Author's Note: For those of you about to read this I am doing a fan sequel to Tozette's story "Hit the Ground Running", I do not own the original concept, scenarios, characters and character development, or anything else from that. I will refer to events that have happened in that fic from time to time and the next chapter will start off where "Hit the Ground Running" left off; this is more of a prologue.

Another thing to note is that I have a bit of a different writing style than Tozette so that's sure to come across but never the less I hope you enjoy and read "Hit the Ground Running" because it was pretty cool.

The Fall of Magical Britain and the Subsequent Rise of the British Magical Empire

Harry James Potter

Preface

I would like to write this as a history text, as an objective view of history, but after much thought and far too much time on my hands I must make it a memoir.

Strangely enough history to me has never been history, it's never been the Goblin wars, Grindlewald, or anything so distant yet strangely influential as that. It could be the way it was presented to me, as the first meaningful and real thing I ever knew, but history to me is always so much more than what anyone else I know presents it as.

The first books I bought for myself, at the prompting of someone else but still on my own, were history books about a world that seemed so grand and filled with possibility. I didn't always understand them, not then, I was only eleven at the time but I read them none the less and the figures in them were so real to me it was as if life had been breathed into them.

There is also me though, I have my own niche in history, and as much as I would sometimes like to I can't ignore that.

History is so immersed in my being that I am barely a person, I am an idea and a concept before I am a person, I think it's easier that way for most people to deal with me.

Of course, there are always exceptions. The dark lord being chief among them, but then, the dark lord has always been the dark lord… And that I suppose is that. When it comes to him, say what you like about his morals or his methods or anything else but you must admit that he is wholly himself. It's like he's a hurricane, an unstoppable force that comes and goes, something you live with rather than deal with.

That was Dumbledore's great error, after all, mistaking the dark lord for Grindlewald; something that could be defeated, with great difficulty and much bloodshed, but something that could be appealed to or else worn down.

I could write books on the dark lord, perhaps that's what this work truly is, not a memoir, or a history of England, but rather a history of him. Sometimes it's hard to tell where he ends and I begin, that's what the trouble has always been, I think.

I doubt he feels the same way, he never does seem to feel the way I do or anyone else for that matter, concepts like self don't seem to bother him or if they do it is only a faint irritation where this issue consumes me.

Let it never be said that the dark lord is partial to philosophy.

If I have any readers, other than him or me, (if this book is ever published which I highly doubt) I am certain that there will be more than a few complaints that this is fundamentally untrue. How can the dark lord, the emperor of a nation who turned the previous government on its head, who began the conquest of Europe within only a few short years of taking the ministry, whose views on muggle borns and muggle culture has been so influential and controversial not be at least somewhat partial to philosophy?

I can answer this in many ways but I think the most telling is the basic fact that upon finding himself trapped in the head of a child whom he had sought to kill, existing as a fragment of himself, his only thought was not, "Who am I?" or "What is the purpose of my existence?" but rather, "Goddammit I need a body back so that I can take over England."

I'm paraphrasing here but the thought remains.

And the truly sad thing is that this is not considered an insult to him, not even a mild one, he will most likely read past that without a second glance because to him it's so very true that it means nothing. There's no point in wasting thought over it and other trifles like it, that which is not material, or does not eventually manifest itself in the material are useless.

Thus speaks Voldemort.

Harry doesn't speak like that, he never has, not since he was ten and even before that. Harry has always thought about what it means to be Harry or not Harry or if Harry as a concept should even be considered.

I, self, me, it's all a funny fuzzy idea, isn't it?

I digress though, there are other things to cover, and no doubt I'll come back to these thoughts in time.

There is the small but far from negligible fact that this will most likely not make it through censorship, will probably not even be declared as contraband, after all I only plan to present it to him first. If he wishes to publish it, which is unlikely given its lack of propaganda and its presentation of events that have been written out of history, then he will do so but if he doesn't well… This is how things usually end between us.

To tell the truth I'm not certain I want other readers, what would I do with them, and perhaps more importantly what would they do with me? I can just see it now, my life held in Hermione Granger's hands, tearing through the pages with red pen cross-referencing this and that and if I am up to par citing me directly and so thoroughly that my words mean nothing.

Reduced once again to the boy who lived who was written in both Modern Magical History and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century, Merlin preserve me.

