The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows {7}

12. Happy Judgement Day

Now paying attention to the names on the doors, we turn a corner. Halfway along the next corridor we emerge into wide, open space where a dozen witches and wizards sit in rows at small desks not unlike school desks, though much more highly polished and free from graffiti. We pause to watch them, for the effect is quite mesmerizing. They are all waving and twiddling their wands un unison, and squares of coloured paper are flying in every direction like little pink kites. After a few seconds, I realize that there is a rythym to the proceedings, that the papers all form the same pattern; and after a few more seconds I realize that what we're watching is the creation of pamphlets -- that the paper squares are pages, which, when assembed, folded, and magicked into place, fall into neat stacks beside each witch or wizard.

Harry and I creep closer, although the workers are so intent on what they're doing that I doubt they'll notice carpet-muffled footsteps, and we slide a completed pamphlet from the pile beside a young witch. We examine it beneath the Invisibility Cloak. It's pink cover is emblazoned with a golden title:

MUBLOODS

and the Dangers They Post to a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society.

Beneath the title is a picture of a red rose with a simpering face in the middle of its petals, being strangled by a green weend with fangs and a scowl. There is no author's name upon the pamplet, but again, the scar on the back of my hand seems to tingle when I look at it. Then the young witch beside us confirms my suspicion and says, still waving and twidling her wand, "Will the old hag be interrogating Mubloods all day, does anyone know?"

"Careful," says the wizard beside her, glancing around nervously; one of his pages slips and falls onto the floor.

"What, has she got magic ears as well as an eye, now?"

The witch glances towards the shining mahogany door facing the space full of pamphlet-markers; I look too, and rage rears in me like a snake. Where there might have been a peephole on a Muggle front door, a large, round eye with a bright blue iris has been set into the wood -- an eye that is shockingly famillar to anyone who knew Alastor Moody.

For a spilt second I forget where we are and what we're doing here; I even forget that we're invisible. We stride straight over the door to examine the eye. It is not moving: It gazes blindly upward, frozen. The plaque beneath it reads:

Delores UmbridgeSenior Undersecretary to the Minister

Below this, a slightly shiner new plaque reads:

Head of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission

I look back at the dozen pamplet makers: Though they are intent upon their work, they will without a doubt notice if the door of an empty office opens in front of them. Harry, appearing to have reached the same conclusion, therefore withdraws from his inner pocket an odd object with little waving legs and a rubber-bubled horn for a body. Crouching down beneath the Cloak, he places the Decoy Detonator on the ground.

It scuttles away at once through the legs of the witches and wizards in front of us. A few moments later, during which we wait with our hands on the doorknob, there comes a loud bang and a great deal of acrid black smoke billows from a corner. The young witch in the front row shrieks: Pink pages fly everywhere as she and her fellows jump up, looking around for the source of the commotion. I turn the doorknob, step into Umbridge's office and close the door behind us.

It feels as if we've stepped back in time. The room is exactly like Umbridge's office at Hofwarts: Lace draperies, doilies, and dried flowers cover every avaliable surface. The walls bear the same ornamental plates, each featuring a highly coloured, beribboned kitten, gamboling and frisking with sickening cuteness. The desk if covered with a flouncy, flowered cloth. Behind Mad-Eye's eye, a telescopic attactment enables Umbridge to spy on the workers on the other side of the door. I take a look through it and see that they are all still gathered around the Decoy Detonator. I wrench the telescope out of the door, leaving a hole behind, pull the magical eyeball out of it, and place it in my pocket. Meanwhile, Harry raises his wand and murmurs, "Accio Locket."