A/N : I am not J.K. Rowlings so cut me some slack
It was a cold windy evening in Alfriston, a small village in East Sussex. It was the night of October 31st, kids were running around dressed in their Halloween costumes. The kids were eating candy and chasing each other around. The adults were not left out of the celebrations, they gathered around in groups drinking and chatting as they kept an eye on the children playing.
"Don't go too far" Madeline shouted to her daughter who was seemed to be having the time of her life with her friends.
"I love the full moon." Madeline said to her husband Peter as she looked up to the full moon in the sky. They were sat in front of their house drinking with a few of their neighbors.
"Why does it suddenly fell colder?" Peter asked as he pulled his coat around himself tighter. The can of beer in his hands suddenly felt much colder. "Do you feel it? " He asked looking around at his neighbors.
"This doesn't feel right" One of the neighbors said as she felt a chill run down her spine.
"We should start packing up."
Suddenly several masked individuals appeared out of nowhere right in the center of the village. They were all dressed in the same costume, long black robes and white skull masks covering their face. At the front of group one of them was not wearing a mask. He had a bald head, with tiny slits where his nose should be, his eyes glowed red in the dark of the night.
"Who are they?" One of the neighbors said as he stood up to confront the strangers. A few of the other men stood up to back him up as the women tried to gather their children away from the strangers.
"Oi, Who are you?" One of the neighbors shouted as they stopped a few yards from the advancing strangers.
Lord Voldemort paused his advance and watched as the muggles gathered to question he and his death eaters presence. He had been laying low for a while after the fight at the Department of Mysteries. His attempt to posses potter had drained him of a lot more energy than he had anticipated. Tonight was going to be his first major outing since then, although he had been sending his death eaters out to cause terror in his name.
"Pests, you dare stand before me to question me?" Voldemort said eerily.
Ants. Voldemort thought to himself, they were not intelligent enough to sense the danger that faced them.
"You are not welcome here." Another villager shouted. The death eaters had their wands in their hands waiting for the signal to unleash terror.
"An ant has no quarrel with a boot, your lives are meaningless in the grand scheme but tonight you will serve a greater purpose. Your deaths will deliver my message. Morsmordre." Voldemort went into a short rant before raising his wand to the sky and casting the dark mark. The dark mark lit up the sky, a green skull with a snake protruding from it's mouth.
This was the signal to attack for the death eaters. Immediately the death eaters started casting their most lethal spells on the panicking villagers. The leader of the villagers was hit with a nasty cutting curse that caused his intestines to fall out. He fell to the floor in pain as he held his intestines in his hands trying to prevent them from falling out totally.
The village was filled with screams of panic as the villagers ran in all directions trying to escape the rampaging death eaters who wrecked havoc as they spread out. Voldemort casually strolled about striking down random villagers as he went.
"This must be the house." Voldermort said to himself as he stopped in front of a very old house. The house looked like it had received some upgrade in recent years but the main structure was definitely over a hundred years old.
"I know we all would rather be spending Halloween with our families but we have received credible intel that the dark lord is planning an attack for today so we need to be on full alert." Amelia Bones said to the gathered aurors. Since her appointment as Minister of Magic she had implemented several changes to the Ministry, most particularly to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Cornelius had handicapped the department during his tenure so it had been a huge task getting the department back on track. One of the changes she had implemented was randomly examining all workers at the ministry for the dark mark.
On a random monday morning, without any prior announcement all the workers in the ministry had been gathered in the atrium for examination. Aurors blocked all the entrances and the floo network was disconnected. They had managed to discover about 30 marked death eaters working in the ministry. Several of them were high ranking members in the ministry and even some Department heads. They had all been arrested and were awaiting trial in a dementorless Azkaban. Azkaban was now fully guarded by humans since the departure of the dementors.
"We have set up sensors all over the country so we would be alerted the moment the dark lord attacks any location. Auror Scrimgourge will assign you into groups and brief you on the plan." Amelia said. All information on their plans for tonight had been kept secret to prevent any spies of the dark lord from learning of them. Only herself, Rufus Scrimgourge and Dumbledore knew of the plans for tonight.
Minister Bones walked back to her office with her personal guards flanking her in a triangle formation. Personally she thought the personal guards for herself were an overkill, she could handle herself in a fight. But the Wizengamot had insisted on it for her protection, considering the former minister had been killed right in the heart of the Ministry she didn't have much grounds to protest.
Since her appointment as Minister she had been working very closely with Dumbledore to safeguard the nation. It had been one of her demands to Dumbledore when he convinced her to take up the role. He had a lot of connections around the world and she had been leaning heavily on his resources to prepare for what was coming. One of his resources that had been particularly useful was his vigilante group of followers, Order of The Phoenix.
Typically she wouldn't abide a rogue group going around doing the work of aurors but they needed all the help they could get. The group consisted of wizards and witches from different walks of life and it was particularly useful for gathering information the aurors wouldn't have access to. In fact the information on the dark lords planned attack tonight had come from one of Dumbledore's spies who was a member of his group. Although Dumbledore had refused to tell her who exactly the spy was, he had vouched for the credibility of the information.
Amelia entered her office and closed the door behind her. In light of Voldemort potential attack she had chosen to stay in the ministry overnight to oversee things. Barely a few minutes after she arrived her office a Lion patronus flew into her office.
"Multiple attacks across England, deploying aurors now." The patronus said in the gruff voice of Rufus Scrimgourge. Amelia immediately left her office to meet Rufus in the War Room they had set up.
"Update me. What is going on?" Amelia asked as she entered the War Room. An old abandoned office had been repurposed to serve as the War Room for the fight against Voldemort. At the center of the room was a large table with a detailed map of Great Britain on it. She had commissioned the map from the Department of Mysteries to aid in their preparation for the ongoing war. Currently the map was flashing red across several locations.
