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𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐋𝐕𝐄𝐒
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We were children,
Thrust into war
and once it ends
What will we become?
·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .
AS AUGUST WORE on, the square of unkempt grass in the middle of Grimmauld Place shriveled in the sun until it was brittle and brown. The inhabitants of number twelve were never seen by anybody in the surrounding houses, and nor was number twelve itself. The Muggles who lived in Grimmauld Place had long since accepted the amusing mistake in the numbering that had caused number eleven to sit beside number thirteen. And yet the square was now attracting a trickle of visitors who seemed to find the anomaly most intriguing.
Barely a day passed without one or two people arriving in Grimmauld Place with no other purpose, or so it seemed, than to lean against the railings facing numbers eleven and thirteen, watching the join between the two houses. The lurkers were never the same two days running, although they all seemed to share a dislike for normal clothing. Most of the Londoners who passed them were used to eccentric dressers and took little notice, though occasionally one of them might glance back, wondering why anyone would wear such long cloaks in this heat.
The watchers seemed to be gleaning little satisfaction from their vigil. Occasionally one of them started forward excitedly, as if they had seen something interesting at last, only to fall back looking disappointed. On the first day of September there were more people lurking in the square than ever before. Half a dozen men in long cloaks stood silent and watchful, gazing as ever at houses eleven and thirteen, but the thing for which they were waiting still appeared elusive.
Very quickly, all fun activities had been exhausted. Elara and Ron had begun narrating the thoughts of the cloaked Death Eaters (much to Hermione's annoyance and Harry's amusement.) When not making fun of Voldemort's stans, Hermione and Elara had been experimenting with coffee recipes. At one point, Elara, Ron, and Harry had actually piled a bunch of blankets at the bottom of the stairs and slid down on a mattress. There were few boredom killers Hermione approved of, and one was Harry's and Ron's version of Cutthroat Kitchen.
As evening drew in, bringing with it an unexpected gust of chilly rain for the first time in weeks, there occurred one of those inexplicable moments when they appeared to have seen something interesting. The man with the twisted face pointed and his closest companion, a podgy, pallid man, started forward, but a moment later they had relaxed into their previous state of inactivity, looking frustrated and disappointed.
Meanwhile, inside number twelve, Elara had just entered the hall. She had nearly lost her balance as she Apparated onto the top step just outside the front door, and thought that the Death Eaters might have caught a glimpse of her momentarily exposed elbow.
Shutting the front door carefully behind her, she pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, draped it over her arm, and hurried along the gloomy hallway toward the door that led to the basement, a stolen copy of the Daily Prophet clutched in her hand.
The usual low whisper of "Severus Snape?" greeted her, the chill wind swept her, and her tongue rolled up for a moment.
"I didn't kill you," she said, once it had unrolled, then held her breath as the dusty jinx-figure exploded.
She waited until she was halfway down the stairs to the kitchen, out of earshot of Mrs. Black and clear of the dust cloud, before calling, "I've got news, and you might be more pissed off than I am."
The kitchen was almost unrecognizable. Every surface now shone: Copper pots and pans had been burnished to a rosy glow; the wooden tabletop gleamed; the goblets and plates already laid for dinner glinted in the light from a merrily blazing fire, on which a cauldron was simmering.
Nothing in the room, however, was more dramatically different than the house-elf who now came hurrying toward Elara, dressed in a snowy-white towel, his ear hair as clean and fluffy as cotton wool, Regulus's locket bouncing on his thin chest.
"Shoes off, if you please, Mistress Elara, and hands washed before dinner," croaked Kreacher, seizing the Invisibility Cloak and slouching off to hang it on a hook on the wall, beside a number of old-fashioned robes that had been freshly laundered.
"What's happened?" Ron asked apprehensively.
He, Harry, and Hermione had been poring over a sheaf of scribbled notes and hand-drawn maps that littered the end of the long kitchen table, but now they watched as Harry strode toward Elara and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek before she threw down the newspaper on top of their scattered parchment.
A large picture of a familiar, hook-nosed, black-haired man stared up at them all, beneath a headline that read:
SEVERUS SNAPE CONFIRMED AS HOGWARTS HEADMASTER
"No!" said Harry, Ron, and Hermione loudly.
Hermione was quickest; she snatched up the newspaper and began to read the accompanying story out loud.
