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ffuturesConcluding my Harry Potter / DC crossover, previous parts on any of these archives:
On Fanfiction.net
On Archive of Our Own
On Twisting the Hellmouth
Epilogue: Operation Forth Bridge
"It's nice to see you again," Diana said as they left St. George's Chapel and joined the tail end of the group walking through the grounds of Windsor Castle. "I just wish the circumstances were happier."
"Did you know Prince Philip well?" asked Hermione, casting a silent wandless spell to make sure that nobody could overhear.
It was hard to judge expressions behind the masks everyone was wearing, but she was fairly sure Diana smiled. "I changed his nappies ninety-nine years ago, in Athens in April 1922. His mother had never learned how to do it and the maid who usually took care of things was busy on some sort of errand. I guided his class on a tour of the Louvre when he was nine. But I didn't really get to know him until he married Elizabeth."
"It's weird when you say things like that, it's like my brain tries to deny that someone looking like you could have possibly been there, or remember that level of detail."
"It sometimes feels like I've barely looked away and someone has suddenly become old and forgetful. I still tend to think of people like the Queen or Rolanda Hooch as they were when I first met them..."
*
Most of American-occupied Berlin was still dark at night in the immediate aftermath of Hitler's downfall, but the occupying forces needed some home comforts, and a few buildings - inns, dance halls, and an occasional brothel - had everything the conquerors needed for their entertainment. A Women's Army Auxiliary Corps sergeant's uniform was a reasonable disguse for Diana, though she still attracted some attention, Steve went almost unnoticed as an Air Force Captain. They sat at a table near the dance floor, watching the dancers and trying to spot anyone who looked out of place.
"That woman over there in the dark green dress," murmured Steve. "Wavy brown hair, looks about twenty, carrying a beer stein and a rolled-up copy of the Berliner Zeitung."
Diana looked across the hall, and spotted the woman walking towards them, "Attractive. And she's the first civilian I've seen today that doesn't look defeated."
"She's no movie star but she's attractive enough that guys should be hitting on her, but it's like they're getting out of her way without really noticing her."
Diana looked again. "You're right. Hmm... I think there's something concealed in her left sleeve. Could be an ice-pick or a thin-bladed knife, but I'm guessing a wand."
"Could be our contact."
The girl walked past, seemingly without noticing them, but Diana felt something in a jacket pocket that hadn't been there a moment earlier. She casually put her hand in the pocket, and realised that it was a metal can, the type used for 35mm film cartridges.
Two hours later they had photographs of fourteen of Grindelwald's former acolytes, and an updated list of addresses that the remnants of his organization and the Nazi escape routes might be using. A few days later Horace Slughorn introduced them to Rolanda Hooch, who was actually nearer fifty than twenty and had spent most of the war as a flying courier for the resistance against Grindelwald. She and Diana became friends, occasional lovers after Steve's death. Half a century later she was beginning to show her age, but Diana would always remember her as she was in her prime.
*
"Rolanda's still quite spry for her age, I think," said Hermione. "Still teaching at Hogwarts, or would be normally. I heard there was a bit of a scare in January when they thought she and some of the other teachers might have covid, but it turned out to be a bad cold in the end."
"That reminds me, how are British wizards taking the quarantine?"
"Not as well as I'd like. we've lost Horace Slughorn, Amos Diggory, Xeno Lovegood and some other old-timers. Most of them regarded masks and vaccination as muggle mumbo-jumbo at first, and there was a huge outcry when we had to close Hogwarts. They don't seem to understand that the bloody disease probably jumped species in the Asian magical community, a bat animagus was one of the earliest victims, so we've no special immunity. And there are still too many people using apparation and flooing for face to face contact when an owl message would do just as well. Three guesses who gets the blame for most of it..."
"Well, you are the Minister for Magic, I think it comes with the territory. I heard about Horace, I'm sorry that I couldn't come to the funeral. There were some problems in Gotham City."
"How's the superhero thing going?"
"We're coping. Some of us are immune for one reason or another, but we all have to be careful not to spread the disease. Superman looks very odd in a mask for some reason, and as for Batman... well, I'm not sure he plans to stop using his once the epidemic ends."
"All those acrobatics must be difficult if his breathing is obstructed."
"You'd think so. Now, I gather that congratulations are in order? How is that husband of yours taking it?"
"Lee's fussing a lot, of course, barely lets me do anything, but the baby's not due for another five months so he ought to be a bit better by the time she's born."
"He seems to be on the wizarding radio every time I listen to it. Isn't there a danger that your political opponents will try to use that against you?"
"The conservative faction have tried it a couple of times, it really didn't go well for them. Lee's brand of satire thrives on their rhetoric, when it comes to a battle of wits most of them are singularly lacking."
"What are you planning to call the baby?"
"Well, we were hoping that you'd be okay with Diana Stephanie. And that you and Steve might consent to be her godparents."
"Well, I've been a godmother or twice before, but I'd be happy to do it again. But do bear in mind that neither of us are actually Christians, so we can't help with the religious side of things. Your parents must be very pleased."
"I'd like to think so, but we're still not talking much..."
*
"We spent nearly two years trying to work out why we both had an imaginary daughter," said Pamela Granger, "and why so many of the details seemed to agree. Not to mention that I had stretch marks and no explanation for them. Then you casually waltz in and says 'sorry, I had to erase your memories and brainwash you into moving to Australia' and expect that we'll be okay with it and come home with you."
"Do you realise how much money we lost shutting down the surgery like that?" asked Derek Granger. "And how many patients we let down? Not to mention selling the house at well under the market price so that we could leave quickly."
"I'm really sorry... but they would have killed you if you'd stayed."
"Maybe so, but did ever occur to you that we might have been able to make our own arrangements if you'd bothered to ask? Maybe we could have sold the surgery rather than shutting it completely, changed our names and moved to another city, and rented out the house rather than selling it? Did you even consider it?"
"There wasn't time, Dad! The Death Eaters took over the Ministry about three days after you left, and our house was one of the first places they raided once they had access to the files. It was in the papers, they trashed the place. The muggle police thought someone had broken in and had a rave then set it on fire."
"And that's another thing," said Pamela, "why are you suddenly talking about the 'muggle police' and the 'muggle government' all the time? What happened to being British?"
"I've been in the magical community non-stop for the last two years," said Hermione, "it got to be a habit. Once the war was over I had to finish school, then it took me a while to sort out money to buy the house back and pay for the trip to Australia. There were some awards for ending the war, but the magical government is almost bankrupt, it's taken forever to sort it all."
