The Games We Play
Preface
Daily Prophet
May 3rd, 1998
Yesterday, battle commenced at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Fifty students, teachers and members of the secret Order of the Pheonix (see page 6) faced off against Death Eaters. Led by Harry Potter (see page 7) they fought a futile battle. Outnumbered, with more casualties than fighters, they were forced to stand down at 5:08 AM. Harry Potter fled into the forest, where he appeared to be killed by the Dark Lord. However, the self-proclaimed Chosen One lifted the ruse in order to fight against the Dark Lord. The battle lasted long into the day, but Harry Potter was grievously outclassed. At 9:38 AM, the Boy-Who-Lived died. See page 8 for a full synopsis of the heart-wrenching battle. The Daily Prophet encourages citizens to flee as soon as possible.****Rita Skeeter
Draco still had the paper, buried deep in one of the many hiding places in his wing of the manor. It had been three years, four months and twenty days. He would never forget. That was the last article the Daily Prophet had printed without inspection by one of the Dark Lord's lackeys. Rita Skeeter had been murdered two days after it was published because of her warning. Many witches and wizards, particularly Muggleborns on the run had escaped because of it.
His fist clenched on the tip of the newspaper. Somehow, Harry Potter had lost. Somehow, the Dark Lord had won. Somehow, it had all fallen apart.
Author's Note: In this story, when Harry attempted to wrestle the wands out of Draco's hand, he managed to steal Bellatrix's and Ron's wands, along with the blackthorn wand. Unfortunately for him, Draco hung on a little tighter to his own wand, and Harry didn't manage to steal it. When he faced off against Voldemort, he was not the master of the Elder Wand, and faced off alone. As you can see from the article, he lasted approximately three hours, but he just wasn't capable of beating Voldemort. No one stepped in because, like in the book, he told them not to and they assumed he had a plan.
Harry never told Voldemort who was the master of the Elder Wand. It wasn't relevant, and it would only get Draco killed, and Harry (while thinking he was a slimy coward) obviously didn't want him to die. Because of this, Voldemort thinks he is the master of the Elder Wand because he killed Snape. He's right, in a way, because the Wand does listen to him, if only because Draco does.
Aaaand, there's the beginning to the AU sequel to Many Things. You did not have to read Many Things to understand this, but a lot about the relationships between the characters is important.
This is only the preface: chapters will be longer than this.