"'Severus Snape, long-standing Potions master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was today appointed headmaster in the most important of several staffing changes at the ancient school. Following the resignation of the previous Muggle Studies teacher, Alecto Carrow will take over the post while her brother, Amycus, fills the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
"'I welcome the opportunity to uphold our finest Wizarding traditions and values —' Like committing murder and cutting off people's ears, I suppose! Snape, headmaster! Snape in Dumbledore's study — Merlin's pants!" she shrieked, making Elara, Harry, and Ron jump.
She leapt up from the table and hurtled from the room, shouting as she went, "I'll be back in a minute!"
"'Merlin's pants'?" repeated Ron, looking amused. "She must be upset. Anyways, Lara, you said you were pissed. What did you do this time?"
"I almost set the newspaper stand on fire. Luckily, the amulet seemed to stop it," admitted Elara nonchalantly, popping a grape into her mouth.
Ron laughed pulled the newspaper toward him and perused the article about Snape.
"The other teachers won't stand for this. McGonagall and Flitwick and Sprout all know the truth, they know how Dumbledore died. They won't accept Snape as headmaster. And who are these Carrows?"
"Death Eaters," said Harry bitterly. "There are pictures of them inside. They were at the top of the tower when Snape killed Dumbledore, so it's all friends together. And," Harry went on, drawing up a chair, "I can't see that the other teachers have got any choice but to stay. If the Ministry and Voldemort are behind Snape it'll be a choice between staying and teaching, or a nice few years in Azkaban — and that's if they're lucky. I reckon they'll stay to try and protect the students."
"One of the few times I wished I was going to Hogwarts this year," said Elara, moving behind Harry's chair and draping her arms around him, "The shit I would pull — it would be glorious, and Seamus and Ron would be my accomplices."
"Not me?" said Harry, feigning offension.
"See, the plans Ron and I have include arson and a few molotov cocktails. You're too moral to agree."
"When the hell did you have time to make molotovs?"
"Seamus and I made around ten after Dumbledore's funeral."
"Without me?!" said Ron, actually looking rather hurt.
"It's nothing personal Ron, but in terms of violent anarchism, Seamus and I are on Ministry watchlists."
Kreacher came bustling to the table with a large tureen in his hands, and ladled out soup into pristine bowls, whistling between his teeth as he did so.
"Thanks, Kreacher," said Harry, still looking rather concerned, flipped over the Prophet. "Well, at least we know exactly where Snape is now."
Elara began to spoon soup into her mouth. The quality of Kreacher's cooking had improved dramatically ever since he had been given Regulus's locket: Today's French onion was as good as Elara had ever tasted.
"There are still a load of Death Eaters watching the house," she told Harry and Ron as she ate, "more than usual. They're hoping we'll march out carrying our school trunks and head off for the Hogwarts Express."
Ron glanced at his watch.
"I've been thinking about that all day. It left nearly six hours ago. Weird, not being on it, isn't it?"
In her mind's eye Elara seemed to see the scarlet steam engine, shimmering between fields and hills, a rippling scarlet caterpillar. She was sure Ginny, Neville, and Luna were sitting together at this moment, perhaps wondering where she, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were, or debating how best to undermine Snape's new regime.
"They nearly saw me coming back in just now," Elara said. "I landed weirdly on the top step,and the Cloak slipped."
"I do that every time. Oh, here she is," Ron added, craning around in his seat to watch Hermione reentering the kitchen. "And what in the name of Merlin's most baggy Y Fronts was that about?"
"I remembered this," Hermione panted.
She was carrying a large, framed picture, which she now lowered to the floor before seizing her small, beaded bag from the kitchen sideboard. Opening it, she proceeded to force the painting inside, and despite the fact that it was patently too large to fit inside the tiny bag, within a few seconds it had vanished, like so much else, into the bag's capacious depths.
"Phineas Nigellus," Hermione explained as she threw the bag onto the kitchen table with the usual sonorous, clanking crash.
"Sorry?" said Ron, but Elara understood.
The painted image of Phineas Nigellus Black was able to flit between his portrait in Grimmauld Place and the one that hung in the headmaster's office at Hogwarts: the circular tower-top room where Snape was no doubt sitting right now, in triumphant possession of Dumbledore's collection of delicate, silver magical instruments, the stone Pensieve, the Sorting Hat and, unless it had been moved elsewhere, the sword of Gryffindor.
"Snape could send Phineas Nigellus to look inside this house for him," Hermione explained to Ron as she resumed her seat. "But let him try it now, all Phineas Nigellus will be able to see is the inside of my handbag."
"Good thinking!" said Ron, looking impressed.
"Thank you," smiled Hermione, pulling her soup toward her. "So, Lara, what else happened today?"
