Chapter 1: What to do next
"Well, that's that, isn't it?" asked Ron, his face covered in ash and soot. His robes were terribly ripped, his nose was bleeding sluggishly and there was blood down the front of his robes. "You did it, Harry. You killed Voldemort."
"Why is," replied Harry, fiercely, "That now that he's dead you can say his name?"
"Oh, Harry! I can't believe it. You did it! You defeated him!" Hermione tittered.
"Stop it, I couldn't have killed him without your guys' help. It was, well, easy once all the horcruxes were destroyed. He was getting weak and one good Avadacadavra finished him off rather nicely."
"Harry, you can't say that your un-… well, unaffected by this. I mean we just spent a year and a half tracking down horcruxes to kill Voldemort. Then you did kill Voldemort. What are we going to do now? We did what nobody else could- we're famous. What happens next?" Hermione said all this very nervously.
Harry laughed. "You can't be serious, Hermione. You are the smartest witch I've ever met and you think we're through? You think that we killed Voldemort and we can live happily ever after? Might I remind you that there are currently 50 Death Eaters out there wanting to kill not only me, but both of you guys too, probably everybody in the Order, for that matter. We aren't even half way done, Hermione. The Ministry's bagged. They aren't going to help us. Our next step is to contact the Order of the Phoenix. Or at least, what's left of the Order. Then we can start picking them off like they've been picking us off."
" Harry, that's not going to work. Including us there are about 15 of the Order left versus 50 Death Eaters. We can't win. Not even if we were all as powerful as Dumbledore. He died just as easily as anybody else would." Ron said these last two sentences with sadness and bitterness in his voice.
For the next few minutes the three of them observed the dry wasteland before them. It looked like a battleground. This was where Harry had killed Voldemort. Harry had passed out and Ron and Hermione had found him (Harry had insisted that he had done this final bit alone). They had set fire to Voldemort and let him burn. They had taken just the ring off of his finger as proof of his death. It was black opal with a silver dark mark picture set into it.
"I don't think that is a problem. We have more people than that Ron. You're thinking of the Order as we left it, now that all this time has passed there are all of the Weasley's, Neville, us, and a few other people would probably have joined by now, too."
"Great, Harry- but Ron's right. That's maybe 25 to 50, they still outnumber us 1 to 2."
"Hermione, Ron, come on. Without a leader the Death Eaters will be way less effective as before."
Ron groaned, "Haaaarry. By now there will be a new leader. Like Snape or Lucius Malfoy."
"Not Snape, now that Bellatrix and he's got little Severus Jr. to tend to. Lucius is still in Azkaban."
Hermione piped up, "That's not the point. The point is that somebody new has taken over by now."
"It's not that easy. All the Death Eaters are all as powerful as the next one. If any of them became leader the other's would get jealous and bump him from power."
"Maybe we should just leave them alone for a while. They might kill each other off like the giants," Ron added hopefully.
"No, we can't do that."
"Harry, let's go. Now that… that Mum and Dad are… are… gone, they left me the house. We can stay there for a while… deciding what to… what to… do," Ron mumbled.
With a swoosh of their cloaks and a crack, they disapparated to The Burrow.