First Wizarding War

*"Imagine that Voldemort's powerful* now*. You don't know who his supporters are, you don't know who's working for him and who isn't; you know he can control people so that they do terrible things without being able to stop themselves. You're scared for yourself, and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing... The Ministry of Magic's in disarray, they don't know what to do, they're trying to keep everything hidden from the Muggles, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere... panic... confusion... that's how it used to be.*"

— The uncertainty of the first war

## Part of the Wizarding Wars

### Cause

Voldemort's return to the United Kingdom in order to begin his first reign of terror

### Result

Ministry and Order of the Phoenix victory. The disappearance of Voldemort and decline of the Death Eaters. Harry Potter declared the "Boy Who Lived"

Commanders| * Albus Dumbledore

Combatants| * Order of the Phoenix
* Ministry of Magic
* Aurors
* Giants
* Werewolves
* Inferi (100+)

Casualties| * Edgar Bones
* Marlene McKinnon
* Benjy Fenwick
* James Potter I
* Liliana Potter I
* Caradoc Dearborn
* Dorcas Meadowes
* Many Others
* Dozens of Death Eaters and Werewolves
* Lord Voldemort's physical body (temporarily)

 The **First Wizarding War** was a major wizarding conflict, with foundations as early as the 1940s, but officially beginning in 1970 and ending in 1980. It marked the original "reign" of the the most powerful Dark Wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort. This war took place at the height of his power and caused widespread panic and fear among the magical and Muggle communities. The Dark Lord's insurgency was supported by his Death Eaters, a covert and violent group of dark wizards and dark witches who served him and brought terror to both the Muggle and Wizarding Worlds. They were opposed in turn by the British Ministry of Magic and the Order of the Phoenix, an equally secretive organisation founded and led by Albus Dumbledore, which would play a crucial role in both of Voldemort's defeats. Voldemort's first defeat took place on Hallowe'en, 31 October, 1980 at the hands of an infant Harry Potter. This led to Harry being known as the "Boy Who Lived". Shortly thereafter, all of his remaining Death Eaters were imprisoned, killed, or acquitted, bringing the war to an end.

## History

### Prelude

#### Birth of Lord Voldemort

"*Marvolo, his son, Castor, and his daughter, Aisha, were the last of the Gaunts, a very ancient Wizarding family noted for a vein of instability and violence that flourished through the generations due to their habit of marrying their own cousins.*"
— Voldemort's unstable ancestry, the House of Gaunt

The First Wizarding War had its roots secretly planted when Adalbert Castor Gaunt was born on 20 December, 1926, to Salazara Gaunt, a pure-blood witch born into the antisocially dysfunctional and heavily inbred supremacist House of Gaunt, who lived in poverty across the valley from the village.
When he was a young child, about four years old, his maternal grandmother, Kailaini Gaunt, was murdered by a gang of muggles with a wizard among them.

During this time, the secret Wizarding World to which Gaunt unknowingly belonged to developed new levels of anti-Muggle sentiment and economic growth. At some point before his birth, for instance, the notorious and radical Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald began launching his own magical supremacist revolution on the European mainland, fueled by his quest to obtain all three of the fabled Deathly Hallows and his desire to expose the Wizarding World's corrupt and unethical laws and establishments. With his army of followers and one of the Hallows, the Elder Wand (which he stole from celebrated wandmaker Mykew Gregorovitch), in his possession, Grindelwald aimed to abolish the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy and subjugate Muggles under a new world order run by wizards, until his defeat in 1945. Around the same time, cosmetic potioneer Fleamont Potter developed the wizarding beauty product Sleekeazy's Hair Potion, the sales of which quadrupled his family gold. He retired with his wife Euphemia a few years later, but sold his company at a vast profit. Between January and March of 1927, Magizoologist Newton "Newt" Scamander had his bestselling book *Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them* published by Obscurus Books. Having faced Grindelwald twice, and even aided in his first capture, Newt became a nationwide celebrity, and was known for having an integral part in the resistance and eventual defeat of the dark wizard and his acolytes. In the 1930s, magical historian Cantankerus Nott anonymously published the *Pure-Blood Directory*, which listed the 28 remaining famous pure-blood families in Great Britain, including the Lestrange Family and Adalbert's own family: the Gaunts. Many of these families considered themselves superior due to their blood status and looked down on "blood traitors" and "Mudbloods". Some pure-blood families were not included, such as the Dumbledore Family, the Potter Family, and the Scamander Family.

