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Argeus the Paladin -> Fanfiction - Harry Potter - Harry Potter Original Generation (3/31/2009 1:45:39)
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Introduction
One Century Later
Time was quick to fly by after the heroes of Hogwarts accomplished the trial of fate – to defeat and destroy the Dark Lord Voldemort for good. The wizarding world enjoyed the peace that ensued for a good generation or two, and within the time of a hundred years, nothing dramatically jeopardizing happened to threaten the peace of the magic society. In time, Voldemort’s past sins became nothing but a fragment of the past, and the chaos by his mane, one so realistic, so vivid, so fatally destructive, had finally fallen into the ruins of history, like a relic of the past age, only to remind the next generations of what used to be there in the darkest days.
The hero-turned-Minister-of-Magic Harry Potter had done a job far better than any of his predecessors had, and under his leadership, the wizarding society finally reached its golden age, in which progresses in various fields of magic, social stability, as well as a never-better security had gilded his reputation with gold and diamond. His friends and comrades, taking vital posts in the new legislation, played a vital role in this success as well, and the “Harry Potter Generation” thus went into the history textbook of every Hogwarts student as the most successful and influential contemporary figures.
Yet, it was by Harry and his comrades’ undeniably splendid achievements that the wizarding society had taken a whole new level in arrogance. Little did Harry realize that his very effort had delivered his people backward into the territory of racism, prejudice and overt pride, spreading the flaw supposedly belonging just to members of Slitherin House to the majority of the new generation. Underestimation of the Muggles, as well as popular belief of wizard superiority quickly grew into contempt and spite, much against Harry’s wishes.
His eventual death had seen the beginning of this unfortunate implication, as racial tension within the heart of Hogwarts itself escalating to unprecedented levels, and more and more of the new generation’s witches and wizards underestimating and undervaluing their non-magical counterparts in the Muggle world, the very thing Harry and his peers had wished to uproot. Towards his death, Harry and his lifelong friends and colleagues were extremely anxious that the other side of the medallion will come to bite them back, and painfully so.
And then, it came, the chosen day, the day when the proud new generation of witches and wizards had to swallow their pride in the hard way.
On the 24th November, 2121, an event so-called the East End Genocide took place, in which an alchemical experiment by an apprentice mage went awry, bringing with it an entire city apartment block, claiming a casualty count of epic proportion, and forcing the Muggle government to establish a nation-wide state of emergency. The reason for the disaster remained a mystery, although it is implied that the young apprentice’s larger-than-life attitude, negligence of the norm of safety standards, as well as an underappreciation of Muggle lives were to blame.
The implications of the incident were catastrophic to the wizarding world. Not only did it fatally damage the masquerade of the wizarding society through a massive investigation effort by the Scotland Yard and the, FBI but also created and quickly escalated the popular sentiment resentment against practitioners of wizardry to levels far higher than the Medieval Witch Hunts. Within the time of half a month, the existence of the wizarding world had become common knowledge, though not officially confirmed by the Muggle government.
Unlike in the past, when Muggles were unable to take any effective action against the magically superior witches and wizards, in the new era, they had had new technologies that not only matched each and every magical technique more than evenly, but also protruding into fields otherwise unknown to the wizards so used to simple, everyday-life spells.
It turned out that the Muggles had been developing their secret weapons all along without the wizarding world even knowing about it. They called their new weapons Advanced Personal Autonomous Modules, or APAM in short. Heavily-built and armed humanoid machines powered by a hundred year’s worth of technological advancement, these machines, in their first public appearances, had struck more awe into the heart of the wizarding society’s Aurors than the entire race of dragons summed up, exceeding the proud, scaled beast in each and every single aspect of combat. The public demonstration of how a so-called Sanger Type 0 APAM single-handedly sink an artificial island in the middle of the Pacific within half a minute was proof of it all – the time had come for non-magic Muggles to take advantage of their technology and the wizarding world’s lack thereof.
The prideful witches and wizards were completely stun-struck overnight. Some blamed the Ministry of Magic’s lack of credibility in intelligence, allowing muggles to develop such a vastly overwhelming arsenal without intervening. Others cursed the dim-witted alchemist for the brewing tensions. Still more, clinging to the last bits of their pride, urged themighty Aurors to step forward to deal with the insolent Muggles face to face. But regardless of their points, there was one thing certain - War was brewing in the horizons, and if the scenario was to continue, the wizarding world would stand little to no chance against their non-magical counterparts.
Having just secured his office for no more than two years, the new Minister of Magic, Edgeworth Longbottom, was faced with this unprecedented threat. Realizing that there was no other way out of the situation without a serious battle for survival, Edgeworth decided to carry out Operation McGonagall, effectively and official starting of an arms race against the Muggles by seeking to manufacture the wizarding world’s own APAMs.
A new world war was brewing in the horizon…
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