Hello again! This here is a snippet of the idea I had. Let's call it a… prologue.

Warnings: moderate language, some of what Vernon says is offensive; he is a jerk and I am not trying to imply that his opinion is right.

Pairings: none

Length: novel

Other: please don't expect daily updates, especially in the school terms. This prologue is a trial to test out the idea. Feedback is welcome, is this worth continuing?

Disclaimer: Any lines you recognise come from Harry Potter and hence, are not my own.

"English"

"Parseltongue. Got it?"

21 June 1994

The Prime Minister sat in his office, his mind once again drawn against his will to the other world. That world, from the talking portrait that couldn't be moved to the bowler hat favouring man, was something he actively tried to forget about. Alas, ignoring it could not make it go away.

The other Minister, Fudge, was the only wizard he'd had contact with, and first impressions did not leave an overall positive image. The portly man was aggravatingly condescending, looking down on him as if he was some ignorant school boy rather than the Prime Minister. He dismissed his worries with an indulgent smile and a flippant "don't let it bother you".

The only thing worse than the man himself was the bad news he inevitably brought. The first bombshell was, of course, that there existed a magical society, hidden from sight and out of influence of the proper law authorities. Now, when the Prime Minister cared to admit to himself that the magical world did exist, he disliked shocking lack of information he received and the fact that he relied on Fudge –who seemed a tad incompetent, mind– to keep his part of Britain from impacting the other.

And that lead to another point: Sirius Black. The mass murderer had escaped from prison almost a year ago and the worry in the Prime Minister's mind had only intensified since. Fudge had described Black as a 'muggle hunter', and the ensuing hour long conversation, to his horror, had turned to 'You-Know-Who' and the group of people who hated his folk (described as 'muggles', and even that sounded offensive).

Black had killed 12 British citizens in a case that was covered up as a gas main explosion. The more the Prime Minister looked into it, the more trouble he found. In the years before 1981 in particular, there was a whole slew of crimes that were actually the fault of this 'Dark Lord'.

The Prime Minister had never felt so helpless. Each of these people was a veritable army, and an undisclosed amount obviously had a vendetta against the normal population. He hadn't been told how many there were, where they were, or how to stop them and protect his country. No, instead he'd been told it was "all under control". This was clearly not the case. The fact that the vagabond had been terrorising both worlds for nigh on three decades did not denote to an overwhelming level of control.

The Prime Minister would have been content to let the other world exist, ignoring it as much as possible, if not for this realisation. Sirius Black was one man, but his disposition seemed to be a popular one. They were not under control, there was a very real danger, and it was his sworn duty to do all he could to stop it.

With the resolution firmly settled, there was only one last major hurdle in his way. The first time Fudge had shown up in his office was the night he had been elected. He'd left with a laugh, convinced that the Prime Minister would not tell anybody, if not only because no one would believe him.

The PM had been convinced of that at the time, but minds can be swayed and as a politician he'd been influencing opinions since he took the job.

He would go to his private investigators first. The evidence had to be there, surely the inaccuracies would become apparent with a little in depth examination, and then the public could be warned.

10 July 1994

It seemed strange at first that a teenage boy, not even fourteen, would find the school term preferable to the summer holidays. Harry Potter, however, was not entirely normal; even by wizarding standards he was an odd one. Why, just the other week he went back in time to rescue his estranged Godfather who was framed for slaughter, only to end up running from a werewolf and flying on a hippogriff.

That was something he was still coming to grips with, but he had to admit that the threat of a fearsome mass murderer kept his relatives in a more manageable disposition. Mostly. After all, what would the neighbours think if a prison escapee turned up on their doorstep? Image, to the Dursleys, was everything.

"Boy! Where's that coffee already?"

Ah, and there was the reason for his fervent dislike of holidays.

"Coming, Uncle Vernon," Harry sighed as he carried the overladen tray from the kitchen into his relative's pudgy, waiting hands.

Vernon gave him a Look, "I won't have you sighing about the place like that, you lazy layabout. Get to your room, stay out of my sight."

Harry went gladly, snagging a couple apples as he went. Without even turning to verify that Vernon's face had turned an unfortunate shade of puce, Harry said, "My godfather likes to check in to make sure I'm eating healthy."