"You couldn't have taken a gap year first? Or didn't that occur to you? How long did the war last anyway?"
"Um... about three months after you left."
"Three months? Is that all? We were still unpacking then!"
"I'm sorry, I had to learn how to restore your memories safely - it's not something they teach us at school."
"So they taught you how to erase our memories, but not how to restore them?" asked Derek.
"Not exactly... it's more of a job-related skill for the aurors, the magical police, I had to find some of the training manuals and teach myself."
"DIY brainwashing," he said flatly. "Great. What could possibly go wrong?"
After that the conversation went downhill fast. They stayed in Australia, and rarely replied to her letters and cards.
*
"Anyway, how is Steve getting on?" asked Hermione, hastily changing the subject, "I haven't seen him since President Obama's second inauguration in 2013, the week after Grindelwald finally died. There were rumours that some of his old American supporters would attack Washington, and they had me there with the joint MACUSA-ICW intelligence team. It turned out to be nothing in the end, but it kept us all pretty busy and we didn't really have many chances to talk."
"Steve mentioned seeing you. I was with another team in Germany; the Lower Saxony state election was the previous day, and some Neo-Nazis groups were looking to cause problems, there was a worry that Grindelwald's supporters would get involved there. We did arrest a few, but there wasn't a big conspiracy in the end, just old magical Nazis holding a wake and a reporter for the Magische Tageszeitung trying to stir up a story."
"Must have been a pal of Rita Skeeter."
"I wouldn't know, I've never met her."
"She dropped out of sight in Germany in ninety-seven, can't have been more than a week after Riddle died."
"Odd coincidence... I wonder if there was any connection?"
"I doubt it. She was a muck-raker and did more to help Riddle than hinder him. Horrible woman, about the only thing she had going for her was being an animagus, she could sneak in almost anywhere without being noticed."
"What sort of animagus?"
"A water beetle. Why?"
"I think I can solve a mystery for you..."
*
"So you see," said Diana, "the Elder Wand was cursed to drive its users insane. Dumbledore gradually became paranoid and resorted to over-complicated plots instead of trusting his friends, Riddle was already a psychopath, he was summoning demons within months of getting it. How old were you when you stole the wand?"
Grindelwald thought for a moment, then said "Eighteen."
"Then it had a long time to work on you. Which brings me to the point of my visit; you may not have been entirely responsible for most of your crimes, because the wand unbalanced you. If you were to appeal to the ICW and pass their screening it's possible that you might be released."
"I murdered my way around the world for several decades. You fought against me; do you really feel I deserve freedom?"
"No... but you may be entitled to it."
"Freedom is overrated. I'm an old man with very little power left, and there are still entire nations that hate me; if I were released there would be no mercy. An assassin tried to get in only a week ago, fortunately the castle wards dealt with them. Some sort of insect animagus, they think, there wasn't enough left for identification. They were far from the first."
"And that's your final decision?"
"It may not be the most luxurious accommodation, but I'm safer here than anywhere else on Earth. You may tell your friends at the ICW not to waste their time on me, I am happy to stay here."
*
"Okay," said Hermione. "Let me get this straight, the ICW was considering releasing Grindelwald? Seriously?"
"I can't say I liked the idea any more than you do, but nobody who owned the Elder Wand can have been entirely responsible for their own actions, and that wasn't taken into account in his trial. Harry's lucky Dumbledore's plan failed, otherwise he would have ended up as its next victim."
"And Ron and I would have probably been at ground zero. Riiight... Another reason to be happy Dumbledore's safely dead. Okay... moving on, how's Steve these days?"
"MACUSA made him their liason to the Justice League, and that's going very well. They helped a lot when Circe attacked us last year. We weren't able to capture her, but we did enough damage that it might be a while before she tries it again.
"Heard from Constantine lately?" There was an odd note in Hermione's voice.
"Some odd rumours about time travel, but I haven't seen him since 2015."
"Funny you should mention that..."
*
"This packet appeared in the Time Room in 1950," said the Unspeakable, "with instructions to open it and deliver the contents on today's date, exactly seventy years later. When we opened it this morning we found an inner packet addressed with your name and position as Minister for Magic." He handed Hermione a muggle padded envelope with a wax seal marked with a complex rune. The name on the front seemed to be written in black felt-tip pen.
Hermione cast some protective spells then touched her wand to the seal. The flap curled open, and the Unspeakable watched as she spread a page from the Prophet on her desk, then carefully tipped out the contents of the packet without touching them. There was a letter and six opaque plastic boxes, each about the size of a large sugar cube. "Let's see..."
"Hermione - hear you have a new job, hope it goes well. Got a bit of a puzzle for you - we found the skeletons of some Death Eaters, still wearing their masks, impaled outside a temple in 15th-century Peru. We were able to recover the skulls, masks, and wands, which I've shrunk and are in the boxes enclosed, you might be able to identify them and close a few files. There were also some Gringotts coins dating from the nineteen-eighties and nineties. My guess is that they lost their bottle when Voldemort summoned up the troops and did a runner instead. Not quite sure how they ended up when and where they did, probably some sort of cock-up, we'll make sure it doesn't happen again."
"Regards, John Constantine."
*
"It turned out they were middle-ranking Death Eaters based in the Cambridge area, all of them dropped out of sight the day Voldemort died. We still have no idea how they got there, I'm leaning more towards physics than magic."
"I'll pass on the information to the Justice League, then if Constantine turns up we can try to find out what's happening."
"Great, I really think it's something we need to be careful about. And if he does turn up remind him that he never paid Sybill Trelawney the last of the child support he owes her!"
"Right, I'd forgotten about that." They walked on in silence for a minute or so, then Diana asked "How are Harry and Ron these days? And what happened about Harry's marriage in the end? I never did get the story straight, and the French papers must have got things wrong."
"Not exactly..."
*
"Ladys, gentlemen, and beings of the Wizengamot," said Lavender Brown, "in accordance with our 1997 agreement with the IWC and the British Government, we are required to comply with muggle human rights legislation. In 2005 British law will allow civil partnerships, legal marriages between two men or two women. The Wizengamot has already agreed to comply with this legislation. However, some of these partnerships will involve children. In the case of two men it's possible that one or other will father a child outside marriage; this is already recognized in our laws, which give the father and his mistress legal protection and parental rights. In the case of two women things are different; our laws are currently structured to exclude male paramours from any parental role to avoid inheritance issues, and today you have refused to change that. Current muggle laws differ in this respect, by requiring the father to contribute to the child's support, but have yet to be tried in this exact situation."
