Take Me Back (HP Universe - Mathim x Anti-Hero)

[Mathim]

The relative present, for those who read these words, was like a paradise by comparison with the world that was to come. However noble the intentions of a dictator, ultimately there was no way to avoid the malice directed at their opposition, and the tyranny required to maintain their control once it was taken. History was replete with such figures and their deeds, yet it never seemed to stop others from repeating that sort of cycle of violence and authoritarianism. Moreso amongst the Muggles, as it was harder to accomplish in the Wizarding World where everyone was more or less on an even footing with their capabilities to wield magic. Nevertheless, it was inevitable one would come along and remain in power, ruling in perpetuity, but in a way that nobody born into a magical family could have ever imagined.

It was difficult to see how it had begun. A massacre at the Ministry of Magic caused a full-scale panic in Britain that rippled across Europe. Multiple places around the globe got thousands of Muggles to start worshiping the incarnation of a new deity performing miracles that put their old myths to shame. Indeed, magic had awakened the Muggle world to the reality of their position in the hierarchy to which they had heretofore remained blissfully ignorant. There was no amount of memory-wiping that could undo what had been unleashed, and within a month, Muggle society had been mobilized to serve their savior, the one that the Wizarding community would come to call the Dark Lord. Very little was known about him, his name forgotten almost systematically, every single person who had ever known them in their youth had been killed before they could reveal one word that might lead to some means of stopping him. There was an unconfirmed rumor that they had studied at Hogwarts but in the years that came to follow, no investigation could possibly verify that or bear any fruit.

The Dark Lord took no prisoners. Dissent meant death. The centuries of indifference to the Muggle world that had led to their societal problems were his crusade. Those who upheld the separation were public enemies and those who surrendered or sided with his philosophy were spared, though drafted into his service as the new Aurors by means of a mark upon them that would result in their immediate termination for disloyalty. It put the most ambitious fiction writers' conception of a surveillance state to shame. It did not sit well with most to have to hunt and kill their fellow wizards but they had no choice. Any that still believed it was wrong to mingle amongst Muggles in a way that benefited them had to be annihilated, because there was no going back now. Muggles already outnumbered the Magical community by 100 million to 1, and armed with both their own munitions and some magical implements, as well as working in tandem with the Dark Lord's mage minions, those they hunted literally had to live underground, eking out a meager existence in the wilderness, caves, any hole in the ground they could find, never sleeping in the same place twice.

One could be forgiven for believing this was just, even laudable, when they saw the results on the Muggle side of the equation. Homelessness was ended overnight with the ability to create structures within existing ones by magically creating more space in defiance of physics. Food scarcity was forgotten in an instant. The environment was being restored in ways the scientific population were already convinced were beyond repair. Pain and sickness were virtually unknown with the advent of Healers being introduced into the medical field. Technology was scaled back in favor of magical substitutes and even entertainment changed in favor of Quidditch and reading books about the magical world rather than video games. Currency became almost entirely worthless in an age without unmet needs and people without jobs didn't have to worry about their livelihoods, being able to return to school just for the sake of education and not out of necessity. By then, the population of rebellious wizards had dwindled so much, most Muggles didn't even need to be part of hunts or patrols.

There were murmurs of a faction that had a way to stop the Dark Lord and that got his attention. That rumor of his time at Hogwarts apparently had some truth to it and his reaction to it seemed to confirm it. While it was hard to bring together a large group, the rallying behind this do-or-die strategy allowed them to overcome their fear and join the effort, because anything was better than trying to survive this nightmare another day. Though this did cause the Dark Lord himself to get involved, and join the hunt personally. This emboldened the rebels to ensure the plan succeeded, though it was not in any way the Dark Lord would have conceived. This was kept secret among the small inner circle but as the group grew, it became more widely known - a barely functioning Time Turner had survived the purge of them, and had been restored to - somewhat - functioning order. It was still risky, having not been exactly tested, but it was no longer completely defunct, and the plan was to use it to return to the past and destroy the Dark Lord before he could rise to power. One brave soul volunteered to test it, and agreed to murder the Dark Lord as a schoolboy. Returning in what seemed like moments, they were horrified to learn that, despite having killed multiple students that were likely the one who would become the Dark Lord, the future had not changed at all. Trying a few more times, each ending in the same failure, the conclusion was that killing the Dark Lord could not his darkness from spreading. Whether because of Horcruxes, or having secretly influenced others to follow the same ideology or some other unknown means, they had to abandon the simplest approach. The bitter truth had to be accepted because causing a few other effects that allowed them to test whether their actions in the past truly did have an effect on the future, so their failures to stop him weren't simply a result of the Time Turner not having a forward effect.