Although, perhaps she is not the best example, given her current situation I am more than certain that she would burn the book simply because it is written by me without even taking a look inside. It's odd, she meant so little to me when I actually attended Hogwarts, but I remember the last time I saw her. Years later, the way her eyes burned when she looked at me, filled with such resentment, betrayal, and anguish that I cannot think on what she saw in my place.

Intelligent, if her school records were anything to look at, but she never understood. Not that anyone did or does or perhaps even can, understanding requires some similar circumstances after all, and things being as they are I have more in common with products of literature than real people.

So instead I write a story for myself, and perhaps for a dark lord when he's bored enough to sit down and read it, and perhaps it will last one thousand and one nights and perhaps it will last less.

I can only tell you when it starts.

To me it has always been self-evident that the beginning of the end was not the first wizarding war or the second, but rather June of 1991 when a boy almost starved to death in a cupboard and met the peculiar man who lived inside his head.

Berlin 1997

Harry wasn't sure if it was irony, there was certainly some word for it that slipped through his fingertips, but fifty years after the defeat of Grindlewald he was watching as Germany was being burned and ravaged by an English dark lord.

It was, at the very least, an interesting thought.

So there he was, on the balcony with his unfinished manuscripts beside him, staring down at the streets that were still scorched from the week's activities and the sounds of Englishmen marching through magical Berlin with all the enthusiasm that comes with nationalism. Among them were few Death Eaters, noted only by a slight difference in uniform, looking more like storm troopers than the cult members they had been originally conceived as.

Most of the signs of the original death eaters, the masks, the dark mark, the religious elements to it, had been taken out and rewritten with Voldemort's reemergence. It served its purpose but it had outlived its time, a new revolution was needed, or so Voldemort had phrased it. It was partially true but there was also the fact that Voldemort was almost embarrassed by them, by these middle aged ragged cultists who kissed his feet and acted as if he was a god, gathering the troops together he could only look at them and think how pitiful they truly were. It also served to mark him from the Voldemort he had been, the one in Harry's head as well as the one outside of it, to make him into a new Voldemort that was the same as the others yet somehow different.

Harry had always thought he would be better off choosing a different name but that went too far into the question of self for the dark lord's tastes. At the age of sixteen he had written "I am Lord Voldemort" and he had remained thus ever since no matter how many Voldemorts there were running around at the same time.

It was his troops, these latest troops that still looked at him with too much fervor in their eyes, who were in Germany now.

The pounding of the feet on the cobblestone almost formed an erratic drum beat, mimicked poorly by Harry's tapping quill. He had days like this before, not quite the same, not this eerie silence where he was so terribly removed from it all but there had been similar moments.

There had been the fall of London, of Paris, of Vienna, of Prague, of Madrid, and so very many others. They all had their distinct flavor, the chaos and heart wrenching that had been England, the shock that had been Paris, but sometimes they blended together until they seemed so very similar as if they were all part of the same surreal dream.

And all the while there was that feeling, not dread but something disconcerting all the same, that there were still very many more cities to go in Europe and perhaps even beyond.

Immortality gave someone quite a bit of time, and Voldemort (no matter his form) had always been time efficient. Harry didn't think he had counted on that, in his desperate race against death, he didn't realize how very easy he would accomplish everything he had set out to do and for now he seemed to remain the same as he always had. Ennui was an unfamiliar concept to him, still unfamiliar as there were other magical nations to conquer and correct, other ancient secrets to learn and pry open, and simply a world of things to do that didn't leave one time to contemplate the meaning of life and eternity.

He and Voldemort were very different people, of course Voldemort and most people were very different people, but he felt having known the dark lord the best he had more of a right to make that statement than anyone else.

Harry was always thinking about time, death, and just being and he always had too much time on his hands.

A shadow fell over him, he looked up to see the sixteen year old persona of Voldemort (never to be called Tom Riddle) frowning down at him. Whether he had been following Harry's thoughts closely was left to debate, it was safer to assume that everything Harry thought he stored somewhere for later use but it was somewhat unrealistic, most of the time Harry's thoughts bored him. He supposed it was just as well because philosophy was one of the few things he could think about that would keep Voldemort out of his head.

The dark lord moved over to the table and picked up the manuscript, his eyes flicking through it, and then without preamble said, "It will never be published."

There wasn't much there, just the preface, Harry hadn't set about writing the actual content yet but he shrugged. "I didn't really expect it to be. It's not for them anyway."

