Disclaimer: With thanks to J.K. Rowling for creating the wonderful world of Harry Potter and its characters (which are not mine), and to the invaluable resources of the Harry Potter Lexicon. And thanks to my beta, SideofLight!

It is winter, 1979. With his band of Death Eaters, Voldemort's reign of terror has lasted for nearly ten years so far. In all these years,wizards have had precious little cause to celebrate. The Ministry's Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is Bartemius Crouch.

The Ministry of Magic has a unit of law enforcement officers known as the Aurors, a squad of the most accomplished trackers and criminal hunters in existence. The Aurors have been authorized to use drastic methods not differing greatly from the tactics used by the Death Eaters they fight – to kill, if necessary.The British Ministry is not the only group resisting the Death Eaters: the Order of the Phoenix, an organisation (consisting of a few Aurors itself) set up by Albus Dumbledore to combat Lord Voldemort and his followers, plants spies among the Death Eaters and fights on a more covert level...

She coughed as blood spluttered from her lips, her eyes drawing in and out of focus. She was in such a state of severe shock and pain that her brain did not register the excruciating pain, or the blood throbbing up her throat, but she knew well enough she was dying. Two voices screamed from the house behind her and a dog barked close by, but she didn't hear them; she could not hear anything. A man stirred beside her and rolled over to his right. For a few seconds he lay there, dazed in shock, before he heard her wheezing and struggling to gasp for breath. His hands reached out to the ground as he used all his waning strength to crawl and drag his heavy, bloody body across the harsh, freezing cold snow. Her left hand was within reach, and he grasped it gently with his left hand. A bloody tear rolled down her face, her blood-shot eyes blinking away the tears.

Three masked figures robed in black approached them silently, two of them stepping forth with slow and deliberate mercilessness and the other with an angry, menacing limp. The figures paused, standing a few inches away from the woman's fearful face. Her breathing was laboured and uneven, and a soft whistling noise came from the charred, burnt hole in her throat. The dog continued snarling loudly and ferociously from the house next door, through a small flap in the fence. It broke free and, without warning, clamped its jaws onto the leg of one of the figures. He grunted in pain and lifted his wand. The dog yelped before a sudden flash of light hit it, and a deathly silence filled the street.

She closed her eyes, her consciousness ebbing away as her lungs screamed for the oxygen that would never come. Slowly, carefully, she moved her fingers underneath her back to reach for the fallen wand. She wore a determined expression, veins popping in her face: she knew she did not have long. She strained to move her arms – movement was becoming more difficult without air to breathe – but a heavy foot crushed her hand, stomping on her wand. There was an audible snapping and crunching of bone and wood. She closed her eyes. A thick cloud of confusion descended upon her slow, dying thoughts. She felt herself falling asleep; her body becoming lighter.

"Pathetic mudbloods," a male voice spoke with cold contempt. He raised a wand and pointed it at them.

"Avarda Kedavra!" A flash of green light blasted from his wand-tip.

The hand intertwined in hers slackened. It took several seconds before she realised that the curse had hit him.

And then she died.

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In the middle of Spencer Lane at the scene, a small crowd of muggles had formed, standing metres away from the two dead figures. They pointed with horrified whispers, appalled and confused by the awful nature of the deaths. In a quiet, secluded town where nothing exciting or gossip-worthy ever happened, they had come out from their warm homes to the cold, snowy night in their pyjamas. They found themselves asking one another in hushed whispers, 'Who were those mysteriously cloaked men?','What was that strange light?','Why did they kill them?'and, 'How did they burn that hole in that poor woman's throat?

Ministry Obliviators were first to apparate to the scene, in order to obtain information from muggle witnesses before modifying their minds later. Shortly thereafter, Fudge apparated, along with four other Ministry wizards. One of these wizards had an air of authority about him, a middle-aged wizard named Neeson; with short, slicked brown hair. Fudge followed him hurriedly, to the group of four Obliviators talking to two of the muggles. As they walked past the muggle crowd Fudge paused, catching a quick look of the two bodies lying on the footpath, and inhaled sharply at the sight of their bodies.

