History FanFic / WishCarefully

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: Lucius wonders if the two biggest problems facing Magical Britain could've been prevented from getting as bad as they have if they'd been addressed earlier.
** Lucius thinks that if the rich Death Eater families opened up their vaults to make more business loans available, their economy could have been saved, or at least prevented from reaching a "point of no return" to complete shambles.
** Lucius thinks that if someone listened to the clerk who spotted their incoming population problem when he first warned of it and tried to address the issue, they would not have found themselves with a population that is declining in both numbers and average magical power, and they would not have had to resort to the desperate measures they did just to stave off complete population collapse for a few more generations.

* CerebusRetcon: Turns out Crabbe and Goyle being dumber than a bag of hammers is a result of generations of inbreeding among their families. And the problem only gets worse when those Dark pureblood families are the only ones left in Wizarding Britain by the Parlay Rites. By the time Lucius is an old man, the current generation of Death Eater children are so magically weak that they're incapable of completing the traditional Hogwarts seventh-year courses.

* TheConspiracy: The Death Eaters have been making very sure that Voldemort never finds out about their population decline and their attempts to avert it. [[spoiler:They also conspire to attack Voldemort in an attempt to kill him or send him to Harry Potter for him to kill]].

** The Death Eaters' membership was comprised mainly of the [[BlueBlood old money elites]] and the shady criminal underclass. Following the Light Supporters' exile, they quickly find that the middle and working classes (i.e., the business owners, producers of complex goods, and skilled laborers who helped maintain and keep the wheels of society turning smoothly) were primarily made up of either Muggleborns or the Light-aligned. As a result, the economy is gutted, much of the workforce is gone, and it's not long before the infrastructure starts breaking down due to a lack of regular maintenance, and because none of the Death Eaters have the skills or knowledge on how to fix these problems, they're forced to rely on expensive goblin artificers.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: As noted by WordOfGod, the only ones among his descendants that Lucius genuinely cares about and doesn't treat as pawns are Draco and Leonidas, and the fact that the latter has made his distaste about the Death Eaters' screw-ups and sees Wizarding Britain as beyond salvation clear does genuinely sadden Lucius.

* ImplausibleDeniability: Lucius and the other Death Eater deny that they kidnapped several women despite there being a lot of evidence, although it helps that Voldemort was offended when he was asked and crucioed the ambassadors.

* OriginalCharacter: Leonidas Malfoy, Draco's son and Lucius's grandson, [[spoiler:an undercover Light-side supporter who smuggles pure-blooded Squib children into Muggle orphanages]].

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: The unnamed Hogwarts clerk. He isn't entirely innocent, as wizards that remained in Britain were primarily Dark-sided unless they were Healers who stayed out of obligation but eventually realizes the pitfalls of his chosen side. When his warnings go unheeded, the clerk ensures his grandchild's escape and is killed for it.

* SympatheticPOV: [[AvertedTrope Nope]]. For all that he's been utterly humiliated and watching his society fall apart, Lucius is still horrible and irredeemable.

* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: The youngest of the girls kidnapped to serve as a BreedingSlave for the Dark pureblooded families was only ''thirteen''.

* BadBoss: Voldemort is even worse now than he ever was during his first rule, since there are no Muggle-borns, Muggles or Light-aligned wizards around to torture, and the Death Eaters are magically prevented from even touching the Muggles. This means that the only people Voldemort can enact his sadistic whims on are his followers.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot:
** Lucius thinks that if the rich Death Eater families opened up their vaults to make more business loans available, their economy could have been saved, or at least prevented from reaching a point of no-return to complete shambles.
** Lucius thinks that if someone listened to the clerk who spotted their incoming population problem when he first warned of it and tried to address the issue, they would not have found themselves with a population that is declining in both numbers and average magical power, and they would not have had to resort to the desperate measures just to stave off complete population collapse for a couple more generations.

* FantasticRacism: It's present, but as science and Nazi Germany discredited eugenics, so did Voldemort's Wizarding England single-handedly discredit pureblood ideology and blood supremacy. Lucius even mentions that he's heard reports from outside Britain about other pureblooded families seeking out Muggleborns for marriages and trying to make sure that their bloodlines don't become "too pure" and notes that his own father Abraxias (who was an even bigger purist than him) would be spinning in his grave. In the end, Lucius is still a heartless racist and classist jerk -- the closest he comes to a HeelRealization is acknowledging that his idea didn't work.

