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Post by Author By Night on Feb 15, 2009 11:44:48 GMT -5
What was the wizarding world like immediately after the war, and for the next nineteen years? Would any remaining Death Eaters have tried to replace Voldemort, or do you think they were pretty much all killed and/or arrested? How would they have rebuilt?
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Post by pigwithhair on Feb 19, 2009 10:42:34 GMT -5
Another good question. I would think that, immediately following the war, people would be on their guard of any group or individual rising up like that again, however, given time people would grow complacent. Eventually, there would be another like Grindelwald and Voldemort. It would simply be a question of when. Would it be during Harry, Ron and Hermione's lifetimes or later?
Prejudice against Muggles and Muggle-borns would not fade away entirely but would sink underground. There are still Nazi organizations around the world today, and I don't see the prejudice of the wizarding world as all that different.
At first I think things would be relatively calm, the emphasis would be on rebuilding. I don't think Ron and Harry would have any huge challenges as Aurors, such as a big Death Eater movement, for at least a year or two.
I do think some Death Eaters survived, but I can't see any of them trying to replace Voldemort. They would be glad he was gone and they were free to do as they wanted, albeit in hiding for the most part. None of them seemed to be as power-hungry or as powerful magically as Voldemort was.
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Post by vegablack on Feb 19, 2009 15:05:35 GMT -5
I have a completely different take on this. First I think there would be a lot of work for Aurors in the immediate aftermath of the war. Tom Riddle didn't take over the society on his own. He didn't rid Muggleborns of their wands and civil rights, send some to Azkaban or torture students on his own. We see signs of wide spread abuse of people -- run away students and Muggleborns who still have their wands. The poor man crying for his missing children is a hint of what was going on. Mr. Olivander was imprisoned and tortured as was Luna and Neville's words implied other students. Percy's words about the danger at the ministry for those who didn't co-operate imply wide spread actions against those who disagree. The fact that an Auror was willing to arrest an old lady for the actions in school of her over age grandson implies widespread violations of people's rights.
Voldemort didn't do this all himself. Those who helped him need to be punished at least I believe they do. Torture should be punished. Kidnapping should be punished. Mutilating people should be punished as should imprisoning people and threatening them with dementors. It goes without saying that murder should as well.
Investigations into peoples activities in the war should take place. Should Dawlish remain an Auror? Should those who provided the police muscle behind the Muggleborn registration commission keep their jobs? Should those people be in jail. I say yes.
If we don't then why do we send people who have committed crimes of far less damage to jail every day. Why arrest people for shop lifting or passing bad checks. Why have police at all?
Investigating these people will take a lot of time and effort. People will want to destroy records eliminate witnesses run off and protect themselves.
Ironically the perpetrators will need to be protected from those who want to take revenge. The one eyed man with the missing children seems quite hungry for it.
Where are the LeStrange brothers? We aren't told their final fate. They had been sentenced to live in prison. Shouldn't they and the other escapees who are left alive be returned to prison?
I'm not sure there wouldn't be death eaters who want to get revenge on those who defeated the dark lord or who still don't believe that he is dead. People would remember the actions of the the LeStranges and Barty Crouch Jr. after the war. They would fear the same thing happening again. Why wouldn't it? They might take vigilante action to keep it from happening.
I think there will be a lot of turmoil after the war.
I think prejudice will fade in time. It has in my lifetime. There is still a great deal of racial prejudice but it is nothing compared to the days when people thought Lynchings were an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. Sen Byrd was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan. (I can never remember how to spell that.) He is the only sitting member who can claim that distinction. Sixty years ago there were many.
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Post by siriusgirl on Feb 19, 2009 21:35:09 GMT -5
I think the focus would be on rebuilding, the Ministry would be dramatically done over. Kingsley would make sure of that, he'd do what Fudge and Scrimgeour should have done, but didn't dare. There is a lot of damage from the corruption to repair.
