Let’s say Harry and the trio didn’t escape Malfoy Manor. They were tortured and killed, Harry was framed for Dumbledores murder.

Over the next 1-2 years almost all resistance is killed and crushed. Voldemort’s rule is secure. There is no international will to step in to stop him.

How do you see wizarding Britain after 20 years of Voldemort rule.

What was his endgame? What did he want to do with Britain?

Do you think he would of tried to expand after that? Take Europe and the world?

 

Voldemort sees himself as the greatest Wizard of all time and values power above all else. I don't see him being content with only the British ministry. While we can expect muggle baiting and the like to be much more common and even encouraged during his rule, I don't see how he can break the statute of secrecy without having the entire International Wizarding Community step in, so he would need to conquer or get the support of a good chunk of the Wizarding nations before going for full world domination. He his however immortal, so he can take his time to set his plan in motion.

Judging by what we saw in DH, I'd say Hogwarts is the key for him. That's where he put his right-hand man as well as two other Death eaters and were he already wanted to build a base of support at 18 when he asked for the DADA position the first time. The ''new curriculum'' that was put in place had two clear objectives: ideological indoctrination and spreading Dark arts proficiency. He was already building an army.

We can't be sure how many age cohorts he'd want before starting to make moves, but I feel confortable guessing that 20 years would be plenty of time. From then we can only speculate due to our sparse knowledge of wizarding international politics. Perhaps he'd be able to make allies, exploit favorable circumstances and pick off weaker foes one by one. Perhaps he'd be alone against the world.

 

I see three scenarios happening, one short term, middle term and long term.

Short Term
Snape does him in.

If the trio dies at Malfoy Manor, it means two things. 1) only three Horcruxes are left. 2) Draco is still the master of the elder wand.

With how much Snape already knows, and the position he is in (headmaster at Hogwarts, Voldemort's second in command, access to Dumbledore's portrait), it wouldn't be much of a surprise if Snape picks up their mission. The three left Horcruxes are in decent reach of him as well. Narcissa owes him (and they are friends), and he lives at Hogwarts.

It would not surprise me if he gets the three Horcruxes and hits Voldemort with an AK in the back.

Now let's say, he fails. Or Voldemort realizes that he isn't the true master, 'Snape' is, and kills him before Snape could complete the mission.

Medium Term
If Snape is murdered by Voldemort, it would make a lot of Death Eaters uncomfortable. If Voldemort can just kill his second in command for no reason, what about them?

You need more than fear to stay in power. You need a significant amount of people loyal to you and the cause. Don't forget that it took only two years for the Malfoys to be fully loyal to helping Harry and betraying Voldemort. I can see this happening with the broader circle of followers.

Now, depending on who it is, they may or may not learn about the Horcruxes. In my mind though, it doesn't matter.

Horcruxes prevents your soul/spirit from moving on but does nothing to prevent damage to your body. A coup from within could easily AK him in the back, and while he is a spirit, decimate his remaining loyal support base and take over. While this doesn't completely solve the Voldemort problem... it would still make him lose everything... again.

If this fails or doesn't happen for one reason.

Long Term
Voldemort becomes like Napolean or Hitler. He will never be satisfied with what he has, so he continues to push the boundaries. At first, the world doesn't care because it's just two nations at war. But over time, he goes a little too far and breaks that line. This could be him fucking around with the Statute of Secrecy or continuing to invade nations.

I can't imagine that there aren't powerful wizards outside of Britain who could challenge Voldemort or at least a group of powerful wizards going after him together.

Now, Horcruxes here don't matter. It's all about containment.

They kill his body once, yet a few years later he comes back (hello Napolean), so they change strategies. After all, it's magic. There is always away. Perhaps they yeet him into space, or trap him in an unbreakable box and drop him in the middle of the ocean. Perhaps they invent a tracking Horcrux spell. Who knows? But I'm sure a large group of intelligent wizards around the world could find a solution after several years.

Conclusion
Voldemort will fall. One way or another. It might be several months after the trio dies, it may be decades, but eventually, he would fall. During his rule, I'd expect the conquered people to be a mix of indoctrinated soldiers (like Hitler Youth or the Cultural Revolution) and those who are the slaves/lower class similar to many brutal dictatorships. It would be a terrifying time where children would turn on their parents, and no one could trust even their neighbours.

Muggleborns and anyone undesirable would become slaves or completely wiped out.

Very few people would be in the upper class, mainly those who are utterly loyal with Voldemort, and even then, I'd fully expect there to be a purge every decade due to Voldemort's paranoia and those becoming unsatisfied with his rule.

