Chapter Forty Two
Draco really didn't want to follow the portrait of the young blonde woman. Not only was he abandoning Harry and his friends when they probably needed to stay together the most, but Lady Elizabeth was extremely tedious.
"Oh do 'urry up," she moaned in her thick West Country accent. "I ain't got all day."
"You're a painting," puffed Hermione, struggling with a basic breaststroke. "What else have you got to do?"
Lizzy ignored her as she hopped between half visible frames. Draco turned to glance at the rest of the party as they made their way around the opposite end of the corridor. Harry turned too, and the pair shared a weak smile before plunging down their respective hallways. They didn't know how long it would be before someone thought to check outside Courtroom Ten, and Level Nine would be the first place they'd look.
Draco and Hermione followed Lady Cockleton towards the stairs. It was terribly nerve wracking being out in the open like they were, but they'd already agreed to duck under the water at the first hint of any noise. Now all Draco had to worry about was how long he could hold his breath.
They reached the stairs without any incident though, and hastily fought against the water teeming down the steps to reach Level Eight.
Level Eight held the Ministry of Magic's Atrium, and once they left the stairwell Draco and Hermione sloshed down a short entrance hall that ended in a large pair of wrought iron gates, behind which could be seen a jungle paradise. Draco headed straight for the bars and peered through, curious to see if the magical creatures inside were in suspended animation like the Ministry employees. It wasn't long before he spied several pixies frozen amongst the foliage, and a cross looking niffler halfway between poking the water around him in distain.
"'Ere you go then," said Lizzy, bored. "This is the one you want." Draco turned round to see Hermione entering into an office to the left of the Atrium gates, water sweeping in around her as she pushed open the door.
"Do you have any idea at all where the short cut might be?" asked Hermione. "Otherwise we could be here for hours and might be better trying to take the stairs."
Lady Elizabeth, gave a loud, shrill giggle, hand on her chest, eyes looking wildly about. "As if know," she said, embarrassed, then fled off down the corridor.
"Well she was about as much use as a chocolate tea pot," said Draco scornfully.
Hermione huffed, hands on hips, then turned back towards Tandy Spinks office and entered. Draco followed, shaking excess water from his dripping clothes and sweeping his hair back from his eyes. Even though the water was only ankle deep it was swirling around at quite a rate and made it pretty difficult to wade through.
As soon as he reached the door's threshold Draco stopped. The water had rushed in and moved the items that had been on the floor, but the rest of the office was pretty intact. And a complete and utter pigsty.
"How are we supposed to find anything in here," cried Draco at Hermione, who had already started rummaging under a pile of grotty looking clothes. "It looks like a natural disaster!"
Loose parchment was strewn over every possible flat surface the office had to offer. The walls were covered in white boards which in turn were covered in writing of all kinds of different colours. Three calendars were pinned to the wall, all from different years and displaying different months. There were boxes of various different animal pellets and food stuffs, including a glass jar of live locus. A greasy old bike was propped up under the 'window' (which showed a starry night scene even though they were eight floors underground) and from the bike hung a number of pairs of socks and leads that looks like they went round the necks of very large animals. Numerous cheep looking toys and gadgets that probably came from the insides of Christmas crackers were scattered across the desk and shelves, and there were so many books on magical zoology lying half open everywhere Draco lost count. The bin floated into his shin, causing him to look down, and that's when he realised several dozen fish must have escaped from the now empty tank lying on its side on the carpet, as they were nibbling at his jeans.
"How can people live like this!"
Hermione raised an eyebrow at him before moving to the desk and yanking open the drawers one by one. "She doesn't live like this, she works like this. Each to their own."
"But surely," said Draco, forgetting at that moment their pressing time constraint and splashing over to the desk. "You couldn't function like this could you, it would drive you insane."
Hermione paused and looked up at him. "Well, no," she said, flicking her tangled hair back. "It's not how I'd keep my office. There would be far more labels. And an air freshener."