"I would like to suggest that one of the main stumbling blocks to satisfactory legislation is our current definitions of the terms 'mistress' and 'paramour', and propose the following changes..."
*
"I'm pretty sure the Wizengamot thought that no man would want to be called a mistress, but Harry just grinned and went with it. Luna's officially married to Ginny, and Harry is their mistress, and all three of them like it that way. Their kids will be able to count on all three parents, and any of them can take responsibility for any child. It's a weird situation, but it gives the children and the marriage more legal protection than if Luna or Ginny was married to Harry and the other was his mistress. They've got three boys now, with a fourth on the way. Molly Weasley was furious at the time, they'd kept it secret until the wedding because they knew she'd think it was unnatural; that and she was convinced Ginny would marry Harry. But all of them were adults, there really wasn't much she could do, and she got over it once Ginny was pregnant."
"And what are they doing now?"
"Well, everyone expected Harry to join the Aurors or teach Defence but he'd always loved animals, especially birds - he got really high marks for Care of Magical Creatures in his Newts, spent a few years learning more and visiting the magical reserves, and ended up teaching it once Hagrid retired. With the epidemic going on he's spending his time writing a new NEWT textbook and running the home teaching programme this year, and of course he helps run the owl sanctuary he set up in honour of Athena, so he's keeping busy. Luna was already editing the Quibbler part-time before her father died, now she's doing it full-time. And Ginny played for the Harpies and made it to the British team a couple of times, but gave it up when she got pregnant in 2014. These days she's the Quibbler's sports columnist and advertising manager."
"I've been a subscriber since the war, it's much more interesting reading than the Prophet. I especially like the 'Ask Fawkes' advice column, it's wonderfully bizarre. Who actually writes it?"
"Most of it is Luna, a bit is Harry sensing Fawes' reactions when they read the letters, and I think some comes from Delirium."
"That would make sense. At least Eclipso seems to have left her, we had to fight another version of the thing in Sri Lanka in 2019."
"I see her quite often, and there haven't been any signs of it at all."
"Good. I nearly forgot, you didn't say what happened to Ron."
Hermione looked pensive. "Well... You know he had amnesia for a while? It wasn't as bad as everyone thought..."
*
"You're still drawing a blank on the fighting?" asked Harry.
"Sort of..." said Ron, "I've got back most of it up to the time we got to Hogwarts. But don't tell Hermione!"
"Why not?"
"What happened earlier in the day... in the motel. I don't think she would have gone with me if we hadn't both been terrified. I think she was trying to take my mind off it. I can't expect her to commit to anything after that, and I'm pretty sure I'm not ready myself."
"Ron, you've got to tell her."
"I can't. And don't go telling her for me, understand?"
"You really need to sort that one for yourself, mate, because sooner or later she'll find out and if you haven't told her there'll be hell to pay."
*
"Of course the Hogwarts rumour mill being what it is, one of the portraits overheard them and Moaning Myrtle told me the following morning. I'd already had my suspicions but I didn't want to push it, maybe I wasn't ready to commit either... we drifted apart, and eventually he ended up back with Lavender Brown. That self-destructed once she spotted that he wasn't committing to her either, and he ended up dating Katie Bell, I don't think you know her, they married a couple of years later. Ron finally owned up to me at Ginny and Luna's wedding after Molly stormed out, apologised for letting me down. But he's actually grown up quite a bit since Hogwarts, though he's still as Quidditch-obsessed as ever. He couldn't make it as a pro, so he used his share of the reward money we got for Riddle to buy into Quality Quidditch Supplies, and he and Katie both play for Devon in the amateur league - though that's on hold until the epidemic ends, and I'd imagine their business is pretty quiet right now."
"It's a problem for everyone, and I'd imagine that Brexit hasn't helped - or are the wizards staying out of that mess somehow?"
*
"Chancellor Urnok," said Hermione, "why exactly is it that our government still owes Gringotts more than eighty million galleons?"
"Because so long as you owe Gringotts money and are paying it off the goblins won't commit to a full-scale rebellion, there's too much to lose. Hopefully the reforms that are under way will make rebellion less likely for other reasons, but every wizarding government since the fifteenth century has taken care to stay in debt to us to some extent. There have been a few slip-ups, but they are nothing compared to an all-out rebellion. Maintaining the debt, keeping it manageable without paying it off entirely, is the way to keep the peace. Your governments began to lose sight of that when Riddle became a threat, and allowed the debt to rise, then Fudge and his successors made the situation worse by failure to service the interest payments. In real terms the debt is at the lowest it's been since the late nineteenth century, thanks largely to the funds provided by the muggle government, but since the value of the Galleon has fallen and the cost of living has risen that isn't immediately obvious. If you actually paid off the entirety of the debt the galleon would start to rise again, and there would be more problems, especially for muggle-born wizards entering the community for the first time."
"So the exchange rate is a good thing?"
"Yes and no... as of this morning the Galleon is down to £2.37, that's about 2.74 Euros or $3.26, which means that prices for anything we buy in the Muggle world have more than doubled since the nineties. The epidemic and knock-on effects of Brexit are causing additional price rises. The arithmantic prediction says it wil level off at at around £2.10, but the centaurs predict £1.90, and I tend to believe them. Most wizarding currencies have taken similar hits in the current circumstances, but Britain is in a worse state than most because of the war so imported goods such as potions ingredients and luxuries are also rising. There should be a slow recovery once the epidemic is over, but I'd be surprised if we're above £2 in the next eighteen months. But you definitely won't be seeing any rebellions."
"Income for most wizards is well down," mused Hermione. "The muggle government is helping us with income support, but most of us never contribute to the state system, and that's really making things difficult. They're covering a lot of it as the cost of protective equipment, if our community was much bigger it would be really difficult to conceal it, and we'd have to reduce the level of support. That may happen anyway, and I can't see it being very popular."
"That's easy; if anyone asks just explain it as being caused by Brexit and covid, the situation is confused enough that nobody's likely to challenge it..."
*
"No, it really hasn't helped," said Hermione, "if it wasn't for Brexit and covid we might have been out of the debt crisis by now, though that might be just a little optimistic. Maybe in a few years..."
"How is the situation generally, apart from the debt? Have things improved for the muggle-born and the other races?"
