Post-OOTP. The episode in the DOM has left Harry a changed boy. He returns to the Dursley's to prepare for his inevitable confrontation with Voldemort, but his stay there is very short-lived. He finds himself in the care of people who he has no choice but to cooperate with and they give him a startling revelation: Harry must travel back to the 1970's to save the wizarding world.

Harry is in the Department of Mysteries, when he stops to ask Bellatrix a question. Why? The answers given reveal the mind of a tortured woman, and a plot is hatched.