Subject: Which leads to... what?
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Posted on: 2016-09-08 10:11:00 UTC
So Pettigrew is arrested, and - being perhaps overly generous to the Ministry - Sirius Black is pardoned. He doesn't return to Grimmauld Place - he hates it, and doesn't exactly need to hide out now! - but instead takes up residence in Hogsmeade. He and Remus get together quite often.
No Dementors are on the scene, so Harry never learns to conjure a Patronus. Nor does he receive the Maurauders' Map - the twins gave it to him because he wasn't allowed to visit Hogsmeade, which isn't the case now. Instead, he spends a lot of time hanging out with Hopfoot (^_~) and Moony.
Meanwhile, Voldemort has basically given up; he's hanging out in Albania with only Nagini for company. And who else will come looking for him? The only other faithful Death Eater is Barty Crouch Jr... who occasionally breaks free of his Imperius prison.
So: the World Cup is still interrupted by the Dark Mark, but Voldemort isn't there to get Barty out permanently. Year 4 is frankly boring: the Triwizard Tournament takes place, and is won by Cedric Diggory (who came second in the first task, and first in the other two). Mad-Eye Moody - the real one! - is a terrifying DADA teacher. He probably does teach Harry the Patronus charm, and Sirius helps him refine it. Sometime in this year, I suspect Harry becomes an unregistered Animagus, to be more like his father (and with prompting from Sirius).
In Year 5, Barty Jr escapes his father, and goes looking for Voldemort. Barty Sr covers it up (of course). Sirius Black teaches DADA at Dumbledore's request (yay, no Umbridge!). And around springtime, Barty finds Voldemort. He brings him back to England and they follow, essentially, Wormtail's plan: the potion. That means they need Harry Potter's blood - but a Harry Potter who is a year older, an Animagus, and hasn't even thought much about Voldemort since his first year.
So they orchestrate a breakout from Azkaban - a subtle one, replacing the prisoners with fake substitutes - and use the freed Death Eaters to run a kidnap attempt. They grab Harry in Hogsmeade, take his blood, restore Voldemort, and Voldemort challenges Harry to a duel. Priori Incantatem kicks in... but there's no Portkey to hand. As the ghosts appear around them, Voldemort grabs Barty's wand and kills Harry.
Or so he thinks. He manages to kill his own accidental horcrux, and knocks Harry out long enough that Team Voldemort leave, but then Harry revives and stumbles back to Hogwarts. He tells Dumbledore everything.
Going into the sixth year, we're in a place only subtly different from the canon. Voldemort is back; the Ministry refuses to believe it; Dumbledore starts hunting horcruxes. But Grimmauld Place is a Death Eater hangout, Sirius is a friend of Hogwarts, and - perhaps crucially - Harry no longer has a piece of Voldemort in his head. He can't see what Voldemort sees.
Anyone want to take it from that point?
hS