19 Years

Chapter 22: The Battle

Chapter 22: The Battle

"Christ," muttered Harry, turning and slamming his palm against the wooden wall as Ron swore loudly.

"She's supposed to be in Azkaban!" Exclaimed Seamus and again Harry saw the dark look pass between Kingsley and Sandy.

"What aren't you telling us?" He asked angrily.

"We are awfully sorry Harry," said Sandy softly, "When the trials were going on there was such an awful lot of confusion, it was very busy, and we overlooked some things. Somewhere along the line we forgot to double check Umbridge's identity and she slipped through our nets?"

"How is that even possible?" Asked Harry bitterly.

"It shouldn't be but she did something awful... she found a young muggle who had lost entirely the power of speech and who had a damaged brain from an accident as a child and managed to perform an enormously complicated piece of spellwork to transfigure him into a passable copy of herself," Sandy explained sadly, "It was a disgusting thing to do to someone, especially one so helpless, but it worked for a while. By the time it eventually wore off she was long gone and this kid had been inside Azkaban for over a year."

"But why was nothing said?!"

"One very simple reason; if Umbridge believed that we still thought that this clone was her then we'd have a better shot at getting her by surprise," Kingsley said kindly, "So we kept up the pretence and started looking for her in earnest but it was only a week ago that we even heard rumours of her being in Norway. She left a trail that led us on a wild goose chase across central Africa and Asia. Our major dilemna was in how to deal with the teenager she had so cruelly abused; the least we could do was use magic to restore his power of speech and we made an agreement that he would not speak a word of our world to another muggle and in exchange we provided a cover story and will pay for his education."

"What a mess," breathed Harry, "What a bloody mess."

"We're so sorry that it came to this, Harry," said Kingsley, "We had no inkling that she posed a threat; if we'd thought there was any risk at all we would have made it all public. You know me well and I trust you recognise that I am not another Fudge or Scrimgeour who would cover it up to save his own reputation. We truly thought that this was the best course of action."

Harry slumped to the floor and looked up at Kingsley, "I understand," he said, "You did what you thought was right, I could never doubt that. Umbridge will receive her punishment, I'm sure as hell going to make sure of that."

"You're going to kill her?" Asked Sandy flatly, as if he would accept it if Harry said yes.

"Not if I can help it," he replied certainly, "There are many fates worse than death and a lifetime in Azkaban is certainly one of them."

"Very well," said the old chief before turning to the assembled army of aurors, "Umbridge is Harry's as long as he looks like he can cope with it, he deserves that chances; however, if you see him failing you step in and bring her down."

Within a few moments there was more clattering and a hoot of annoyance as an auror got stepped on by one of his colleagues; the extra men had arrived from London, fifteen of them in all. They would now hopefully have a great advantage in numbers over the fugitives.

Sandy had them all sit down as he explained the plan. Andreas was to return to the cave immediately and send a message to confirm that all of the death eaters, plus Umbridge, were there and provide exact numbers in case of any new arrivals. He had carefully explained the layout and location of their hide out as well as the security around it which, with the Norwegian ministry's help, would be relatively simple to remove. Twenty of the aurors were to patrol the perimeter to act as a safety net while the other twenty-four would actually be entering the cave in waves of eight and Harry would be one of the first to go in with Kingsley and Ron on either side of him.