"Quite a bit," said Hermione. "With so many of the old guard in prison or dead the whole government was starting to fall apart, they had to fix things so that we'd want to stay in the community and contribute to its future. The results of that... well, here I am, and the demographics of the Wizengamot reflect it, muggle-borns and half-bloods have about a third of the seats now, and that's slowly rising, and a lot more of the seats are held by women. The goblins and centaurs have representatives on the wizengamot and our cabinet, the house-elves and mer-people aren't interested so far. The main thing is that the glass ceilings on jobs in the Ministry are gone, and I've been putting a lot of work into making sure that it stays that way. It's a depressing thought, but I doubt that it would have ever been possible if it hadn't been for the war, it got rid of people like Lucius Malfoy and the other major power brokers."
"That reminds me, whatever became of Draco Malfoy and his mother? If Severus hadn't been thinking about sending him to me I doubt that we would have ever met."
"Draco's still in Azkaban," said Hermione. "Originally he was sentenced to five years, with the possibility of time off for good behaviour. But of course he couldn't keep his temper under control and he ended up starting a fight and killing another prisoner. He ought to be out some time next year if he can just stay out of trouble, but I'm not holding my breath waiting. His mum was upset, but she ended up marrying a half-blood Italian count and moving to Naples so she can't have been entirely heart-broken."
"At least the Dementers are gone now, I suppose."
"That's maybe part of the problem; Azkaban used to be feared, with the Dementers gone it's still not a nice place, but it's run to comply with European human rights legislation, about the same conditions as a Muggle maximum security prison, so the Death Eaters and repeat offenders think we've gone soft."
"I must remember to tell Mazikeen the next time I'm in Los Angeles, she'd appreciate the irony. Or offer to call in and torment the prisoners, of course."
"Did you ever fight her?"
"We've sparred a few times, she and I are reasonably well matched for that. Nothing too serious."
"That's good. Are you doing anything else while you're in Britain?"
"Actually, I'm seeing the Weasley twins, the Justice League needs some of their toys."
"Not too destructive, I hope."
"Don't worry, they're not going to be used on Earth. You've probably heard of Darkseid..."
The End
Notes: Operation Forth Bridge was the British government's action plan for the death of Prince Phillip, culminating in his funeral on 17th April 2021. It seems plausible that the Minister for Magic and an old friend of the family such as Diana might be invited to attend.
Secondary sources such as video games say that Rolanda Hooch was old enough to fly brooms during the First World War, but don't say much about her life or activities outside the school. It's possible that she was a part-time employee. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child depicts her as still working in 2020.
German translations
Berliner Zeitung - Berlin Newspaper, a real-world East German newspaper from 1945 onwards which survived reunification and is still published today.
Magische Tageszeitung - Magical Daily News - many thanks to BJW for checking this translation.
Harry's career path in this epilogue assumes that he had enough violence in his schooldays to last him a lifetime, ruling out Auror or Hit-Wizard, and making it unlikely that he will ever be fully qualified to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. My model for this was a teacher at my school who had spent World War 2 as a Royal Marine Commando, took part in the Normandy invasion, and never wanted to discuss that part of his life or have anything to do with violence again. Harry seems to enjoy potions under Slughorn but doesn't seem to be exceptionally talented, he's mostly following recipes, and this is true of most of the other subjects he takes. But he is definitely gifted at Care of Magical Creatures, as shown by his riding Buckbeak, Thestrals and the Gringotts dragon, and by his relationship with Hedwig (and Fawkes in this story). It seems like an interesting and plausible choice for him.
I don't usually write omakes, but there was one idea that came up when I was writing an earlier chapter, and I might as well share it:
Omake for Chapter XVIII: It's The End of the World As We Know It...
A few minutes after Constantine's portal closed, a spherical glob slowly rose from the ruins of Malfoy Manor, shedding gingerbread to reveal the bludger it covered. Soon it reached the working height Hermione had programmed, seven feet, and began to drift aimlessly, but always within the confines of the pitch area Hermione had defined. After two minutes it quivered and another bludger appeared, drifing off on a slightly different course, but still staying over the manor. Two minutes later the two became three - one of the copies was no longer doubling - but the rest carried on doubling, their numbers rising implacably. An occasional bludger didn't double, and some of them drifted away or fell to earth, but the majority remained, their numbers and mass continuing to grow near-exponentially.
Three hours later the gravitation of the expanding cloud of bludgers began to pull them together, and it collapsed to form a black hole, falling towards the Earth's core and taking most of Wiltshire with it, and frying the rest of Britain with the radiation released as it collapsed. A wave of heat swept out around the world.
It would take several days for the rest of the Earth to be swallowed, but soon there was nobody left to appreciate the spectacle. The war with Voldemort, and every other war, was over.
Death sighed and dealt with it.
Notes: Harry shut down the Gemino spell they used to attack the manor, but one bludger was buried in the ruins of the manor and screened from Harry's counter-spell. I've simplified things considerably, but the maths of this can be boiled down to a black hole forming after approximately a hundred doublings, regardless of the initial mass of the bludger, if they don't spread out quickly or damage themselves so much that they stop doubling - I've extended the total time a little because some of the copies are too imperfect to continue multiplying.
This should probably have happened in the vaults of Gringotts in Deathly Hallows since nobody actually canceled the spell on the contents of Bellatrix's vault, but never mind...
Many thanks to cdybedahl and vicarage, both on Dreamwidth, for their help with this. The discussion is here: https://ffutures.dreamwidth.org/2159543.html
Finally, a few recommendations for stories I've read or re-read and enjoyed while writing this, which may have affected the development of my plot. All are complete:
Harry Is A Dragon, And That's Okay by Saphroneth - on AO3 and Fanfiction net. A long gentle fun AU with a premise that should be obvious from the title.
Ghost of Privet Drive by AndrewWolfe - on AO3 and Fanfiction net. An interesting self-insert story with some good ideas regarding Harry's "fortune" and wizarding economics.
A Witch and an Amazon Walk into a Bar by Philosophize - on Fanfiction net. Femme!Harry and Wonder Woman accidentally marry in Vegas.
How Xenophilius Lovegood Saved Britain by Arpad Hrunta - on Fanfiction net. The Muggle government decides to pull the plug on Fudge and Voldemort. Short and VERY silly.
Harry Potter and the Sun Source by Clell65619 - on AO3 and Fanfiction net. A crossover with the Destroyer series, which first introduced me to the weirdness that is the galleon exchange rate.
Comments please before I post to archives - I'd especially like your thoughts on the "clip show" flashbacks I've used - does the format work for you? If not, how would you change things?
Update - this is now posted to archives with a few small changes.