Draco smiled, then turned to start his own hunt. He knew Hermione wouldn't have liked being in such a mess, no matter what reality.
Hermione slammed the last drawer shut, obviously without finding anything, and gazed about. "Why?" she said.
"Excuse me?" said Draco, looking up from his examination of a complicated pie chart on one of the boards.
"Why did you ask that, about me and the mess?"
Draco stopped rummaging around and looked carefully at her. "Um," he said, unsure if he'd just stepped over some unknown boundary. His heart beat a little faster just looking at her, even though she was all bedraggled. Especially because she was all bedraggled.
"I just," he said, feeling himself go slightly hot. "Well, we're...friends in my world, and it would have surprised me if you tolerated this amount of rubbish. My Hermione would have started alphabetising everything by now."
Hermione wrapt her fingers on the desk. "Your Hermione," she said with an air of curiosity, her eyes already scanning the next pile of papers and crisp packets.
Draco turned away from her. She was a different person, he told himself again, pulling books off the shelf and trying his best to examine them. She didn't even look like his Hermione he reasoned, there were a number of subtle differences, like looking at twins when you really knew them. But she still spoke with her voice, still bit her lip and twisted her hands in the same way.
"Oh!" she cried, and Draco spun on his heals to see why. The lid of a trinket box was in Hermione's hand, and from the box a purple mist was rising out. It wasn't like gas just escaping though, it floated up like a bird taking flight, then shot across the room impossibly fast and absorbed into a large coat of arms hanging between two of the calendars.
The shield and crossed swords seemed to absorb the mist and now glittered faintly purple. Engraved on the shield were two centaurs with their front legs rearing at one another, but as the cloud settled on them they sprung to life and backed away from each other, shaking as if they were stiff. The engraving on the left suddenly looked suspicious.
"Where is Miss Spinks?" he demanded.
Draco and Hermione looked at each other. Draco raised an eyebrow. "We don't know," he said honestly. "But she's probably in trouble like the rest of the people round here."
"We're looking for a secret passageway up to the entrance foyer, do you know anything about that?"
The left centaur crossed his arms. "Maybe," he said evasively. "How do we know you haven't hurt her yourselves?"
Draco thought he might snap. "We haven't got time-!"
But Hermione calmly interrupted. "The Ministry has been taken over by You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters." She held her hands together. "You can go check if you like?"
The right centaur pawed at the ground. "That's a pretty bold claim," she said. Hermione held her hand out towards the open door.
"I said you could go check."
The creatures looked at one another. "Okay," said the male. "Say I believe you. You might have found your passageway, but we need an offering."
"An offering?" repeated Hermione, her joy at being told they'd found the secret route visibly diminishing. "What kind of offering?"
"The oldest kind," said the female on the right.
Hermione looked at Draco exasperated. "Can't you just tell us plainly, we're in a hurry!"
"Don't you think," said the male centaur. "The passageway might be just a little less secret if we told any old person who came in how to open it?"
Draco sighed, his stomach squirming ever so slightly. "It's okay Hermione," he said. "I know what they mean." He'd had to give the oldest kind of offering at the docks when he was a boy. "I need a knife."
"A knife?" she repeated. "What on Earth for?"
"Not that I'm helping," said the male centaur. "Because I'm not. But just...in case you were wondering. The swords are detachable."
"Ah," said Draco, understanding and pulling out one of the blades. It slid smoothly from its scabbard behind the shield, and balanced nicely in his hand.
"What are you going to do with that?" asked Hermione nervous.
Draco pressed the edge of the sword to his palm, and tried not to think of what had happened last time. "This," he said, then sliced a cut into his hand.
Hermione gasped and her hand shot to her mouth. Draco tried not to look at the blood seeping through his closed fist, and reached out to smear it on the shield. The centaurs flicked droplets off themselves, but otherwise didn't say a word.
"What now?" asked Hermione.
Draco shrugged, his hand stinging.
But then the male centaur saluted at them, and the female said "good luck," before the two of them froze back into place. The shield swung forwards, revealing a staircase behind it, winding upwards in a tight spiral.
