mzminola:

AU where the Battle of Hogwarts results in the Destruction of Hogwarts.

They evacuated more students, the older kids tasked with getting the younger out, and keeping them out, instead of fighting. Go through the tunnel to Hogsmeade, did you pass your Apparition test? Can you do Side-Along? Can you summon your broomstick? Get them away.

The teachers and Order members lure the Death Eaters deep inside, don’t turn to duel, make them chase you, turn a corner and blow the hall to bits behind you.

Harry still walks into the forest. Someone still behead Nagini with the Sword of Gryffindor, but the Sorting Hat won’t stop burning. Tim Riddle dies atop a pile of rubble.

“Should we rebuild?” the whispers ask, as spring turns to summer. “Too many curses in the stones,” the answer comes, as summer turns to fall. Perhaps the merfolk in the lake stay, perhaps they go. The centaurs remain. Most of the ghosts found other places to haunt.

The Forbidden Forest creeps over a little more of the grounds each year.

There are more schools, smaller schools. It’s hard to make large places Unplottable and the Ministry, swamped with the aftermath, finds it easier to expand a few existing hidden spots. 1st and 2nd, the introductory years, are given a handful of locations, and witches and wizards skilled in multiple disciplines hired as teachers. Parents are more easily talked into letting their young children out of their sight, so soon after the war, when their school is only a short flight away. Several set up a hall just for fireplaces, so they more skittish can Floo their children in each morning and out each afternoon.

The largest school is for 3rd, 4th, and 5th, the OWL board insisting they be kept together for a more unified curriculum. This is the closest to the Hogwarts ruins, just outside Hogsmeade, to take advantage of the still gleaming Express.

The 6th and 7th years also get their own campus, but takes years to settle. At first they use an island, but too many are spooked, reminded of Azkaban’s isolation. It’s in London briefly, wedged into a towering edifice in Diagon Alley, until something from NEWT-level Care of Magical Creatures gets loose.

Hermione Granger finally gets fed up, and gets Bill Weasley to help her and Harry do complicated things with Harry’s inheritance, wizarding-to-Muggle currency conversion, and speedy land acquisition. Shacklebolt politely pretends not to notice what they’re doing until they walk into the Ministry with a staggering mound of paperwork and ask to speak with the NEWT board, please.

As the dust settles and people start realizing that no, these aren’t temporary measures while Hogwarts is rebuilt, the new schools are here to stay, arguments bloom. What should we call them? Do we have one Board of School Governors, or multiple? How involved should the Ministry be? What about tradition?

This last always winds up meaning “what about the houses?”

The older generations can’t shake the feeling that your house is important. They grew up with fellow Gryffindors/Hufflepuffs/Ravenclaws/Slytherins! It shapes you, it tells the world who you are! You can’t just chuck that all out.

“Sure you can,” Ron Weasley says, whenever it comes up around him. “Really only mattered for Quidditch, didn’t it? You get more obsessed than that you wind up hunting down Founders’ relics to stick bits of your soul in. No thanks.”