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Out of the Blue

Summary:

On the 5th of April, 1998, just when the Second Great War in Britain was about to come to a head, a shocking announcement is made by the International Confederation of Wizards. Because of the First Great War, the rising amount of deaths from the ongoing one, the inbreeding of nearly half the populace and the low birth rates because of the financial instability of the middle class, the British Magical Community, whose population was already at an all-time low of roughly 5,000, was expected to die out in a century.
The news was completely unexpected, and the public made sure that their surprise was seen. There were riots and protests outside of Hogwarts and the Ministry. People were afraid and panicked, and they wanted action. For the first time in centuries, Britain was gathering under a common banner: Survival.

15 days after the report of the ICW was released to the public, Harry Potter wrote a letter to Lord Voldemort.

Notes:

I wrote this during the beginning of the pandemic and wasn't all that satisfied with it back then. It is now 3.58 am and I have just finished writing it once again.
The effect that two consecutive wars, inbreeding, low population and difficult procreation could have on Magical Britain is a crucial point that people just choose to ignore in my opinion. So, this is how I thought it might turn out. I hope you like it!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

On the 5th of April, 1998, just when the Second Great War in Britain was about to come to a head, a shocking announcement is made by the International Confederation of Wizards. Because of the First Great War, the rising amount of deaths from the ongoing one, the inbreeding of nearly half the populace and the low birth rates because of the financial instability of the middle class, the British Magical Community, whose population was already at an all-time low of 5,000, was expected to die out in a century.
The news was completely unexpected, and the public made sure that their surprise was seen. There were riots and protests outside of Hogwarts and the Ministry. People were afraid and panicked, and they wanted action. For the first time in centuries, Britain was gathering under a common banner: Survival.

15 days after the report of the ICW was released to the public, Harry Potter wrote a letter to Lord Voldemort.

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The letter, in itself, was completely expected, if he were to be honest, but the way it was written was not.
Voldemort had known of the Potter boy, he had, after all, been his destined enemy. But when he thought of the boy in a way that didn't consist of him being Crucio'd or his intestines being ripped out of his abdomen, he had thought that the boy was lacking. He was weak for someone who had spent their entire lives preparing to defeat him, he was too stubborn for his own good and too reckless to be a proper leader. But he had to grudgingly respect Potter when he read The Letter. It is necessary for the continued survival of our country that we put aside our differences. The boy had written like he hadn't already known that. It won't matter who has control over the Ministry if there is no one to govern over. It won't matter what lessons are being taught by who at Hogwarts if there are no students. It won't matter what magic is legal or illegal to cast if there is no one left to abide by them. Our stance on Muggles won't matter if they are the only ones left on the British Isles. He had said, bluntly, throwing the truths that he had been trying to avoid for weeks into his face. It's not a time for war anymore. It's not about you and me anymore. It's not about the Light and the Dark anymore. It's time for the long-awaited peace to come to Britain, whether we want it or not. It's up to you and me to bring, secure and maintain that peace now, whether we like it or not. Because this is our duty as leaders and figureheads to this country. They have depended on us to bring their dreams to life for decades now. But this is not a time for dreams, it's time to survive. And survive they would, because Britain needed them to work together right now and reading that letter, Voldemort could see that nothing would stand on their path to survival if the two of them put their mind to it.

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The idea of a marital bond had been unexpected but Voldemort wasn't sure whether it was welcome or not. The idea had come from the Granger girl, who had thought that the idea of a magic-enforced bond that would bind their lives together would give the public proof that they were willing to put aside their differences to bring the peace and keep it. It had certainly been controversial, but it hadn't been any different from countries using their princesses to stop a war and bring a union between them. There weren't any princesses to give away or countries to give them to but the idea of an arranged marriage had been sensible, though unusual. It wasn't normally how civil wars would be stopped, but this wasn't a normal situation either.
And so, Tom Marvolo Riddle and Harry James Potter became husband and husband on the 7th of July, 1998 and neither of them smiled even once during the 5-minute ceremony.

○●○●○●○

Their marriage bond was a unique one, the Evermore Bond, it was called. It was a strict bond with unique rules that had been invented during the 9th century by the French entirely for arranged marriages, though nobilities had also chosen to marry with it later on. The most prominent difference of it compared to other types of bonds was the fact that it bound the life spans of the couple together. If one of them died, the other would follow in their sleep soon after. There were many rules that it enforced upon the couple after the ceremony; the marriage had to be consummated within 17 hours, the couple had to dine together at least 4 times a week unless one of them was out of the country, they had to share a bed unless one of them was afflicted with a contagious disease, was a sleepwalker, was out of the country or had fallen asleep somewhere else accidentally, cheating wasn't allowed, nor was taking on a consort but regular sex was also not enforced besides the initial consummation and one of the sides wasn't allowed to commit suicide because it would kill the other.
It didn't promise a happy marriage or even a satisfying one, but it served the purpose of presenting a united front to the public and the rest of the world and stop the parties from killing each other and no one had the gall to expect more of it.