On Fanfiction.net
On Archive of Our Own
On Twisting the Hellmouth
Epilogue: Operation Forth Bridge
"It's nice to see you again," Diana said as they left St. George's Chapel and joined the tail end of the group walking through the grounds of Windsor Castle. "I just wish the circumstances were happier."
"Did you know Prince Philip well?" asked Hermione, casting a silent wandless spell to make sure that nobody could overhear.
It was hard to judge expressions behind the masks everyone was wearing, but she was fairly sure Diana smiled. "I changed his nappies ninety-nine years ago, in Athens in April 1922. His mother had never learned how to do it and the maid who usually took care of things was busy on some sort of errand. I guided his class on a tour of the Louvre when he was nine. But I didn't really get to know him until he married Elizabeth."
"It's weird when you say things like that, it's like my brain tries to deny that someone looking like you could have possibly been there, or remember that level of detail."
"It sometimes feels like I've barely looked away and someone has suddenly become old and forgetful. I still tend to think of people like the Queen or Rolanda Hooch as they were when I first met them..."
Most of American-occupied Berlin was still dark at night in the immediate aftermath of Hitler's downfall, but the occupying forces needed some home comforts, and a few buildings - inns, dance halls, and an occasional brothel - had everything the conquerors needed for their entertainment. A Women's Army Auxiliary Corps sergeant's uniform was a reasonable disguse for Diana, though she still attracted some attention, Steve went almost unnoticed as an Air Force Captain. They sat at a table near the dance floor, watching the dancers and trying to spot anyone who looked out of place.
"That woman over there in the dark green dress," murmured Steve. "Wavy brown hair, looks about twenty, carrying a beer stein and a rolled-up copy of the Berliner Zeitung."
Diana looked across the hall, and spotted the woman walking towards them, "Attractive. And she's the first civilian I've seen today that doesn't look defeated."
"She's no movie star but she's attractive enough that guys should be hitting on her, but it's like they're getting out of her way without really noticing her."
Diana looked again. "You're right. Hmm... I think there's something concealed in her left sleeve. Could be an ice-pick or a thin-bladed knife, but I'm guessing a wand."
"Could be our contact."
The girl walked past, seemingly without noticing them, but Diana felt something in a jacket pocket that hadn't been there a moment earlier. She casually put her hand in the pocket, and realised that it was a metal can, the type used for 35mm film cartridges.
Two hours later they had photographs of fourteen of Grindelwald's former acolytes, and an updated list of addresses that the remnants of his organization and the Nazi escape routes might be using. A few days later Horace Slughorn introduced them to Rolanda Hooch, who was actually nearer fifty than twenty and had spent most of the war as a flying courier for the resistance against Grindelwald. She and Diana became friends, occasional lovers after Steve's death. Half a century later she was beginning to show her age, but Diana would always remember her as she was in her prime.
"Rolanda's still quite spry for her age, I think," said Hermione. "Still teaching at Hogwarts, or would be normally. I heard there was a bit of a scare in January when they thought she and some of the other teachers might have covid, but it turned out to be a bad cold in the end."
"That reminds me, how are British wizards taking the quarantine?"
"Not as well as I'd like. we've lost Horace Slughorn, Amos Diggory, Xeno Lovegood and some other old-timers. Most of them regarded masks and vaccination as muggle mumbo-jumbo at first, and there was a huge outcry when we had to close Hogwarts. They don't seem to understand that the bloody disease probably jumped species in the Asian magical community, a bat animagus was one of the earliest victims, so we've no special immunity. And there are still too many people using apparation and flooing for face to face contact when an owl message would do just as well. Three guesses who gets the blame for most of it..."
"Well, you are the Minister for Magic, I think it comes with the territory. I heard about Horace, I'm sorry that I couldn't come to the funeral. There were some problems in Gotham City."
"How's the superhero thing going?"
"We're coping. Some of us are immune for one reason or another, but we all have to be careful not to spread the disease. Superman looks very odd in a mask for some reason, and as for Batman... well, I'm not sure he plans to stop using his once the epidemic ends."
"All those acrobatics must be difficult if his breathing is obstructed."
"You'd think so. Now, I gather that congratulations are in order? How is that husband of yours taking it?"
"Lee's fussing a lot, of course, barely lets me do anything, but the baby's not due for another five months so he ought to be a bit better by the time she's born."
"He seems to be on the wizarding radio every time I listen to it. Isn't there a danger that your political opponents will try to use that against you?"
"The conservative faction have tried it a couple of times, it really didn't go well for them. Lee's brand of satire thrives on their rhetoric, when it comes to a battle of wits most of them are singularly lacking."
"What are you planning to call the baby?"
"Well, we were hoping that you'd be okay with Diana Stephanie. And that you and Steve might consent to be her godparents."
"Well, I've been a godmother or twice before, but I'd be happy to do it again. But do bear in mind that neither of us are actually Christians, so we can't help with the religious side of things. Your parents must be very pleased."
"I'd like to think so, but we're still not talking much..."
"We spent nearly two years trying to work out why we both had an imaginary daughter," said Pamela Granger, "and why so many of the details seemed to agree. Not to mention that I had stretch marks and no explanation for them. Then you casually waltz in and says 'sorry, I had to erase your memories and brainwash you into moving to Australia' and expect that we'll be okay with it and come home with you."
"Do you realise how much money we lost shutting down the surgery like that?" asked Derek Granger. "And how many patients we let down? Not to mention selling the house at well under the market price so that we could leave quickly."
"I'm really sorry... but they would have killed you if you'd stayed."
"Maybe so, but did ever occur to you that we might have been able to make our own arrangements if you'd bothered to ask? Maybe we could have sold the surgery rather than shutting it completely, changed our names and moved to another city, and rented out the house rather than selling it? Did you even consider it?"
"There wasn't time, Dad! The Death Eaters took over the Ministry about three days after you left, and our house was one of the first places they raided once they had access to the files. It was in the papers, they trashed the place. The muggle police thought someone had broken in and had a rave then set it on fire."
"And that's another thing," said Pamela, "why are you suddenly talking about the 'muggle police' and the 'muggle government' all the time? What happened to being British?"
"I've been in the magical community non-stop for the last two years," said Hermione, "it got to be a habit. Once the war was over I had to finish school, then it took me a while to sort out money to buy the house back and pay for the trip to Australia. There were some awards for ending the war, but the magical government is almost bankrupt, it's taken forever to sort it all."
"You couldn't have taken a gap year first? Or didn't that occur to you? How long did the war last anyway?"
"Um... about three months after you left."
"Three months? Is that all? We were still unpacking then!"
