prophecy play out. Just a thought.) ~
With a snarl of fury, Harry lowered the book for a moment. 'That would have been some great advice for SOME PEOPLE just about when I was born. Would sure have made my life a hell of a lot easier!'
With an angry huff, he lifted the book again. 'Bah, who am I kidding? Those bloody buggering besserwissers wouldn´t listen to anything they didn´t want to hear, anyway.'
~The other option for magicals is to try to form their own societies, most often with poor results. It almost always starts out well, magic letting wizards set up a comfortable place of living in short order. It is once they have established themselves and that first enthusiasm of the pioneering stage recedes that problems arise. Once the second and third generation of a magical settlement takes over, they tend to grow lazy and corrupt, secure in their own sense of superiority. Then it is only a matter of time before the slightest upset to the status quo cast the whole thing into chaos and ruin, be it from outside sources or internal, often one of those previously mentioned dark lords. Like the Roman empire in fast forward.
A precious few such settlements, however, avoids the stagnation by reaching ever higher, never feeling satisfied with what they have. They try for utopias by way of increasing their knowledge and magical power, reaching ever higher until, like Icharus, they reach too high and fall.
Atlantis is a great example of this, an island of wonder and unimaginable power until its inhabitants overreached themselves, screwed up, and caused the whole thing to sink into the ocean. Wizards don't do logic and they are equally bad at safety precautions, often due to hubris.
Then there is the final option that some wizards historically employed to create a society, which involves the few cases in history where wizards did rule over mundanes, magical conquerors. In this case the leader of the society ensures that the fall from grace is all but built-in from the start, since I could not find a single historical example where they were not started by a single individual.
Why would that guarantee a collapse, you ask?
Because, as previously stated, being good at magic is a full-time job!
These individuals studied and trained, often for decades, until they had no equal among their peers. Then they gathered their armies by the power of their words/magic, and set about to conquer land, that they would then rule.
Problem: Ruling a nation is a full-time job as well.
They are then presented with a choice: Keep ruling and stagnate magically, maybe even backslide, or delegate their power to have time for studies. If they choose the former, sooner or later someone will feel they are weak and overthrow them. If the latter, their lieutenants will squabble between themselves over who gets to rule, or/and the chosen regent will sooner or later feel that they are doing a better job than the original ruler. Either way, chaos is guaranteed to soon follow. And even if the conquering lord manages to hold on to power for his whole life, once he has passed his kingdom will soon follow, just as did the lands that Djingis Khan once conquered and for much the same reasons.
If these historical Conquerors sound like dark Lords, then yes, there are only a scant few differences. However, while some of the former could be somewhat socially acceptable people that went out in the world to make their fortune, more recent dark lords and ladies are almost universally horrible people that most often wants to take over the land of their birth first and foremost. One might speculate that this is mostly because there are no longer large swaths of uninhabited land in the world which no one will oppose you for occupying.
After having described the different ways that magical societies work, or don´t, I can hear you asking "But there are plenty of magical countries all over the world, what about them?"
A difficult question, to be sure, but the answer is simple: There isn´t. Not really. Instead, there is a whole lot magical so-and-so, like magical France, magical Britain, and so on and so forth. While the magicals keep to themselves more or less, they are still part of a mundane country. Of course, there are exceptions such as magical Scandinavia, but that only works because the Nordic countries are culturally similar and have rather open relations; In the same way that Finland and Sweden do not bother bickering much over the iland of Åland, neither do the rest of them care too much about what their tiny magical minority gets up to.
At any rate, the fact that they are a part of mundane lands affords the wizards and witches a much needed stabilizing factor, which is why their communities do not collapse as they would otherwise be prone to.
I am, however, worried in the extreme about how the future will turn out. As mundane society rushes forward and becomes more and more high tech, I have seen how the wizards lag behind ever more, stubbornly refusing to change. And as technological innovations make it increasingly more difficult to hide, wizards pull back even further, exasperating the problem of their increasing isolation. In the last twenty years, the culture shock when going between the magical and mundane worlds have begun to reach critical mass; Soon, the two will be utterly incompatible.
This is potentially very bad, as while the non-magical world will do just fine for itself, wizards, as stated, need to be part of the mundane to remain stable. The next time a dark lord/lady shows up, they may well try to attack the mundane world in the mistaken belief that it is still in the state of a hundred years ago; Dyed in the wool wizards do not like change and they rarely believe any but the most in-your-face proof.
That will probably finally spell the end of the long-lasting statute of secrecy, pun intended. What chaos that will bring, I do not want to speculate about.
I write this book in the vain hope that it will bring some enlightenment to those that need it, maybe in this way I can help stave off a future collapse of the world as we know it for a little longer. I do not truly believe it will help, I predict most magicals will decry my writings as near heresy and very few first-generation wizards will ever lay eyes on them for that reason. Still, I soothe my conscience with this book as it is what it is.
So read on, my friend, and find in these pages what little nuggets of wisdom I might offer you!
Sincerely, Farlig Sanning.~
Having finished the intro, Harry put the book aside but remained in his seat, dark thoughts running through his mind.
He had seen it for himself, all that he had just read about, but he had never understood WHY.
After Voldemorts fall, despite all the chaos, magical Britain had seemed to be improving for once. People had been willing to listen to reason, the few unreasonable kept their gobs shut, and everyone got on with the rebuilding. That had lasted for, what? Fifteen, twenty years?