"Then why write it?" And there it was that direct forceful lack of understanding, where if it served no purpose then there was no purpose in doing it, and Harry couldn't help but smile bitterly back at the young man.

"Well, I suppose I'm just getting a little bored." He said pausing over his words, for the dark lord they would be true enough. And they were true, he had been bored lately, not that he enjoyed when things were hard and his life dangled by a thread but it had been distracting enough to keep him from thinking on other things.

It was better when he was distracted.

"There are plenty more useful things you could be doing instead." Voldemort observed with a sigh as he leaned over the railing to observe the progress of the troops, "You could be down there with them, had you been we may have been finished here weeks ago."

"Perhaps." Harry said and they let it drop.

He wouldn't say that Voldemort cared for him, any more than he cared for his other pawns, sentimentality escaped him in almost every regard but Voldemort did value him as a chess piece. Harry was a very different piece from those on the ground for a myriad of reasons, and for that Voldemort liked to keep him close by, Harry was his ace in the hole and you didn't play all your cards until you had to.

What was it he had said, years before when they had been fleeing Hogwarts with only the clothes on his back, a wand, and a red stone, "I do need a set of hands…"

It was as true now as it was then, it was just less obvious to the casual observer, and for that reason it was only on very rare occasions that Harry was sent out with the Death Eaters and the masses to pillage and sack lesser states.

In the back of his head, where the phantom thoughts of Voldemort still occasionally lingered, he caught the slowly building plans of where to go from Germany, which nation to take next, whether they had the manpower to take Russia quickly or if they should try elsewhere first. Even with Berlin still burning and screaming beneath them he was already on to the next conquest, no doubt having placed in his mind some loyal and vaguely competent Death Eater onto the throne and letting them deal with the political fallout.

"Don't pretend you're content either, Harry." Voldemort's snide voice cut in across his thoughts and Harry turned to catch those sharp blue eyes boring into him.

What a shock that had been, blue eyes, he had always imagined them red. Then, there had been that first time, when he was ten that he saw Voldemort inside his head but he couldn't remember the color only the texture. In that they had always remained, hard and so terribly sharp.

"You're right, that would be hypocritical of me." Harry murmured still trying to stray away from responding to Voldemort in his head.

That had taken years to correct, the first few months had been almost totally silent between them, only when Voldemort had insisted on becoming political once again did they realize that they barely spoke with one another. Sometimes it was beneficial, it was eerie like twins in a muggle horror film, but other times it left out too much information for the audience.

Besides, that mental link, well-worn and used served as a reminder for circumstances Voldemort would rather not think on.

So they watched in silence as Britain flooded the magical district from downtown to the ghetto, slowly but surely making its way to where Durmstang waited with the Eastern European wizards holed up inside wondering how it had ever come to this. What strange times they were living in, where war and sitting on the balcony went hand in hand, almost as if they were the same thing.

"You think far too much to be healthy." Voldemort cut in before Harry could ponder that thought too far, and he was looking down at Harry again with an expression that Harry couldn't name. On any other man it would be affection, perhaps even fondness, but even this younger incarnation of Voldemort, who had seemed slightly more human than the others, had only pale imitations of most human sentiment.

There were many theories on what Voldemort felt for whom but in the end Harry had thought it best to simply state that he didn't know and that he might never know. Some things were ineffable after all.

"We've dawdled here long enough, cities don't conquer themselves, you know." And he turned walking back into the room and out of the building leaving Harry to stare after him for a moment. Inside, the German ministry building lay in shambles, papers and desks strewn about and bodies crumpled on the floor of those who had been brave enough to resist and foolish enough to think the dark lord would care.

Harry stepped quickly after him, eyes straightforward on the walls and not the floor or the desks where the corpses were still strewn about, and tried not to think about what it meant to be an idea rather than a man or even a boy.

Dumbledore had killed an eleven year old boy, had left him alone and abused in a cupboard for all his life, so that this future might not exist.

There was something to be said for that, small as it was, there was something to be said.

Author's Note: A note again for people who skip authors notes at the top is that the original fic this is based on is not my own, rather it is "Hit the Ground Running" by Tozette so I'm not starting from scratch here. Now that that's out of the way personally I'm excited for philosophy, Napoleon references, revolution, and bloodshed everywhere.

Thanks to readers and reviewers, reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor the original fic on which this is based.