This testing cost them valuable time and it wasn't long before the Dark Lord and his forces started closing in on them. If their current strategy wasn't working, what could they possibly do? Even so, they couldn't risk letting it fall into his hands or be destroyed before they could see if there really was a way to change the past for the better.

 

[Solo]

Just that morning, Autumn Wilkes had been a relatively unknown name throughout the wizarding world, being known, if at all, as part of a Hogwarts class graduation long since past whose sole goal seemed to be taking in as much knowledge as possible in every subject other than the social aspect of schooling. Full-figured, shorter than most at only five foot two, and considered average-looking by most, it was easy for her to blend into the background. At school, she had been the favored of most of the professors due to her higher-than-average grades, but in the large pond of the Ministry, she was a small fish indeed. She would have been indignant, if she found herself with time to be anything other than exhausted.

The world she lived in now wasn't the one she'd envisioned emerging into during her years at school. There had been whisperings of a new Dark Lord rising, but Autumn rarely heard them, unless they were part of what led to her developing a personal silencing charm for use in her bedchambers lest she be kept up by the other girls' incessant gossip. Occasionally, she'd break her study schedule to take meals with the rest of the students and overhear a bit more, but more often than not, she was taking her food to the library, a permission she'd specially earned by being its most dedicated and fastidious frequenter. In brief moments of quiet between running from place to place, Autumn almost wished she'd done more paying attention; it might have prepared her more for her life on the run.

Thankfully, not much of it was spent alone; during her first few months of scrounging to survive and barely escaping the pursuing minions by the skin of her teeth, she'd stumbled upon an underground resistance group, led by the only living descendent of the last Minister of Magic, who operated in a set of linked concealment charms that allowed them to move more freely through the world, though after their last encounter, it was clear their approach of running each time the Dark Lord grew closer wouldn't last forever.

They'd have to take a new approach.

Driven solely by her experiences — or lack thereof, more accurately — while in school, Autumn volunteered to be the guinea pig for their new strategy: befriend and turn the Dark Lord before he could gain enough influence. No one else would be able to convincingly play a clueless schoolgirl while also retaining enough magical talent to hold their own in case things got heated, and while she remained unsure of her ability, she turned the device in her hands with feigned confidence, a practiced art of mocking emotions to conceal her true thoughts that could be compared to early Occlumency. With one last turn, the world as she knew it whirred away, and she found herself back at the one place she thought she'd never see again.

Hogwarts.

Quickly waving her wand, Autumn's clothing changed from the tattered jeans and jacket she'd lived in for the past few months into something that closely resembled the uniforms of her school days, though lacking the blue-and-bronze she'd grown so familiar with over the years. The Headmaster had already informed the professors of the plan, in the know since the beginning when they'd taken a more direct approach, so while Autumn wouldn't have to convince or tiptoe around any faculty, the students were another story. Instead of the familiar colors, the green-and-silver of Slytherin house adorned her robes. If questioned, it could be explained that a private sorting ceremony took place upon her enrollment in the school, to avoid too many eyes on her on her 'first day'.

Taking her seat at the Slytherin table just before the first years began to enter, Autumn surveyed the table, attempting to work out who her most likely targets were.​

 

[Mathim]

The story of how the Dark Lord came to be would be quite the goldmine for any historian lucky enough to have stumbled across the truth. It had everything, most significantly a sympathetic origin, one would almost conclude inevitable in how it would lead to his actions that would bring the world to its knees for the sake of Muggles. Modern Muggles deemed him 'Prometheus' while the wizarding community had a much harsher moniker for him. Bring the literal gifts of the gods to the common man, and yet rather than ending up the victim for it, he slaughtered his fellows and triumphed. Argue as they might, those wizards deemed undesirable could not be convinced that it was the right move to bring magic to the Muggle world. Had they but known...had they only the opportunity to gaze into his worst memory through a Pensieve. Perhaps that was the price of the wizarding world's hubris, their clinging to antiquity in both aesthetics and ideology. It was bound to catch up to them eventually, in an age where Muggles could be mobilized against them as effectively as their own kind.