Gaunt was finally brought into the Wizarding World in 1938, by Professor Albus Dumbledore, at the time the renowned Transfiguration teacher and Deputy Headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, who noticed not only the boy's unusually strong and well developed natural power, but his secretiveness, vindictiveness and will to dominate as well. Despite being concerned about his propensity for malignance, Dumbledore otherwise was impressed with Adalbert, considering him to be a misunderstood young prodigy. Even Adalbert Gaunt’s ability to speak Parseltongue, a power that was closely associated with the dark arts, was of no great concern to Dumbledore. With a little financial aid from the school, Adalbert Gaunt began attending Hogwarts later that year and was sorted into Slytherin House, where he, unsurprisingly, quickly proved to be an exceptionally gifted student, with Dumbledore himself stating that Adalbert was the most brilliant and talented student to ever attend the school. Although his unhealthy mental state secretly worsened as he began his quest for magical power and social domination, he simultaneously got better at concealing his nature and used his good looks and charm to ingratiate himself with his teachers (with the notable exception of Dumbledore) and classmates. Many of them were instantly taken in by his charisma, and by the start of his second year, Gaunt was made leader of a like-minded gang of Slytherin boys (including Avery and Fiore Lestrange.) The members of this gang, who all came from wealthy pure-blood families, were involved in a number of nasty incidents during their school years, though Gaunt was careful to never become implicated in any wrongdoing and was held as a model student, particularly by Professor Horace Slughorn, the Potions Master.
Over time, Gaunt grew obsessed with discovering his magical ancestry. He came to the conclusion that his father must have also been a wizard because his mother never discussed him, a mysterious and terrifying fate such as death secretly was Gaunt's greatest fear above anything; which he foolishly assumed powerful witches and wizards could avoid. When he could find no trace of any of his father's relatives with magical blood, he was forced to accept that his father was a "filthy Muggle" and that the magically powerful could indeed, die. Enraged by this discovery, he forsook his given name and rearranged the letters to create a new title: ”Adalbert Castor Gaunt" became "I Am Lord Voldemort", and he even began going by Lord Voldemort while still a student, though only with his closest friends.

#### The Heir of Slytherin

"*You see? It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father’s name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry, Nathara — I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!*"
— Adalbert Gaunt's soul revealing his identity as Lord Voldemort to Harry Potter and Nathara Prince-Slytherin in the Chamber of SecretsGaunt finally found his magical ancestry in his fourth year, when he used his middle name Castor (derived from his maternal grandfather Castor Gaunt) to discover the Gaunts and their descent from the Slytherin family. This explained that his exceptionally rare ability to speak Parseltongue made him the "Heir of Slytherin", rumoured in Hogwarts History to be the sole person who could open the legendary Chamber of Secrets. However, his most burning obsession at the time remained the Chamber itself, the hidden entrance of which he spent the majority of his fifth year searching for despite most people insisting it was nothing but a myth. Finally, near the end of the year, he succeeded where countless others had failed, by discovering the entrance in a girl's bathroom, which led down into the sewers beneath Hogwarts Lake. Entering the chamber, Gaunt encountered the millennium-old Basilisk living inside and confirmed his connection to the historical dark wizard who bred it Salazar Slytherin.
On 13 June, 1943, Gaunt unleashed the beast into Hogwarts to continue Slytherin's "noble work" of purging the school of Muggle-born students. Several students were petrified and one named Myrtle Warren was killed, becoming Gaunt's first murder victim. However, this prompted Headmaster Armando Dippet and the Hogwarts Board of Governors to discuss closing the school in the interest of safety. Faced with returning to the Muggle orphanage he so secretly despised, Gaunt abandoned the Chamber of Secrets and secretly framed half-giant third year Gryffindor student Rubeus Hagrid and his pet acromantula Aragog for the crimes. As a result, Hagrid was expelled but offered to be trained as the school's Groundskeeper at Dumbledore's request, whereas Gaunt was unjustly rewarded the Special Award for Services to the School by Dippet. With his fear of death exacerbated by having stared it in the face, he used the murder of Myrtle to turn his school diary into his first Horcrux, the method to create which he feverishly researched in the Hogwarts Library's Restricted Section and learned from a copy of *Secrets of the Darkest Art* that was held there; in addition to further valuable information that he secretly charmed out of Professor Slughorn.
At some point between 1955 and 1961, Gaunt visited her to negotiate the sale of a goblin-made suit of armour in her possession, which Hepzibah used as an opportunity to show him two of her most prized treasures: Helga Hufflepuff's cup and Salazar Slytherin's locket, the latter of which Gaunt's mother sold to Burke after stealing it from the Gaunts years earlier. In a desire for more selfish gain, he used a little known poison to secretly kill Hepzibah two days later, then framed her house-elf Hokey, for the crime by placing her under the influence of another False Memory Charm. As a result, Hokey was convicted of accidental manslaughter, while Gaunt resigned his post at Borgin And Burkes and disappeared without a trace, eventually using the murders of Hepzibah and a Muggle tramp whom he encountered in London, England; to turn the cup and locket into his fourth and fifth Horcruxes respectively.
Increasing the confusion and paranoia even further, Voldemort placed many dozens of innocent victims under the Imperius Curse simultaneously, and forced them to carry out his orders. Even friends and family members were not above suspicion of one another.