Think the cultural revolution with magic. It would have sucked.

 

@Newcomb put it best in What You Leave Behind.

 

Divination breaks and Voldemort becomes the Kwisatz Haderach. With the years, he slowly turns into a giant snake with a vestigial Riddle's face on the top of its skull and ushers a new era as God Emperor of Wizardkind. Parseltongue becomes fashionable among the ruling class.

 

@Distended Destiny

I swear to God, I was gonna go find exactly that excerpt from WYLB. That was so well put.

 

You didn’t answer the question.

What’s Voldemort doing for 20 years?

That one year he was hunting Harry and the Hallows. He doesn’t seem the sort of guy to sit around being happy with what he has.

 

As regards the international dimension, the answer really depends heavily on what the international norm is. The fact that Durmstrang does not accept Muggleborns, and that fact that until recently wizarding America completely banned all interaction with Muggles, may suggest that wizarding Britain is unusually progressive regarding these things, such that much of the international community welcomes Voldemort's rule, which is seen as returning Britain to the international norm and ending its dangerous flirtation with Muggles.

Of course, there are likely other progressive wizarding nations as well - e.g. France - but I suspect that the pro-Muggle viewpoint is largely restricted to Western Europe.

 

I think I agree with Sesc that the insidious nature of Voldemort's takeover would definitely help with its being accepted much more rapidly. I think...hmmm...

Pius Thickness serves out his term as Minister. During these 5 or so years Voldemort secures his power base in the background and advances his agenda on an individual level - identifying key individuals and revealing himself to them, ensuring they are on side.

This is a key period of risk for him, because of the threat Lindsey identified. This is the time when his followers may turn on him, Snape may try to pick up Dumbledore's cause if he doesn't see it as hopeless, etc

At the end of Thickness's term, I think the Minister and the Wizengamot would give Voldemort some sort of official status - Lord Protector of the Realm or something like that. This lets him re-enter public life. There's a moderate amount of shock as the most sheep like of the people realise suddenly whats been going on, but everyone in key positions in society and the press is already onside and smooths the way. In order for this to work, the Ministry would need to spend Thickness's term doing the old propaganda thing regarding Voldemort, turning history on its end, a gallant freedom fighter who nearly gave his life to protect Britain etc.

At that point Voldemort can accumulate over the years to his official position any power he wants, and leave the day to day management of the Ministry in the hands of his designated Minister.

Its at this point that I think he starts to look at expanding his territory and you reach the position of war between nations. But as Taure points out, it could easily be that large portions of the world think he's on the right track and is going to bring western Europe back into line and secure the Statute of Secrecy once again.

 

>What happens if Voldemort wins?
Death Eaters know about the horcruxes and the prophecy; they also control the school. They kidnap Neville and hide him somewhere Voldemort would never think to look, like a prison outside Winslow, Arizona. Piece together the same mystery a handful of seventeen year olds did by retracing their steps while convincing Voldemort that there are powerful wizards in China or someplace that are a threat to his rule to distract him. Destroy horcruxes all at once with fiendfyre and hit him with a good old killing curse while he's sleeping. Appoint three or four Death Eaters to scour the globe for the rest of their lives for any secret/accidental horcruxes.
>What happens if the Death Eaters win?
Sesc is mostly right about how we see what Britain would be like under those circumstances in DH.

I would like to note, though, that the line separating in and out is a moving line.

 

This made me remember Imprisoned Realm by LoveHP. I had a love/hate relationship with that fic, but one of the things I liked about it representation of what would have happened if Voldemort won. In Imprisoned Realm universe, Voldemort was never defeat, he targeted Longbottoms instead of Potters and successfully killed Neville. The war never stopped, Voldemort was very slowly winning his civil war. And he was in no hurry. In alternate universe, around the year 1997-1998, Voldemort had almost won. Because of brutal civil war that lasted for decades, in a world where you could trust no one, Ministry of Magic became very paranoid and brutal and xenophobic and isolationists, all to the point where they became just as bad as Death Eaters. Some spells and potions became much more advanced as a result. For the last few years the education at Hogwarts was different, things were much more dangerous for Muggle-borns, despite Dumbledore's presence. And then even Hogwarts was taken over and Dumbledore was forced to flee. Desperate Dumbledore pulled the very last card out of his sleeve and resurrected Grindelwald's movement in vain hope that it might slow down Voldemort. The last remaining members of The Order of the Phoenix became brutal and unforgiving, knowing that they are on the losing side. Voldemort didn't care because Dementors were a perfect tool for control, but dementor fog was everywhere and younger British children didn't know how clear skies looked like. Then, Voldemort took over the ministry in a scheme that probably took years of careful planning. He killed anyone who refused to join him and destroyed the ministry.
Then he came for British muggles in a way that made it look like brutal civil war where cities were destroyed and millions died. He took over muggle army and government via imperious curse.
Afterwards.....it became clear that Voldemort has been very busy abroad for many years.. Suddenly, other governments started introducing anti-muggle laws and signs of his influence in both muggle and magical Europe were starting to appear. Voldemort wanted more....and he was coming for the rest of Europe. Perhaps it would take him decades more, but time was on his side.

