"Oh what a time to be alive, wake up and smell the dynamite. And keep your eyes locked tight to that screen, and don't believe everything that you see. You will find that modern life's a catastrophe." - Happy Judgement Day, Neck Deep
"Ah, Mafalda!" says Umbridge, looking at Hermione. "Travers sent you, did he?"
"Y-yes," Hermione squeaks.
"Good, you'll do perfectly well." Umbridge speaks to the wizard in black and gold. "That's that problme solved, Minister, if Mafalda can be spared for record-keeping we shall be able to start straightaway." She consults her clipboard. "Ten people today and one of them the wife of a Ministry employee! Tut, tut...even here, in the heart of the Ministry!" She steps into the lift beside Hermione, as do the two other wizrds who were listening to her conversation with the Minister. "We'll go straight down, Mafalda, you'll find everything you need in the courtroom. Good morning, Eurydice, Albert, won't you two be getting out?"
"Yes, of course," I say in Jensen's commanding voice.
Harry and I step out of the lift, The golden grilles clang shut behind us. Glancing over my shoulder, I see Hermione's anxious face sinking back out of sight, a tall wizard on either side of her, Umbridge's velvet hair-bow level with her shoulder.
"What brings you up here?" asks the new Minister of Magic. His long black hair and beard are streaked with silver, and a great overhanging forehead shadows his glinting eyes, remainding me of a crab looking out from beneath a rock.
"Needed a quick word with Arthur Weasley," I say quickly. "Someone said he would be up on level one."
"Ah," says Pius Thicknesse. "Has he been caught having contact with an Undesirable?"
"No," Harry says, as my heart lurches. "No, nothing like that."
"Ah, well. It's only a matter of time," says Thicknesse. "If you ask me, the blood traitors are as bad as the Mudbloods. Good day, Runcorn, Jensen."
"I agree," I say evenly. "Good day, Minister."
We watch Thicknesse march away along the thickly carpeted corridor. The moment the Minister has passed from sight, Harry tugs the Invisibility Cloak out from his under his heavy cloak and throws it over us, and we set off along the corridor in the opposite direction. Runcorn and Eurydice are so tall that we're forced to stoop to make sure we're completely hidden.
Panic pulses in the pit of my stomach. As we pass gleaming wooden door after gleaming wooden door, each bearing a small plaque with the owner's name and occupation upon it, the might of the Ministry, it's complexity, its inpenetrability, seems to focr itself upon me so that the plan we've been so carefully concocting over the past month seems laughably childish. We're concentrated all our efforts on getting inside without being detected, but we hadn't given a moment's thought to what we would do if we were forced to separate. Now Hermione is stuck in court proceedings, which will undoubtedly last hours; Ron is struggling to do magic that I'm sure is beyond him, a woman's liberty possibly depending on the outcome; and Harry and I are wandering around on the top floor when we know perfectly well that our quarry has just gone down in the lift.
We stop walking and lean against a wall, trying to decide what to do. The silence presses upon us; There is no bustling or talk or swift footsteps here; the purple-carpeted corridors are as hushed as though the Muffliato charm has been cast over the place. We can't talk freely here.
Her office must be up here, I think.
It seems unlikely that Umbridge will keep her jewelry in her office, but on the other hand it seems foolish not to search it to make sure. I look to Harry and mouth the word office, and he seems to understand, and so we set off along the corridor again, passing nobody but a frowning wizard who is murmuring instructions to a quill that floats in front of him, scribbling on a trail of parchment
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."
Nothing happens, nor had I expected it. "Just our luck."
No doubt Umbridge knows all about protective charms and spells. Instead, we hurry behind her desks and begin pulling open the drawers. I see quills and notebooks and Spelltape: enchanted paper clips that coil snakelike from their drawer and have to be beate back; a fussy little lace box full of spare hair bows and clips; but no sign of a locket.
There is a filing cabinet behind the desk: Harry and I set to searching it. Like Filch's filing cabinets at Hogwarts, it is full of folders, each labelled with a name. It is not until we reach the bottommost drawer that we see something to distract us from our search: Mr Weasley's file. I pull it out and open it.
ARTHUR WEASLEY
BLOOD STATUS: Purebood, but with unacceptable pro-Muggle leanings. Known member of the Order of the Phoenix?
