Chapter Text
August 2002
In the North Sea, situated on a small island sat Azkaban Prison. When built in 1718, this fortress housed some of the worst criminals in the world - murderers, political traitors, dark lords, etc. What was most confusing upon finally realising where she was, was that Azkaban had been torn down by Minister Slytherin. Hermione had awoken in her younger body in a horridly dystopian world. Her body, while younger, was riddled with scars and dark magic.
She felt out for her bonds, her children, her husband, her family. While she could still feel her family magic, but her children’s bonds were non-existent, in fact her magic felt different. Her magic felt weaker, tainted, and smothered in some way. She reached out again for her husband through her bond, and while she felt him, he felt similar to her magic - tainted.
Hermione’s first few days in her new life had been denial, she did nothing but sleep on the floor of her damp cell. She spent the next few days working through a plan in her mind:
- Escape
- Get wand
- Who am I
- Where am I
- Find Family
- Get back home
Hermione began calling out to those around her, while addled, she found out from her fellow prisoners through quiet whispers more about her situation. Her name was still Hermione Granger. Rather than holding murderers and the foulest wizards, Azkaban now held famous rebels from the light side. She learned that she was the only one of the “Golden Trio” still alive and that she was on the losing side of the war. She found out that the Malfoys had fought opposite her in the war and she was considered a famous muggleborn here.
There have been four major wars in Wizarding Britain in the past 100 years with 3 different Dark Lords. In all of these wars, there was a unifying hatred of Muggles and Muggleborn. Where Grindelwald and Voldemort led armies, the third Dark Lord, Draco Malfoy, had taken a more business like approach to his war.
It was upon learning that her husband was responsible for so many deaths, that Hermione broke down. It took several more days, if not weeks for Hermione to begin redrafting her plan:
- Get wand
- Escape
- Where am I
- Get back home
- Find help or create safe place to make a better plan
But perhaps more similar to his predecessors, Draco Malfoy had a thirst to achieve immortality. Unlike Voldemort’s drive to live forever or Grindelwald’s quest to be the master of death, Draco wanted to live in infamy. It was to Hermione’s great horror that the only book in her cell was a piece of propaganda hate mongering written by her husband. Draco had written a manifesto, Pura Magicae, where he wrote of his purity of magic, his greatness, his ideas, how he was able to so easily overtake a weak society. She heaved up the meagre breakfast she was given upon reaching the chapter on poetic apodization of the muggle and muggleborn work camps that had been created.
There are, it turns out, two kinds of dictatorial writers: those who used their writing as part of their ascendancy, and those who began publishing only once they were already in power, when their audience was already captive. Draco Malfoy fell into the latter type of dictator. Pura Magicae was a required read by every student and resident of the British magical world according to the book. Azkaban, too, provided this manifesto to every inmate.
Excerpts from Pura Magicae:
“Great things can be achieved if they are thought about from the eye of a businessman. When one owns the homes where people live and the places where people shop, then they are already indebted to you. You can dictate their lifestyle, what they pay, what is popular, what is not.”
“Sometimes the difference between being able to achieve a goal or not comes down to marketing. The New Regime gave hope for a new beginning, a new approach, and a new way forward, where the “Death Eaters” were a symbol of despair and demise. Marketing is an important strategy to ensure the growth of your business. While your current customers should always be your main priority, marketing efforts can help you expand this base.”