Hermione Granger and the Marriage Law Revolution
by Starfox5 (who is also the author of Harry Potter and the Lady Thief, Divided and Entwined, Patron and The Dark Lord Never Died) is a Harry Potter Fanfic in which the Ministry of Magic is overthrown in a revolution after an ill-adviced law is passed in an attempt to reverse the low birth rates in the wizarding world, which has deeper repercutions throughout the rest of the worldwide magical community.
There's also a prologue which deals with the immediate aftermath of Voldemort's defeat.
Unmarked spoilers below.
This Work Has Examples Of The Following Tropes:
- Adam and Eve Plot: Deconstructed. The Wizengamot passes a law to "strictly enforce" marriage as part of a plan to repopulate the wizarding population. It instead helps trigger a revolution.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Hermione Granger becomes Straw Character and a Smug Snake, who smirks at the people that she fought alongside just a few months prior.
- Conscription: After suffering various defeats and with Magical Prussia mobilizing against them, the magical French government decides to enact conscription and use muggleborns as Cannon Fodder.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Happens when purebloods face up Mage Marksman, such as such as the ICW delegation whose death triggers the Revolutionary Wars.
- Destroy the Evidence: Evidence concerning Voldemort's plans were destroyed, including paperwork about the existance of the Snatchers.
- Deflector Shields: Shield Charms are capable of withstanding guns, and a skilled enough wizard can cast a Shield Charm strong enough to withstand even machineguns. However the rate of fire will eventually cause the Shield to collapse.
- The Russian War Wizards are capable of fusing multiple shield charms to creater a greater shield and were able to modify it to counter RPGs
- Dirty Communists: Russian muggleborns take a decidedly communist-leaning orientation when they rebel against the Tsar.
- Elites Are More Glamorous: The Russian War Wizards which contrast with Aurors in actually being a military force. They're known for their shield spells and tactics, as well being able to adapt to Mage Marksman tactics favored by muggleborns to some extent.
- The Empath: Luna Lovegood can see people's emotions but she interprets them as magical creatures such as Wrackspurts or the Others.
- Face Death with Dignity: A tenet of pureblood culture is that one should face death with absolute calm-though most who get the chance fail to live up to it. Late in the story, the Tsar of Magical Russia shows how it's done.
- Good Is Dumb: Hermione's view of Dumbledore's focus on forgiveness and redemption, which she blames for the Second Blood War as it allowed Death Eaters and their supporters to avoid being punished for their crimes and thus continue to corrupt and weaken the Ministry.
- Good Is Not Soft: Harry and Hermione are completely ruthless, setting up Tribunals that execute Death Eater supporters and even former allies, such as Kingsley Shacklebolt. These actions actually cause some of their allies, such as the Weasleys, to be alienated.
- Good Republic, Evil Empire: Britain is a republic and it funds muggleborn movements in establishing republics in their respective wizarding governments. By contrast, Magical Russia is an autocratic empire and the driving force of the Revolutionary War.
- Heel Realization: Harry and Hermione have one near the end of the story, when they catch themselves considering killing Neville upon finding out the surviving Pureblood politicians want him to run for Minister. Wisely, they decide to not run in the new election and get some much needed therapy before they become like Malfoy.
- Heroic Sacrifice: A few, with the most notable being the Tsar of Magical Russia: knowing that he could still win but that if the civil war continued his country would be too weakened to resist its neighbours and that his very existance was the greatest hurdle to stop it, he went out to be killed in such a way everyone would know it was him, and seconds after his smiling corpse touched the ground his loyalist were surrendering as per orders.
- Icon of Rebellion: The Russian muggleborn rebels use a red flag as theirs and their leader, Sasha, is known as Mолот which means hammer.
- Jerkass Has a Point: In spite of her hostility, Hermione is correct when she says that Hogwarts is not living up to modern educational standards, often because it's an Ancient Tradition.
- Just Following Orders: Many Ministry employees use this line of defense after Voldemort's fall. It works.