In 1975, Eugenia Jenkins was ousted as Minister Of Magic and replaced by Harold Minchum, a hardliner who placed more Dementors around Azkaban.

#### Immersion in the Dark Arts

**Dumbledore**: "*You call it 'greatness,' what you have been doing, do you?*"
**Voldemort**: "*Certainly. I have experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed —*"
— Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort discussing the latter's immersion into the Dark Arts
Now going exclusively by his preferred name "Lord Voldemort", Gaunt laid low and travelled around Europe and Asia. Little is known of his activities during this period, though he explored the Dark Arts extensively, studying the most obscure and arcane branches of magic and consorting with an array of dark wizards, who would all turn out to become his followers in the years to come. As a result of unnamed “magical experiments and transformations”, as well as the creation of his Horcruxes, Voldemort underwent several physical and mental changes, which made him more powerful but less human, and was occasionally accompanied by a group of followers he came to call his "Death Eaters". By the time he was a full-fledged adult, around 1968, Gaunt donned a hooded cloak (though he physically still did not resemble the monstrous creature he would later in his life) which concealed him completely and he began plotting a wizarding coup, claiming that he was greatly dissatisfied with the current state of the Wizarding World and that he would succeed where so many, including Gellert Grindelwald and Salazar Slytherin, had failed. Voldemort convinced his underlings that to truly create a world full of peace and power, the old regime needed to be torn down at any and all costs and only those who shared pure blood, will and idealism would be allowed to live and thrive in it. In truth however, Lord Voldemort had little interest in political idealism himself. He was completely devoted to amassing his own magical power, and in becoming the most powerful and skilled wizard to have ever lived, invincible and eternal.

Voldemort devised a personal sigil, one of a serpent protruding from the mouth of a human skull, which he called the Dark Mark, and that he magically branded onto the forearms of his followers as a tattoo, enabling him to summon them to his side at any moment of his choosing. They then began establishing relations with various kinds of dark creatures, including Giants and Werewolves. Though the Death Eaters were generally even less tolerant of them than wizarding society in general, these creatures were receptive of their violent and destructive goals. Dark activity suddenly arose throughout Great Britain, a country that had been totally untouched by dark magic; even during the reign of terror of Gellert Grindelwald; and Voldemort began surreptitiously killing poor and homeless Muggles (whose absences would not be noticed) with his followers so that he could reanimate their corpses with Necromancy until he had created an army of Inferi, a feat no other dark wizard in history had ever done.

In the wider British wizarding world, the early actions of the Death Eaters were almost totally unknown, and the 1960s were a time when the tide of social progress clashed with the entrenched social order. At some point around 1960, Scottish Magical Sports and Games advocate Magnus "Dent Head" MacDonald spearheaded a campaign against the Ministry's ban on the dangerous sport Creaothceann, which was enacted in 1762. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful since the Ministry refused to lift it. In 1962, Minister Of Magic Ignatius Tuft was forced out of office for promising to institute a controversial Dementor breeding programme for Azkaban. He was replaced by Nobby Leach, who became the first Muggle-born ever to hold the Minister position, leading senior members of the Wizengamot to resign in protest. In 1963, Muggle expert Mordicus Egg published *The Philosophy of the Mundane: Why the Muggles Prefer Not to Know*, which posited actual theories about why Muggles continued to be unaware of magic. This was a different take on the subject, as it did not assume Muggles to be stupid nor ignorant.
n March 1965, the infamous and sadistic werewolf/wizard Fenrir Greyback killed two Muggle children, avoided prosecution, and even injured the son of a high-ranking Ministry official. This led the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to send one of their best employees', Lyall Lupin; to declare that werewolves were "soulless, evil, and deserving nothing but death", leading to Greyback personally attacking and infecting Lupin's 5-year-old son, Remus Lupin, with Lycanthropy. Lupin and his Muggle wife, Hope Howell, feared Remus' inability to attend Hogwarts in such condition and tried to home-school him. At the same time, the Ministry enacted a ban on the experimental breeding of dark or dangerous creatures, which was supported by Newt Scamander.
Between 1965 and 1971, Dumbledore, who was noted as a social progressive believing strongly in the rights of Muggles as well as Muggle-borns and other oppressed minorities, ascended to the post of Headmaster of Hogwarts. Because of his fame over having defeated Grindelwald, among other accomplishments, Dumbledore was also appointed as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation Of Wizards [ICW] and Chief Warlock of the Wizenagamot. In these positions of great and influential power, Dumbledore passed extreme legislation to prevent any possible dark forces from threatening overall security around Great Britain; while refusing the position of Minister Of Magic, claiming it would give Dumbledore far too much power; which would be corrupting even to a pure spirit. It was these laws and measures that openly and secretly prevented Voldemort and his Death Eaters from initiating their revolution right away; something that only fueled Voldemort's hatred of Dumbledore in the years to come. Voldemort then returned to Hogwarts to reapply for the position of Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher; only this time, he was secretly annoyed to find out that Dumbledore had succeeded Armando Dippet as Headmaster. Unlike the last time he applied for a teaching position, Dumbledore suspected that this desire to teach was insincere, and his main goal was to recruit students to his cause and train them in the dark art. in truth however, Voldemort was hoping to search the school for artefacts like the sword of Godric Gryffindor and turn it into his sixth Horcrux, which would complete his goal of splitting his soul into seven pieces. Unsurprisingly, Dumbledore declined to hire him; telling Gaunt that he knew full well that his desire for the position was insincere and that it belied more nefarious desires. Perhaps out of spite for the Headmaster, or perhaps for being denied a genuine desire to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, Voldemort secretly placed an unknown dark jinx on the position, making it so a professor could not hold it for more than one school year.

