New Minister for Magic

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 96547

Bookworm:"I agree the DE's will lash out. But they will have a
two-front war.
First is to take over the Ministry so they can claim that they have
the "authority" of being the government (SOP in coups and rebellions),
and to use that as their secure/staging base. IMO, this will be the
easier task, so they will probably get it out of the way first."

I don't see this as a coup and certainly not a rebellion.  The DE's
had the chance to subvert the Ministry in OOP and had made a lot of
progress towards that.  I'm predicting there are few moles left in the
Ministry, at least in important positions; some have been arrested and
others will be detected since the Ministry has woken up.

There's another thing about attacking the Ministry with a view to
taking it over: I don't think it's a valuable target anymore. 
Hogwarts is the center of resistance to Voldemort, and everybody knows
it; and no one will recognize any kind of claim to the authority of
government from the DE's.  The one major advantage to possessing the
Ministry would be the value of the secrets it contains.
 
Bookworm: "Their second front will be Hogwarts, Dumbledore and Harry.
Agreed, Harry and friends are very much in danger. There will probably
be DE's assigned to the "Hogwarts Theater of Operations" to cause
whatever trouble they can (and I'm not discounting the junior DE's
either)"

This is where the Schwerepunkt will come, and I'm not discounting the
junior DE's either.  It will be interesting to see how the junior DE's
behave.  Dumbledore will treat them just as ever, but no intelligence
that they might provide will go uncollected.

What will Dumbledore's strategy be?  Continuous harassment and
disruption of the DE's.  Don't give them any peace, any rest, any
chance to gather strength and plan new attacks; keep them running. 
Capture DE's whenever you can. Take advantage of your secure base and
try to deny the DE's any chance to develop one.  Above all, protect
and nurture Harry, his friends, the student body, and Hogwarts.  They
are the future, and the wizard families will accept danger for
themselves if they believe their children are in the safest place
possible.

Jim Ferer

P.S.  You could write a pretty good article for /Military History
Quarterly/ out of this discussion.