Then, a new generation had grown up, one with no memories of the horrors of the blood-wars.
In hindsight, it seemed obvious that it had to be as it happened. After all, neo-Nazis is a thing, OF COURSE neo-death eaters would come up through the wood-works in time. Some of the old DE guard was still around, despite his protests, to fill the new kids´ minds with the same old venom.
It had cost him dearly, in the end. But this time, he had personally cleansed the country of all that had dared to even call themselves believers in the death eaters ways. And he had declared to the country at large that he would be around to do it all over again if there ever was a new dark lord in Great Britain.
Then, he had pretty much gone hermit. He had been so angry, that he never wanted to see the Wizengamot again lest he strike them all dead in their seats. Useless bunch of wankers.
Rubbing his temples tiredly, he felt he at least understood a bit more, now.
Change. Wizards and witches were absolutely terrified of it, and only some great trauma could sway them. The two blood wars had provided such in ample amount, granted that the first one stuck much worse than the second war. The last time, he had been most of the trauma.
Wich reminded him that a new generation had, yet again, come about since then, so it was about time for magical Britain to go stupid, again.
He had a nagging feeling that the writer had the right idea, the next set of problems would most likely be the Wizengamot trying to do something dumb about the ever-encroaching muggles. With the march of technology, wizards were ever more pressed to hide. When cameras and smartphones became widespread, many magicals simply stopped going out in the wider world for fear of being discovered.
When the Leaky Cauldron had barred its doors into greater London for that same reason, he had suggested in no uncertain terms that they needed to invent new spells, wards and magics if they wanted to stay hidden. All he´d gotten were uncomprehending stares and insistences that the good old anti-muggle wards and spells would suffice just as they had done for their ancestors, thank you very much!
Afterwards, when he had complained about how all wizards were terrified of new things to a visiting Luna, she had given him her ever enigmatic smile and said: "Why don´t you think about it for a while? I recommend doing it while you go for a fly on your…broom."
Probably just as well he hadn´t gotten her hint right away, as he had no answer for it.
Gritting his teeth at how magical Britain was spiralling down for the last half-century, as not even new magic was acceptable anymore.
He remembered how he had called for an Unspeakable once, back when he had been the head Auror, to ask if the Unspeakables could invent some protections against the Unforgivables. And if not that, at least a reliable way of detecting if someone were/had been under the Emperiatus curse. The answer he got?
"I´m sorry, mister Potter, we Unspeakables are not an R&D department that dabbles in such trivialities, we have far more important research that takes up our time." Then the man had spun on his heels and left a shocked silent Harry in his office.
Harry, having seen first-hand what kind of things the Unspeakables got up to, had wanted to scream at the man 'NO YOU BLOODY WELL DON`T!' Also, trivialities? The man was a senior Unspeakable, certainly older than Harry, meaning he had in the not so distant past LIVED IN A COUNTRY TAKEN OVER BY A MADMAN THAT USED THE UNFORGIVABLES LIBERALLY!
Useless bunch of twats.
No, something would have to be done, and soon, or things were bound to go pear-shaped in a hurry. And he, himself and him would have to be the one to get er´ done, he suspected; He still had some of his 'saving people' thing too.
But how would he go about it? The way he figured it, he had three possibilities:
One, he basically went dark lord himself and used his formidable reputation to take over. Grimacing to himself, he decided to call that plan C. Not his style, and according to the book he just read, not a viable long-term plan.
Two, he… isolated the problem. There were far too many mundane people in the world to properly protect them all from wizards up to no good, but to put the wizards in a place of their own, where they could harm no one with their antics? Put the genie in a bottle, kind of thing? That had definite merits, especially if he managed to sell it so the magicals wanted to do it. He´d have to set up a small magical policing force for Britain in that case; The aurors were the only useful service that magicals provided for the mundane population, if only as a side-effect.
Or three, he came up with something a bit more esoteric. He had spent his time as a hermit getting into some really funky magic, all stored down in the basement. He would have to get experimenting, as even his isolation plan would need some serious research.
A combination of plans two and three, perhaps? With plan C as emergency backup?
Slowly, Harry James Potter tented his fingers in front of himself as he sunk down into his recliner, plotting for the future.
/ The end… ?
A/N: I remember, roughly back when 'Prisoner of Azkaban' came out, I bought the first HP book to find out what all the hubbub was about; Having read it, I felt… rather annoyed. Oh sure, the setting was great and the story compelling, but… People. Were. So. Stupid! No one truly questions anything, there is no answerability or culpability, all the adults are more or less useless. I mean, detention in the forbidden Forrest? Using a school to hide a treasure from a terrorist? And everyone just goes along with it. Worst of all was Dumbledore telling Harry that "Sorry kid, that murderer that just tried to off you? Not gonna tell you anything about him because reasons." Annoying!
Honestly didn´t really care for Harry as the protagonist, either. Go read Perfect Lionhearts 'Harry Potter vs Mr. Potato Head' to understand why. And that's all I´m gonna say about that.
To get some of that old annoyance out of my head, I wrote this to explain why wizards are so stupidly useless, not that I am in any way a psychologist or anything such. It´s a one-shot and will probably stay that way, but if anyone wants to continue it or use any parts of it, like the in story book, feel free.
PS: Farlig Sanning is simply Swedish for dangerous truth. Seemed appropriate.