As other pointed out. Voldemort would eventually fall. There is no way that people would sit idly by when they saw what was going on in the world. New movements would rise, resistance would form and Death Eaters would strike from within. With time, someone would destroy Horcruxes and kill Voldemort. We would still be left in a dark, miserable world, but without immortal maniac in it.

Now, I can't even remember how Voldemort has failed in that story but since I cannot remember, I can be sure that I hated it, along with many other parts of the fic. Still, one of the parts I liked was Voldemort just slowly taking over and shaping the world in his image.

 

I feel like the sssumption that Voldemort has to lose is based more on hope that eventually someone will figure out how to beat him but that’s assuming Voldemort stays a static figure and isn’t growing ever more powerful.

Not every possibility has to happen.

 

Voldemort isn't a very effective villain in canon. He's very powerful, he's also very cunning, but his own sight isn't on political furtherance of power, but Immortality. Yes, the pureblood stuff was there in the background, but even Voldemort is going to probably have to budge unless he wants generations of inbreeding already pretty inbred families which will result in physical deformities. Can't rule a kingdom if you have no kingdom to rule.

So if canon Voldemort managed to kill Harry and somehow also circumvent Harry's own light-side Horcrux that he holds in his blood (as Dumbledore expressed in DH that it existed post-GOF) then he'd likely continue trying to solidify his immortality. After all, Voldemort could've laid low as Quirrellmort for years if he wanted to, the Philosopher's Stone wasn't a way to bring his body back, it was just another source of immortality.

It would be an interesting take on that "Summoned Hero" trope if Voldemort's kingdom quickly fell, he was sealed away somewhere at the bottom of the ocean by America's Dumbledore equivalent and left to rot. However, Harry's soul is still tethered to Voldemort's blood. British Wizarding society quickly crumbles, becomes wrought with more civil wars for power because everyone agreed the previous ministry was ineffective, new Dark Lord comes and wants to be a monarch political leader and BAM some of the last vestiges of the order have to use the bone of the father ritual on Harry's soul, only he's been locked with Voldemort at the bottom of the ocean for years.

It's also probably the most realistic outcome.

 

Voldemort was killing off the competition before he was beaten the first time. Why wouldn't he continue to do so? I see no reason that an overwhelmingly competent, paranoid immortal genius that continually improves his capability would ever lose. Dumbledore took on a group of death eaters with contemptuous ease in book 5, why would the more skilful and ruthless Voldemort fail to do the same?

 

Because he wasn't able to do that in the final battle? He was simultaneously duelling 3 people, if you remember. Dumbledore's very name caused Death Eaters to shit their pants and run in OotP, and he dealt with them with "contemptuous ease", as you yourself put it.

 

The easiest answer is, as the story of the three brothers even points out, there is always a weakness and there is always the room for random chaos or chance to come into effect. Voldemort could be on his merry way down a sidewalk and a piano could fall on him. Alexander The Great died to a random illness. I find that the room for genius' also isn't very finite. Let's say Harry was his equal (as the prophecy says) and it only took him about sixty years to be born.

If Voldemort is immortal, eventually a bigger fish will come, it's guaranteed. Also, I doubt Voldemort is more skilful than Dumbledore. More willing to use Dark Magic? Yes. But the battle in the Atrium wasn't in his favour even with Dumbledore's constant need to protect Harry. Voldemort's duelling style of over-extending himself and attempting to throw as many things as he could is also very easily exploitable.

 

McGonagall took on 4 Aurors and nearly won, Slughorn knew more about the Dark Arts than anyone else (other than Dumbledore and Voldemort) and Shacklebolt was one of the best Aurors. Also, I think they were protected by Harry's sacrifice. Voldemort couldn't 'touch' them.

Voldemort might not be able to incapacitate them with the same ease that Dumbledore did, but he could probably kill them.