- Karma Houdini: Played with. High ranking personnel, such as Dolores Umbridge which were involved in the persecution of muggleborns, were sent to Azkaban. However others such as the Malfoys and lower ranking Ministry employees, especially if they are pureblood, get away scott free.
- Kangaroo Court: The Wizengamot as it dismissed the testimonies of muggleborns, refused to investigate the murder of Muggle Foster Parents that occurred during the war and refused to use Veritaserum in suspected criminals. Subverted with the Tribunals established after the revolution in that magical methods capable of ferring out the truth are used to ensure that only the guilty will be punished.
- Mage Marksman: Used by the New Ministry, by having trained wizard-soldiers using enchanted guns.
- Mildly Military: Most wizards, even muggleborns, think that Aurors are basically this with the Hit-Wizards being an elite team. Harry and Hermione know they're just regular law enforcement.
- Militaries Are Useless: Adverted. The New Ministry seeks to obtain military forces for national defense. They also colaborate with the muggle government to defend Britain during the Revolutionary Wars.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: It happens multiple times, with some notable examples being:
- First, the lack of accountability in awake of Voldemort's fall and the marriage laws result in a revolution in Britain;
- The threat of rape by a pureblood officer is what ultimately triggers a mutiny by Russian muggleborns.
- More Dakka: Enchanted machine guns have multiplication charms, giving them unlimited ammunition.
- The Mutiny:
- The French governments sends muggleborns to go burn down a Prussian village in order to set a pretext for war. When a pureblood commander murder a child, the muggleborns kill him and rebel against the government.
- When a Russian pureblood commander attempts to rape a muggleborn official, the muggleborns kill him and the War Wizards.
- Noble Bigot: The Tsar of Magical Russia thinks that Muggleborns are inherently semi-barbarians and inferior to proper Pureblood wizards, thus justifying the Pureblood rule... And embraces the duty to do them justice and properly lead them as well as the rest of his subjects, and does his best to do just that. To the point that when he has the choice between continuing the war and possibly win but at the price of weakening Russia to the point of inevitable destruction at the hands of its enemies and end the war with his death in battle he makes sure he gets killed as fast as possible without taking anyone with him.
- Off on a Technicality: The prologue deals with a trial of a low ranking Ministry employee who gets away with his crimes thanks to this.
- Opposing Combat Philosophies: The New Ministry favors Mage Marksman and modern warfare while purebloods favor traditional Wizard Duel in large scale. By contrast the Russian War Wizards prefer to be Properly Paranoid and use Zerg Rush tactics to overwhelm their enemies.
- Pretext for War: Magical Prussia makes a False Flag Operation in which a "British agent" is killed by French Aurors in Prussia, to justify declaring war against Magical France. It doesn't fool anyone but it causes the war to escalate.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: To reverse the low birth rates amongst wizards, especially after a vicious war, the Ministry passes a series of laws that are basically this.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The descriptions of the fall of the Ministry include the statue in the Attrium being blown up, Aurors' corpses streching along the floor and Ministry employees being beaten up.
- The Tribunals established after the Revolution would wipe most of the pureblood aristocracy.
- Show, Don't Tell: The early sections of the fic face a reversal of this, as there's a greater deal of Exposition about how, for instance Hermione convinced Harry that harsher measures are necesary to prevent a third blood war.
- Switching P.O.V.: Each chapter is divided into sections in each character becomes the narrative protagonist.
- There Are No Global Consequences: Adverted. The Revolution paves the way for a magical war between the wizarding European governments.
- Undying Loyalty: Many in Magical Russia are completely loyal to the Tsar, and would burn the world to the ground at his orders. When he orders them to surrender and work with the revolutionaries as soon as he's dead, they do that with tears in their eyes.
- Unreliable Narrator: The various characters have obvious biases present in their respective sections of each chapter. A perfect example is how Percy thinks that Ron wanted Hermione to Stay in the Kitchen while the real reason they broke up is because of Culture Clash.
- War Arc: The war between the ICW and the New Ministry assisted by the muggle British government occupies the majority of the work.
