Prologue


It's almost ironic, to think that the Wizarding World had assumed that Voldemort's death would give them the ability to raise their children in complete safety. After all, Voldemort's reign had closely followed that of Grindelwald. The Wizarding World should have suspected, or at least prepared itself, for the possible rise of another Dark Lord following the defeat of Voldemort.

Alas, willful ignorance has always been a skill readily employed by the masses.

My parents, the heroes of magical Britain, did their best to follow the rest of the world's lead in settling down and moving on. Though they were still haunted by nightmares and memories, they truly wished to believe that a new era of peace was upon them. After losing their childhoods to war, they were desperate to believe that their children would be spared the horrors that they had endured. They wanted to give us the childhood that they had never had the chance to experience.

For the first time in their lives, my parents were told that all was well, and trusted it. Though it didn't happen instantly, after years of peace they were able to grow comfortable living a life devoid of the chaos and fear that they had grown up with. It was, perhaps, partially fueled by the desire for children, but the inability to bring them into a world that they could not trust. They slowly learned how to immerse themselves into what the rest of the world considered the "norm" and gradually began to shake the habits formed by years of paranoia.

Life settled down for the Wizarding World, and people began to remember how to exist during an era of peace. Coming home to find the lights out and the house silent now meant a surprise party, not a Death Eater attack. Hearing a scream late at night meant a colicky baby, not Lord Voldemort walking through your front door. People began to trust the world to be kind again, putting aside their wartime vigilance in favor of feeling comfortable and secure in their daily lives. Almost willfully, people proceeded to forget what life was like outside of the new "Golden Age".

Ironically, the eagerness of the Wizarding World to omit war from recent memory is precisely what led it into the next one.

Two summers before my first year at Hogwarts, the new Minister did something that should have turned the Wizarding World on its head.

With promises of careful monitoring and strict regulations, he released a few minor Death Eaters. Though there was an outcry brought about by the act, the riot that perhaps one might have expected did not come. Reminders printed daily in the papers of the rarity of magical blood and flowery language discussing the importance of second chances helped to keep the masses from anarchy at the news. He reminded everyone of Severus Snape and Regulus Black, men who had originally signed up to be Death Eaters, but who had saved the world by realizing the error of their ways.

He was very careful with who he released and with how slowly he did so. When years passed and the names in the papers remained unknown, people began to relax.

It should have caused more of a ripple when big-name Death Eaters were released, but the paroles were no longer front-page news, and few people bothered to seek them out anymore. Even the people who did bother found that the stories of the releases were peppered with genuine pleading from all of the felons. It was rumored that they were all questioned under Veritaserum, in order to confirm that their intentions were pure and that their desire for the chance to redeem themselves was true.

The slow emptying of Azkaban went largely unnoticed and wholly unopposed.

Seeing as the wizarding population of Britain had just escaped from war, one would think that they would jump to defend their world at the first sign of foul play, but people were desperate to cling to the feeling of safety. Safety had, in recent times, been perpetually short-lived. Witches and wizards yearned to finally find themselves living in a world where they could grow old without worrying about dying in a war.

No one wished to react to the release of the Death Eaters, even when things began to go south. When the attacks began, people brushed it off as simply the dissatisfied masses that had been present since the war was won. There would always be some, people said, who had supported the losing side. It was a fact of life, they would state.

No matter that the masks that the attackers wore were not the masks worn in the last war.

No matter that some of the attackers had glowing white eyes.

No matter that some of the attacks were executed in a way so fluid that it quite literally did not leave room for human error.

It was, people said, simply the last of the Death Eaters, those who would always persist to exist. They would never stop, but they were defeated and without a master. They would never pose much of a threat, people claimed.

No one had thought that it would get so bad.

Many who hadn't actually fought in the war were cocky. After all, they were quick to inform all that they spoke to that they were of the opinion that the last time was as bad as it could get. They, and they all seemed to forget that this "they" didn't actually include themselves, had defeated Lord Voldemort. They had killed Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback, and they had locked up all of the remaining members of Voldemort's inner circle. They had been through the worst, seen the worst, and beaten it.

Plus, they had Harry Potter, for Merlin's sake.

"What's the worst that could happen?" They asked.

They got their answer.


A/N: I promise that I will only add an author's note if I have something important to say, so please take the time to read them if you see them! This one is a bit lengthy, but bear with me.

If you read this story when it was first published: welcome back. Thank you for returning! If this is your first time reading The Fall of The Phoenix, thank you for reading! This story was initially published in 2015. After two years of writing it, I realized that the plot holes were too numerous to ignore and the writing was incredibly poor at times (I was 14 when I first began working on this story), so I put it on hiatus and began to rewrite it completely. Now, over seven years after it began, I've not only rewritten it, but it is finally complete. Please note that, because this is a rework of a previously posted fic, there may be comments that are no longer relevant to this story!

I will update regularly, probably once a week. Please don't ask me to update every day! I understand how much waiting on a new chapter sucks, but I'm in my final year of university, and my workload is immense. While the story has been written to completion at this point, I will have to upload each chapter to the site and correct the formatting before I can post it, not to mention I would like the chance to proof-read the chapters one last time before I put them out into the world.

This story will contain action and drama the whole way through, but there is a definite shift in the tone of the story later on, so know that things will escalate as the story progresses! As such, there are three separate parts (books, if you will) that make up The Fall of The Phoenix, though they will all be posted here so that they are easy to find, and I won't be taking time off from my update schedule between them.

For the most part, everything that occurred in canon will also have occurred in this story. Anything non-canon compliant will be fairly obvious.

The beginning of most chapters will include a short aside, which will either give a bit of background on things, or hint at drama to come. They will, for the most part, not be obviously relevant to the chapter that follows, but it is all important to the story itself and the connections will make more sense as the story develops. I did a lot of world-building when writing this fic, so I hope that these asides will give you a glimpse into the lore and background that I've created.

UNAVOIDABLE TWS FOR TFOTP: Graphic depictions of violence, major character death, (non-sexual!) non-consensual touching and resulting trauma, panic attacks

Additional TWs, which can be bypassed without loss of plot: I will add a chapter-by-chapter warning as needed for any additional content warnings. These will be fully skippable and I will include a small summary of the events that took place without the trigger.

This story is over seven years in the making. I hope that you love it as much as I do. Thank you so much for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following!