Disclaimer: I own nothing of the characters, setting, or the plot alluded to as previously occurring. Edited two hours after first posting to fix spelling and scene changes that didn't show up.

Albus Dumbledore sat back in his desk chair, musing quietly about the year that had just ended. The children of Great Britain's magical community had all boarded the Hogwarts Express to return to their homes and families, leaving the great castle practically empty of living souls, and entirely too full of dead ones. The school had become a necropolis, after a fashion.

He shook his head. He was becoming maudlin. The work he did here in this castle was the greatest work he could possibly do in this world. The education of young minds was what Hogwarts ostensibly worked toward, but his true calling, the work that he labored to fulfill could only be understood by Wizards versed in the deepest secrets of magic. And perhaps a few Witches, too.

He gave the "Potter Monitoring Station" a once-over. There were upwards of two dozen little magical trinkets together on the table, Dumbledore's experiments in enchanting that (mostly) monitored the health and condition of Harry Potter. Harry was apparently in fine health, slightly tired, and moving quickly over the countryside – the Hogwarts Express was still in transit.

While a good number of gifted wizards had delved into magical theory over the centuries, Albus believed that he was the only one who had taken the deep understanding of magical practice and power and crafted a child care curriculum out of it.

Merlin help me.

If the verbal incantation to a spell was truly required, not only would all magical spells be in the same language (they weren't), and silent casting would not be possible – which it was. Wand waving wasn't completely necessary – wand use wasn't even required – as evidenced by the few wandless spells that powerful mages could evoke. And very few theorists considered a child's accidental magic, which used neither wands nor words.

The primary cause and control of a magical event came from intent – and this is where Albus Dumbledore feared that he would be damned forever for his hubris. Under the compelling, terrible need of the prophecy, Albus had crafted a child-rearing program to create in Harry Potter a magical practitioner of unparalleled power.

Harry never considered his own survival. He never spared a whisper of a thought for magical theory or how an event was to be caused. The secondary events of his actions were always a complete surprise to the young lad. Practicality? That consideration wasn't even on his horizon.

In short, Harry Potter focused solely on the success of his spells. Well, actually, the focus of Harry Potter was … focus. Focus on cooking for the Dursleys. Focus on their lawn, their garden, their cleaning. Focus on catching the snitch, killing the snake, evading the dragon. Focus on his patronus, that levitation, this stunner. Focus. Harry simply didn't know how to multi-task, not even the stray thoughts that everyone (else) hosted ever so briefly in the minds. When he cast a spell, the entire power of his soul was focused exclusively on forcing magic through his wand, all of his concentration narrowed to his intent …

… because Albus had him raised so. Ron Weasley was Harry's access to family security and social interaction – Harry didn't need to manage that because Ron dealt with it all. Hermione Granger became the secretary -slash- library -slash- sage who directed his actions (and wasn't that a frantic scrambling for a new plan when she survived the troll!)

Harry Potter had no idea – and those that did were strictly forbidden (and spelled) from sharing it with him – that he had more power in his casting than Merlin at his peak. And Harry was still growing.

Only Tom Riddle had more power (primarily because he acted freely without ethical restraints), and that would soon not be the case. Albus hoped that at some point, Harry would be able to see how the results justified the means, but, well, he was an old man. Far too old to cling to the illusion of redemption. Or forgiveness. Well, justification was a tempting daydream, but at one hundred and fifty mumble-mumble, he knew better than to try and move into his daydream palaces.

Well, Harry was fifteen now, and would have his sixteenth birthday in a few months. Only a few small adjustments to Harry's environment were required to insure that Tom Riddle was defeated. Sirius Black was not a factor any more, and Harry would be internalizing the guilt of leading his friends into harm's way. His focus would now have a manic intensity that would give him – Albus hoped – an edge. At least parity. A way to defeat Voldemort and survive the prophecy.

Albus truly was an expert on the shaping and education of magical humans. Hogwarts students were trained to do magic – cast spells, brew potions, carve runes. They weren't taught anything about critical thinking or experiment design or how to investigate anything they weren't explicitly taught. Oh, Albus could teach, all right, just like his legend said.

He just chose not to.

He also fell victim to the common expert fallacy of believing that once something was set in motion, it would only do the job the expert had in mind.

Albus was, in short, barmy. Which was to be expected at his age, right?

-o-

"I call this 1,983rd session of the Wizengamot of the British Isles to order!" called the Chief Warlock. In this particular case, the chief Warlock was Tiberius Ogden, of Ogden's Firewhiskey. In the aftermath of the Second Voldemort War, political movers had been forced to divert their attention just long enough for the colossal mistake of giving power to that man to occur.

He was fair, blunt, smart, and cunning. And controlled the Wizarding world's preferred sipping whiskey. In short, a nightmare for any politically active wizard, especially for those that traded upon their family power rather than their legal position. Which was most of them.