"Nothing," said Elara. "Watched the Ministry entrance for seven hours. No sign of her. Saw your dad, though, Ron. He looks fine."
Ron nodded his appreciation of this news. They had agreed that it was far too dangerous to try and communicate with Mr. Weasley while he walked in and out of the Ministry, because he was always surrounded by other Ministry workers. It was, however, reassuring to catch these glimpses of him, even if he did look very strained and anxious.
"Dad always told us most Ministry people use the Floo Network to get to work," Ron said. "That's why we haven't seen Umbridge, she'd never walk, she'd think she's too important."
"And what about that funny old witch, that little wizard in the navy robes, and that witch who looks like she'll kill you if you step in her way?" Hermione asked.
"Oh yeah, the bloke from Magical Maintenance," said Ron.
"How do you know he works for Magical Maintenance?" Hermione asked, her soup spoon suspended in midair.
"Dad said everyone from Magical Maintenance wears navy blue robes."
"But you never told us that!"
Hermione dropped her spoon and pulled toward her the sheaf of notes and maps that she, Harry, and Ron had been examining when Elara had entered the kitchen.
"There's nothing in here about navy blue robes, nothing!" she said, flipping feverishly through the pages.
"Well, does it really matter?"
"Ron, it all matters! If we're going to get into the Ministry and not give ourselves away when they're bound to be on the lookout for intruders, every little detail matters! We've been over and over this, I mean, what's the point of all these reconnaissance trips if you aren't even bothering to tell us —"
"Blimey, Hermione, I forget one little thing —"
"You do realize, don't you, that there's probably no more dangerous place in the whole world for us to be right now than the Ministry of —"
"I think we should do it tomorrow," said Harry.
Hermione stopped dead, her jaw hanging; Ron choked a little over his soup; Elara paused mid-sip of her butterbeer.
"Tomorrow?" repeated Hermione. "You aren't serious, Harry?"
"I am," said Harry. "I don't think we're going to be much better prepared than we are now even if we skulk around the Ministry entrance for another month. The longer we put it off, the farther away that locket could be. There's already a good chance Umbridge has chucked it away; the thing doesn't open."
"Unless," said Ron, "she's found a way of opening it and she's now possessed."
"Wouldn't make any difference to her, she was so evil in the first place," Elara shrugged. "Anyways, I think Harry's right. Besides, it's much more fun to wing it."
Hermione was biting her lip, deep in thought.
"We know everything important," Harry went on, addressing Hermione. "We know they've stopped Apparition in and out of the Ministry. We know only the most senior Ministry members are allowed to connect their homes to the Floo Network now, because Ron heard those two Unspeakables complaining about it. And we know roughly where Umbridge's office is, because of what you heard that bearded bloke saying to his mate —"
"'I'll be up on level one, Dolores wants to see me,'" Hermione recited immediately.
"Exactly," said Harry. "And we know you get in using those funny coins, or tokens, or whatever they are, because I saw that witch borrowing one from her friend —"
"But we haven't got any!"
"If the plan works, we will have," Harry continued calmly.
"I don't know, Harry, I don't know. . . . There are an awful lot of things that could go wrong,so much relies on chance. . . ."
"Hermione, that'll be true even if we spend another three months preparing," said Elara. "It's time to act. The sooner we get that locket, the better."
Elara could tell from Ron's and Hermione's faces that they were scared; Harry did not seem particularly confident himself, and yet Elara was sure the time had come to put their plan into operation.
They had spent the previous four weeks taking it in turns to don the Invisibility Cloak and spy on the official entrance to the Ministry, which Ron, thanks to Mr. Weasley, had known since childhood. They had tailed Ministry workers on their way in, eavesdropped on their conversations, and learned by careful observation which of them could be relied upon to appear,alone, at the same time every day.
Occasionally there had been a chance to sneak a Daily Prophet out of somebody's briefcase. Slowly they had built up the sketchy maps and notes now stacked in front of Hermione.
"All right," said Ron slowly, "let's say we go for it tomorrow. . . . I think it should just be me and Harry."
"Oh, don't start that again!" sighed Hermione. "I thought we'd settled this."
"It's one thing hanging around the entrances under the Cloak, but this is different, Hermione."
Ron jabbed a finger at a copy of the Daily Prophet dated ten days previously.
"You're on the list of Muggle-borns who didn't present themselves for interrogation! Lara's literally got a twenty thousand galleon price on her decapitated head."