○●○●○●○

If an idiotic fool were to ever dare to ask Voldemort about his wedding night he would Crucio the little sanity they had out of them and then leave. But if he were to think back on his wedding night himself, he would only describe it as 'clinical'. There were no emotions involved and no pleasure was gained. It was done to satisfy the rule of consummation, which basically meant that one of them had to enter the other and that was it. He had prepared his new husband with a couple of enchantments, redirected his own blood flow with another one, put it in, taken it out and then gone to sleep.
And that had been it.

○●○●○●○

Over the years Voldemort had gained a somewhat human-like look to himself. He had most certainly been surprised when he had woken up to suddenly having a nose about half a decade after he had gained his body but the changes hadn't stopped just there. He had regained his chocolate coloured hair back, bit by bit, his skin had gone from a paperwhite to an unhealthy pale, his eyes had remained red but he had grown lashes, he gained some fat and muscle to his body and had honestly never contemplated on the why of it until Bellatrix commented on it one day, two years after the Report. Even then, the only thing that had changed for him was that he now had to brush his hair in the mornings as well. Potter whom he usually forgot that he was married to had commented on it during dinner in passing a couple of months after Bellatrix as well. He had told him that he didn't really care about it and didn't even know why such a change had occurred. Potter had just looked at him, thought for a minute and then casually said 'Maybe it's a side effect of having a nearly complete soul in your body. Of course, that is assuming that the soul pieces inside the Horcruxes return to the body after the shell has been destroyed. You only have like, what, two Horcruxes left, right?' And that had been how he had found just how close he had been to being mortal prior to his wedding. Perhaps he might create some new ones to avoid such a fate? 'Don't you dare create new ones, you fool, it's obviously doing wonders for your sanity. I will know it and I will destroy it if you attempt such an idiotic thing like splitting your soul once again' Well, he might as well spare some time to find a good place to relocate the Diadem, then. Hogwarts was going to get very crowded very soon anyways. It wouldn't do for a student to come across the Room of Requirement by luck.

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'Isn't that Dumbledore's wand?' said Potter to him, one day. 'I stole it from his tomb.' The deadpan look the smaller man had given him was practically a plea to be killed. 'But you don't need it anymore, because the war is over. So you will give that wand to me, now, and I will take it back to his tomb. No need to remain a grave robber, understood?' Voldemort would have liked to have said that he put up a fight, but over the decade they had spent working together, he had honestly learned to pick his fights with his fellow High Lord of Britain and could see that he wouldn't be winning this one. So he handed over the wand, and promptly forgot about it.

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While their marriage itself was most certainly not happy or fulfilling, no one could deny that it was successful, because after they had put their differences aside and learned to work together, Harry and Voldemort made a great team. While they did have an advisory council in the form of Hermione Granger, Remus Lupin, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Severus Snape, Rodolphus Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy, most of the plans of action came from Harry and Voldemort themselves. They would argue over the things the other wanted to do for hours on end but inevitably come to a result that worked the best for Britain before they had to retire for the night and no one could find a fault in it. Voldemort would have liked to say that the improvement of Britain over the years was because of him but he wasn't that much of a hypocrite. Because Harry was, somehow, a good leader and a good ruler who had done his fair share of work so that Britain would survive and thrive. And it was because of that weird but inexplicably successful teamwork of theirs that they succeeded in everything they put their mind to. And it was because of that, that in 49 years they accomplished everything they had set out to do. Britain's population crossed the 50,000 people threshold. Hogwarts finally had a yearly steady 1st-year student count of 500. Muggleborns were raised since birth by wizards. Incest was outlawed for first, second and third-degree relatives, which raised the fertility rate, the child count per family, the children's magical strength, and the intelligence and competence of the children. A magical primary school opened for those between 6-11 years old. A second magical hospital opened in Cambridge when St. Mungo became too crowded and understaffed to attend to everyone properly when Britain hit the 15,000 population mark, named Asclepiades Center. A magical University opened at the 25,000 population mark for a variety of professions and Masteries that had by now required several years of independent study to apply. A wizarding television was invented in 2007 by a Muggleborn. Magical religions were allowed to be practised. Christmas and Halloween had their names changed to Yule and Samhain. The Easter Holiday was renamed the Spring Holiday. Dark magic was declared legal to a degree but the learning and the practising of it were to be done with an appropriate mentor until one had at least an EE from their Dark Arts OWLs or NEWTs. New lessons like Magical Theory, Dark Arts, Light Arts, Wizarding Politics and Law, Healing, Warding, Alchemy, Languages, Mind Arts, Spell Creation, Fencing and Martial Arts, Mathematics, Literature, Elemental Magic and Apparation were brought in as electives and core classes. Binns was exorcised, Trelawney was replaced with a competent Seer, Hagrid was replaced with an actual Magizoologist, the curse on the defence Position was lifted and the class was renamed as simply Magical Offence and Defence, Filch was sacked, McGonagall became Headmistress and Flitwick became Deputy Headmaster, Snape left to invent new potions for the Department of Mysteries and competent teachers who could prove their capabilities were brought in for the new positions available. When Hogwarts reached the 2000 student mark, a complete overhaul of the school happened. Students stopped sharing dorms and got small rooms for themselves starting from the third year, common rooms were expanded and the classes stopped being two houses to a class and instead became a random group of 5 students from all four Houses to a class to both reduce the number of students in the class and encourage House friendships. After all that effort, Hogwarts finally regained her position as the leading Magical Institute on Earth 20 years later, which it had lost in the mid-1800s to Ilvermorny but somehow everyone in Britain had chosen to ignore.