FAMILY: Wife (Pureblood), seven children, two youngest at Hogwarts. NB: Youngest son currently at home, seriously ill, Ministry inspectators have confirmed
SECURITY STATUS: TRACKED. All movements are being monitored. Strong liklihood Undesirable No. 1 and No. 2 will contact (have stayed with the Weasley family previously)
"Undesirable Number One and Two," Harry mutters under his breath, as we replace Mr Weasley's folder and shut the drawer. I have an idea who they are, and sure enough, as we straighten up and glance around the office for fresh hiding places, I see two posters on the wall depicting our faces, with the words UNDESIRABLE NO.1 and UNDESIRABLE NO.2 emblazoned across our chests. Little pink notes are stuck to them with a picture of a kitten in the corner. We move across to read it and see that Umbridge has written, "To be punished."
"Why are you Number One?" Harry asks, disgruntled.
"Really? That's what you're concerned about?"
Angrier than ever, we proceed to grope in the btooms of the vases and baskets of dried flowers, but it is not at all surprising that the locket is not here. We give the locket one last sweeping look, and my heart skips a beat. Dumbledore is staring at us from a small rectangular mirror, propped up on a bookcase beside the desk.
We cross the room at a run and snatch it up, but realize the moment we touch it that it is not a mirror at all. Dumbledore is smiling wistfully out of the front cover of a glossy book. I had not immediately noticed the curly green writing across his hat -- The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore -- not the slightly smaller writing across his chest: "by Rita Skeeter, bestselling author of Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?"
Harry opens the book at a random page and we see a full-page photograph of two teenage boys, both laughing immoderately with their arms around each other's shoulders. Dumbledore, now with elbow length hair, has grown a tiny wispy beard that recalls the one on Krum's chin that had so annoyed Ron. The who roars in silent amusement beside Dumbledore has a gleeful, wild look about him. His golden hair falls in curls to his shoulders: my heart all but stops.
"Those are the boys from the locket!"
But before either of us have time to check the caption, the door of the office opens.
If Thicknesse had not been looking over his shoulder as he enters, we wouldn't have had time to pull the Invisibility Cloak over ourselves. As it is, I think Thicknesse might have caught a glimpse of movement, because for a moment or two he remains quite still, staring curiously at the place where Harry and I have just vanished. Perhaps deciding that all he had seen was Dumbledore scratching his nose on the front of the book, Thicknesse finally walks to the desk and points his wand at the quill standing ready in the ink pot. It springs out and begins scribbling a note to Umbridge. Very slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Harry and I back out of the office into the open area beyond.
The pamplet-makers are still clusted around the remains of the Decoy Detonator, which continues to hoot feebly as it smokes. Harry and I hurry off up the corridor, and speed back towards the lifts. The lift is empty when it arrives, and we jump in and pull of the Invisibility Cloak as it starts its descent. Hurriedly, we review our options in frantic whispers.
"It was never likely the locket was here," I hiss, "and we've got no hope of finding it while Umbridge is in court. We've gotta get out of here before we're exposed. Try again another day."
"I agree," he replies. "We've gotta find the others first --"
He trails off as the lift rattles to a halt at level two, and to my enormous relief, a soaking-wet and wild-eyed Ron gets in.
"M-morning," he stammers as the lift sets off again.
"Ron, it's us!"
"Harry! Haylee! Blimey, I forgot what you looked like -- why isn't Hermione with you?"
"She had to go down to the courtrooms with Umbridge, she couldn't refuse, and --"
But before I can finish the lift has stopped again: The doors open and Mr Weasley walks inside, talking to an elderly witch whose blonde hair is teased so high it resembles an anthill.
"...I quite understand what you're saying, Wakanda, but I'm afraid I cannot be party to --"
Mr Weasley breaks off: he's noticed Harry and I. It is very strange to have Mr Weasley glare at us with this much dislike. The lift doors close again and the five of us trundle downward once more.
"Oh, hello, Reg," says Mr Weasley, looking around at the sound of steady dripping from Ron's robes. "Isn't your wife in for questioning today? Er -- what's happening to you? Why are you so wet?"
"Yaxley's office is raining," says Ron. He addressed Mr Weasley's shoulders, and I feel sure that he's scared that his father might recognize him if they look directly into each other's eyes. "I couldn't stop it, so they've sent me to get Bernie -- Pillsworth, I think they say --"
"Yes, a lot of offices have been raining lately," says Mr Weasley. "Did you try Meteolojinx Recanto? It worked for Bletchley."
"Meteolojinx Recanto?" Ron whispers. "No, I didn't. Thanks, D -- I mean, thanks, Arthur."