Oh, and those that like a drop every so often. Which was the rest of them. Ogden hadn't refused a sale or made any underhanded ones to advance his agenda, but everyone was waiting for the wand to fall … because they knew that if they had that power, they'd use it.

This was the second of their quarterly sessions after Voldemort had been killed, and it was immediately apparent that all the warfare had taken quite a toll on the population of their community. Quite a few panicked resolutions were proposed when a representative from the Department of Mysteries raised the question if enough bloodlines remained to keep the government going. The unflappable Chief Warlock had tried to calm the storm, but the ninnies that made up the political powers of the Wizarding World were determined to panic. So panic they did.

A resolution was passed, and was up for final affirmation today, that would require unmarried magicals to marry, and all couples to produce at least three children. There were a few calls for a rejection of the measure, but the final vote to implement seemed to be assured of passage.

"All assembled! As Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot of the British Isles, I declare the meeting open! Sergeant at Arms, …"

The command was never given. The doors that were to be sealed were instead opened forcefully, ancient oak bouncing against the stone walls, and Harry Potter stood in the center of the double doors, power flowing around him and making the background around him somewhat wavy in everyone's sight – which was firmly fixed on him. After his victory over Voldemort, Mr. Potter had shunned the limelight and had largely stayed in seclusion, so this was more of a surprise than it should have been.

"The observer's chairs are at the top of that stairway, Mr. Potter," said the Chief Warlock.

"I am not here to observe. This," Harry hesitated, "august body is deliberating an issue that affects me a great deal. I will have my say about everything that affects me."

Warlock Ogden glowered at Mr. Potter. "While you may be The-Man-Who-Won, you are also not a member of the Wizengamot. You will therefore have a seat in the observation area, and if your voice is called for, you will be allowed to speak." He gestured to the stairs.

Mr. Potter gazed at the Chief Warlock calmly. "You are making a big mistake that you might live long enough to regret. Will you allow interested observers to make their remarks without being specifically called upon?"

Mr. Ogden shook his head. "That is not how the Wizengamot works, Mr. Potter. You may speak when called upon, but when you do not have a seat of your own, you may only speak by the permission of others. Take your seat, Mr. Potter!" and he gestured again at the stairs leading to the observation area.

Mr. Potter gave the Chief Warlock a steady look, but then moved off to the stairs, shaking his head. As he left, Chief Warlock Ogden called for the Sergeant at Arms to seal the chamber, the double doors swung closed, and a tracery of light played over the doors showing that only the release of the Warlock could allow the doors to swing open once again.

Harry ignored the opening formalities as he took his seat, his thoughts running back over his preparations in the last two weeks.

- time passes -

Here it is, Harry thought. "We will now vote on the Population Replenishment Act of 1998. The text of the Act has been debated in the previous session. This resolution is now up for final affirmation. If you vote for the Act, please raise your wands with the tip lit in the next five minutes," called the Chief Warlock.

As men in formal robes raised their wands with a lit tip to indicate their vote, Harry raised his voice from up in the observation seats. The silencing spells either failed specifically for him, or for the entire gallery, but since he was the only one there, it amounted to the same thing.

"I have fought for you. I have bled for you. To keep your world from dying under the boot of a madman, I have lost my father. My mother. My godfather. My home. My fortune. My childhood."

Moving down the stairs to the floor, Harry encountered a shield that prevented his progress. Briefly. It quickly sparked, sending a bolt of energy to the Sergeant-at-Arms, sending him into unconsciousness and his staff of office clattering on the marble floor.

"I have given everything I have and everything I am in the fight to be free. While you … you sat behind strong defenses, in homes with heating and food and servants, and when I won, you were quick to tell me that you supported me all along."

Harry moved into the open floor, all eyes following his movement.

"And now that you feel threatened again, you think you're going to enslave me, take my future and my choices away to further your own ends and your own happiness and your own security." You cowards don't deserve your magic, he thought. It may have leaked through in his attitude or tone, but Harry didn't care.

The Chief Scribe was watching Harry now, too, failing to see the changes that were happening among the voting members of the Wizengamot.

"But you've forgotten something."

The lit wands were fading to darkness, their owners sagging bonelessly back into their seats.

"You made me a warrior to save your own hides. I asked nothing of you once I had ended your war. But this time, I know how to fight. I know what to fight. And I know who to fight."

There wasn't a single lit wand showing anymore.

"For those of you still with me," Harry smirked at the double meaning in his words; he turned to the Chief Warlock. "Chief Warlock Ogden, are there laws against enslaving wizards and witches?"

The Chief Warlock was a bit unnerved. "Yes, of course."

"And how did those laws affect the Act?"

"They have nothing to do with the Act, Mr. Potter."

Harry's left eyebrow arched, almost of its own accord. "So what defines slavery, Mr. Chief Warlock?" The insolence was palpable.

