look me in the eyes and burn

Chapter 10 - (meliorism)

And when Draco stepped out of the shop to their right and next to Harry, there was anger and shouting, sneers and tears.

Harry... Harry took deep breaths and tried to stay calm, gently rocking his sleeping son on his arms and praying he wouldn't wake. He asked them, politely, to please be quiet, to calm down. Ron and Hermione just huffed and left. Harry did not recognise them anymore.

Draco took him home after that. He made them hot chocolate and sat with him on their couch, drawing him close and simply holding him.

The weight of the not-so-little Teddy and Draco's lithe body against his was what grounded Harry that night. Who were there while his tears flowed freely, mourning the people he once loved but did not know anymore.

The next day they took Teddy to the park, letting him play with the other children, all of them completely awed at his ever changing hair colours and features. Their parents were a bit stiff, some drawing their amazed children closer to them, but no-one so much as batted an eye.

It was no secret that magic existed. Not anymore.

It had been a shock when the Muggles found out, of course. They were stumped and felt completely wrong-footed. All the laws of physics they knew, had determined and built their world views on were suddenly ripped apart and left in shreds.

It left them feeling vulnerable, defenceless. But... Magic.

It was so amazing, and awe inspiring, and fascinating.

They wanted to know everything. How to make Potions, how to use charms, how transfigurations worked, how they could fly.

But oh, it was so unfair. Why could those with magic do all those great things but they couldn't? Why wouldn't they share their magic? They wanted to do all these things too! They wanted to use magic! Real life magic!

Of course, they stayed a good distance away from the... other magical things. Lest they get mauled over by things such as these ugly, knobbly Goblins, or feral, mindless Werewolves, or mind-controlling, raping Veelas. Those things were dangerous.

Still, it was better than they ever could have imagined.

It ended like this:

Not even a year after the discovery of magic by the rest of the world, regulations came into being.

At first, they made sense. Then... well... even the most kind magic users were unwilling to even hear their unreasonable rules.

Friendly meetings escalated and conflicts became the new norm.

A wand was a magical weapon.

Muggles bought up on muggle weapons.

They would not be defenceless any longer. They would not let themselves be ordered around by these backward beings. (They never were ordered around, but that did not matter.)

Eventually one thing lead to another until, finally, one last, desperate attempt of a peace conference was called into being. Not that many Magicals wanted to go anymore. They had seen what the Muggles did; had seen the destruction their weapons brought and the horror by their hate and envy.

Muggles did obviously not want peace. Well, the Magicals didn't either, anymore.

Of course, there were still these die-hard believers, those whose rose-tinted glasses had not yet shattered. And Hadrian, talking with Hermione for the first time in years — a woman he had once loved as a sister but could not like or even sympathise with anymore —, pleaded with her not to go.

She just sneered at him, hatred in her beautiful brown eyes.

Hadrian's eyes burnt and sharpened; he looked away. Despite all, he had no interest in killing the Mudblood; even though she turned her back on her own, her blood. Supported and excused the actions of those that wanted to slaughter them and took away their children, their traditions and customs. Their freedom.

Mudbloods like her would get them all killed.

Hermione left for the conference, screaming at the top of her lungs that they would all see that they were wrong, that they could work and live together.

They got her back the next day. Or... at least a piece of her. And then the next... and the next... and the next...

The change was sudden — the change in the atmosphere and in the people — but suddenly, they stopped hoping, and praying, and crying. They just... stopped. They stopped living. Only surviving on the quest of not dying first. Of not giving the Muggles the satisfaction.

Suddenly, there was nothing to do but keep fighting.

This wasn't about them anymore, about what was right and what was wrong.

This was war. And they all felt it.

A war like one never seen before.

They should have seen it coming; history repeated itself. But gone were the burning stakes and catholic priests trying to exorcise the evil forces.

Machine guns and bombs replaced pitchforks and torches.

Atom bombs were used for especially infected lands.

Children vanished. Either taken, or dead, or soldiering on the battlefield. They would never grow up. They would never grow old.

Fiendfyre was let loose, wielded beautifully and with extreme prejudice against their foes.

Dragons burnt down whole cities in retaliation.

Goblins controlled the underground, Faeries and Elves the forests, Merpeople the sea, giants and trolls the mountains.

It was one to ten; for every Magical there were ten Muggles. But somehow, they made it work.

They worked together. Light, Dark, Creature, Pureblood, Half-blood, Muggleborn — they all worked together. United. Magic was magic, and that was that. The only positive thing that came out of all of this.

Meanwhile, while they worked together, found their roots and reunited, the Muggles did what they did best: destroying that they did not understand and those different from them.

It was then that they realised:

Dying wasn't awful. Surviving was.

(M e l i o r i s m)

the believe that the world gets better; the believe that humans can improve the place they call home

xXxXxXx

I hope this explained a few things and explained some others; if you hadn't already figured out what happened, anyway.
It's just a short chapter, and I'm sorry for this. And for doing what I did.