** The Death Eaters were absolutely certain that didn't need the Muggles or the Muggle-borns. How wrong they were...

* TruthInTelevision: The problems facing Wizarding Britain post-Voldemort take over mirror real life issues when constructing ethno-nationalist states: the loss of valuable human capital, a sclerotic and backward dictatorship, international isolation, and horrible decay.

** Apparently, even parents willing to sell their daughters as MailOrderBride[=s=] balk at sending them to DeathEater-controlled England.

* AllForNothing: The Death Eaters kidnapped eight young witches from different areas around the world to inject some fresh new blood into their limited gene pool, a solution that ultimately amounted to putting a bandaid on a broken leg, as Lucius admits that the girls only gave them a few more generations to hold off the inevitable decline, especially after the rest of the magical world made sure that they wouldn't be able to repeat the incident.

* CassandraTruth: The aforementioned Hogwarts letter clerk tried to point out that their population is declining as fewer and fewer names show up in the Hogwarts letter listing. Many refused to listen to him until it's too late.

** Lucius ignored the fact that his grandson often visited his blood mother because he didn't want to deprive him of a genuine maternal experience when he and his step-mother never bonded.
** Apparently, even parents willing to sell their daughters as MailOrderBride[=s=] balk at sending them to Death-Eater controlled England.

* GodzillaThreshold: Kidnapping the foreign girls was the Death Eaters' last resort to fix their lack of genetic variety, falling birth rates and population decline, even if it meant mixing their blood with a Muggle-born, which at least two of the girls were. Moreover, [[spoiler:everyone has become so desperate to fix things due to Voldemort's incompetence as a ruler leading to the ruination of Magical Britain that the Malfoys and several other high-ranking Death Eaters are coming together with a plan to either kill Voldemort themselves or at least subdue him and deliver him to Harry Potter so he can kill Voldemort for them]].

** While the Cabal manage to temporarily stave off their families' decline by kidnapping some foreign witches, the kidnappings cause the ICW to place the Net over Britain, effectively trapping all Dark wizards in the country.

* DystopiaIsHard: Wizarding England under the Dark Lord has no resources or economy, their laws are too draconian to attract any immigrants and their population is slowly dying out.

** While not quite Squibs, the pure-blood children of the current generation are also severely inbred and their magic is so weak that they're not capable of completing the traditional Hogwarts seventh year courses.

* FantasticRacism: It's present, but as science and Nazi Germany discredited eugenics, so did Voldemort's Wizarding England single-handedly discredit pure-blood ideology and blood supremacy. Lucius even mentions that he's heard reports from outside Britain about other pure-blooded families seeking out Muggle-borns for marriages and trying to make sure that their bloodlines don't become "too pure", and mentions that his own father Abraxias (who was an even bigger purist than him) would be spinning in his grave. In the end, Lucius is still a heartless racist and classist jerk -- the closest he comes to a HeelRealization is acknowledging that his idea didn't work.

* GodzillaThreshold: Kidnapping the foreign girls was the Death Eaters' last resort to fix their lack of genetic variety, falling birth rates and population decline, even if it meant mixing their blood with a Muggle-born, which at least two of the girls were. Moreover, [[spoiler:everyone has become so desperate to fix things due to Voldemort's incompetence as a ruler leading to the ruination of Magical Britain that the Malfoys and several other high ranking Death Eaters are coming together with a plan to either kill Voldemort themselves or at least subdue him and deliver him to Harry Potter so he can kill Voldemort for them]].

* GuileHero: Harry is called almost Slytherin-like in planning since he spares his people war with a treaty that crippled his enemies in both the short and long-term, and earns the adoration of the Light by buying several islands in the Pacific to inhabit after their Exodus.

* FantasticRacism: It's present, but as science and Nazi Germany discredited eugenics, so did Voldemort's Wizarding England single-handedly discredit pure-blood ideology and blood supremacy. As Lucius puts it:
-->We believed that the magic of Muggle-borns was a mistake - as if magic would grant her gift in error... what hubris! We were happy, eager even, to agree to the removal of every Muggle-born from Britain for as long as we, or our descendants, ruled. We didn't want them and were happy to have them take care of the problem for us. The mudbloods, half-bloods, and that worst of abominations - the Squib-born; would be gone and we wouldn't have to lift a finger. They would sweep in yearly and gather them up, with their families. We eagerly agreed and signed, binding ourselves, and our descendants, to that travesty. The world now knows that Muggle-borns are magic's gift. They are created to strengthen and diversify the blood and keep magic alive and strong.
** Lucius even mentions that he's heard reports from outside Britain about other pure-blooded families seeking out Muggle-borns for marriages and trying to make sure that their bloodlines don't become "too pure", and mentions that his own father Abraxias (who was an even bigger purist than him) would be spinning in his grave. In the end, Lucius is still a heartless racist and classist jerk -- the closest he comes to a HeelRealization is acknowledging that his idea didn't work.

* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: Averted. When all the Light supporters were exiled from the Death Eaters' new magical Britain, most businesses saw their consumer bases and their producers go with them, cutting out a substantial portion of the workforce in the process. Most of the remaining Dark-supporting pure-bloods deluded themselves that the economy would sort itself out into something smaller and more efficient. By the time Lucius is an elderly man, they ''still'' haven't recovered.

* DidntThinkThisThrough:
** Lucius mentions that the more aristocratic Death Eaters had expected the Death Eaters in the lower social classes to fill some of the gaps caused by the Light-aligned workers' exodus. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to most of them that these minions had become criminals in the first place because they didn't have any useful skills. Even if they wanted to improve themselves, they'd need both training and capital to start a business, neither of which occurred to the Death Eater nobility to provide.
** Anyone with even a basic understanding of biology could tell you that there is no such thing as a superior bloodline, and what actually keeps a society strong is a diverse and healthy gene pool. The Death Eaters, being blood supremacists, wouldn't hear of it until it was too late. As a result, the constant inbreeding has been making them both intellectually and magically weaker with each passing generation.

* DyingRace: The Dark pure-bloods are losing their magic as the result of decades' worth of continuous inbreeding, with each generation producing more Squibs than the last. In the year before the Cabal kidnapped [[BreedingSlave eight foreign young witches]] to inject some much-needed fresh blood into their gene pool, only ''four'' pureblood children with any magical ability were born in all of Britain, compared to the 27 Muggleborns born at the same time period. Lucius even admits that the kidnapping scheme was little more than a temporary solution to hold off the inevitable, predicting that the girls have only given them a few more generations at most. And since the ICW put up the Net around Britain after the scheme was discovered, preventing anyone from leaving or entering, kidnapping more girls is not an option.

* FascistButInefficient: Not too long after the Light Exiles left Britain, the Death Eaters found out the hard way their society was tilted to the very top and very bottom due to the massive loss of the workforce and having nobody to produce goods or do the "dirty jobs" that kept society running smoothly. For example, when the magical lifts at the Ministry of Magic stopped working, they realized the maintenance clerk, the technician and the regular repair company were gone. In the end, they had to hire expensive goblin artificers because none of them had the skills or knowledge on how to fix the problem.

** Leonidas takes pure-blood Squib children to Muggle orphanages so that their own children, in turn, would be declared Muggle-borns and be taken out of England.

* HeroicBastard: Leonidas is born from the union of a pure-blood concubine and Draco. He is also heavily implied to be a Light supporter, as evidenced by his retaining his magic after spiriting Squib-borns away to Muggle orphanages.

* IAmNotMyFather: Leonidas wants to be nothing like his father and grandfather, secretly supporting the Light and helping people get smuggled out of Britain.

* LastOfHisKind: Because of his immortality, Leonidas believes that eventually, Voldemort will be the only remaining Wizard in England, and with no followers left to torture, his sadism and insanity will drive him into attacking a Muggle, at which point he will immediately lose his magic. This will either result in his body collapsing with no magic to sustain it, or the Muggle authorities will believe him to be some sort of deformed madman and have him either imprisoned or committed.

* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: [[spoiler:By the time Lucius is an old man, the Death Eaters have become so sick of Voldemort's madness and cruelty that they're planning to attack him all at once to either kill him or deliver him to Harry Potter so Harry can kill Voldemort for them]].

* OffscreenVillainDarkMatter: {{Averted}}. The bulk of the Death Eaters belonged either to the criminal underclass or the [[BlueBlood aristocratic pure-blood lines]]. The middle and working classes, those that produced complex goods or provided skilled services that kept everything behind the scenes running smoothly, were primarily Light-affiliated. With those people gone, Wizarding society in Britain rapidly begins to feel the pinch. To illustrate, Lucius specifically mentions the example of the day that the magical lifts in the Ministry stopped working. Not only had the clerk who was supposed to oversee the maintenance left, but so had the artificer he had previously contracted. In the end, the Death Eaters had to hire expensive goblin artificers simply because none of them had the skills to fix the problem.
* OriginalCharacter: Leonidas Malfoy, Draco's son and Lucius's grandson, an undercover Light-side supporter who smuggles pure-blooded Squib children into Muggle orphanages.

