Compliance in HP

When someone says a story is "Book 6 Compliant", what does that make you think? And if someone says it is "Set after book six", does that invoke a different image in your head?

The good thing is, there is no set standard. Which is also a bad thing, but mostly it's good.

Compliance, to me at least, indicates that the key events in a book took place, but not necessarily exactly as they happened. And also that the key events of all the books previous to it took place, but again, they might have happened differently.

So - for example - a story that is Compliant to Book 5 would indicate that Voldemort is back, there is a prophecy about how to defeat him, and that The Order exists.

A story Compliant to Book 3 would indicate that the traitor was revealed (though not necessarily that it is Peter), and Book 2 would indicate that the Basilisk was freed, that someone was tricked in to doing it and that the diary was used to do it.

However, a story set after Book 3 would require it to be Peter, that Black was vindicated (though not publicly), and a story set after Book 2 would mean it would have to be Ginny.

This has apparently caused confusion, because I said a story was Book 5 compliant, and yet had some changes (albeit minor) in history that people felt were bad, evil and wrong in light of my "B5C" statement.

Book 1 : The Stone, A Possessed Teacher, Harry doing the hero bit.
Book 2 : Basilisk, Diary, Possession, Harry killing snake, Harry talking to snakes.
Book 3 : Traitor unmasked.
Book 4 : Tournament, Voldemort Returns.
Book 5 : Order, Prophecy.
Book 6 : Horcruxes.
Book 7 : Voldemort Dead, Deathly Hallows exist.

Those are what I consider to be compliances. Now - there might be more (for example there is no reason the prophecy can't be The Prophecy), but this is what I define as a minimum.