The Liberation Front had reached Britain a few days before James' third birthday, but it took nearly a year before Voldemort's final stronghold was toppled. Thicknesse and most other Ministry officials were arrested, along with all marked Death Eaters. In exchange for more lenient sentencing, several Death Eaters cooperated in removing the manacles from the freed prisoners in Hogwarts and all the surrogates in the Repopulation Program.
Voldemort never even appeared. He hid inside his castle and after dozens of failed attempts to attack it, the Liberation Front left him there. It was kept under heavy guard, and the hope was expressed that he'd just die; his fortress eventually becoming his sarcophagus. Like Grindlewald, the newspapers said repeatedly, as though it put the entire matter to rest.
Some trials and convictions happened rapidly. The Death Eater regime had detailed records documenting their atrocities. According to The New York Seer “following the death of Antonin Dolohov in the Sussex Lab Explosion, Death Eater Severus Snape had a heavy influence on the records and structure within the Death Eater regime. The cause of the explosion was never officially confirmed, and most of the lab's records were destroyed. According to Snape, the accident, which killed hundreds of Europe's most prized minds, could have been prevented with more cohesive oversight. In the aftermath, prisons and laboratories were required to keep detailed records at an external location, with meticulous details and the signatures of anyone involved, creating a crystal clear paper-trail listing anyone involved and making it undeniable who was responsible in every branch. Snape was assassinated in a coup d'etat in Romania in Summer 2005 and never realised that his exacting requirements post-war built air-tight legal cases against hundreds of his colleagues and fellow Death Eaters.”
Other aspects of the regime were messier and more horrifying, and as they emerged, the political spinning began.
The International Confederation couldn't deny knowledge of the Repopulation Program, but they claimed complete ignorance about the circumstances. The Supreme Mugwump gave a speech insisting that the International Confederation had been told that participation as a surrogate was voluntary, and that if they'd known prisoners were being used as lab rats, raped, and forcibly impregnated, they would have intervened years sooner.
Healer Stroud had fled Europe and disappeared long before the Repopulation Program trials began.
Hermione had to take anxiety potions in order to read about everything without hyperventilating. She'd known it had been horrific, but reading the testimonies in the trials that began was so devastating she felt as though she might break under the guilt. All the surviving surrogates were brought in to testify. Hannah Abbott was a shadow, cowering at the witness stand and hiding the left side of her face when asked questions about the compulsions and what had been done to her.
Due to the low virility of most Death Eaters, many surrogates had been dosed heavily with fertility potions, resulting in multiple births. Parvati Patil was brought to court heavily pregnant and had two children, barely walking, clinging to her robes.
When the surrogates conceived foetuses that showed low magic potential, the pregnancies were aborted and then attempts immediately resumed with more damaging fertility potions in attempts to “control” the results. Many of the surrogates had been rendered infertile with severe internal damage. Those that remained fertile were given six weeks to recover postpartum before being returned to the program for another baby. Angelina Johnson had an empty, tattered swaddling blanket that she held in her arms and refused to let go of.
To Hermione's outrage, the International Confederation was conflicted over what should be done. There were efforts being made to restructure the Ministry of Magic into something more democratic, which would leave less room for someone like Voldemort to slip in behind the scenes and begin controlling it, but despite their horror over the trial testimonies, the British Wizarding society was keenly attached to their pureblooded “aristocracy.”
Voldemort hadn't even been a pureblood, said one editorial. It would be a travesty to see Britain's ancient families pay the price. The important thing was to settle things in court, make necessary reparations, and move on.
Hermione found her mouth curling in a snarl, and she put the paper down to consciously force herself to breathe.
The children and pregnancies from the repopulation program were all related to some of Britain's oldest families, most of whom now had parents serving multiple life-long prison sentences. Who should raise the children? What should be done with the surrogates? The editorials opined about it endlessly.
Some of the women wanted nothing to do with the children they'd been forced to bear, some wanted abortions, while others were ferociously protective of their pregnancies and refused to let their children out of their arms. After nearly three years of living with compulsions, many of the surrogates had internalised them so deeply they fluctuated between compulsive subservience and vicious rebelliousness.
The courts began moving in favour of the Wizarding families, which were very keen to see their bloodlines maintained and their heirs raised suitably. Their lawyers argued that the surrogates were deeply unstable; it would be in the best interest of everyone to remove the children, provide some monetary compensation to the surrogates, and let everyone “move on”.
“I'm going to go back,” Ginny said abruptly after reading the most recent newspaper about the Repopulation Program trials. “I've been thinking about it for a few months now, and I think I have to.”
Hermione and Draco were silent.
Ginny looked down at the paper in her hands, her knuckles white. “They're trying to erase it all. Trials, and money, and taking away the kids and giving them to old families with the exact same ideology that started the war. They act like once everything's been ruled on, everything will be all better. They'll raze and bury it all and paint themselves as Britain's saviors, and let everything that happened and everyone that died just disappear. They don't care about the survivors. They're not even talking about the people who died. It's like they're trying to deal with everything as fast as they can so they can just pretend it never happened and that they're not collaborators.”
Ginny released an angry breath and looked up at Hermione. “I'm going to kill him. I'm going to go kill Voldemort. He doesn't deserve to die on his own in some castle. After that bastard is dead, I'm going to make sure that no one ever forgets all the people who died fighting.” She swallowed, her face was grey. “So I need you to take care of James for me so I can go back.”
Hermione felt herself grow cold.
“And—” Ginny hesitated and inhale unsteadily, “I need you both to help me get ready. That bomb you made for Hogwarts, I need to know how to make it. I need to practice dueling. It's been years since I fought. I'm going — I'm going to try to go after James' 5th birthday.” Ginny's eyes were beginning to swim with tears. “That way I have some time to say goodbye, in case — in case I don't come back.”
“Ginny...”
“I have to do this,” Ginny said sharply. “I always tell James about how his dad and all my family were heroes who always fought to protect people. I can't keep looking into eyes just like Harry's, saying that, and doing nothing but living on this island for the rest of my life. James can't live on this island for the rest of his life. He has to go to school at Hogwarts and see the world his dad died to protect—” Ginny's voice cut off, and she wiped her eyes. “I haven't done my part yet. This is my part. I've been thinking about it ever since the Liberation Front reached Britain, but I kept telling myself to let International Confederation handle it. But they're doing it wrong. I can't sit and read about it anymore.”