PAWN
Prologue
Expectations were funny things.
What was expected became what was predicted. What was predicted became assumed.
What was assumed went to ruin.
The Wizarding world's expectation of Harry Potter was thus: at the end of his seventh year, he was to face Voldemort, the terror of the modern world, one final time, mano a mano, for the glory of the Order of the Phoenix, and in the name of all that was good.
They were wrong.
For Voldemort had become unforeseeable. His tactics, his plans, his methods, were all changed overnight. His activities quieted, his Death Eaters all but disappeared. The very air the Wizarding World had breathed was tense. For months, the castle of Hogwarts sat in anxious silence, waiting for the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Days and weeks past. Harry Potter became withdrawn to his schoolmates. Albus Dumbledore had all but locked the Order in his study for perpetual planning. The summer heat drifted into England and seemed to smother any joy that had been left by spring.
The school was urged to carry on as usual. The seventh years studied for and took their N.E.W.T.s, they anxiously counted off their remaining days in the castle, and then, before they knew it, Graduation had come and seen them all to the Hogwarts Express.
Harry Potter retuned home to Little Whinging, exam results came by mail, closely followed by job offers of every sort, and the summer heat dissolved into the crispness of fall. The Daily Prophet began to run articles on the Chudley Cannon's new season line up and business in Diagon Alley picked up again. Tentative life unfolded; a sense of bland security was created.
It was exactly what Voldemort had been waiting for.
It had been said by many sources (each more unreliable than the next) that Voldemort appeared in the Square at Diagon Alley a quarter past midnight on October 31st; Halloween Night, with two dozen Death Eaters in his train. The party seemed to have predetermined orders, the witnesses said, because they split up. And that was when the pillaging began.
Shops were burned to the ground. By the time Aurors arrived there were already 37 causalities, 24 of them dead. Women and children shrieked, and few stayed to fight. The sound of broken glass tinkled through the night where it mingled with the sounds of thrown curses and the crackling of fires. The Death Eaters Disapperated soon after the place had burnt to the ground, leaving 13 of the 24 Aurors dead.
It wasn't what they Wizarding World had expected. But it had come.
Voldemort and his minions spent the next month slowly regaining control. There were two to three raids on villages nightly. The last strongholds became St. Mungo's, The Ministry of Magic, and Hogwarts.
Harry Potter was joined at Hogwarts by the Order of the Phoenix, former members of the D.A., and his best friends Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Slowly the castle filled with torn families, determined young fighters, and what few Aurors the Ministry could spare. No one could be expected to break through this stronghold.
It was an expectation…but not a fact.
***
Well. How bout that now.
Good stuff to come, but reviews make me write faster! (Where's the love, y'all?)
*Mme