"And you're supposed to be dying of spattergroit at the Burrow! Lara can manipulate fire and was trained to fight by the literal personification of Magic. If anyone shouldn't go, it's Harry, he's got a ten-thousand-Galleon price on his head —"
"Fine, I'll stay here," said Harry. "Let me know if you ever defeat Voldemort, won't you?"
As Ron and Hermione laughed, pain shot through Elara's forehead. She immediately glanced over to Harry, who tried to pass off the pain by brushing his hair out of his eyes.
"Well, if all four of us go we'll have to Disapparate separately," Ron was saying. "We can't all fit under the Cloak anymore."
The pain in Elara's forehead was becoming more and more unbearable. Harry stood up. At once, Kreacher hurried forward.
"Master has not finished his soup, would Master prefer the savory stew, or else the treacle tart to which Master is so partial?"
"Thanks, Kreacher, but I'll be back in a minute — er — bathroom."
Harry hurried up the stairs. Hermione made to stand, but Elara held up a hand.
"Please, let me."
"You go to soft on him!" said Hermione annoyedly, "You know he needs to shut off that connection!"
"You can yell at him after he's done and calmed," said Elara resolutely, narrowing her eyes, daring Hermione to challenge her.
Seeing as the usual yelling had started during these episodes, Elara sped up the stairs and forced open the bathroom door with great difficulty. She was getting flashes of the visions Harry was seeing, greatly hindering her ability to use her normal strength.
Harry seemed to have sunk to the floor. Taking a deep breath, Elara willed calm to wash over her body, and her right hand emitted the softest glow. She knelt next to Harry, placing her hand upon his forehead. Within seconds, his breathing slowed and his eyes opened.
"Bad dream?" asked Elara, leaning back against the tiled wall.
"That has never been funny," groaned Harry, leaning his head against the wall.
Elara snorted.
"What happened this time?"
Harry looked over at her quizzically.
"I thought you could see?"
"Seems that whatever put me on this godforsaken planet is pissed that I haven't been able to figure out whatever Dumbledore was going on about in the tower."
"Oh," said Harry, leaning against Elara's shoulder. "I've just seen Voldemort murdering a woman. By now he's probably killed her whole family. And he didn't need to. It was Cedric all over again, Lara, they were just there. . . ."
Harry's voice became increasingly strained as he explained his vision, to which she placed her arms around him. His face was buried in her neck as his shoulders shuddered violently. These rare moments were graced with silence as Elara gently ran a hand through his hair.
After a long while, Harry broke the silence.
"Is Hermione gearing up to yell at me?"
Elara laughed.
"Probably."
In the meantime, they returned to the basement kitchen, where Kreacher served them all stew and treacle tart. They did not get to bed until late that night, after spending hours going over and over their plan until they could recite it, word perfect, to each other. As Harry, Ron, and Hermione retired to their beds, Elara retreated to the topmost floor of the house.
Thick silence surrounded her as she took her place on the floor, sitting with her legs crossed. As usual, the tiny balls of fiery light filled the room, sweeping Elara with an unbelievable wave of calm. She breathed slowly, in and out, as she imagined a place she would feel at home in.
A beautiful, lush forest with a babbling brook and colorful flowers filled her mind's eye. The sky above was filled with millions of stars, the dark blue cosmic dust clearly visible on this darkened night.
In the silence, she sat, eyes closed.
She retreated farther into the forest, following the leaf strewn path. An old song her mother used to sing to her as a child found it's way through her mind, and quickly she began to hum the beautiful tune as she hiked up the path less followed.
Between the nostalgic tune and the quiet babbling of the brook, Elara felt at peace. The clean night air filled up her lungs as she came closer and closer to the step-stone waterfall. The crunching of the leaves under her feet propelled her further until she came across perhaps her favorite part of this venture.
The waterfall was the marker of the difficult part. Just past there were many different paths, each Elara has travelled down before. At this point, it was a wild choice. She chose to go left, pulling herself up on a fallen trunk that lay, suspended, over the waterfall.
Like before, she wandered through the woods for awhile before coming across a river with great rapids. And, like before, she stepped on the water, a platform quickly materializing under her feet. As she crossed to the next glowing platform, the one behind her disintegrated.
After crossing the river for the tenth time, she continued on, finding the woods get denser and darker. The Stars were no longer in sight. Elara picked up a stick and produced a flame in her hand, using it to ignite the stick.
She continued on until she reached the all too familiar fog that usually signified the end of her journey.
Sighing, Elara tossed her torch at the impenetrable barrier and it came launching back at her. Just as she was about to catch the torch, she was forced awake by an unknown force. The balls of light were fading, and she stood up.