The lift doors open; the old witch with the anthill hair leaves, and Ron darts past her out of sight. Harry and I make to follow him, but find our path blocked as Percy Weasley strides into the lift, his nose buried in some papers he's reading.
Not until the doors clang shut again does Percy rezlize he is in a lift with his father. He glances up, sees Mr Weasley, turns radish red, and leaves the lift the moment the doors open. For the second time, Harry times to get out, but this time finds himself blocked by Mr Weasley's arm.
"One moment, Runcorn."
The lift doors close and as we clank down another floor, Mr Weasley says, "I hear you laid information about Dirk Cresswell."
I have the impression that Mr Weasley's anger is no less because of the brush with Percy.
"Sorry?" Harry says, choosing to play it dumb.
"Don't pretend, Runcorn," says Mr Weasley fiercely. "You tracked down the wizard who faked his family tree, didn't you?"
"I -- so what if I did?" Harry asks.
"So Dirk Cresswell is ten times the wizard you are," says Mr Weasley, as the lift sinks ever lower. "And if he survives Azkaban, you'll have to answer to him, not to mention his wife, his sons, and his friends --"
"Arthur," I interupt, and he turns around with a jump.
"Eurydice," he says coolly.
"You know you're being tracked, don't you?" I say, trying to match his tone of distaste.
"Is that a threat?" Mr Weasley says loudly.
"No," Harry interjects, "it's a fact! They're watching your every move."
He gives us a stare which screams prove it, and I know what I have to do: he can't go around treating actual Death Eaters like this, otherwise he'll end up dead.
"I heard your son as Spattergroit," I say, and his eyes widen ever so slightly. "Horrible disease, though quite easy to fake. Next time you're speaking to Ministry officials, I'd suggest you watch your tongue."
The lift doors open. We've reached the Atrium. Mr Weasley gives us one last scathing look and sweeps from the lift. We stand in silence, shaken. I wish we were impersonating someone else...The lift doors clang shut.
Harry pulls out the Invisibility Cloak and puts it back over us. We need to try to extricate Hermione on our own while Ron is dealing with the raining office. When the doors open, we step out into the torch-lit passageway quite different from the wood-paneled and carpeted corridors above. As the lift rattles away again, I shiver slightly, looking toward the distant black door that marks the entrance to the Department of Mysteries.
We set off, our destination not the black door, but rather the doorway I remember on the left-hand side which opens onto the flight of stairs down to the court chambers. My mind grapples with the posibilities as we creep down them: we still have a couple Decoy Detonators, but perhaps it will be simply easier to knock on the courtroom door, enter as Eurydice and Runcorn, and ask for a quick word with Mafalda? Of course, I don't know if Eurydice and Runcorn are sufficently important to get away with this, and even if we manage it, Hermione's non-reappearance might trigger a search before we're clear of the Ministry....
Lost in thought, I do not immediately register the unnatural chill that is creeping over us, as if we're descending into fog. It is becoming colder and colder with every step we take: a cold that reaches right down into my throat and tears at my lungs. And then I feel that stealing sense of despair, of hopelessness, filing me, expanding inside me...
Dementors...
And as we reach the foot of the stairs and turn to our right we see a dreadful scene. The dark passage outside the courtroom is packed with tall, black-hooded figures, their faces completely hidden, their ragged breathing the only sound in the place. The petrified Muggle-borns brought in for questioning sit huddled and shivering on hard wooden benches. Most of them are hiding their faces in their hands, perhaps in an instictive attempt to shield themselves from the dementors' greedy mouths. Some are accompanied by families, others sit alone. The dementors are gliding up and down in front of them, and the cold, and the the hopelessness, and the despair of the place lays itself upon me like a curse...
Fight it, I tell myself, but I know I can't conjure a Patronuds here without revealing myself instantly. So we move forward as silently as we can, and with every step we take numbness seems to steal over my brain, but I force myself to think of Hermione and and of Ron, who need us.
Moving through the towering black figures is terrifying: The eyeless faces hidden beneath their hoods turn as we pass, and I feel sure that they can sense us, perhaps, human presence that still has some hope, some resilience...
And then, abruptly and shockingly amid the frozen silence, one of the dungeon doors on the left of the corridor is flung open and screams echo out of it.
"No, no, I'm half-blood, I tell you! My father was a wizard, he was, look him up, Arkie Alderton, he's a well-known broomstick designer, look him up, I tell you -- get your hands off, get your hands off --"
"This is your final warning," says Umbridge's soft voice, magically magnified so that it sounds clear over the man's desperate screams. "If you struggle, you will be subjected to the Dementor's Kiss."