"I'm sorry, I had to learn how to restore your memories safely - it's not something they teach us at school."
"So they taught you how to erase our memories, but not how to restore them?" asked Derek.
"Not exactly... it's more of a job-related skill for the aurors, the magical police, I had to find some of the training manuals and teach myself."
"DIY brainwashing," he said flatly. "Great. What could possibly go wrong?"
After that the conversation went downhill fast. They stayed in Australia, and rarely replied to her letters and cards.
"Anyway, how is Steve getting on?" asked Hermione, hastily changing the subject, "I haven't seen him since President Obama's second inauguration in 2013, the week after Grindelwald finally died. There were rumours that some of his old American supporters would attack Washington, and they had me there with the joint MACUSA-ICW intelligence team. It turned out to be nothing in the end, but it kept us all pretty busy and we didn't really have many chances to talk."
"Steve mentioned seeing you. I was with another team in Germany; the Lower Saxony state election was the previous day, and some Neo-Nazis groups were looking to cause problems, there was a worry that Grindelwald's supporters would get involved there. We did arrest a few, but there wasn't a big conspiracy in the end, just old magical Nazis holding a wake and a reporter for the Magische Tageszeitung trying to stir up a story."
"Must have been a pal of Rita Skeeter."
"I wouldn't know, I've never met her."
"She dropped out of sight in Germany in ninety-seven, can't have been more than a week after Riddle died."
"Odd coincidence... I wonder if there was any connection?"
"I doubt it. She was a muck-raker and did more to help Riddle than hinder him. Horrible woman, about the only thing she had going for her was being an animagus, she could sneak in almost anywhere without being noticed."
"What sort of animagus?"
"A water beetle. Why?"
"I think I can solve a mystery for you..."
"So you see," said Diana, "the Elder Wand was cursed to drive its users insane. Dumbledore gradually became paranoid and resorted to over-complicated plots instead of trusting his friends, Riddle was already a psychopath, he was summoning demons within months of getting it. How old were you when you stole the wand?"
Grindelwald thought for a moment, then said "Eighteen."
"Then it had a long time to work on you. Which brings me to the point of my visit; you may not have been entirely responsible for most of your crimes, because the wand unbalanced you. If you were to appeal to the ICW and pass their screening it's possible that you might be released."
"I murdered my way around the world for several decades. You fought against me; do you really feel I deserve freedom?"
"No... but you may be entitled to it."
"Freedom is overrated. I'm an old man with very little power left, and there are still entire nations that hate me; if I were released there would be no mercy. An assassin tried to get in only a week ago, fortunately the castle wards dealt with them. Some sort of insect animagus, they think, there wasn't enough left for identification. They were far from the first."
"And that's your final decision?"
"It may not be the most luxurious accommodation, but I'm safer here than anywhere else on Earth. You may tell your friends at the ICW not to waste their time on me, I am happy to stay here."
"Okay," said Hermione. "Let me get this straight, the ICW was considering releasing Grindelwald? Seriously?"
"I can't say I liked the idea any more than you do, but nobody who owned the Elder Wand can have been entirely responsible for their own actions, and that wasn't taken into account in his trial. Harry's lucky Dumbledore's plan failed, otherwise he would have ended up as its next victim."
"And Ron and I would have probably been at ground zero. Riiight... Another reason to be happy Dumbledore's safely dead. Okay... moving on, how's Steve these days?"
"MACUSA made him their liason to the Justice League, and that's going very well. They helped a lot when Circe attacked us last year. We weren't able to capture her, but we did enough damage that it might be a while before she tries it again.
"Heard from Constantine lately?" There was an odd note in Hermione's voice.
"Some odd rumours about time travel, but I haven't seen him since 2015."
"Funny you should mention that..."
"This packet appeared in the Time Room in 1950," said the Unspeakable, "with instructions to open it and deliver the contents on today's date, exactly seventy years later. When we opened it this morning we found an inner packet addressed with your name and position as Minister for Magic." He handed Hermione a muggle padded envelope with a wax seal marked with a complex rune. The name on the front seemed to be written in black felt-tip pen.
Hermione cast some protective spells then touched her wand to the seal. The flap curled open, and the Unspeakable watched as she spread a page from the Prophet on her desk, then carefully tipped out the contents of the packet without touching them. There was a letter and six opaque plastic boxes, each about the size of a large sugar cube. "Let's see..."
"Hermione - hear you have a new job, hope it goes well. Got a bit of a puzzle for you - we found the skeletons of some Death Eaters, still wearing their masks, impaled outside a temple in 15th-century Peru. We were able to recover the skulls, masks, and wands, which I've shrunk and are in the boxes enclosed, you might be able to identify them and close a few files. There were also some Gringotts coins dating from the nineteen-eighties and nineties. My guess is that they lost their bottle when Voldemort summoned up the troops and did a runner instead. Not quite sure how they ended up when and where they did, probably some sort of cock-up, we'll make sure it doesn't happen again."
"Regards, John Constantine."
"It turned out they were middle-ranking Death Eaters based in the Cambridge area, all of them dropped out of sight the day Voldemort died. We still have no idea how they got there, I'm leaning more towards physics than magic."
"I'll pass on the information to the Justice League, then if Constantine turns up we can try to find out what's happening."
"Great, I really think it's something we need to be careful about. And if he does turn up remind him that he never paid Sybill Trelawney the last of the child support he owes her!"
"Right, I'd forgotten about that." They walked on in silence for a minute or so, then Diana asked "How are Harry and Ron these days? And what happened about Harry's marriage in the end? I never did get the story straight, and the French papers must have got things wrong."
"Not exactly..."
"Ladys, gentlemen, and beings of the Wizengamot," said Lavender Brown, "in accordance with our 1997 agreement with the IWC and the British Government, we are required to comply with muggle human rights legislation. In 2005 British law will allow civil partnerships, legal marriages between two men or two women. The Wizengamot has already agreed to comply with this legislation. However, some of these partnerships will involve children. In the case of two men it's possible that one or other will father a child outside marriage; this is already recognized in our laws, which give the father and his mistress legal protection and parental rights. In the case of two women things are different; our laws are currently structured to exclude male paramours from any parental role to avoid inheritance issues, and today you have refused to change that. Current muggle laws differ in this respect, by requiring the father to contribute to the child's support, but have yet to be tried in this exact situation."
"I would like to suggest that one of the main stumbling blocks to satisfactory legislation is our current definitions of the terms 'mistress' and 'paramour', and propose the following changes..."