With the familiar feeling of frustration and disappointment, she journeyed back down the stairs and through the hall to Sirius's room, where she knew Harry to be. Sure enough, he was staring at the old photograph of James, Sirius, Remus, and Pettigrew, using his wand as light.
Elara gently closed the door behind her and slid in next to Harry.
"Still no luck?" he asked quietly.
"None," said Elara sleepily, resting her head on Harry's chest. "We should get some sleep."
"Yeah," said Harry, the wandlight extinguishing, "Good idea."
Dawn seemed to follow midnight with indecent haste.
"You both look terrible," was Ron's greeting as he entered the room to wake Elara and Harry.
"Fuck you too," said Elara, yawning.
They found Hermione downstairs in the kitchen. She was being served coffee and hot rolls by Kreacher and wearing the slightly manic expression that Elara associated with exam review.
"Robes," she said under her breath, acknowledging their presence with a nervous nod and continuing to poke around in her beaded bag, "Polyjuice Potion . . . Invisibility Cloak . . . Decoy Detonators . . . You should each take a couple just in case. . . . Puking Pastilles, Nosebleed Nougat, Extendable Ears . . ."
They gulped down their breakfast, then set off upstairs, Kreacher bowing them out and promising to have a steak-and-kidney pie ready for them when they returned.
"Bless him," said Ron fondly, "and when you think I used to fantasize about cutting off his head and sticking it on the wall."
They made their way onto the front step with immense caution: They could see a couple of puffy-eyed Death Eaters watching the house from across the misty square. Hermione Disapparated with Ron first, came back for Harry, then returned finally for Elara.
After the usual brief spell of darkness and near suffocation, Elara found herself in the tiny alleyway where the first phase of their plan was scheduled to take place. It was as yet deserted, except for a couple of large bins; the first Ministry workers did not usually appear here until at least eight o'clock.
"Right then," said Hermione, checking her watch. "She ought to be here in about five minutes. When I've Stunned her —"
"Hermione, we know," said Ron sternly. "And I thought we were supposed to open the door before she got here?"
Hermione squealed.
"I nearly forgot! Stand back —"
She pointed her wand at the padlocked and heavily graffitied fire door beside them, which burst open with a crash. The dark corridor behind it led, as they knew from their careful scouting trips, into an empty theater. Hermione pulled the door back toward her, to make it look as though it was still closed.
"And now," she said, turning back to face the other two in the alleyway, "we put on the Cloak again —"
"— and we wait," Ron finished, throwing it over Hermione's head like a blanket over a birdcage and rolling his eyes at Elara and Harry.
Little more than a minute later, there was a tiny pop and a little Ministry witch with flyaway gray hair Apparated feet from them, blinking a little in the sudden brightness; the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. She barely had time to enjoy the unexpected warmth, however, before Hermione's silent Stunning Spell hit her in the chest and she toppled over.
"Nicely done, Hermione," said Ron, emerging from behind a bin beside the theater door as Elara and Harry took off the Invisibility Cloak.
Together they carried the little witch into the dark passageway that led backstage. Hermione plucked a few hairs from the witch's head and added them to a flask of muddy Polyjuice Potion she had taken from the beaded bag. Ron was rummaging through the little witch's handbag.
"She's Mafalda Hopkirk," he said, reading a small card that identified their victim as an assistant in the Improper Use of Magic Office. "You'd better take this, Hermione, and here are the tokens."
He passed her several small golden coins, all embossed with the letters M.O.M., which he had taken from the witch's purse.
Hermione drank the Polyjuice Potion, which was now a pleasant heliotrope color, and within seconds stood before them, the double of Mafalda Hopkirk. As she removed Mafalda's spectacles and put them on, Harry checked his watch.
"We're running late, Mr. Magical Maintenance will be here any second."
They hurried to close the door on the real Mafalda; Elara, Harry, and Ron threw the Invisibility Cloak over themselves but Hermione remained in view, waiting. Seconds later there was another pop,and a small, ferrety-looking wizard appeared before them.
"Oh, hello, Mafalda."
"Hello!" said Hermione in a quavery voice. "How are you today?"
"Not so good, actually," replied the little wizard, who looked thoroughly downcast.
As Hermione and the wizard headed for the main road, Elara, Harry, and Ron crept along behind them.
"I'm sorry to hear you're under the weather," said Hermione, talking firmly over the little wizard as he tried to expound upon his problems; it was essential to stop him from reaching the street. "Here, have a sweet."