The Honourable Mr. Ogden blinked. "Well, …"

He didn't answer fast enough. "It is when control of one's own life is taken by another." Harry waited for a beat, then continued, "The laws against slavery render your Act irrelevant, even before you take a vote." Harry waved to the voting seats. "But go ahead. Call for your vote. Let's see who wins."

Ogden stared at Potter, then shook himself briskly. "I call again for the vote on the Population Replenishment Act of 1998. Those in favor?"

There was no response.

"All those in favor?" Ogden raised his voice.

Some of the Wizengamot were turning to see why their neighbors weren't moving.

Weakly, the Chief Warlock called, "All opposed?"

Wands were raised throughout the arena in clusters, a few each in widely divergent spots. There weren't many in any one group but even though there were quite a few small groups, there clearly weren't a majority opposing this sanctioned slavery.

With a complete lack of conviction in his voice, Ogden called out, "The Act is defeated due to a lack of support."

A curious (a slightly braver) member had poked a member sitting next to him. "He's … he's … dead!"

Once the panic of discovering several corpses in the stands had been quelled (which had woken the Sergeant-At-Arms, and he had to be pacified), Warlock Ogden faced Potter. "What did you do to all these wizards?!" He had a point: Harry was definitely the most powerful and capable Wizard in the room, and finding his entire political opposition had died in the act of trying to control him pointed a very strong circumstantial finger in his direction.

Harry was unphased. "Nothing at all, Chief Warlock. My wand was left outside with your security goons, and I have cast no spells. I have been under your observation this entire time, and you can clearly see that I have made no threatening actions." Harry waited for that to sink in. "And if you or any of these surviving cretins attempts to hijack my life again, there will be no survivors."

Tiberius Ogden attempted to mask the terror that Mr. Potter's simple promise ignited within him. The Sergeant-at-Arms was directing the dead bodies to be laid out on the main floor of the chamber – completely overwhelming the available space. After glancing around (in what he hoped was a controlled, deliberate manner), the Chief Warlock weakly said, "We no longer have a quorum. This session is adjourned, and the doors are free."

Harry gave him a withering sidelong look as he left the chamber, and the Chief Warlock suppressed his sigh. He had a great deal of work to do – all these Heads of Houses struck down within the Ministry!

-o-

Harry entered the meeting room that he had rented above Eyelop's Owl Emporium. It was already occupied, almost to capacity.

"Good work, everybody. The Act failed, we're free, and they know to stay out of our business." The room was unnaturally silent, and Harry frowned a bit. "I don't mind taking the rap, but could you tell me why you killed Jugson? I thought that we were going to stick with temporary disabling spells."

Theodore Nott was in the front of the crowd, and many looked to him for a response. "I made a mistake, Harry."

"Oh?"

"We all did. We weren't able to get past the atrium security with our wands – it's a new security measure."

"I thought it was just for me," Harry interjected.

"No, it's a general prohibition," Theodore told him. "So when the doors were sealed, we were all trying to argue our way past the security checkpoint, and then we," he shrugged, "all gave up and came here to wait for you." He tilted his head slightly. "So what did happen? How did you pull it off?"

Harry was a bit stunned.

"So I was in there all by myself?"

The crowd of young adults nodded as one.

Harry sighed. "Then there's someone else who hated that Act." Eyebrows shot up all around the room. "When I took the floor to provide a distraction for your actions … exactly what I expected to happen, happened. Everyone showing a vote in favor of the act had their wands go out and they relaxed back into their chairs. Somebody did that, and they weren't as nice about it as we wanted to be. On my way out, they had gotten up to over fifteen dead Wizengamot members."

The hubbub was too loud to continue on. Harry waited until he could overpower the noise, and said, "Well, we've got an unknown and ruthless ally. I'd suggest that we don't annoy him. Or her. Whoever," he waved his hand in the air.

The rest of the crowd agreed, and dispersed to find out what they could and return to whichever jobs they had managed to land.

-o-

Chief Warlock Tiberius Ogden sat back in his office and ran his left hand through his hair. Well, it could be worse. He was sure that it could be – it very nearly had been – but this would not go over well with the Wizengamot.

The surviving members of the Wizengamot, he mentally amended.

With no wand in hand, Mr. Harry Potter had somehow removed the magic from everyone that had voted in support of the Act. Tiberius could see how in some lights, it would seem that the government was about to enslave an entire generation.

But it had to be that way! Without a magical culture, any functioning magical society, the Statute of Secrecy couldn't be maintained! If every young witch or wizard had to discover the magical world on their own, there was no way that Muggles would remain oblivious to the magic in the world!

And now, there would not be enough children born within their world to keep it running, and the Muggles will win in the end.

If only The-Man-Who-Won didn't have such astounding power to win against every opponent …