Whatever the reason, this ended up having insidious benefits to his long-term plans, as decades of students (including many of his future enemies) would be stuck with erratic, poor-quality knowledge of Defence Against the Dark Arts. While in the school, Voldemort also took the opportunity to conceal Ravenclaw's diadem in the legendary Room of Requirement, foolishly thinking that it was inaccessible to anyone else but himself. He was also unsuccessful in finding Gryffindor's sword.

In 1968, Nobby Leach left office for mysterious health reasons, leading to a conspiracy theory that he had been poisoned by his Muggle-prejudice advisor Abraxas Malfoy. He was then replaced as Minister Of Magic by Eugenia Jenkins, who, like her predecessor, was sympathetic to issues of social justice. Squibs then began marching for their rights, which spurred pure-blood supremacists to riot. Throughout the decade, with various minority groups demanding to be treated as equals, many of the old, elite pure-blood houses, to which all of the Death Eaters belonged, increasingly felt that their very way of life was being threatened. Many pure-blood supremacists who did not join the ranks of the Death Eaters nonetheless gave their wholehearted support to Voldemort's cause in secret even still.

### Open warfare

#### Dark Rebellion

"*...this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too –– some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry.* "
— Rubeus Hagrid talks about Voldemort's first rise to power
It was in this charged climate that in 1970, Voldemort revealed himself openly, proclaiming himself the Dark Lord, and started to commit extreme acts of terrorism in Britain. With his army of dark wizards and dark creatures at his command, Voldemort launched an assault against the British Ministry of Magic with the intention of toppling it and creating a new world order run by pure-bloods, with Muggle-borns either killed en masse or kept in utter bondage, and Lord Voldemort himself as an immortal leader, though likely ruling from behind the scenes. To achieve these ends, the Death Eaters and their allies (including the particularly destructive Giants) began openly carrying out attacks on Muggles for sport and to sow chaos. Cleaning up these attacks, healing survivors, modifying memories, searching for the perpetrators, and attempting to prevent future attacks occupied more and more of the Ministry's time and attention. As their confidence grew, the Death Eaters began targeting Muggle-born and blood traitor witches and wizards as well, torturing and sometimes killing their victims, which shocked wizarding society. Other "inferior" magical beings such as house-elves (who were treated like vermin) and Goblins (a family of which was slaughtered) also suffered under their reign of terror. To inspire yet more terror, the Death Eaters would cast the Dark Mark in the sky over every house or scene that they killed at.

Many Death Eaters also managed to secretly gain strategic positions within the Ministry of Magic itself. They then used blackmail and the Imperius Curse to expand their influence and destabilise the government from within, which was desperately trying to keep order and continue to maintain secrecy from the Muggle world. Augustus Rookwood, an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries, managed to set up a particularly successful secret network of espionage within the Ministry. Minister Jenkins was ill-prepared to lead during wartime, and it seemed that the Ministry was incapable of gaining the upper hand. Voldemort himself personally killed hundreds of wizards, though he tended to only fight those he considered worthy of his attention or too powerful for his followers to defeat. In these encounters, he displayed his extraordinary abilities, many of which were thought impossible, and he very quickly earned the reputation of the most powerful and dangerous dark wizard of all time, surpassing even Gellert Grindelwald.