"I'm so glad that worked," said Draco, shaking blood from his hand as Hermione squealed in delight.
"Oh, here let me see that," she said, seizing his hand and flipping it over to inspect the wound. Draco instantly tensed at the sudden contact, but Hermione didn't seem to notice as she performed a perfectly executed Episkey charm. "Good as new," she said, beaming as she let go of his now healed hand. "Shall we?"
"Erm," said Draco. "Yeah, I'll go first."
"Oh no," said Hermione pleasantly patting him on the arm and stepping up to the stairway. "I know far more magic than you do."
Draco didn't feel this was very chivalrous, but she did have a point. "Alright," he said following her, closing the shield behind them. "But I'm keeping hold of the sword, just in case."
Hermione snorted and said something like "boys" under her breath.
They climbed the steps for several minutes, most of which Draco spent looking strategically at the floor on not Hermione's jeans ahead of him, and towards the end of it they were both panting a little. "I think my thighs are going to cramp," said Hermione, stopping to massage them. Draco wasn't sure what to reply to that. Luckily, up above he could just see the end of the stairs, so ran up to the blank brick wall that greeted him after the last step.
"It's a dead end," he called down.
Hermione limped up the last few feet. "Do you still have any blood on your hand?" Draco frowned at her a second, then understanding dawned on him. Perhaps it required another blood sacrifice, but maybe this time he wouldn't have to slash his whole palm open.
He rubbed what was left of the blood on the wall, and stood back to see if anything would happen. Hermione came and stood behind him, anxiously watching too. After a moment, there was a creek, and the wall edged outwards, letting a river of water in from the entrance hall. Draco was taken by surprise by the water and almost pin-wheeled backwards, sword in hand.
"Whoa!" cried Hermione leaping away. Draco clung to the doorway and steadied himself.
"Sorry," he muttered, then turned to slosh out into Level One of the Ministry of Magic. The door swung shut after Hermione left the stairwell to show them it was hidden behind a portrait of an old Minister of Magic from the Eighteenth Century.
"Oh good!" cried the gentleman in a buttoned dress coat and cravat. "I thought you were more of those scoundrels!" He adjusted his white curly wig and looked about fretfully.
It wasn't hard to spot the fountain, even if Draco hadn't known which one Harry had been talking about. In the middle of the vast room stood the remains of the lobby's prized centre piece, the golden witches and wizards melted and distorted by the spell. The golden house elf had managed to escape mutilation and was now looking pretty smug about it. From the pool of the fountain gallons of water were churning out like there was no tomorrow, causing waves to emanate from the structured in all directions.
Draco and Hermione pushed forwards towards it; there was no sign of anyone else in the entrance hall with them. "How do we stop it?" asked Draco, sword still up and ready in case any Death Eaters decided to spring out at them.
Hermione reached the fountain and studied the point of impact carefully. "I should be able to perform the counter spell," she said thoughtfully. "I'm just not a hundred percent sure about the hand movement."
"Give it a try," encouraged Draco, turning to survey the rest of the hall for any signs of intruders. "We haven't really got anything to lose at this stage."
Hermione spent the next five minutes splashing around the fountain, muttering and flicking her wand. Draco watched all the exits he could see on tenterhooks, expecting someone to burst out at them at any second. The water tugged at his feet, threatening to pull them out from under him at any moment. The former Minister whispered to another man in a portrait adjacent to him, and the two raised their eyebrows.
"Yes!" cried Hermione suddenly, and Draco's feet really did go out from under him as the water suddenly, violently, reversed direction. He crashed to the floor, spraying water everywhere, and lost his grip on the hilt of the sword underneath the depths. "We did it, we did it!" Hermione practically sang as she waded around from the other side of the fountain.
Draco couldn't help but grin as he fumbled about trying to locate the sword under the surging currents. "I'm pretty sure you did it," he said.
"Yes," came the voice of Lucius Malfoy from behind them. "Aren't you a clever pair?"