The man's screams subside, but dry sobs echo throughout the corridor.
"Take him away," says Umbridge
Two dementors appear in the doorway of the courtroom, their rotting, scabbed hands clutching the upper arms of a wixard who appears to be fainting. They glide away down the corridors with him, and the darkness they trail behind them swallows them from sight.
"Next -- Mary Cattermole," calls Umbridge.
A small woman stands up; she is trembling from head to foot. Her dark hair is smoothed back into a bun and she wears long, plain robes. Her face is completely bloodless. As she passes the dementors, I see her shudder.
We do it instinctively, without any sort of plan, because I hate the sight of her walking alone into the dungeon: As the door begins to swing close, we slip into the courtroom behind her.
It is not the same room in which Sirius and Harry had once been interrogated. This one is much smaller, though the ceiling is quite as high; is gives the claustrophic sense of being stuck at the bottom of a deep well.
There are more dementors in here, casting their freezing aura over the place; they stand like faceless sentinels in the corner farthest from the high, raised platform. Here, behind a balustrade, sits Umbridge, with Yaxley on one sode if her, and Hermione, quite as white-faced as Mrs. Cattermole, on the other. At the foot of the platform, a bright-silver, long-haired cat prowls up and down, up and down, and I realize that is it there to protect the procecturos from the despair that emantes from the Dementors: That is for the accused to feel, not the accusers.
"Sit down," says Umbridge in her soft, silky voice.
Mrs. Cattermole stumbles to the single seat in the middle of the floor beneath the raised platform. The moment she has sat down, chains clink out of the arms of the chair and bind her there.
"You are Mary Elizabeth Cattermole?" asks Umbridge.
Mrs. Cattermole gives a single, shaky nod.
"Married to Reginald Cattermole of the Magical Maintenance Department?"
Mrs. Cattermole burst into tears.
"I don't know where he is, he was supposed to meet me here!"
Umbridge ignores her.
"Mother to Maisie, Ellie, and Alfred Cattermole?"
Mrs Catermole sobs harder than eer.
"They're frightened, they think I might now come home --"
"Spare us," says Yaxley. "The brats of Mudbloods do not stir our sympathies."
Mrs. Cattermole's sobs mask our footsteps as we make our way carefully toward the steps that lead up to the raised platform. The moment we pass the place where the Patronus patrols, I feel the change in the temperature: It is war and comfotable up here. The Patronus, I'm sure, is Umbridge's, and it glows brightly because she is so happy here, in her element, upholding the twisted laws she has helped to write. Slowly and very carefully we edge our way along the platform behind Umbridge, Yaxley, and Hermione, taking a seat behind the latter. I'm worried about making Hermione jump. I think about casting the Mufliato charm upon Umbridge and Yaxley but even murmuring the word might cause Hermione alarm. Then Umbridge raises her voice to address Mrs. Cattermole, and I seize my chance.
"We're behind you," I whisper into Hermione's ear.
As I had expeced, she jumps so violently that she nearly overturnsd the bottle of ink with which she is supposed to be recording the interview, but both Umbridge and Yaxley are concetrating upon Mrs. Cattermole, and this goes unnoticed.
"A wand was taken from you upon your arrival at the Ministry today, Mrs. Cattermole," Umbridge is saying. "Eight-and-three-quarter inches, cherry, unicorn-hair core. Do you recognize that description?"
Mrs. Cattermole nods, mopping her eyes on her sleeve.
"Could you please tell us from which witch or wizard you took that wand?"
"T-took?" sobs Mrs. Cattermole. "I didn't t-take it from anybody. I b-bought it when I eleven years old. It - it - it -- chose me."
She cries harder than ever.
Umbridge laughs a soft girlish laugh that unfuriates me. She leans towards over the barrier, the better to observe her victim, and something gold swings forwards too, and dangles over the void: the locket.
Hermione has said it too, and lets out a little squeak, but Umbridge and Yaxley remain deaf to everything besides their prey.
"No," says Umbridge, "no, I don't think so, Mrs. Cattermole. Wands only choose witches or wizards. You are not a witch. I have your responses to the questionaire that was sent to you here -- Mafalda, pass them to me."
Umbridge holds out a small hand: She looks so toadlike at this moment that I'm quite surprised not to see webs between her stubby fingers. Hermione's hands are shaking with shock. She fumbles in a pile of documents balanced on the chair beside her, finally withdrawing a sheaf of parchment with Mrs. Cattermole's name on it.
