Plot.

It is 2001, and the Wizarding World is ripped in two.

The past three and a half years have been a downward spiral for the Wizarding World, and the death of Albus Dumbledore was only the beginning. After the beloved Hogwarts Headmaster was killed, everything went downhill. True, there was a brief grace period – Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour were married early in the summer, and Dumbledore’s will left a Golden Snitch, the Put-Outer, and The Tales of Beadle the Bard to Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, respectively – but it didn’t last. It couldn’t last.

Harry and his two closest friends did not return to Hogwarts for their seventh year, opting, instead, to hunt throughout Britain for the Horcruxes that they needed to destroy in order to kill Lord Voldemort and end his reign of terror forever. Although they had early success in finding and destroying Slytherin’s locket, which had been one of the only things Kreacher had managed to protect from the thieving hands of Mundungus Fletcher, their leads and their luck soon ran out. They’ve been searching diligently since then, but they’ve had no success. Not only have they had difficulty in discerning the identity of Ravenclaw’s diadem, but they also haven’t been able to locate Hufflepuff’s cup, and they certainly haven’t been able to kill Harry or Nagini.

Meanwhile, the rest of Wizarding Britain has been slowly going to rot. Under Minister for Magic Rufus Scrimgeour, the personal liberties of the average witch and wizard were often put aside in favor of promoting security, and the Death Eaters still continued to wreak havoc on the populace. The casualties were many, and Wizards and Muggles alike fell beneath the wands and Unforgivable Curses of Lord Voldemort’s followers. This would have been enough, but there were covert forces at work for the Dark Lord as well: started in 1999 by Terence Higgs and Marcus Flint, the Reactionary Federation was a group of young, would-be Death Eaters who chose to further Dark aims without taking the Mark. Because they weren’t Marked, they could blend into society and place themselves in useful jobs – Ministry employees, Healers, Daily Prophet staff, workers for the Wizarding Wireless Network, and other positions – and some members even went on more active missions, supervised by Death Eaters. At the height of their achievement, three Reactionary Federation members were responsible for poisoning Muggleborn children in London with Dragon Pox, under the guidance of Bellatrix Lestrange herself; they went uncaught and several Muggleborn children became infected, with five casualties. It was a nightmare to both the Wizarding and Muggle public, but the Federation considered it a great success.

Finally, in August 2000, Lord Voldemort moved the rest of Wizarding Britain into check: the Death Eaters and Reactionary Federation made a move on the Ministry, and, in an expansive battle, overthrew the old order. The death toll was enormous and the list of injured was one of the longest in the history of the wars with Voldemort. Bellatrix Lestrange personally tortured and killed Rufus Scrimgeour, with the assistance of another R.F. member. Once the Ministry had fallen, Voldemort instated Death Eaters all over the Ministry: most notably, Yaxley became the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and William Travers became the Minister for Magic. The Carrows took over Hogwarts, under the leadership of new Headmistress Dolores Umbridge. Severus Snape was killed by his own Dark Lord and has since been turned into a martyr courtesy of revisionist history; the Elder Wand, unbeknownst to the Wizarding World, is in Lord Voldemort’s hands.

The rights of every Halfblood Witch or Wizard are being stripped away. Muggleborn Witches and Wizards are being forced to lie about their heritage, go into hiding, or else face imprisonment, slavery, and subjugation. Now more than ever, it is unsafe to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Already, some Order members have been forced into hiding, even though they aren’t Muggleborn; while some of gone into hiding on their own power, some have taken Remus Lupin’s invitation of moving into Number 12 Grimmauld Place, which is more protected against intrusion than it has ever been. Under the new system, the Order is doing all it can to help and to reclaim Wizarding Britain – creating false identification papers and family trees, spying inside the Ministry, attempting to thwart Death Eater and Reactionary Federation actions – but their enemy is now their government, which has them at a distinct disadvantage.

While disorder and oppression best describe most of Wizarding Britain, the Pureblood elites have entered what some consider to be a Renaissance. They are once again favored citizens, with more and more laws granting them favor and superiority over the rest of the populace, and most have taken this as a license to behave however they please. Many of those outside of the Death Eaters and the Reactionary Federation take to their increased liberties with Golden Age decadence, but the witches and wizards who serve the Dark Lord are actively working to further his aims, including his new ideas of foreign expansion.

This new world is one of extreme dichotomies. Do you know where you stand?