"Eh? Oh, no thanks —"
"I insist!" said Hermione aggressively, shaking the bag of pastilles in his face.
Looking rather alarmed, the little wizard took one.The effect was instantaneous. The moment the pastille touched his tongue, the little wizard started vomiting so hard that he did not even notice as Hermione yanked a handful of hairs from the top of his head.
"Oh dear!" she said, as he splattered the alley with sick. "Perhaps you'd better take the day off!"
"No — no!" He choked and retched, trying to continue on his way despite being unable to walk straight. "I must — today — must go —"
"But that's just silly!" said Hermione, alarmed. "You can't go to work in this state — I think you ought to go to St. Mungo's and get them to sort you out!"
The wizard had collapsed, heaving, onto all fours, still trying to crawl toward the main street.
"You simply can't go to work like this!" cried Hermione.
At last he seemed to accept the truth of her words. Using a repulsed Hermione to claw his way back into a standing position, he turned on the spot and vanished, leaving nothing behind but the bag Ron had snatched from his hand as he went and some flying chunks of vomit.
"Urgh," said Hermione, holding up the skirts of her robe to avoid the puddles of sick. "It would have made much less mess to Stun him too."
"True," said Elara, emerging from under the cloak holding the wizard's bag, "but I still think a whole pile of unconscious bodies would have drawn more attention. Keen on his job, though, isn't he?"
Within two minutes, Ron stood before them, as small and ferrety as the sick wizard, and wearing the navy blue robes that had been folded in his bag.
"Weird he wasn't wearing them today, wasn't it, seeing how much he wanted to go? Anyway, I'm Reg Cattermole, according to the label in the back."
"Now wait here," Hermione told Elara and Harry, who was still under the Invisibility Cloak, "and we'll be back with some hairs for you."
They had to wait ten minutes, but it seemed much longer to the pair, skulking alone in the sick splattered alleyway beside the door concealing the Stunned Mafalda. Finally Ron and Hermione reappeared.
"We don't know who he is," Hermione said, passing Harry several curly black hairs, "but he's gone home with a dreadful nosebleed! Here, he's pretty tall, you'll need bigger robes. . . ."
She pulled out a set of the old robes Kreacher had laundered for them, and Harry retired to take the potion and change.
"And Lara, here you are. We don't know who she is either, but she seemed really important."
Once the painful transformation was complete, Elara had grown a few inches and her hair was a glossy jet black. Her eyes had narrowed in a permanent 'if you waste my time I will kill you' look. Seeing as she had the most time, since she could just metamorphose into the woman once her potion wore off, she was granted with snooping around.
Harry emerged from the changing room, more than six feet tall, well-muscled arms, and powerfully built. He also had a beard.
"Blimey, that's scary," said Ron, looking at Elara and Harry, who now looked like a pair of assassins.
"Take one of Mafalda's tokens," Hermione told the pair, "and let's go, it's nearly nine."
They stepped out of the alleyway together. Fifty yards along the crowded pavement there were spiked black railings flanking two flights of steps, one labeled GENTLEMEN, the other LADIES.
"See you in a moment," said Elara giddily, and she and Hermione jetted off down the steps to LADIES.
They joined a number of well-dressed women descending into what appeared to be an ordinary underground public toilet, tiled in grimy black and white.
"Morning, Blair!" called another witch, in fancy silk robes as she let herself into a cubicle by inserting her golden token into a slot in the door. "I can't believe they're forcing us to do this. Who are they expecting to turn up, Elara Lestrange and Harry Potter?"
The witch giggled at her own wit. Elara snorted loudly.
"I know, right," she said, "Ridiculous, isn't it?"
And she and Hermione let themselves into adjoining cubicles. To Elara's left and right came the sound of flushing. She crouched down and peered through the gap at the bottom of the cubicle, just in time to see a pair of heeled feet climbing into the toilet next door. She looked left and saw Hermione blinking at her.
"We have to flush ourselves in?" she whispered.
"Looks like it," Elara whispered back; her voice came out strict and silky.
They both stood up. Feeling exceptionally foolish, Elara clambered into the toilet. She knew at once that she had done the right thing; though she appeared to be standing in water, her shoes, feet, and robes remained quite dry. She reached up, pulled the chain, and next moment had zoomed down a short chute, emerging out of a fireplace into the Ministry of Magic.
She got up gracefully; the woman she was impersonating, Blair, seemed to move with poise. The great Atrium seemed darker than Elara remembered it. Previously a golden fountain had filled the center of the hall, casting shimmering spots of light over the polished wooden floor and walls.