In response to the growing threat of Lord Voldemort and his minions, Albus Dumbledore formed the Order of the Phoenix in 1971; to take the fight directly to the Death Eaters. Though the Ministry officially viewed the Order as a renegade outfit, a number of powerful Ministry officials (such as Elphias Doge and Dedalus Diggle; and the famous Aurors Alastor Moody and Jacob Longbottom and Naomi Longbottom) joined instantly to participate in more secretive, sudden assaults to crush the dark rebellion. When Dumbledore helped black market trader Mundungus Fletcher out of trouble, he joined the Order and, due to his extensive knowledge of the criminal underworld, proved very useful. To allow members of the Order to covertly communicate with each other, Dumbledore invented a method of sending messages via the Patronus Charm.

#### Height of the War

**Harry Potter**: "*How d’you know what his plans are?*"
**Remus Lupin**: "*Dumbledore’s got a shrewd idea, and Dumbledore’s shrewd ideas normally turn out to be accurate.*"
**Harry Potter**: "*So what does Dumbledore reckon he’s planning?*"
**Sirius Black**: "*Well, firstly, he wants to build up his army again. In the old days he had huge numbers at his command; witches and wizards he’d bullied or bewitched into following him, his faithful Death Eaters, a great variety of Dark creatures. You heard him planning to recruit the giants; well, they’ll be just one group he’s after. He’s certainly not going to try and take on the Ministry of Magic with only a dozen Death Eaters.*"
— Harry Potter, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black discussing Voldemort's plans to take over the wizarding world in 1995, by referencing his first attemptsDespite the Order’s best efforts, Voldemort continued to grow in magical power and influence, and his attacks, whether carried out personally or by his Death Eaters, became more frequent and brutal. It was clear that Dumbledore was the only wizard in the world who rivalled Voldemort in ability. The nascent Order of the Phoenix initially had very little success, and many continued to be killed by Voldemort. Terror and chaos gripped the populace of wizarding Britain to the point that many began to fear to speak Voldemort's name. He became widely referred to as "He Who Must Not Be Named," or, less formally, "You Know Who" within the first year of his reign. Numerous ordinary witches and wizards (such as Mr Thomas and Robert McGonagall Jnr.) lost their lives, and the Death Eaters frequently cast the Dark Mark over the scenes of their murders. To protect the organisation, Voldemort ensured that Death Eaters did not know the identities of too many of their fellows, and, to society at large, their identities were completely unknown. Increasing the confusion and paranoia even further, Voldemort placed many dozens of innocent victims under the Imperius Curse simultaneously, and forced them to carry out his orders. Even friends and family members were not above suspicion of one another.
In 1975, Eugenia Jenkins was ousted as Minister Of Magic and replaced by Harold Minchum, a hardliner who placed more Dementors around Azkaban.

In addition, ruthless Council of Magical Law Head Judge Bartemius "Barty" Crouch Senior rose rapidly through the Ministry's ranks until he also became the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Minchum and Crouch then began to make serious headway, though the anonymous and elusive Death Eaters still retained the advantage.

In 1979, Regulus Black graduated from Hogwarts and entered the ranks of the Death Eaters, joining his schoolmates Evan Rosier, Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, Sewlyn, Jerome Jugson, Jugson, Rodolphus Lestrange, Rabastan Lestrange, Thorfinn Rowle, Gibbon, Augustus Rookwood, Igor Karkaroff, Crabbe, Goyle, Travers, and Antonin Dolohov. At Black's urging, Voldemort attempted to recruit Liliana Selwyn-Evans, whose prodigious talents made up for her status as a 'Muggle-born', along with her blood traitor boyfriend James Potter; and James' childhood friends: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. Naturally, they all refused, defying Voldemort for the very first time, and James and Lily were soon married and joined the Order Of The Phoenix along with their other friends. Around this time, James and Sirius, who had been disowned by the House of Black, were pursued by a trio of Death Eaters, though they easily managed to evade them and escape.

Voldemort then gravitated towards several of his younger recruits who were specially magically powerful and fanatically loyal. He took only Bellatrix Lestrange under his personal wing, sharing with her his personal-secret knowledge of the Dark Arts. He also entrusted his diary Horcrux to Antonin Dolohov, with whom he schemed of using to secretly re-open the Chamber of Secrets, for he did not dare attack Hogwarts directly as long as Dumbledore was Headmaster. This did not come to fruition till many years later.