** The Death Eaters were absolutely certain that didn't need the Muggles or the Muggleborns. How wrong they were...

* WonTheWarLostThePeace: Voldemort successfully drives Harry and his supporters out of Great Britain, and Harry is laughing all the way to the bank. Voldemort's pure blood society falls apart within a generation.

-->We believed that the magic of Muggle-borns was a mistake -- as if magic would grant her gift in error... what hubris! We were happy, eager even, to agree to the removal of every Muggle-born from Britain for as long as we, or our descendants, ruled. We didn't want them and were happy to have them take care of the problem for us. The mudbloods, half-bloods, and that worst of abominations -- the Squib-born; would be gone and we wouldn't have to lift a finger. They would sweep in yearly and gather them up, with their families. We eagerly agreed and signed, binding ourselves, and our descendants, to that travesty. The world now knows that Muggle-borns are magic's gift. They are created to strengthen and diversify the blood and keep magic alive and strong.

** Apparently, even parents willing to sell their daughters as {{Mail Order Bride}}s balk at sending them to Death-Eater controlled England.

* BadFuture: For the Death Eaters. The economy is in shambles, their population is dying out, the international community locked them in their own country so they don't spread, and they live under the rule of a mad dictator. For the Light side, this is inverted, as their lives ''improved'' after they were exiled - they have a prosperous economy, a healthy population, a good government, and are ultimately seen in the right.
* BatmanGambit: The premise is Harry setting up one for the Death Eaters with the Rites of Parlay. [[spoiler:Leonidas predicts he's set up ''another'' one targeted at Voldemort specifically - with the Wizarding population in Britain dwindling to nothing, Voldemort will inevitably move onto terrorizing {{Muggles}} and thus lose his magic, which will leave him easy pickings for the authorities and possibly cut him off from his [[SoulJar Horcruxes]] as a bonus, or just kill him since his body was made by magic.]]

* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: No one is bothered anymore if someone drops to the ground screaming and clutching their arm - the Dark Lord finds it funny to torture people through their Dark Marks. The outside world was horrified, however, and as a result, Wizarding England could not get any immigrants to possibly fill out any gaps in the workforce.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: As noted by WordOfGod, the only ones among his descendants that Lucius genuinely cares about and doesn't treat as pawns are Draco and Leonidas, and the fact that the latter has made his distaste about the Death Eaters' screw ups and sees Wizarding Britain as beyond salvation clear does genuinely sadden Lucius.

-->We believed that the magic of Muggle-borns was a mistake - as if magic would grant her gift in error... what hubris! We were happy, eager even, to agree to the removal of every Muggle-born from Britain for as long as we, or our descendants, ruled. We didn't want them and were happy to have them take care of the problem for us. The mudbloods, half-bloods, and that worst of abominations - the Squib-born; would be gone and we wouldn't have to lift a finger. They would sweep in yearly and gather them up, with their families. We eagerly agreed and signed, binding ourselves, and our descendants, to that travesty. The world now knows that Muggle-borns are magic's gift. They are created to strengthen and diversify the blood and keep magic alive and strong.
** Lucius even mentions that he's heard reports from outside Britain about other pure-blooded families seeking out Muggle-borns for marriages and trying to make sure that their bloodlines don't become "too pure", and mentions that his own father Abraxias (who was an even bigger purist than him) would be spinning in his grave. In the end, Lucius is still a heartless racist and classist jerk - the closest he comes to a HeelRealization is acknowledging that his idea didn't work.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: The modus operandi of the Light Exodus - everyone that was Light-affiliated or plain didn't like the Death Eaters left England for good.

* DidNotThinkThisThrough:

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** The Death Eaters' membership was comprised mainly of the [[BlueBlood old money elites]] and the shady criminal underclass. Following the Light Supporters' exile, they quickly find that the middle and working classes (i.e., the business owners, producers of complex goods, and skilled laborers who helped maintain and keep the wheels of society turning smoothly) were primarily made up of either Muggleborns or the Light-aligned. Not only is the economy gutted and the workforce all but gone, it's not long before the infrastructure starts breaking down due to lack of regular maintenance, and because none of the Death Eaters have the skills or knowledge on how to fix these problems, they're forced to rely on expensive goblin artificers.
** Lucius mentions that the more aristocratic Death Eaters had expected the Death Eaters in the lower social classes to fill some of the gaps caused by the Light-aligned workers' exodus. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to most of them that these minions had become criminals in the first place because they didn't have any useful skills. Even if they wanted to improve themselves, they'd need both training and capital to start a business, neither of which occurred to the Death Eater nobility to provide.
** Anyone with even a basic understanding of biology could tell you that there is no such thing as a superior bloodline, and what actually keeps a society strong is a diverse and healthy gene pool. The Death Eaters, being blood supremacists, wouldn't hear of it until it was too late. As a result, the constant inbreeding has been making them both intellectually and magically weaker with each passing generation.