Now a gigantic statue of black stone dominated the scene. It was rather frightening, this vast sculpture of a witch and a wizard sitting on ornately carved thrones, looking down at the Ministry workers toppling out of fireplaces below them. Engraved in foot-high letters at the base of the statue were the words MAGIC IS MIGHT.
Elara received a heavy blow on the back of the legs: Another witch had just flown out of the fireplace behind her.
"Out of the way, can't y — oh, sorry, Scotsly!"
Clearly frightened, the older wizard witch away. Apparently the woman whom Elara was impersonating, Scotsly, was intimidating.
"Psst!" said a voice, and she looked around to see a wispy little witch, the ferrety wizard from Magical Maintenance, and the buff man gesturing to her from over beside the statue. Elara hastened to join them.
"You got in all right, then?" Hermione whispered to Elara.
"No, she's still stuck in the bog," said Ron.
"Oh, very funny . . . It's horrible, isn't it?" she said to Elara, who was staring up at the statue.
"Have you seen what they're sitting on?"
Elara looked more closely and realized that what she had thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans: hundreds and hundreds of naked bodies, men,women, and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards.
"What the fuck?"
"Muggles," whispered Hermione. "In their rightful place. Come on, let's get going."
"I've got a molotov in this purse," whispered Elara to Ron, "that statue is going down."
Ron snorted as they joined the stream of witches and wizards moving toward the golden gates at the end of the hall, looking around as surreptitiously as possible, but there was no sign of the distinctive figure of Dolores Umbridge.
They passed through the gates and into a smaller hall, where queues were forming in front of twenty golden grilles housing as many lifts. They had barely joined the nearest one when a voice said, "Cattermole!"
They looked around: the quiet rage in Elara. One of the Death Eaters who had witnessed Dumbledore's death was striding toward them. The Ministry workers beside them fell silent, their eyes downcast; Elara could feel fear rippling through them.
The man's scowling, slightly brutish face was somehow at odds with his magnificent, sweeping robes, which were embroidered with much gold thread. Someone in the crowd around the lifts called sycophantically, "Morning, Yaxley!"
Yaxley ignored them.
"I requested somebody from Magical Maintenance to sort out my office, Cattermole. It's still raining in there."
Ron looked around as though hoping somebody else would intervene, but nobody spoke.
"Raining . . . in your office? That's — that's not good, is it?"
Ron gave a nervous laugh. Yaxley's eyes widened.
"You think it's funny, Cattermole, do you?"
A pair of witches broke away from the queue for the lift and bustled off.
"No," said Ron, "no, of course —"
"You realize that I am on my way downstairs to interrogate your wife, Cattermole? In fact, I'm quite surprised you're not down there holding her hand while she waits. Already given her up as a bad job, have you? Probably wise. Be sure and marry a pureblood next time."
Hermione had let out a little squeak of horror. Yaxley looked at her. She coughed feebly and turned away.
"I — I —" stammered Ron.
"But if my wife were accused of being a Mudblood," said Yaxley, "— not that any woman I married would ever be mistaken for such filth — "
"Excuse me, Yaxley," said Elara, her voice dangerous.
Yaxley seemed surprised.
"Taken it upon yourself to finally acknowledge me, Scotsly?"
"I will only ever acknowledge the sour truth that you're a douchebag — "
"Such fiery words from the Head Auror. If you weren't so important, I'd — "
"You'd what? You know I'm the only person in this entire Ministry that has the balls to deal with you."
Yaxley scoffed and turned back to Ron.
"I would make it my priority to do this job, Cattermole. Do you understand me?"
"Yes," whispered Ron.
"Then attend to it, Cattermole, and if my office is not completely dry within an hour, your wife's Blood Status will be in even graver doubt than it is now."
The golden grille before them clattered open. With a nod and unpleasant smile to Harry, who was evidently expected to appreciate this treatment of Cattermole, Yaxley swept away toward another lift. Elara, Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered theirs, but nobody followed them: It was as if they were infectious. The grilles shut with a clang and the lift began to move upward.
"Lara!" hissed Hermione.
"It worked out! Apparently Scotsly has a reputation I can uphold easily!"
"What am I going to do?" Ron asked at once; he looked stricken. "If I don't turn up, my wife — I mean, Cattermole's wife —"
"We'll come with you, we should stick together —" began Harry, but Ron shook his head feverishly.
"That's mental, we haven't got much time. You three find Umbridge, I'll go and sort out Yaxley's office — but how do I stop it raining?"