"That's -- that's pretty, Delores," she says, pointing at the pendent gleaming in the ruffled folds of Umbridges's blouse.
"What?" snaps Umbridge, glancing down. "Oh yes -- an old family heirloom," she says, patting the locket laying on her large bosom. "The S stands for Selwyn...I am related to the Selwyns...Indeed, there are few pure-Blood families to whom I am not realted...A pity," she continues in a louder voice, flickiner through Mrs. Cattermole's questionnare, "that the same cannot be said for you. 'Parents' professions: greengrocers."
Yaxley laughs jeeringly. Below, the fluffy silver cat patrolls up and down, and the dementors stand waiting in the corners.
Umbridge's lie makes my blood boil: the locket she took from a petty criminal is being used to boilster her own pure-blod credentials. It takes everything in me not to retalitate: Harry, however, does not show the same restraint. He raises his wand, not troubling to keep it concealed beneath the Invisibility Cloak, and says "Stupefy!"
There is a flash of red light, Umbridge crumples and her forehead hits the edge of the balustrade: Mrs. Cattermole's papers slide off her lap and onto the floor, and down below, the prowling silver cat vanishes. Ice-cold air hits us like an oncoming wind: Yaxley, confused, looks around for the source of the troubl and sees Harry's disembodied hand and wand pointing at him. He tries to draw his own wand, but too late: "Stupefy!"
Yaxley slides to the ground to lie curled on the floor.
"Harry!"
"Hermione, if you think I was going to sit here and let her petend --"
"Harry, Mrs. Cattermole!"
We whirl around, throwing off the Invisbility Cloak; down below, the dementors have moved out of their corners; they are gliding down to the chair: Whether because the Patronus has disappeared or because they have sened their masters are no longer in control, they seem to have abandoned restraint. Mrs. Catermole lets out a terrible scream of fear as a slimy, scabed hand graps her chin and forces her face back.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
The silver stag and doe soars from the tips of our wands and leap towards the dementors, which fall back and melt into the dark shadows. Their light, more warming than the cat's protection, fills the whole dungeon as they canter around and around the room.
"Get the Horcrux," I tell Hermione, as Harry and I run down the steps to Mrs. Cattermole.
"You?" she whispers, gazing into our faces. "But -- but Reg said you were the one who submitted my name for questioning? And you -- you're a Death Eater!"
"Well, we've had a change of heart. Diffindo!" Nothing happens. "Hermione, how do we get rid of these chains?"
"Wait, I'm trying something up here --"
"Hermione, we're surrounded by dementors!"
"I know that, Haylee, but if she wakes up and the locket's gone -- I need to duplicate it -- Gemino! There...That should fool her..."
Hermione comes running downstairs.
"Let's see...Relashio!"
The chains clink and withdraw into the arms of the chair. Mrs. Cattermole looks just as frightened as ever before.
"I don't understand," she whispers.
"You're going to leave with us," I say, helping her to her feet. "Go home, grab your children, and get out, get out of the country if you've got to. Disguise yourselves and run. You've seen how it is, you won't get a fair hearing here."
"Harry, Haylee," Hermione says, "how are we going to get out of here wiht all those dementors outside the door?"
"Patronuses," says Harry, as we point our wands at our own: The stag and doe slow and walk, still gleaming brightly, toward the door. "As many as we can muster; do yours, Hermione.
"Expec -- Expecto Patronum," says Hermione. Nothing happens.
"It's the only spell she ever has trouble with," I tell a completely bemused Mrs. Cattermole. "But unfortunate, really...Come on, Hermione..."
"Expecto Patronum!"
A silver otter bursts from the end of Hermione's wand and swims gracefully through the air to join the stag and doe.
"C'mon," says Harry, and he leads us to the door.
When the Patronuses glide out of the dungeon there are cries of shock from the people waiting outside. I look around: the dementors are faling back on both sides of us, melding into the darkness, scattering before the silver creatures.
"It's been decided that you should all go home and go into hiding with your families," Harry tells the waiting Mugglepborns, who are dazzled by the light of the Patronuses and still cowering slightly. "Go abroad if you can. Just get well away from the Ministry. That's the -- er-- new official position. Now, if you'll just follow the Patronuses, you'll be able to leave from the Atrium."
We manage to get up the stone steps without being intercepted, but as w approach the lifts I start to have misgivings. If we emerge into the Atrium with a silver stag, doe, an dotter soaring alongside it, and twenty or so people, half of them accused Muggle-borns, I can't help but feel that we will attract unwanted attention. I've just reached this unwelcome conclusion when the lift clangs to a halt in front of us.