The McKinnons! he thought, utterly shocked. What little colour was left in his face out in the freezing cold air drained away. Their icy-blue faces and torn robes were covered with a thin layer of snow. There were patches of blood-stained snow surrounding the man's corpse. The other two wizards who had apparated with Fudge approached the bodies carefully, waving their wands over them to cover them up with a black cloth. Fudge looked up to the house, noticing the scorched and blistered paint.

'Fudge!' barked Neeson. Cornelius forced himself to look away, hurriedly catching up to Neeson as he pulled out a thin black book and quill. 'Write down everything.' They turned to the Obliviators.

'These are the two main witnesses, sir; muggles who saw most of what happened,' a witch spoke.

'We're not muggers!' said one of the muggles angrily.

'Of course not, dear,' the witch said sardonically. 'Ahem…The others we've talked to said they were watching "Teevy" or asleep at the time. He says he lives on the opposite side facing the house. This …lady also saw it from the house next to the McKinnons, sir.'

The witch nodded to the muggles. 'It's okay, we're listening to anything and everything you have to say,' she said gently. 'No matter how strange it may seem. Just try to focus and remember everything you've told us so far.'

They listened to the villagers' witness accounts of what had happened. They were confused and upset as they spoke – frequenting adding 'Please don't think that we're crazy, we know what we saw' – as they all nodded (somewhat patronizingly). Fudge did his best to write down every word with his quill.

'– The entire family?' Neeson interrupted at one point, shocked.

One of the muggles nodded, pointing up towards the charred house. 'We heard screams from inside there, and …strange flashes of light…and I heard my dog barking –' she choked a sob. The witch nodded sympathetically. 'I'm not really sure how many of them there were altogether, but three of them came out and followed the woman and the man.'

'Marlene and her father,' Neeson said in a low voice in aside to Fudge, who scribbled this down. 'Do you remember any details of the men who killed them – their height, build, anything at all that might help us to identify them?'

The muggles shook their heads. After a second, the male muggle inclined his head as he hesitated. 'Actually, uhhhm…one of them was kind of tall and thin. Probably about six foot three. I think he had a goatee, um…yeah, I could sort of see a beard sticking out under his mask.'

'Six-three tall, male, thin, goatee,' repeated Neeson with curled lips. 'Is that all?' Upon hearing no answer, he nodded coldly to the Obliviators, who lifted their wands. Neeson and Fudge turned to walk away, as the male muggle yelled.

'Hey man! Can't you tell us what this is about? Is this some kind of freakin' cult?'

Neeson ignored his question, muttering darkly, 'Muggles.'

'Obliviate!'

'Fudge, go in the house and make a report of the scene,' ordered Neeson, just as two more wizards apparated onto the street. Neeson rolled his eyes. Finally, someone from the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee.

'Stephens...Jones...about bloody time!' he bristled.

'Sorry, sir –' Stephens said apologetically, '–it couldn't be helped, we just came from another job –'

'– How are we supposed to modify the memory of the muggle next door to explain why her dog is dead, if there was a mass-murder and fire next door??'

The other wizard, quickly thinking, replied, 'Well, there was no mass-murder according to them, sir,' he said meaningfully. 'We'll just tell them there was a fire that broke out and killed the sleeping family without warning. There are some synthetic muggle items which are known to quickly catch and spread fire. Let's just say there was an appliance malfunction which caused the fire.'

'We will modify the woman's memory to lead her to believe that her dog simply escaped and ran away, never to be seen again,' Stephens nodded, understanding. 'That should be some comfort to the muggle, rather than knowledge of the fact it is dead.'

Neeson glared at him. 'And what'll be of comfort to the Ministry when the Minister is told we've lost five of the best on our side?!'

At their awkward hesitation, he waved impatiently towards to the Obliviators. 'Get to it, you two! Don't forget the muggle Police and Fire Brigade.'

Sensing something, he pulled a small, empty lolly wrapper out of his pocket and tapped it with his wand, muttering a few words. A tiny, curly inscription appeared, at which he nodded to himself, and tapped the wrapper again. The writing disappeared. In a blink, Neeson disapparated.

A/N: This first chapter is really a bit of backstory, but the fanfic will unfold along the way and reveal itself as a journey of connected events and characters leading to the Potters' deaths, Voldemort's downfall, Sirius Black's arrest, and the cruel torture of the Longbottoms and the consequences.