"I'm pretty sure the Wizengamot thought that no man would want to be called a mistress, but Harry just grinned and went with it. Luna's officially married to Ginny, and Harry is their mistress, and all three of them like it that way. Their kids will be able to count on all three parents, and any of them can take responsibility for any child. It's a weird situation, but it gives the children and the marriage more legal protection than if Luna or Ginny was married to Harry and the other was his mistress. They've got three boys now, with a fourth on the way. Molly Weasley was furious at the time, they'd kept it secret until the wedding because they knew she'd think it was unnatural; that and she was convinced Ginny would marry Harry. But all of them were adults, there really wasn't much she could do, and she got over it once Ginny was pregnant."
"And what are they doing now?"
"Well, everyone expected Harry to join the Aurors or teach Defence but he'd always loved animals, especially birds - he got really high marks for Care of Magical Creatures in his Newts, spent a few years learning more and visiting the magical reserves, and ended up teaching it once Hagrid retired. With the epidemic going on he's spending his time writing a new NEWT textbook and running the home teaching programme this year, and of course he helps run the owl sanctuary he set up in honour of Athena, so he's keeping busy. Luna was already editing the Quibbler part-time before her father died, now she's doing it full-time. And Ginny played for the Harpies and made it to the British team a couple of times, but gave it up when she got pregnant in 2014. These days she's the Quibbler's sports columnist and advertising manager."
"I've been a subscriber since the war, it's much more interesting reading than the Prophet. I especially like the 'Ask Fawkes' advice column, it's wonderfully bizarre. Who actually writes it?"
"Most of it is Luna, a bit is Harry sensing Fawes' reactions when they read the letters, and I think some comes from Delirium."
"That would make sense. At least Eclipso seems to have left her, we had to fight another version of the thing in Sri Lanka in 2019."
"I see her quite often, and there haven't been any signs of it at all."
"Good. I nearly forgot, you didn't say what happened to Ron."
Hermione looked pensive. "Well... You know he had amnesia for a while? It wasn't as bad as everyone thought..."
"You're still drawing a blank on the fighting?" asked Harry.
"Sort of..." said Ron, "I've got back most of it up to the time we got to Hogwarts. But don't tell Hermione!"
"Why not?"
"What happened earlier in the day... in the motel. I don't think she would have gone with me if we hadn't both been terrified. I think she was trying to take my mind off it. I can't expect her to commit to anything after that, and I'm pretty sure I'm not ready myself."
"Ron, you've got to tell her."
"I can't. And don't go telling her for me, understand?"
"You really need to sort that one for yourself, mate, because sooner or later she'll find out and if you haven't told her there'll be hell to pay."
"Of course the Hogwarts rumour mill being what it is, one of the portraits overheard them and Moaning Myrtle told me the following morning. I'd already had my suspicions but I didn't want to push it, maybe I wasn't ready to commit either... we drifted apart, and eventually he ended up back with Lavender Brown. That self-destructed once she spotted that he wasn't committing to her either, and he ended up dating Katie Bell, I don't think you know her, they married a couple of years later. Ron finally owned up to me at Ginny and Luna's wedding after Molly stormed out, apologised for letting me down. But he's actually grown up quite a bit since Hogwarts, though he's still as Quidditch-obsessed as ever. He couldn't make it as a pro, so he used his share of the reward money we got for Riddle to buy into Quality Quidditch Supplies, and he and Katie both play for Devon in the amateur league - though that's on hold until the epidemic ends, and I'd imagine their business is pretty quiet right now."
"It's a problem for everyone, and I'd imagine that Brexit hasn't helped - or are the wizards staying out of that mess somehow?"
"Chancellor Urnok," said Hermione, "why exactly is it that our government still owes Gringotts more than eighty million galleons?"
"Because so long as you owe Gringotts money and are paying it off the goblins won't commit to a full-scale rebellion, there's too much to lose. Hopefully the reforms that are under way will make rebellion less likely for other reasons, but every wizarding government since the fifteenth century has taken care to stay in debt to us to some extent. There have been a few slip-ups, but they are nothing compared to an all-out rebellion. Maintaining the debt, keeping it manageable without paying it off entirely, is the way to keep the peace. Your governments began to lose sight of that when Riddle became a threat, and allowed the debt to rise, then Fudge and his successors made the situation worse by failure to service the interest payments. In real terms the debt is at the lowest it's been since the late nineteenth century, thanks largely to the funds provided by the muggle government, but since the value of the Galleon has fallen and the cost of living has risen that isn't immediately obvious. If you actually paid off the entirety of the debt the galleon would start to rise again, and there would be more problems, especially for muggle-born wizards entering the community for the first time."
"So the exchange rate is a good thing?"
"Yes and no... as of this morning the Galleon is down to £2.37, that's about 2.74 Euros or $3.26, which means that prices for anything we buy in the Muggle world have more than doubled since the nineties. The epidemic and knock-on effects of Brexit are causing additional price rises. The arithmantic prediction says it wil level off at at around £2.10, but the centaurs predict £1.90, and I tend to believe them. Most wizarding currencies have taken similar hits in the current circumstances, but Britain is in a worse state than most because of the war so imported goods such as potions ingredients and luxuries are also rising. There should be a slow recovery once the epidemic is over, but I'd be surprised if we're above £2 in the next eighteen months. But you definitely won't be seeing any rebellions."
"Income for most wizards is well down," mused Hermione. "The muggle government is helping us with income support, but most of us never contribute to the state system, and that's really making things difficult. They're covering a lot of it as the cost of protective equipment, if our community was much bigger it would be really difficult to conceal it, and we'd have to reduce the level of support. That may happen anyway, and I can't see it being very popular."
"That's easy; if anyone asks just explain it as being caused by Brexit and covid, the situation is confused enough that nobody's likely to challenge it..."
"No, it really hasn't helped," said Hermione, "if it wasn't for Brexit and covid we might have been out of the debt crisis by now, though that might be just a little optimistic. Maybe in a few years..."
"How is the situation generally, apart from the debt? Have things improved for the muggle-born and the other races?"
"Quite a bit," said Hermione. "With so many of the old guard in prison or dead the whole government was starting to fall apart, they had to fix things so that we'd want to stay in the community and contribute to its future. The results of that... well, here I am, and the demographics of the Wizengamot reflect it, muggle-borns and half-bloods have about a third of the seats now, and that's slowly rising, and a lot more of the seats are held by women. The goblins and centaurs have representatives on the wizengamot and our cabinet, the house-elves and mer-people aren't interested so far. The main thing is that the glass ceilings on jobs in the Ministry are gone, and I've been putting a lot of work into making sure that it stays that way. It's a depressing thought, but I doubt that it would have ever been possible if it hadn't been for the war, it got rid of people like Lucius Malfoy and the other major power brokers."
