So, the Death Eaters just gave up?

I imagine all of them were at the battle of hogwarts. Very few by then were truly loyal, most were just too afraid of voldemort and basically enslaved by him.

When he died, after being thought essentially immortal and unbeatable, I would guess the ones left standing panicked. Most would have fled, some might have surrendered but there was by design no one individual that would be the natural successor. No one to rally the troops.

Voldemort pit his followers against each other for his favour, praising and humiliating them at any opportunity. There was a hierarchy but it seems inconsistent and fluid. This I think helps him feel secure in that his followers are so divided amongst themselves they couldn't organise against him or without him.

We see the fickle nature of the death eaters with the rise and fall of the malfoy family

At the time of the battle Snape was favoured by voldemort among the death eaters, some might have turned to him for advice and leadership had voldemort not murdered him that very evening. Basically voldemort was paranoid and didn't trust his own so he basically set them up for failure without him. Each one trying alone to save their own skin.

I mean, there's nothing to say they didn't. We don't really see the world post voldemort's death. It's possible someone else DID lead a pureblood movement, but they wouldn't be death eaters at that point anymore, they would be whatever this new movement is called.

I'm sure the aurors rounded up most of the death eaters after and put them in Azkaban. Also, Voldemort didn't really want any followers that were leader types, he'd be too afraid of anyone trying to steal his power, he wanted them to be subservient to him. And also, I don't think many of the death eaters actually liked each other, we see a lot of bitterness and rivalry between them

If there were no bad guys left, Potter wouldn't have become an auror.

Snape and Bellatrix were dead. Once Voldemort hit the ground, they had no rallying point to organize around. As far as I can see, none of the others had that kind of pull. I'm sure they were hunted down after that.

The pure blood nonsense probably persisted, but people kept it to themselves after all that.

His most loyal followers died in the battle as well. Bellatrix, Dolochov

By the end of the battle, voldemort was basically all that was left of the death eaters.

The Death Eaters are a very small organization that followed Voldemort. Without him, there's no one equally powerful to grow their influence.

Wizarding Britain is already a small population. Within that, there's widespread anti-muggle and eugenicist ideology, but not every wizard with prejudices is wild enough to dedicate their life to it. A lot of average people only serve Death Eaters because they're opportunists or scared to resist.

At the same time, the population has just experienced a violent and terrifying regime under Voldemort, so the implications of his views are made real. That's often how it goes after a catastrophe. Political opinion swings the other way and there's a brief period of trying to learn from the past.

Look into the early battles of the American Revolutionary War.

They were shit shows. War sounds fun and honorable, but when your buddy's head is suddenly taken off by a cannonball outta nowhere, you may reconsider your positions on tax reform.

Whole formations fled at the first sight of violence. They just weren't prepared.

Same goes for the majority of Death Eaters. They had fun in their little Facebook groups, and being bullies when they had already won. But then some fucking kid came out and punched the biggest and strongest of them straight in the face and make him fold up like a cheap lawn chair.

If that's the kind of heat the KIDS are packing, you should probably just fold up shop and go home.

So they did, and Voldemort's revolution went the way of most: the VIP's were arrested and tortured to death as an example to those who were "misled" into following down a bad path and ultimately forgiven.

I believe there were only a few dozen true death eaters. The rest of Voldemort's forces were snatchers, imperiused people, and magical beasts. The snatchers only cared about the money, the imperiused people had the spell broken, and the magical creatures didn't really have any ideological motivation. Voldemort's most loyal followers were gone, Lucius defected, Bellatrix and Pettigrew were dead, some of the others like Dolohov were incapacitated and likely arrested by Kingsley. There was no one else to rally around.

I mean most of them did in the first war too. They pretended to be imperius'd like the malfoys. Only the most loyal like the Lestranges and Barty Crouch Jr. continued the fight and even then they just went looking for Voldemort. The thing death eaters have in common is they are mostly cowards who need a big bad guy for them to hide behind. As soon as that bully disappeared they suddenly pretended like they couldn't control their own actions.

I have this headcanon not all of them gave up- Some formed a myth akin to the lost cause of the confederacy after the war that to this day has become damaging

I guess it makes sense.

In that world magical power trumps everything. In the 5th book Dumbledore captures all the Death Eaters with absurd ease. Even with the likes of Moody, Kingsley and Tonks fighting them, they couldn’t do it.

Voldemort is much the same. He’s super powerful so as long as he’s alive his side has an almost unassailable advantage. They all know that.

And then they watch as Harry - not for the first time - fights and beats him, this time killing him beyond a doubt. Without Voldemort they HAVE no movement. He was the core of it. So it makes sense that with their strongest source of power gone, they would give up.

Harry came back from the dead, talked Voldermort's ass down, and then one shotted him? Would you want to follow the 'dark lord' after that?

It’s kind of implied that most of the death eaters are in similar state of malfoys. They were with voldemort as long as he was in power. The moment they found out dead harry came back from avada kedavara for second time , they started escaping… Draco Malfoy himself seen running away from battle along with his mom and dad. They probably realised they don’t have people support or the magical power to overcome harry and co!!

I think that’s kind of the point lol. Voldemort was pretty much the string that held his whole movement together, but even so, he treated the great majority of his followers like shit and still desired to do the major heavy lifting alone. So that doesn’t exactly inspire much hardcore loyalty beyond when he is directly in power/keeping tabs on everything when it’s all said and done. Consider what happened when he first failed to kill Harry and disappeared for a while; there were still those who supported his cause, but no one fanatical enough to keep it all going. With precious few exceptions, you mainly had people like Lucius, who talked a big game and all that, but weren’t strong enough to take the reins. Voldemort conducted himself more or less the same as before when he came back into power the second time. And they suffered an even bigger defeat at the Battle of Hogwarts, so it would make sense that no evil force took up his mantle and rose to power in the same manner. I’m sure there were still once again those who still supported the cause and caused trouble for the good guys in the years proceeding the final battle from the books, but it just goes to prove how wrong Voldemort conducted himself and his army; other than the fact that he was fighting for an evil cause of course, he ruled with fear and intimidation, even among his alleged allies. And then looking at it from the other side: for example, when Dumbledore died, it didn’t totally break the will and strength of the good side.

Most of them were killed or otherwise incapacitated during the Battle of Hogwarts. The few that had escaped, probably knew that fleeing was their best option, but some might have tried to imitate Bellatrix, Barty, Rabastan and Rodolphus, after which they'd promptly be arrested and incarcerated.

Voldemort ruled through fear first and foremost. Many of his followers would have left had they not been terrified of what he would do to them if they did. There was not anyone alive that could have come close to matching that fear, which would have meant his followers would lack unity. Add to that the fact that as far as they know, a literal child defeated him repeatedly and they didn’t fully understand how it was possible, along with the decisive defeat at Hogwarts, I don’t think there was enough morale among the death eaters to fully continue on. I’m sure some tried though.

Voldemort was not the first muggle born hater and he probably will not be the last. 

Anyone who genuinely believed in what he stood for kinda died when he did. The rest of them were mostly just scared of him, or ensorcelled.

Bellatrix and Dolohov died, Crouch was soulless, Lucius left his side, Snape died and wasn't on his side. So there aren't many left that could be the leaders. Crabbe and Goyle didn't look for him the first time, so don't think they did anything differently this time. So the only one that could take over would be the lestrange brothers but they went to Azkaban after the war. So no, don't think anyone took over, because Voldemort thought he would live forever so why try and prefer someone to take over if he died?