Harry Potter and the Refugees of Time

Chapter 5: Where to Now?

Disclaimer: I do not own anything to the Harry Potter franchises or empire, not do I own anything of the Russian empire, although we do have a nice replicate Faberge egg. No money being made, no claims of ownership, nothing, squat

Rating: T? Character bashing and reference to nastiness, but nothing explicit

Synopsis: AU, Post-Hogwarts from Harry's POV.

Christmas 2026

As we had for six years now, we hosted the Nicholson family for Christmas at my principal residence in Wales. In January, for the Eastern Orthodox Christmas, we went to their place on the Cornwall coast. Using some of what they called the 'jewelry money', Nick had bought the Cornish house from me at a very reasonable price – I certainly didn't need it as I had over a dozen other very nice properties. Nick said it reminded him of the Livadia in Yalta which had been their summer retreat, and with the escarpment rising behind the seaside the landscape was a bit similar, equally pleasant in summer and sheltered from the north winds in winter.

One thing I will say for the upper-crust Death Eaters, they sure knew how to build luxurious places. Most of the other dwellings I 'inherited' (by right of conquest) were nice enough places, and Nick also bought a few of those for his daughters (Alexei/Luthor being at University still studying microbiology – he took an interest in genetic manipulation and was working with some of the goblin healers for extra credit).

The family was fitting in well, except for their mother who was somewhat horrified by the laxity of modern society. Olga/Holly was making a name for herself working for BBC and film companies as an expert on period fashion. Tatyana/Toni had signed up with the Royal Air Force as a nurse, having some previous experience in the First World War and felt this was an area where she could be useful, and largely out of public sight (she went in as a novice, as her background and training was rather out of date). Maria/Mary had confounded her oldest sister by actually marrying a prince (Don Julio Huevos y Jamon of Spain, who Nick and I had meet at a NATO security conference – Nick had come with his family and Maria and Julio had hit it off at one of the social events). And Anastasia/Stacy was dating my son Jimmy, and getting up to a lot of stuff of which her mother disapproved – the grandson of a Marauder was not what a strict Lutheran upbringing had prepared her for.

As they were/are magically aware and also with some very high-level patronage, we were able to keep the places connected to the floo system so they could get around the country easily. We even got them permission to 'host' some house elves to assist in upkeep (although officially they were Potter elves).

The places where some of the lower-grade death eaters had lived were little more than dumps, and I had gotten rid of those as soon as the exorcisms, fumigation and pest-control works had been completed.

Nick had just been promoted to major in the British Army, .and was teaching at the military college at Sandringham. He had shaved off his distinctive beard to help disguise his appearance, but now wore a typical English military moustache. He said his teaching topics were mostly dealing with all the mistakes he had made in his former life. Since his re-emergence into the normal timestream, he had taken a diploma in modern history with emphasis on Russia, to catch up on what he had missed. As he had personal experience on a very confusing period of eastern European history, his classes were eagerly attended.

It was thought odd that a 50-something man would be wanting to join the army, even with very high recommendations from some 'Names', and particularly as he was fluent not only in English but also Russian, French and German but in obscure (i.e. out of date) dialects, so he needed to go through serious security checks. However as I was the ranking SIS officer doing the checks, he passed easily.

During many visits where we had discussed some of the recent goings on in the magical world both in England and overseas (stuff not covered in his 'mundane' curriculum), and also in the mundane world, he would shake his head sadly, muttering "Oh, my poor people, my poor country".

We talked about this several evenings over drinks (as part of his reacquaintance with the mundane world, Nick had given up vodka in favour of Caribbean rum or brandy). He pointed out that, having been taken to a basement room with his family to be shot by people whom his upbringing had insisted loved him as a father, tended to make him re-evaluate things.

One evening, as we looked over the fields around my house, e muttered, "I wish you had been there at the Conference of Vienna, and had killed the bastard!"

I obviously needed a bit more explanation. I asked "Who?"

He looked at me and spat out "Prince Metternich! That's who. I have concluded that the whole of the mess of the last two centuries were his fault."

I smirked. "You know Nick, assassination is really overrated as a way for bring about changes that you want to see."

He looked puzzled, so I continued "Consider your grandfather, the Tsar Alexander the second. He was assassinated, and the repression and top-down control just got worse. You see, if you just kill the top guy, the whole organization underneath him still works. At best, it slows things down, but at worst, his loyal sycophants declare he was a martyr to the cause and needs to be avenged, as happened under your father."

"The real trick is to figure out who the real critical piece of the mechanism is and take him out. Either that, or figure out how to totally discredit the whole organization. With Voldemort, once his followers knew he was a half-blood rather than the pureblood prince he claimed to be, his organization started to fall apart, and he had to act sooner than he wanted to before it totally collapsed. When Mark Anthony fell in with Cleopatra, his backing among the elites in Rome fell apart. Stuff like that."

"Sorry to derail your train of thought just as it was about to come into the station. So what is your problem with this Metternich guy?"

Nick took another Long pull on his drink. "You see, Metternich was the pivotal guy at the Conference of Vienna after the Napoleonic wars. His job, which he pulled off brilliantly, was to completely suppress any of the legitimate needed changes from the French Revolution, and to reimpose absolute autocracies in Europe. Most of the royal families were scared shitless by the Frenchies, and wanted to make damned sure that there was no way the overthrow of the nobility was going to stick. From then on, any advances in the conditions of the lower classes, and certainly the peasants, were ruthlessly suppressed."

"Consequently, I spent my early life being taught that I was God's chosen person on the Russian throne, and that I was the Father of my people. Meanwhile, those who wanted some kind of change to make life better for the poor were jailed or exiled or killed. The main slogan of all of these various groups was 'Death to the Tsar'. Even changes that were made, like my grandfather's freeing the serfs, didn't change their plans, and he was assassinated."

