The Rise of the Augurey

DISCLAIMER: if you started reading with Chapter One, you have already seen the disclaimer. If not so, why don't you go back to do this right?


In an alternate world, where Harry Potter did not feel responsible for Cedric Diggory's death, he turned into an even more reckless brat than he had already been – a typical daring Gryffindor. For some time, this didn't show any bad consequences.

This Harry was not afraid of causing another death by simply telling about what was going on at Hogwarts. He opened the gift that Sirius gave to him at the end of the fifth year's winter holidays and they happily chatted through the two-way mirrors whenever Harry felt like talking to his godfather.

When the Dark Lord tried to lure Harry Potter into the Department of Mysteries, Harry did not depend on Dolores Umbridge's fireplace and listening to Kreacher's lies to find out whether Sirius was actually there. Thus, by worrying less, Harry actually kept Sirius alive longer. But at the end of the year, Albus Dumbledore was still not sure whether the time had come to tell Harry the full truth about the prophecy and the Horcruxes, and Cornelius Fudge and great parts of wizardkind continued to dwell in the delusion that there was no Dark Lord to combat.

Since Voldemort could not blame Lucius Malfoy for Harry not showing up in the Hall of Prophecy, Draco Malfoy was never tasked with killing Dumbledore, Severus Snape never stepped in, and Voldemort never came to believe that he must kill Snape to become the master of the Elder Wand. But Snape never won the Dark Lord's trust to such an extent that he would be made Headmaster at Hogwarts when Voldemort took over.

Lacking the bad experience of a recent encounter with Albus Dumbledore, Voldemort nourished hope that the aging warlock might have lost some of his skill, and in making plans for Harry's sixth Hogwarts year, the Dark Lord did not shy away from a direct confrontation with the only one he had once feared. Wizardkind does not know how and why the Dark Lord and his followers broke through Hogwarts' magic shields in mid-winter. They may have tried to abduct Sybill Trelawney to interrogate her about the prophecy she had made. When Albus Dumbledore protected the Divination teacher, he had already been weakened by the cursed ring, and thus Lord Voldemort succeeded in killing his old enemy before he fled from the united forces of teachers, Dumbledore's Army, members of the Order of the Phoenix guarding Hogwarts, and incoming Aurors.

Now the fact that Voldemort had returned could no longer be denied; he had been seen by too many witnesses in the event that became known as the Battle of the Divination Tower. Rufus Scrimgeour was made the new Minister for Magic, but Albus Dumbledore had not yet finished preparations for the death he had known to be inevitable. The Order of the Phoenix was left without a designated leader, neither Harry Potter nor Severus Snape had yet learned everything they needed to know, and Hermione Granger did not inherit the book that would have pointed her to the Deathly Hallows.

After some more months of preparation, early in Harry's seventh Hogwarts year, Voldemort took over the Ministry of Magic. Not caring much for the danger he would bring to his friends, Harry Potter attempted to organize resistance, but realization that Pius Thicknesse was only a figurehead and what the Dark Lord's rule actually meant had not spread far yet, Harry did not get much support even at Hogwarts, and only few reinforcements arrived before Dumbledore's Army was defeated in the Battle of Hogwarts that is now celebrated as Voldemort Day in late October.

Since the Dark Lord had won, no Death Eaters were arrested after the Battle of Hogwarts. The orphaned Parselmouth was still raised by Euphemia Rowle, but Rodolphus Lestrange never showed up to take her away. When the girl came of age, she still got an Augurey tattoo, and she joined Voldemort's Death Eaters guard just to spite Euphemia. Nobody could obey orders as relentlessly as she did, and by doing great things – terrible, but great – she rose through the ranks, until she sat at the Dark Lord's side, his heir in spirit if not in flesh.


A/N: Thanks again to my beta readers Iximaz and Storme Hawk, and apologies for another draft. I can't write novels.