As for Ron and Harry, I do think they face challenges. Aurors are 21 when they start, we know they train for three years. Students leave hogwarts at 18. Harry and Ron are still teeangers, they don't have the social maturity or even experience of the others, plus they have been given liberty at school because the damage was limited and worked out in the end.
However, that's not the case in the real world, especially in Law Enforcement and with Aurors, who are Elite. They would have to follow the same guidelines. I do think they might at first ignore rules they viewed as insignificant. Harry isn't really a team player, he has many good points, but team player isn't one of them. He would have to learn to play as a team. However, I'm sure he would learn quickly, because he's smart and resourceful, and will be a great Auror.
As for another uprising? Could be, but not in the near future. I do see some retaliation but nowhere near as severe as after the first war. The major death eaters are all in prison. Like the dying embers for a fire.
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Post by vegablack on Feb 20, 2009 3:18:12 GMT -5
But how do the major death eaters get into prison? How does Kingsley arrest them? Would he use real aurors, most of whom appear to have happily worked with Voldemort? Some probably ran off with Kingsley but we don't hear about them. We do hear about Dawlish serving his new masters. How many Aurors could Kingsley trust?
JKR in her Leaky Cauldron interview says that some of those youths who fought at the battle of Hogwarts would have joined him in rounding up death eaters and she mentions Ron, Harry and Neville by name. Wizards are adults at 17. Ron would have been 18 already I think and Harry and Neville would have been almost 18. Many soldiers are barely older.
At what point Harry and Ron went from being followers of Kingsley to real Aurors isn't clear and probably open to interpretation. (I paid close attention to JKR's interview because this matched my image of what happened.)
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Post by mo on Feb 20, 2009 9:53:13 GMT -5
I think a lot of the seasoned Aurors were legitimately under the Imperius during Voldemort's reign in DH. I believe it was Dirk Cresswell who comments that Dawlish was a little too easy to escape from and that he seemed dazed or at least "acting funny" which would explain why he was less skilled and defeatable by people like Cresswell and Augusta Longbottom, who were not trained as he was.
I imagine that prejudice would still exist, just as it does in our world today. There was an interview with a woman on Dateline last summer with a woman who proudly stared right into a camera and proclaimed, "Of course I won't vote for Obama. Why? Come on. Look. At. Him. He's not one of us." I think that no matter how high up Hermione rises in the Ministry, there will always be some social gatherings which would pointedly exclude her, people who call her "Mudblood" behind her back, and restaurants that conveniently "lose" her reservation.
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Post by vegablack on Feb 20, 2009 14:55:58 GMT -5
I agree that there is still prejudice and would be still prejudice in the future. But if you compare real world predjudice in our day to say our grandparents or even parents there has been definite and obvious improvement. When I was a baby people openly talked about beating other people with ax handles because they wanted to eat at a Woolworth's counter or cast a vote. Many were beaten or hit with firehoses for trying to do just that. Now people have to use euphemisms to explain why they don't want him to be President. That is a big improvement.
Hermione may always have people who patronize her, wouldn't want their son to marry her or resent her success but would they stand by why she was disenfranchised, had her wand taken away, refused access to school, reduced to begging, was beaten or threatened with Azkaban and dementors or killed like Ted Tonks or barely escaped with his life like Dean?
The fact that many of the Aurors were put under the Impirius spell wouldn't change the situation for Kingsley as he still wouldn't know if they were lying or innocent and would not know if they were trustworthy. Like the East Germans who swept into government buildings hoping to destroy evidence of their own activities on behalf of the government at the fall of communism many wizards activities at the fall of Voldemort would be to cover up their own guilt.
