A/N: Hey, everyone! It's been awhile – and I mean years – since I've written fanfiction; but I've been wanting to read a story with this plot line for many years and, since I haven't found one, I finally decided to try my hand at writing it myself. It's compliant only up until the fifth book, and it takes place in the sixth/seventh years, which are going to be completely different from the series! Also, it's been a number of years since I have actually read the books, so if I forget something or get the timeline mixed up, please let me know. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!
Prologue: As It Stands
The Death Eaters were really back. There could be no mistaking it now, after the battle at the Department of Mysteries. And all the attacks since - all the missing witches and wizards, all the piles of dead bodies - added further evidence of the fact. There was no denying it.
And yet, the Ministry of Magic was denying it. The Minister and all of his closest advisors were doing their utmost to keep the wool pulled over everyone's eyes, including their own. The official word was that there were a lot of freak "accidents" occurring throughout magical and muggle Britain this summer. A couple of the more violent and bloody attacks had been attributed to isolated incidents. You-Know-Who had not, they repeated, had not returned, and neither had his followers. Any whisper to the contrary was being adamantly negated.
The fools.
But Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and Harry Potter, Sixth Year student and the Boy Who Lived, refused to be silenced. They persisted. They called press conferences. They told their friends, and had their friends tell their friends, so that everyone in the wizarding world would know that Voldemort was back and that he wanted blood. The Ministry of Magic didn't like that much. They responded, fast and hard.
Dumbledore and Potter were blackballed.
Soon, everyone knew that Dumbledore had more than a few screws loose. He'd always been eccentric, but now he was absolutely bonkers. And that Potter boy? He'd always been an attention hog. Remember how he'd stolen that poor dead boy's thunder - what was his name, Dagman or Diggle or something - by illegally entering himself into the Triwizard Tournament? Had to have the spotlight on him. And now that he's been out of it for a whole year, he's made up some crazy story about Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries. Like anyone could even break into the Department of Mysteries! They were dangerous. They shouldn't even be allowed at Hogwarts, and how could honest witches and wizards trust their children to the care of some old lunatic raving about a dead man coming back from the grave?
Thus said the ministry, and thus said the Daily Prophet... so it must be true, the people rationalized. And thus said the people.
Yes, it was a bitter summer for Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter.
What's more, they both knew that things were about to get so much worse…