"Attacks on five different locations across England, small villages and towns." Scrimgourge said without looking up from the map.
"All easy targets for him to cause maximum chaos" Minister Bones said as she approached the map
"I have deployed multiple teams to each location with more teams on standby. We are still waiting for updates to know exactly where the dark lord is. I have also sent some teams to major hot spots like Diagon Alley and Hogsmead in case this is just a diversion." Scrimgourge took his promotion to Head of Department of Magical Law Enforcement very seriously and had taken advantage of their increased funding to properly prepare for any attacks.
He had designed several drills for the department to make sure everyone knew what was expected of them during an attack. Aurors and hitwizards trained with their team members and practiced attacking and defending major magical landmarks with simulations. The Department of Mysteries had been very useful in providing them with different tools for training. Apparently they were angry at the attack on their department and had vowed revenge on the dark lord.
"I am going to send a message to Dumbledore. We will need him if the dark lord is present at any of the attacks." Amelia said as she stepped out of the War Room to send a message to Dumbledore.
Albus Dumbledore sighed as he folded the letter he just received as put it in the drawer of his desk. The letter was from the Headmaster of Emry's Academy, Gabriel Sonaya. Dumbledore had kept in constant communication with Gabriel who updated him on Harry's progress. The details of their correspondence over the past few weeks had been mostly surrounding Harry's curse scar. Dumbledore omitted telling Gabriel about the horcrux in Harry's scar when he asked about it. A part of him had hoped that the scar wasn't an horcrux and Gabriel would be able to discover an alternative explanation for it.
Those hopes were dashed when he received confirmation from Gabriel that they had discovered an horcrux in his scar. Thankfully Gabriel had given him hope that they might be able to discover a cure that did not involve killing Harry. If a cure existed, Dumbledore had faith in his friend Gabriel, and the staff at Emry's to discover it. They had specialists in several branches of magic that were banned in Britain.
He had received a visit from Adelaide Morgan, the world renowned expert in Ritual and Blood Magic and also Professor at Emry's Academy. He had met her once in the past when she was consulting for the ICW. The subject of their discussion mostly surrounded the situation around Harry's scar. She grilled him for every information and observation he had on Harry's scar.
"Multiple attacks across the country. We need you now." The voice of Madam Bones said as her patronus flew into Dumbledore's office interrupting his thought. Fawkes fley to his shoulder as he stood up and they both disappeared from his office in a flash of fire.
Dumbledore appeared just outside the Ministry's war room in a flash of flames. The phoenix flashing was one of the means of transportation that could not be blocked by spells or charms. He could have flashed directly into the war room but he didn't want to startle anybody considering they were under an attack.
"Has the dark lord been seen at any of the attacks?" Dumbledore asked as he walked into the war room.
"About time you got here. He has been spotted in Alfriston, a small village in East Sussex" Scrimgourge said looking up from the map.
"Any particular reason he chose to attack Alfriston?" Dumbledore asked.
"We don't know? There are no wizards or witches living there, no magical monument of any kind in the area. He was last spotted going into a house, I have asked the aurors to stay clear of him and focus on the death eaters." Amelia said.
"Here is a portkey for you, it should take you to the edge of the village." Scrimgourge said as he handed Dumbledore a rusted iron pot. Dumbledore took the portkey from Scrimgourge and activated it with a tap of his wand.
The sounds of spell fire and screams of terror greeted Dumbledore as he arrived just outside the village. Several houses had been set on fire by the death eaters as they sought to smoke out the occupants. The villagers ran around in panic trying to escape from their masked attackers, the death eaters laughed hysterically as they chased after the panicking muggles. Parents tries to gather their children together and lead them away from the danger. Not too far away a team of aurors were engaged in combat with a group of death eaters.
"HELP!" A woman was screaming as she was cornered by 2 death eaters who seemed to be taking their time toying with her. They sent several stinging hexes at the woman as she screamed for help. Having broken her ankles from a fall, she was crawling away from the death eaters who laughed as they enjoyed her screams of panic. She was covered in mud as she bled from a gash on her arm, her clothes were torn in several places as she tried to pull herself away from the advancing death eaters.
Dumbledore waved his wand causing the death eaters to fly into each other crashing their skulls together and knocking themselves out.
"Help is on it's way" Dumbledore said as he knelt by the woman and quickly healed her bleeding wound.
Dumbledore could sense the oppressive darkness of Voldemort magic over the area. Another death eater was chasing after an old man not too far away from him. He silently cast a stunner, knocking the death eater unconscious. The death eaters didn't seem to realize his presence until it was too late. He immediately turned their robes into a portkey and sent them to the ministry holding cells. He walked urgently towards the house he sensed Voldemorts presence, stunning any death eaters he came across and sending them to the holding cell.
"You shouldn't be here Tom" Dumbledore said as the dark lord stepped out of the house to the street.
"You are too late old man. My mission here is complete." The dark lord said.
"Tom, is the death of a few muggles so important to you that you come yourself?" Dumbledore asked hoping to get an insight into Voldemort's reason for attacking the village.
"DO NOT CALL ME THAT NAME!" Voldemort shouted in anger. He slashed his wand downward sending a non-verbal curse towards Dumbledore. The curse rebounded against Dumbledore's golden shield with a loud gong.
"In any case you will not be leaving here with what you came for." Dumbledore said non-chalantly as if he had not just blocked a lethal curse that would have killed any regular wizard or witch. Around them the fight was still raging on, the aurors had managed to capture a few of the death eaters and had sent them to the ministry holding cell.
"You old fool, you could never stop me. Not even when I was a boy. Do send my regards to dear Harry, you can't hide him from me forever." Voldemort said before disappearing leaving behind the dark mark glowing in the sky.