* PyrrhicVictory: Lucius now realizes their victory over the light is this. While they may have gotten what they wanted, they condemned themselves to an insane ruler, a shambling economy and a slow death due to inbreeding.

* PyrrhicVillainy: While the Cabal manage to temporarily stave off their families' decline by kidnapping some foreign witches, the kidnappings cause the ICW to place the Net over Britain, effectively trapping all Dark wizards in the country.

* AllForNothing: The Death Eaters kidnapped eight young witches from different areas around the world to inject some fresh new blood into their limited gene pool, a solution that ultimately amounted to putting a bandaid on a broken leg, as Lucius admits that the girls only gave them a few more generations to hold off the inevitable decline.

* BreakTheHaughty: It happens on a society-wide scale, with the Death Eaters forced to see just how unsustainable and wrong their ideology was, all the while all the other pureblood around the world saw what a load of bull pureblood supremacy was.

To avoid going to war after Albus Dumbledore's death, Harry Potter negotiated a deal to let Voldemort and the Death Eaters gain control of Wizarding England, exiling anyone not a pure-blooded supremacist, and coming to collect everyone who isn't born as such once a year. Also, the Dark can't interfere with the Muggle world, or risk losing their magic. While the Dark gleefully agreed to the idea at first, they [[GoneHorriblyRight hadn't counted on the long-term consequences]].

* AllForNothing: The Death Eater kidnapped eight young witches from different areas around the world to inject some fresh new blood into their limited gene pool, a solution that amounted to putting a bandaid on a broken leg, as Lucius admits that the girls only gave them a few more generations to hold off the inevitable GenerationalMagicDecline and population decline.

** The male Death Eaters, while not slaves as such, are also forced to produce as many offspring as possible, to the point that they've been reduced to using ''stud books'' (records normally used for horse breeding) to keep track of who's had children with whom.

* DefectorFromDecadence: Leonidas Malfoy wants nothing to do with Lucius and Voldemort, and does what he can to help the most vulnerable Wizarding Britain.

** Lucius even mentions that he's heard reports from outside Britain about other pure-blooded families seeking out Muggle-borns for marriages and trying to make sure that their bloodlines don't become "too pure", and mentions that his own father Abraxias (who was an even bigger purist than him) would be spinning in his grave. In the end, Lucius is still a heartless, racist, classist jerk - the closest he comes to a HeelRealization is acknowledging that his idea didn't work.

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: According to Lucius, Harry Potter has earned this due to giving the Light Sided people a new home by buying several Pacific islands for them to live in after the Exodus. This increased after the utter failure of the Dark Wizarding Britain's society and the revelations of Voldemort's tyranny came to light.

* CerebusRetcon: Turns out Crabbe and Goyle being dumber than a bag of hammers is a result of generations of inbreeding among their families. And the problem only gets worse when those Dark pureblood families are the only ones left in Wizarding Britain by the Parlay Rites. By the time Lucius is an old man, the current generation of Death Eater childrenare so magically weak that they're incapable of completing the traditional Hogwarts seventh-year courses.

* DeathOfAThousandCuts: The Death Eaters' society is completely falling apart slowly and thoroughly, piece by piece. They can see that their economy has been completely gutted and their descendents are becoming magically and intellectually weaker due to their inbreeding, but there's nothing they can do to stop it unless they want to either swallow their pride or permanently lose their magic.

* DefectorFromDecadence: Leonidas Malfoy wants nothing to do with Lucius and Voldemort, and does what he can to help the worst-off of Wizarding Britain.

** The Death Eaters' membership was comprised mainly of the [[BlueBlood old money elites]] and the shady criminal underclass. Following the Light Supporters' exile, they quickly find that the middle and working classes (i.e., the business owners, producers of complex goods, and skilled laborers who helped maintain and keep the wheels of society turning smoothly) were primarily made up of either Muggle-borns or the Light-aligned. It's not long before the infrastructure starts breaking down due to lack of maintenence, and because none of the Death Eaters have the skills or knowledge on how to fix these problems, they're forced to rely on expensive goblin artificers.