I commented, "I heard that he really didn't free the serfs. Not really. The so-called 'owners' of the serfs demanded that they be compensated for the loss of their 'property' and because the government didn't want to pay what they asked for, and the next levels down didn't want to pay, and so on and so on, it ended up that the serfs themselves had to pay the money. So in effect, they were forced to buy their own way out of slavery. It changed legal slavery to a sort of economic slavery. As least in America, when Lincoln freed the slaves, they were free, although in a way this was also a way to destroy the 'property rights' of the slaveowners."

Nik nodded. "You may have a point. Anyway, everyone wanted him to free the serfs, and he did so, even if the corrupt system screwed it up, and grandpa Alexander was blown up. The system didn't change, and because of the assassination, I was taught to never allow anything to interfere with my autocratic rule. I guess your point of the uselessness of killing the top guy was proved, because killing the Tsar really changed nothing"

With a chuckle, he added "Even though I was supposed to be the absolute boss, my uncles wouldn't even let me marry my wife when I first wanted to. The lesson there is to watch out who you listen to, and make sure your advisors was competent and really have your best interests at heart. Part of the problem and a major reason for the collapse of the empire under my rule was the layers and layers of incompetent, corrupt people all up and down the line. And, I have to be honest, me at the top trying to be in total control and doing a piss-poor job of it."

"As we stood in that basement room waiting to be shot, the thought occurred to me, that if I was God's chosen to lead Russia, obviously God had decided I was the wrong guy for the job. After all, God couldn't have made a mistake, could He? Of course, this also meant that for some reason not only was I the problem, but my entire family had displeased God as well. My innocent children – what had they done? With Alexei's hemophilia, was this also a sign that God was abandoning us. Or maybe everything I had been taught had been lies."

"During my reign, and under my rule, my regime ruthlessly suppressed people who just wanted a better life, we had race-riots called pogroms against the Jews (you know, maybe they were the Chosen People, maybe that was it), we got into a racially motivated war with Japan who handed our asses to us, and on and on and on."

"Since then, thinking everything over, and thinking a lot about it, I realize that I was best at dealing with the minutiae of things, and was crappy at the bigger picture stuff. What I can teach is to be careful who gets put in charge of things, because they need to deal with the big picture, and leave the grunt work details to those best suited to them. Make sure their advisors know what they are doing. Letting Father Grigori influence the government was a really bad idea in retrospect."

Smiling I added "and make sure you watch out for people starting to believe their own press releases. Consider these guys, one of which you are certainly familiar with, and the others were since your time. Consider Napoleon after Austerlitz, compared to his freezing his ass off at Moscow and losing 90% of his men. Consider Hitler, after crushing France, and then running into the Russian winter. Consider Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines, and then Korea."

"Or the one I am most familiar with myself, Albus Dumbledore who defeated Grindelwald (or so it was claimed) and then didn't bother to tell me any way to defeat Voldemort while giving me no training, because only he was allowed to know the secrets and was 'wise enough' to know them! He refused to let his followers use lethal spells when going up against killers. You soon have to get the impression that he wanted his followers killed, and you started to wonder whose side he was really on. He was said to be the only one that Voldemort feared, but the fact that Voldemort's bunch were out killing people with impunity while he was still around, that seemed unlikely. The bastard damned near got me killed! Twenty years later, that still pisses me off! I finally decided that, if they wanted to kill me, which they seemed to, I would respond in kind."

"Now, remember I said that killing off the top guy wasn't that effective? In Voldemort's case, not so much, but discrediting his top lieutenants and cutting off his money supply definitely weakened his forces. Often turning off the money stops the kingpin's plans, and makes his minions doubt his leadership. Most times, one of them will take him out. That happened a lot during the samurai years in Japan."

"I haven't personally killed anyone for over eight years. Haven't needed to do so. There's a saying in 'the business' – 'To kill the tree, you don't need to cut off the top branches, you can poison the roots'."

Nick looked at me sharply. "That sounds awfully familiar to me. Are you saying that that is essentially what happened to me?"

I nodded, and continued. "In Hitler's case, some of his generals tried to take him out. With MacArthur, he got fired by his boss."

Nick added "and make sure the people are properly trained to do their jobs. I hear an American named Peter came up with a principle that people get promoted until they are incompetent at their jobs, and then they stay there. You have to be able to remove the dead wood, regardless of how well they are connected and whose friends they are. In a hereditarily-connected and corrupt regime, like we had, that was a major problem.""

I nodded. "That was a serious problem in the Ministry of Magic too. Well-connected people, or those with money, had way too much authority. Certainly much more than they were competent to handle. But corruption is a constant in human societies. Sometimes, you need a guy like me to get rid of them. Even just the idea that a guy like me may be around can help keep the problem to a minimum. If the corrupt ones get into the habit of having to keep looking over their shoulders, it slows them down, sometimes to the point where they can't cause too much trouble."

Nick and I got refills, while we churned over our thoughts.

At last, the ex-tsar nodded. "You know, I think I will refuse any further promotion if they offer it. I don't need it, and thinking deeply, I don't think I am really suited to handle it. The family are doing well and making their own ways, other than Sunny who is still having a hard time adjusting to the new world we find ourselves in. The goblins are doing alright by us – I don't know of many army majors who are multi-millionaires. I like my job and I think I am good at it, and I know now that I was not good at the top job. That was pointed out to me very clearly in Yekaterinburg. One of my fellow teachers at the school teaches the engineering courses and he always says 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Good chap, seems to know what he is talking about."

With that, we left the balcony and returned to the Christmas party going on inside. We left the deep thoughts out on the balcony, and returned to a happier life.