“Nearly everybody expected spectacular things from Tom Riddle, prefect, Head Boy, winner of the Award for Special Services to the School. I know that several teachers, Professor Slughorn amongst them, suggested that he join the Ministry of Magic, offered to set up appointments, put him in touch with useful contacts. He refused all offers.” –Professor Dumbledore, HBP, 431.
But what if he didn’t?
Handful of Dust is an AU game that addresses that very question. Suppose that instead of refusing all of those offers in favour of working for Borgin and Burke in an attempt to get his hands on valuable artifacts that had belonged to the founders, Tom Riddle decided to live up to all those expectations. Suppose that instead of deciding to gain power and Wizarding purity through terror, he chose to do it through a more conventional, respectable means, and set about raising himself as high in both society and the Ministry as he could. Suppose the combination of his contacts, charisma, intelligence and ambition resulted in his eventual election to the position of Minister of Magic in 1970.
The game opens in the early months of 1975. The children that we know as the Marauders are in the middle of their fifth year at Hogwarts. For the past two years, Minister Riddle has been slowly introducing legislation that reduces the position of Muggleborns in Wizarding society. The changes have been gradual and were, at first, nearly harmless, all but unnoticeable; an act mandating that the family history of every Wizarding child whose name is put down for Hogwarts be recorded for private governmental records here, a requirement that every child entering Hogwarts be inoculated against what are referred to in the legislation as “common Muggle diseases and disorders” (actually, measles and similar,) there. However, as time goes on, the new acts and laws are becoming more strict and more restrictive, not to mention more obviously anti-mudblood. Tom’s popularity and support among the purebloods, many of whom agree with his measures, have allowed him to keep power despite the growing restlessness of a few factions. The widespread political apathy of the Wizarding community helps. Before long, the Wizarding world may wake up to find that discrimination against all but the purest of blood has been legislated and legalized; the culture wars are just beginning. And nobody has more at stake than the current generation of schoolchildren.
Handful of Dust is a game meant to be played in two arenas- the school, and the political playing field. Players will have the opportunity to maintain both student characters and adults with equal opportunities of play for each. The game will be highly plot-driven, and the political atmosphere will effect life at Hogwarts. And nothing will be quite the same for our dear Marauders and their peers.
Welcome to ‘what if.’
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Retired Characters:
Rodolphus Lestrange