** The death Earts were absolutely certain that didn't need the Muggles or the Muggleborns. How wrong they were...

* WifeHusbandry: The younger women kidnapped by the Cabal (the youngest being ''13'') were groomed to get used to their reproductive slavery quicker.

* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother: The youngest of the girls kidnapped to serve as a BreedingSlave for the Dark pure-blooded families was only 13.

* BreakTheHaughty: It happens on a society wide scale, with the Death Eaters forced to see just how unsustainable and wrong their ideology was, all the while all pure-blooded around the world saw what a load of bull pure-blooded superiority was.

** Eight magically strong young women are kidnapped from overseas by "the Cabal", a conspiracy of Death Eaters from the most powerful pure-blooded families. They are kept in healthy condition and are given an interval of two years between each pregnancy they have to ensure their pregnancies are carried to term. But they are forced to be continuously impregnated until they're past their childbearing years, it's implied that many of the women don't get to see their children if they're adopted by the family of their pure-blooded fathers unless the child wants to see them, and the girls who aren't adopted share their mothers' fate.

* CallingTheOldManOut: Lucius's grandson, Leonidas, tells him there is nothing worth saving of Wizarding England and he wants nothing to do with his family. Leonidas especially takes issue with the fact that his father and grandfather treat him like a breeding stud.

* CerebusRetcon: Turns out, Crabbe and Goyle being dumber than a bag of hammers is a result of centuries' worth of inbreeding among the Dark pure-blooded families. And the problem only gets worse when said Dark pure-blooded families are the only ones left in Wizarding Britain by the Parlay Rites. By the time Lucius is an old man, the current generation of Death Eater children have such weak magic they're incapable of completing the traditional Hogwarts seventh year courses.

* CrapsackWorld: Wizarding England in a nutshell, after the exiles leave. So much of the population left that the economy is in shambles and inbreeding has became even more of a problem to the point that there are more Squibs being born due to the lack of genetic diversity. The best the Death Eaters could do for the latter was to slap on a band-aid solution that managed to stave off total population collapse for a few more generations; they could do nothing about the former.

* DeathOfAThousandCuts: The Death Eaters' society is falling apart slowly and thoroughly, piece by piece. They can see that their economy has been completely gutted and that year-by-year, inbreeding is gradually nibbling away at their descendants' magical potential, but there's nothing they can do to stop it unless they want to either swallow their pride or permanently lose their magic.
* DeconstructionFic: This fic takes the unsustainable models of pure-blood methodology and Death Eater government to their logical conclusions, showing how completely untenable they'd be if they were ever put into place. By negotiating a peace where the Death Eaters get what they want, Harry Potter secures a victory for the Light by leaving the Dark Wizards to rot under their own hubris. It's continued to work with the DeathOfAThousandCuts method because the Death Eaters won't swallow their pride and admit they made a mistake.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Of a fantasy type. Lucius doesn't understand the concept of close familial relationships, sees his own descendants as assets rather than people and only thinks that Muggle-borns are valuable to prevent inbreeding.

* DyingRace: The Dark pure-bloods are losing their magic as the result of decades' worth of continuous inbreeding, with each generation producing more Squibs than the last. In the year before the Cabal kidnapped [[BreedingSlave eight foreign young witches]], only ''four'' pure-blood children with any magical ability were born in all of Britain, compared to the 27 British Muggle-borns born in the same time period. Lucius even admits that the kidnapping scheme was little more than a temporary solution to hold off the inevitable, predicting that the girls have only given them a few more generations at most. And since the ICW put up the Net around Britain after the scheme was discovered, preventing anyone from leaving or entering, kidnapping more girls is not an option.

* PyrrhicVillainy: While the Cabal manage to temporarily stave off their families' decline by kidnapping the foreign girls, the kidnappings cause the ICW to place the Net over Britain, effectively trapping all Dark wizards in the country.

* SuperHumanTrafficking: The Cabal, in a desperate attempt to get fresh new blood, kidnapped a number of young magically strong girls from overseas for reproductive slavery.

** "We don't need the Muggles or the Mudbloods."
** Also, during their kidnapping operation, the Death Eaters of the Cabal thought nobody would notice a few missing witches from poor families in backwater areas.