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Post by mo on Feb 20, 2009 17:03:06 GMT -5
Hermione may always have people who patronize her, wouldn't want their son to marry her or resent her success but would they stand by why she was disenfranchised, had her wand taken away, refused access to school, reduced to begging, was beaten or threatened with Azkaban and dementors or killed like Ted Tonks or barely escaped with his life like Dean? Oh, defintitely. That's why I use the examples of non-invitations to cocktail parties or lost dinner reservations. As one's blood status is not visually obvious, it probably couldn't come down to the Knight Bus refusing to stop or something, but it would probably be comparable to the way many people were refused entry to exclusive clubs and schools in the 50's or 60's (just a few years after the horrors of the Nazi's were revealed) because their last name "sounded Jewish." Here is an interesting thought I had that would make for an interesting debate: I hold that 20 years after the fall of Voldemort, the most dangerous Death Eater strongholds would be amongst the Gryffindor followers of Voldie, and the Slyths would actually be unlikely to hold on tight to the idea of a "Dark Lord." Here's why: Once the Ministry was firmly in the control of people like Kingsley and Harry and "Blood Traitors" and Muggleborns, those who were cunning and ambitious would find it most expedient to ally themselves with the New Order. The Gryffindors however, are going to be by nature more committed to their ideals than to picking the winning side. And, although the house has more of a history of open-mindedness on the matter of blood status, there are likely a few who are dedicated to the ideal of pureblood supremacy. It's these few who would hold on the tightest to DeathEating and the like.
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Post by siriusgirl on Feb 20, 2009 17:58:29 GMT -5
I don't think we know enough about the aurors to say whether many happily worked for Voldemort, so we need to be careful. We only hear about Dawlish who seems to be a black sheep, Tonks, Shacklebolt, and the late Moody. we know there is Williamson who only appears in OOTP, and the female auror with an eye patch. I'm also sure some aurors were muggle borns so may have gone on the run themselves. Kingsley would not let the big death eaters get away so easily, that's for sure. Once the battle was over, the Aurors would all get their authority back. I think Kingsley would be able to judge accurately about Imperious so would know who was lying or have I good idea. He's not like Fudge or the other Ministers who take any word for it.
Good point about Gryffs and Slyth. I think it needs to be pointed out that the weakest character in the book was Wormtail, who was a Gryff, but we see some very dangerous and non likeable Gryffs who cling to their ideals, like Romilda Vane or Cormac McLaggen. Yet probably the most surprising darkhorse was Slughorn, who showed he was a good man despite his shortcomings-- and he was a Slytherin
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Post by vegablack on Feb 20, 2009 18:16:08 GMT -5
I tend to think that JKR viewed the aurors as having at best sat out the war and at worst sided with whomever was in power. I say this because we see no evidence that any mounted any kind of a fight against Voldy or that any showed up at the last battle. Surely if they were there they would have played a more visible role in the defence of the Castle. The names mentioned of the people who are planning the defences aren't Aurors who would be expected to play a role worthy of mention. Surely they would be as qualified as the Weasley twins to be named as organizers of the defence. This would be like having a Marine Colonel take orders from two teenagers during a siege. This wouldn't make sense.
Why wasn't there a more effective anti-Voldemort fight than existed after the takeover? If the aurors tuned from Voldy and support of Voldy was not wide spread how were so many atrocities allowed to happen so soon? Why were they allowed to round up Muggleborns? Why was the only acts of resistance any one talks about Harry's? Surely trained aurors wouldn't have waited for a seventeen year old boy to tell them what to do? Wouldn't they have tried to defend people at least? It doesn't look like the team set up to fight dark wizards were doing their job.
In their defence many could have been killed during the ministry takeover, since they would have had close connections to the Scrimgeour who was one of them. There may have been a fight at the ministry which they lost. Remember Kingsley's words are "The ministry has fallen." (I don't have my book with me.) Others may have been hunted down during the war and died during the period Kingsley was in hiding.
What ever happened Kingsley would not have had large numbers of Aurors he could trust since they either were claiming to be Imperiused which would require some test to prove it true, or they had colaborated or were dead or hiding and not fighting.