"That reminds me, whatever became of Draco Malfoy and his mother? If Severus hadn't been thinking about sending him to me I doubt that we would have ever met."
"Draco's still in Azkaban," said Hermione. "Originally he was sentenced to five years, with the possibility of time off for good behaviour. But of course he couldn't keep his temper under control and he ended up starting a fight and killing another prisoner. He ought to be out some time next year if he can just stay out of trouble, but I'm not holding my breath waiting. His mum was upset, but she ended up marrying a half-blood Italian count and moving to Naples so she can't have been entirely heart-broken."
"At least the Dementers are gone now, I suppose."
"That's maybe part of the problem; Azkaban used to be feared, with the Dementers gone it's still not a nice place, but it's run to comply with European human rights legislation, about the same conditions as a Muggle maximum security prison, so the Death Eaters and repeat offenders think we've gone soft."
"I must remember to tell Mazikeen the next time I'm in Los Angeles, she'd appreciate the irony. Or offer to call in and torment the prisoners, of course."
"Did you ever fight her?"
"We've sparred a few times, she and I are reasonably well matched for that. Nothing too serious."
"That's good. Are you doing anything else while you're in Britain?"
"Actually, I'm seeing the Weasley twins, the Justice League needs some of their toys."
"Not too destructive, I hope."
"Don't worry, they're not going to be used on Earth. You've probably heard of Darkseid..."
The End
Notes: Operation Forth Bridge was the British government's action plan for the death of Prince Phillip, culminating in his funeral on 17th April 2021. It seems plausible that the Minister for Magic and an old friend of the family such as Diana might be invited to attend.
Secondary sources such as video games say that Rolanda Hooch was old enough to fly brooms during the First World War, but don't say much about her life or activities outside the school. It's possible that she was a part-time employee. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child depicts her as still working in 2020.
German translations
Berliner Zeitung - Berlin Newspaper, a real-world East German newspaper from 1945 onwards which survived reunification and is still published today.
Magische Tageszeitung - Magical Daily News - many thanks to BJW for checking this translation.
Harry's career path in this epilogue assumes that he had enough violence in his schooldays to last him a lifetime, ruling out Auror or Hit-Wizard, and making it unlikely that he will ever be fully qualified to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. My model for this was a teacher at my school who had spent World War 2 as a Royal Marine Commando, took part in the Normandy invasion, and never wanted to discuss that part of his life or have anything to do with violence again. Harry seems to enjoy potions under Slughorn but doesn't seem to be exceptionally talented, he's mostly following recipes, and this is true of most of the other subjects he takes. But he is definitely gifted at Care of Magical Creatures, as shown by his riding Buckbeak, Thestrals and the Gringotts dragon, and by his relationship with Hedwig (and Fawkes in this story). It seems like an interesting and plausible choice for him.
I don't usually write omakes, but there was one idea that came up when I was writing an earlier chapter, and I might as well share it:
Omake for Chapter XVIII: It's The End of the World As We Know It...
A few minutes after Constantine's portal closed, a spherical glob slowly rose from the ruins of Malfoy Manor, shedding gingerbread to reveal the bludger it covered. Soon it reached the working height Hermione had programmed, seven feet, and began to drift aimlessly, but always within the confines of the pitch area Hermione had defined. After two minutes it quivered and another bludger appeared, drifing off on a slightly different course, but still staying over the manor. Two minutes later the two became three - one of the copies was no longer doubling - but the rest carried on doubling, their numbers rising implacably. An occasional bludger didn't double, and some of them drifted away or fell to earth, but the majority remained, their numbers and mass continuing to grow near-exponentially.
Three hours later the gravitation of the expanding cloud of bludgers began to pull them together, and it collapsed to form a black hole, falling towards the Earth's core and taking most of Wiltshire with it, and frying the rest of Britain with the radiation released as it collapsed. A wave of heat swept out around the world.
It would take several days for the rest of the Earth to be swallowed, but soon there was nobody left to appreciate the spectacle. The war with Voldemort, and every other war, was over.
Death sighed and dealt with it.
Notes: Harry shut down the Gemino spell they used to attack the manor, but one bludger was buried in the ruins of the manor and screened from Harry's counter-spell. I've simplified things considerably, but the maths of this can be boiled down to a black hole forming after approximately a hundred doublings, regardless of the initial mass of the bludger, if they don't spread out quickly or damage themselves so much that they stop doubling - I've extended the total time a little because some of the copies are too imperfect to continue multiplying.
This should probably have happened in the vaults of Gringotts in Deathly Hallows since nobody actually canceled the spell on the contents of Bellatrix's vault, but never mind...
Many thanks to cdybedahl and vicarage, both on Dreamwidth, for their help with this. The discussion is here: https://ffutures.dreamwidth.org/2159543.html
Finally, a few recommendations for stories I've read or re-read and enjoyed while writing this, which may have affected the development of my plot. All are complete:
Harry Is A Dragon, And That's Okay by Saphroneth - on AO3 and Fanfiction net. A long gentle fun AU with a premise that should be obvious from the title.
Ghost of Privet Drive by AndrewWolfe - on AO3 and Fanfiction net. An interesting self-insert story with some good ideas regarding Harry's "fortune" and wizarding economics.
A Witch and an Amazon Walk into a Bar by Philosophize - on Fanfiction net. Femme!Harry and Wonder Woman accidentally marry in Vegas.
How Xenophilius Lovegood Saved Britain by Arpad Hrunta - on Fanfiction net. The Muggle government decides to pull the plug on Fudge and Voldemort. Short and VERY silly.
Harry Potter and the Sun Source by Clell65619 - on AO3 and Fanfiction net. A crossover with the Destroyer series, which first introduced me to the weirdness that is the galleon exchange rate.
Comments please before I post to archives - I'd especially like your thoughts on the "clip show" flashbacks I've used - does the format work for you? If not, how would you change things?
Update - this is now posted to archives with a few small changes.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-06 04:03 am (UTC)General Hap Arnold's memoir, Global Mission, is a pretty good history of the early Air Corps/Air Force, as he's the man who pretty much built the Army Air Corps into the modern U.S. Air Force. I have his book on my shelf, and have read it at least once.
Also, I can't believe you killed Molly Weasley. How could you??
no subject
Date: 2022-03-06 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-06 05:51 pm (UTC)