And that put an end to that.

Once in his room, Harry set into his homework with vigour. He'd managed to threaten his way into keeping his trunk in his room this year. Maybe he was pushing his luck, but he had no choice– the constant stressful disruptions were eating into his education, he needed to catch up or he'd never pass. He wasn't a study-nut, not by any means (that was the territory of his good friend, Hermione Granger), but he also didn't have much else to do.

He'd just laid out his potions text books in a futile attempt to chase down Snape's standards, when his door was pushed open abruptly.

Instantly, he slammed the book shut and moved it out of sight, out of mind. He was allowed his trunk, but he didn't want to see what would occur if his guardians saw him actually using anything from his world.

Imagine his surprise when his Aunt Petunia, a stringent upholder of all things normal, didn't even look twice at the book. Her eyes were wide, the pallor of her face sending her rather horsey neck into sharp relief.

"Down stairs, now. Your world is on the news," was all she said.

He stared incomprehensibly at the bedspread beneath him. It was a little old, fading in places, but it had served him well, oh, and magic was on the muggle news.

He launched himself off the bed, through the door, which he overshot and slammed into the hallway wall, and thundered down the stairs, only complying to his Uncle's demand to stop running when he was within meters of the television.

There on the screen, plain as day, was the Prime Minister. His face was deadly serious, which somewhat went against the topic of discussion. He talked about wizard kind, magic attacks that had been covered up as terrorist attacks by yet more magic users. To back it up, he had witnesses to crimes who swore that they remembered being elsewhere while security footage clearly showed them within view of the incidents, though the incident itself was never recorded. They had medical and educational records of students that stopped at the age of eleven when they went off to join the other society. They'd found squibs to testify, and they did so with a certain vindictive gleam in their eye. One woman, Joan Wicket even went into Diagon Alley with a video camera and independent experts could not deny that the footage was genuine.

"My good people, we have been deceived, but no more. In recent years, many disasters can be attributed to the work of a magical madman, and the wizarding world cannot stop him. This man's actions, and the actions of many of those like him, have affected us and continue to affect us. The time has come for this hidden society to come to terms with honesty, and we must work with them to stop this terroristic threat to our people."

An echo of applause resonated through the dead silent living room. The camera panned over the audience and Harry saw some scoff, passing him off as mad. But the majority… they believed him.

Oh sweat Merlin. Harry could barely breathe; something seemed to constrict his chest like a vice.

"Your secret is out, boy!" Vernon's voice shattered the silence. He sounded delighted. "For now our government will cooperate, but you know what'll happen next, don't you? Your kind's true nature will come to light; the things that can kill, control, mess with our heads! Oh, the officials won't be so accommodating then, and rightly so.

"You'll be locked up, they'll find a way to limit your disgusting magic, or maybe they'll just exterminate you all. It's happened before; the Jews, the poofs; now it's your turn to get what you deserve." A certain nasty smirk scrunched up his moustache.

"Mark my words, boy," he finished gravely, smugness oozing from him in waves, "You'll wish we'd been able to stamp the magic out of you before this is up! Better savour it while you can, your days are numbered."

Now, Vernon could not be trusted to know much about anything, but in this, Harry realised he could be right. Weren't his own family an example of how fear could twist and warp humane behaviour? For Merlin's sake, they locked him in a cupboard just in case the neighbours ever saw a hint of his freakishness.

The Dursleys hated anyone just the slightest bit different from their view of normal, be it skin colour, religion, sexual preferences, magic. From an idealistic point of view, he hoped his relatives were the worst muggles the world had to offer, but realistically he knew that history told of some horrors that didn't bear mentioning. Their view was shared by others, but while they themselves were too cowardly to do anything about it, not all were so afraid of what the neighbours would think. So it could get worse, but would it?

The world had come a long way since the 1940s. Surely humanitarians wouldn't accept another attempt at forced euthanasia.

No, magic would be fine, Harry reassured himself, the muggles were only against the terrorists, and taking out Voldemort could only help both communities and relations between them.

Harry tried to ignore the little voice asking how long it would be before someone decided that the term 'terrorists' should encompass all of magic kind.