"Mum? Is this some kind of joke? You know I'm too old for this sort of thing-"

He sat up in bed, stark awake, before the worst dream he'd had in recent memory could induce further trauma. He was still panting, sweating. Of all the nights he decided to actually sleep, that had to happen. Of course. He had managed not to cry out, his roommates in the adjacent four-posters continued to snore. Most of them were pure-blood or at least had grown up in magical families. Something he had in a bygone time envied, but given his objective it would not have been in the cards to learn what it was like to be without magic, and understand viscerally the plight of Muggles. Perhaps it was for that reason they all took for granted what they had and didn't follow his example. 12 years of blissful ignorance that things could have been better, for all humanity, and the walls of reality came crumbling down around him. How could he think of anything but frantically catching up to everything he should have been able to learn from birth?

It wasn't difficult to swim in morally grey waters given his situation. It was all in the name of fairness, equality, and justice. Nicking bits and bobs from students whose parents could afford all of their materials. Sneaking out of the dormitory after curfew and discovering secrets not meant to be known. Smuggling in contraband at every opportunity. All the while putting on an innocent, obsequious act in public. Shy, withdrawn, but studious and clearly talented. One might say prodigious, if he didn't hold himself back during lessons and demonstrations. No, his ambition required not drawing unwanted attention to himself. No close friendships that could jeopardize his resolve or risk making his intentions known before he was ready. This was the strategy from day one, and had been unbroken for six years so far.

New students were not unheard of but they were very uncommon. His lack of interest in developing peer bonds precluded his desire to make any effort to get to know her but he did become aware of her during a Double Potions lesson. Despite them being rather more opposed ideologically in the eyes of their respective founders, Hufflepuff had less conflict with Slytherin than did Gryffindor. When it came to the classes mixing, there was relatively little animosity creating trouble during lessons between his Hufflepuff house and the Slytherins. It was no surprise once he would rise to power that the majority of the victims of his campaign would be part of Slytherin given their anti-Muggle sentiments. His brutal methodology did seem like Slytherin might be where he had emerged but those who suspected it were neglecting the humanitarian bent of his entire plan where it concerned Muggles. No, when the Sorting Hat hit his head, he took a bit longer than the average student. While believing it had to be done, forcefully or otherwise, the hat did see that his intentions were benevolent and placed him in Helga Hufflepuff's house. Not such a bunch of old duffers, after all.

Sleeves almost perpetually rolled up, the redheaded boy with lighter blue eyes than would give away the darkness behind them kept his head down, focused on his work. Always the odd man out, the class population always worked in his favor to allow him to be the one without a partner, the way he liked it. Never being able to get a rise out of him, the Slytherins had learned to just leave him be, there was no fun nor sport in it. His housemates similarly had learned there were better friends to be made and with less effort. Even the teachers were somewhat resigned that there was no getting him to open up more than the bare minimum required. But he was at or near the top of his class without being considered phenomenal, so at least the results were being achieved academically. Not quite the cult leader sort of rising threat that would immediately get on someone's radar.

"Milo? I'm sorry to bother you but we do have an extra student who needs a partner." the instructor, a plump woman, head of Hufflepuff house (this year Slytherin's house leader was the DADA instructor) called to him. He blinked, unprepared for this turn of events, silent as he contemplated how this would disrupt his routine. He scanned the room for the unexpected intruder until his eyes landed on the one he had no memory of, and he would know with his photographic memory. He shrugged and nodded in agreement.

"Yes, ma'am." he had a deeper voice than his frame would indicate. He knew the instructor was obsessed with the houses getting along and she couldn't exactly disguise how excited she was that a Slytherin student was getting paired up with a Hufflepuff. He wasn't opposed, just indifferent. He viewed all the houses as irrelevant and a source of disunity at worst, something he opposed as the sort of thing that would stand in the way of bridging gaps by creating unnecessary divisions. Still, if there was any house that needed to be introduced to the idea of Muggle integration, it was the Slytherins, though he wasn't exactly ready to start evangelizing yet.