JKR says that Harry (I assume over years) reformed the Aurors and became its head. Kingsley was made first minister. She says that Harry, Ron Neville and others from the battle of Hogwarts fought along side Kingsley during the clean up period after the war. I think all of this points to a ministry that has been discredited. And Kingsley and his followers coming in as victors who had driven out Voldemort themselves.
I think you bring up an intriguing point that would make a great fic that the DE holdouts would be among Gryffindors. I think they would have the easiest time avoiding accusation and surviving the war.
The analogy of bigotry against Muggleborns and anti-semitism is a good one I think.
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Post by siriusgirl on Feb 20, 2009 21:45:30 GMT -5
I think we place too much evidence at what is said and not said. I do think Aurors were there as were many others. It's also my problem about good Slytherins, taht people put too much stock on not seeing more. Just because we don't see any doesn't mean there weren't any Aurors, it was focused on Harry, and so we didn't see everyone in the battle. We don't see enough about the Aurors to say what they are guilty of or sitting out.
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Post by vegablack on Feb 21, 2009 1:19:10 GMT -5
Normally I would agree with you but we do have a description of Kingsley giving the orders about who will lead the battle. Kingsley announces that he has made a battle plan between the teachers of Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix. The teachers will defend the towers while he, Remus and Arthur will defend the grounds. He says that they need someone to organize the defense of the entrances of the school. Fred and George offer to take that job and Kingsley approves. (DH. pg 611)
If there were Aurors there don't you think Kingsley would have mentioned them? If there were Aurors on the scene then it makes no sense for Kingsley to put in charge of the defenses Arthur who was a kind man and committed but not a man known for his skill and experience fighting Dark Wizards, and teen age Fred and George who were owners of a gag shop. That would be like putting two 19 year olds in charge of a Marine Colonel.
Yes Fred and George knew the secret passages, but wouldn't it have made more sense to say Auror Proudfoot here will organize with Remus and Arthur and I the defense of the grounds. Auror Williams will need help organizing the defense of the entrances. Fred and George could then offer to help him.
Aurors are mentioned by name in the OotP when they show up. They aren't here.
It's one thing to say random teenage Slytherin isn't mentioned by name, but it is another to say that Kingsley preferred having a ministry bureaucrat and two 19 year old boys lead the defense of the castle to that of having trained fighters of Dark Wizards.
And JKR does speak in her interviews as if the war went on and the youth took part and the ministry itself needed to be reformed.
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Post by siriusgirl on Feb 21, 2009 16:47:37 GMT -5
I think there we can agree to disagree. I don't think we see enough to judge so we have leeway. The only things we really see is who Harry interracts with. Another question: Who would be the next headmaster or headmistress at Hogwarts
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Post by pigwithhair on Feb 21, 2009 22:50:10 GMT -5
JKR has said that McGonagall was passed it and someone else would take over, but I don't hold her interviews as canon because she contradicts her own answers at times or changes them later on.
So - I say McGonagall stays on as headmistress. Dumbledore stayed on until his death and he was supposed to be about 150 (again, per JKR in yet another interview), so I don't see why McGonagall, a young chick only in her seventies would be "passed it."
A couple of things about the rest of it:
I have to agree, mainly for the reason Vegablack mentioned, that I also see the Aurors pretty much wiped out by the time of the final battle. They seem nearly non-existant during the whole of the last battle and are never leading the charge.
That said, it's all in how you look at it: it's one of those never-really-said things. But yeah, I do picture Harry and Ron immediately becoming Aurors and restructuring the entire department. JKR did mention in an interview that Harry was the youngest Auror ever, so I reckon that she sees him in that position right after the final battle.
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Post by vegablack on Feb 22, 2009 0:46:14 GMT -5
When JKR said that McGonagall was too old to be headmaster, I was never sure if she meant immediately after the battle or nineteen years later. She may have thought the interviewer meant during the epilogue period when she would have been in her nineties. In real life people vary widely in how active and healthy they are after age 60. I get the impression that not all wizards are as sprightly as Dumbledore and Slughorn in their old age.