So in the end, it was a successful marriage, all things considered.

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One day, roughly 49 years after the Report happened, Voldemort woke up on a warm summer day to a unique situation. Ever since last month's trade agreement with MACUSA, they had had very little to do other than their day-to-day duties and had decided to sleep in a little. When he woke up that morning, though, he wasn't expecting to feel warm. True, he had become somewhat more human-like over the years but his blood still ran cold like a serpent. He opened his eyes and looked to the man in his arms, still not looking a day over his twenties. Looking at Potter who had accidentally moved into his arms over the night, a staggering realization struck Voldemort.
He had been married to this man for nearly half a century and had found out only just now that he preferred a caramel scented shampoo. Was this really the first time he had ever held his husband of 49 years in his arms? Had they been this far away from each other, miles between them on the same bed? What did he even know about this man? Had they ever even been living, all this time? A cold marriage, on a cold bed, far far away from each other but still forced to spend the rest of eternity on it together...
He had already spent half a century with this man and would be spending many more as well. Did he really want them to be like this as well? Ignoring each other in the same house all day long now that they don't have anything to keep them busy?
He had never expected to be loved or cherished in any way before. He didn't expect it now as well, Merlin knew there was too much bad blood between him and Potter for such a thing to ever occur, they were barely coexisting together anyways.
When Dumbledore had said that he was incapable of love because he was the product of a love potion and a loveless marriage, it had been one of the only things that he had agreed with Dumbledore upon. But he had seen love before, in the eyes of his housemates as they tried to hide it, in the faces of his victims when they leapt in front of his wand for their wives and husbands and lovers, in the minds of his subordinates when he searched through them for weaknesses and proofs of treachery. He had seen it and thought it too beautiful for a monster like him.
But he was married now, had been married for nearly fifty years and was still calling his husband by his surname. Had known nothing about the person he was and everything about the leader he is. Had not ever touched him, held him, kissed him before. Had never whispered sweet nothings into his ear before. Never seen him smile or blush or be content to be in his presence before. Never heard of his childhood or the shenanigans he most definitely pulled off at school. They had been married for 49 years, and he didn't even know basic things about him. What was his favourite colour, his favourite food, his favourite animal? What had he dreamt of before being forced into this marriage with him? Had he hoped for a big family, with a wife and tons of children like the Weasleys? Was he even attracted to men?

As he laid there, in a bed that had never felt colder before, looking at the man in his arms that had never meant anything to him before but was supposed to be his everything, Voldemort made a decision.

It was time to rectify this oversight.

Notes:

I am aware that Voldemort seems a little out of character, but I think that he was averse to the idea of love because;
1-Dumbledore convinced him and everyone that he's incapable of love because he was conceived under the influence of a love potion, which is bullshit. Just look at the amount of people who are conceived because of aphrodisiacs, drugs, alcohol, rape, arranged marriages, marriages of convenience etc.
2-He thought that everyone was below him but got proven wrong when he met Harry.
3-He probably thought that he wasn't worthy of something like love and companionship.
But with circumstances like this, I think he might have reconsidered that opinion. He thought that when he became immortal, everyone around him would just die and not stay on this plane like him but someone who fits the bill and has the same lifespan as him might just make him realise that he doesn't want to live forever, alongside someone who is virtually a complete stranger to him.
I hope you liked it because I really tried my best with this. Please leave a Kudo or a comment if you did! Reading comments is what keeps writers writing during hard days!