"Reg!" screams Mrs. Cattermole, and she throws herself into Ron's arms. "Runcorn and Jensen let me out, they attacked Umbridge and Yaxley and he's told all of us to leave the country, I think we'd better do it, Reg, I really do, let's hurry home and fetch the children and --- why are you so wet?"
"Water," mutters Ron, disengaging himself. "Harry, Haylee, they know there are intruders inside the Ministry, something about a hole in Umbridge's office door, I reckon we've got five minutes, if that --"
Hermione's Patronus vanishes with a pop as she turns a horror-struck face to us.
"If we're trapped here --"
"We won't be if we move fast," I say. I address the silent group behind us, who are gawping at Harry and I.
"Who's got wands?"
About half of them raise their hands.
"Okay, all of you who haven't got wands need to attach yourself to somebody who has. We'll need to be fast before they stop us. Come on."
We manage to cram ourselves into the lifts. Our Patronuses stand sentinel before the golden grilles as they shut and lifts begin to rise.
"Level eight," says the witch's cool voice. "Atrium."
I know at once that we're in trouble. The Atriumis full of people moving from fireplace to fireplace, sealing them off.
"What are we going to --?"
"STOP!" Harry thunders, and the powerful voice of Runcorn echoes throughout the Atrium: The wizards sealing the fireplaces freeze. "Follow us," he whispes to the group of terrified Muggle-borns, who forward in a huddle, shepharded by Ron and Hermione.
"What's up, Albert?" says a balding wizard. He looks nervous.
"This lot need to leave before you seal the exits," says Harry with all the authority he can muster.
"We've been told to seal all exits and not let anyone --"
"Are you contradicting us?" I snap, and Eurydice's Jensen's icy drawl seems to strike fear in the wizard's face. I seize my sleeve and wretch it up, revealing Eurydice's Dark Mark. "Shall we have your family tree examined as well?"
"Sorry!" gasps the balding wizard, backing away. "I didn't mean nothing, but I thought...I thought they were in for questioning and..."
"Their blood is pure," says Harry, and his deep voice echoes impressively through the hall. "Purer than any of yours, I daresay. Off you go," he booms to the Muggle-borns, who scurry forward into the fireplaces and begin to vanish in pairs. The Ministry wizards hang back, some looking confused, others scared and resentful. Then:
"Mary!"
Mrs. Cattermole looksover her shoulder. The real Reg Cattermole, no longer vomiting by pale and wan, has just come running out of a lift.
"R-Reg?"
She looks from her husbang to Ron, who swears loudly.
The balding wizard gapes, his head turning ludicrously from one Reg Cattermole to the other.
"Hey -- what's going on? What is this?"
"Seal the exit! SEAL IT!"
Yaxley has just burst out of another lift and is running toward the group beside the fireplaces, into which all of the Muggle-borns but Mrs. Cattermole have just vanished. The balding wizard raises his wand, but I'm quicker.
"Stupefy! Yaxley, he's been helping Muggle-borns escape!" I shout.
The balding wizard's collegues set up a upraor, undercover of which Ron grabs Mrs. Cattermole, pulls her into the still-open fireplace, and disappears. Confused, Yaxley looks from Harry, to me, to the stunned wizard, while the real Reg Cattermole screams, "My wife! Who was that with my wife? What's going on?"
I see Yaxley's head turn, and see an inkling of the truth dawn in his brutish face.
"Come on!" Harry shouts, seizing mine and Hermione's hand and we jump into the fireplace together as Yaxley's curse sails over our head. We spin for a few seconds before shooting up out of a toilet into a cubicle. I fling the door open; Ron is standing there beside the sinks, still wrestling with Mrs. Cattermole.
"Reg, I don't understand --"
"Let go, I'm not your husband, you've got to go home!"
There is a noise in the cubicle bheind us; I look around; Yaxley has just appeared.
"LET'S GO!" I yell. Hermione, Ron, and Harry seize my arm and I turn on the spot.
Darkness engulfes us, along with the sensation of compressing bands, but something is wrong....Hermione seems to be sliding away from me.
I wonder whether I'm going to suffocate; I can't breath or see and the only solid things in the world are Ron, Harry, and Hermione, the latter of which is slowly slipping away...
And then I see the door of number twelve, Grimauld Place, with it's serpent door knocker, but before I can draw breath, there is a scream and a flash of purple light; Hermione's hand is suddenly vicelike upon mind and everything goes dark again.