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Post by birdg on Feb 22, 2009 5:39:41 GMT -5
Yeah but in the footnotes of "Tales of Beedle the Bard", McGonagall is listed as Headmistress.
I assume that McGonagall became Headmistress after the war and probably stayed on for several years but retired before the epilogue.
I agree. In a story I'm working on, there will be a sub-plot where Hermione is eligible to become the next Minister of Magic but she runs into problems because some fear she'll want to introduce Muggle ideas and raise the status of magical beings like house-elves, goblins and the like (both partly reaffirmed by her desire to make sweeping reforms) but also because of an untrue rumor that she wants to abolish the Statute of Secrecy.
And mo, I also agree with you on Gryff DEs. That's something else I'm exploring in the same fic I mentioned above. I figure part of the reason is that some of the biggest holdouts to this idea would have died in the first or second wars and the ones left would be in prison or exile. The sole exception to this is the Malfoys and they're probably a topic unto themselves. It seems those who'd have the best chance of surviving and not going to jail would be those who didn't have strong beliefs or recanted those beliefs. The Gryffs and non-Slytherin DE in general would have an easier time of this all around because it's not like Voldemort tried to make any of their Houses the default House for Hogwarts.
And vegablack, I tend to think an Aurors who disagreed with Voldy were killed in the Ministry battle or driven underground only to be replaced with those who did agree with him. I agree with you that Kingsley probably had to rebuild the Aurors from the ground-up and that's probably why someone like Harry Potter managed to rise so fast.
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Post by Author By Night on Feb 23, 2009 8:00:44 GMT -5
When JKR said that McGonagall was too old to be headmaster, I was never sure if she meant immediately after the battle or nineteen years later. She may have thought the interviewer meant during the epilogue period when she would have been in her nineties. In real life people vary widely in how active and healthy they are after age 60. I get the impression that not all wizards are as sprightly as Dumbledore and Slughorn in their old age. That was my impression too, that she meant the epilogue. Plus, everyone ages differently - and McGonagall had many reasons to age prematurely. (I guess Dumbledore would've too, but he seemed to keep himself young and humored up until Half-Blood Prince, whereas McGonagall may have given in to old age.)
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Post by Mirabelle on Feb 23, 2009 23:23:36 GMT -5
She may have also decided to just focus on teaching or retire altogether. It must be disheartening for a teacher to watch two generations worth of students die in war and they didn't even die fighting a common enemy, but each other.
Now I've got the urge to watch Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
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Post by vegablack on Mar 10, 2009 12:27:42 GMT -5
What do you think Draco's social position is after the war? How has he responded to his role in the war? He tortured against his own will; what effect did this have on him? What was the effect of seeing his father so humiliated by Voldemort of losing on his self image? Is he the person we saw in book five? How much did he and his family change?
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Post by pigwithhair on Mar 10, 2009 13:24:11 GMT -5
The answer to some of those relatest to whether you think the Malfoys would blame what befell them on their own choices or on outside factors, such as the existence of the Muggle-borns.
It was obvious to me that they were no longer followers of Voldemort by HBP; they were simply driven to follow orders by fear. While I think Draco would have learned a lot about putting himself under the power of someone else - a mistake I doubt his father would repeat - I also think the prejudice in him is too strong to go away all together. It's a philosophy of life he's been exposed to since birth and it's part of his identity.
I think the Malfoys and other families like them would lie low after the war, but they weren't imprisoned. Lucius would most likely see himself as a victim of circumstance, while I see Draco perceiving that his father's choices had much more to do with what their circumstances in DH and just after.
That said, I also don't think Draco would ever see Muggle-borns as his equals. His public facade would be one of his version of temperance: polite acknowledgement such as he issued to Ron and Harry at the epilogue. They saved his life twice and all he could manage all those years later was a nod. That said a lot to me.
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