"Try Finite Incantatem," said Hermione at once, "that should stop the rain if it's a hex or curse; if it doesn't, something's gone wrong with an Atmospheric Charm, which will be more difficult to fix, so as an interim measure try Impervius to protect his belongings —"
"Say it again, slowly —" said Ron, searching his pockets desperately for a quill, but at that moment the lift juddered to a halt.
A disembodied female voice said, "Level four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, incorporating Beast, Being, and Spirit Divisions, Goblin Liaison Office, and Pest Advisory Bureau," and the grilles slid open again, admitting a couple of wizards and several pale violet paper airplanes that fluttered around the lamp in the ceiling of the lift.
"Morning, Albert, Blair," said a bushily whiskered man, smiling at the pair.
He glanced over at Ron and Hermione as the lift creaked upward once more; Hermione was now whispering frantic instructions to Ron.
The wizard leaned toward Harry, leering, and muttered, "Dirk Cresswell, eh? From Goblin Liaison? Nice one, Albert. I'm pretty confident I'll get his job now!"
He winked. Harry smiled awkwardly back. The lift stopped; the grilles opened once more.
"Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services," said the disembodied witch's voice.
Elara saw Hermione give Ron a little push and he hurried out of the lift, followed by the other wizards, leaving Elara, Harry, and Hermione alone.
The moment the golden door had closed Hermione said, very fast, "Actually, Harry, I think I'd better go after him, I don't think he knows what he's doing and if he gets caught the whole thing —"
"Level one, Minister of Magic and Support Staff."
The golden grilles slid apart again and Hermione gasped. Four people stood before them, two of them deep in conversation: a long-haired wizard wearing magnificent robes of black and gold,and a squat, toad like witch wearing a velvet bow in her short hair and clutching a clipboard to her chest.
Oh fuck.
Ah, Mafalda!" said Umbridge, looking at Hermione. "Travers sent you, did he?"
"Y-yes," squeaked Hermione.
"Good, you'll do perfectly well." Umbridge spoke to the wizard in black and gold."That's that problem solved, Minister, if Mafalda can be spared for record-keeping we shall be able to start straightaway."
She consulted 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 stepped into the lift beside Hermione, as did the two wizards who had been listening to Umbridge's conversation with the Minister.
"We'll go straight down, Mafalda, you'll find everything you need in the courtroom. Good morning, Albert, Blair, aren't you two getting out?"
"Yes, of course," said Elara in Blair's silky voice. "You know how it is, Dolores, the normal coffee just didn't suffice today."
Umbridge gave her usual breathy laugh.
"Something I know all too well!"
Elara and Harry stepped out of the lift. The golden grilles clanged shut behind him. Glancing over her shoulder, Elara saw 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.
Elara forced her shudder away, as the Minister of Magic was stood before them.
"What brings you two up here?" asked the new Minister of Magic.
His long black hair and beard were streaked with silver, and a great overhanging forehead shadowed his glinting eyes, putting Elara in mind of a crab looking out from beneath a rock.
"Needed a quick word with," Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second, "Arthur Weasley. Someone said he was up on level one."
"Ah," said Pius Thicknesse. "Has he been caught having contact with an Undesirable?"
"No," said Harry, his throat dry. "No, nothing like that."
"Ah, well. It's only a matter of time," said Thicknesse. "If you ask me, the blood traitors are as bad as the Mudbloods. What about you, Scotsly?"
"Dolores told me she had the best recipe for coffee in her office. Seeing as I'm about to pass out from exhaustion, I thought I'd go check it out."
"Nothing short of normal for you, Scotsly. Good day."
"Good day, Minister," said Elara and Harry simultaneously.
Elara watched Thicknesse march away along the thickly carpeted corridor. The moment the Minister had passed out of sight, Harry tugged the Invisibility Cloak out from under his heavy black cloak, threw it over themselves, and set off along the corridor in the opposite direction.
Runcorn was so tall that Harry was forced to stoop to make sure his big feet were hidden. Adrenaline pulsed in the pit of Elara's stomach. As she passed 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, its complexity, its impenetrability, seemed to force itself upon her so that the plan she had been carefully concocting with Harry, Ron, and Hermione over the past four weeks seemed laughably childish.
They had concentrated all their efforts on getting inside without being detected: They had not given a moment's thought to what they would do if they were forced to separate. Now Hermione was stuck in court proceedings, which would undoubtedly last hours; Ron was struggling to do magic that Elara was sure was beyond him, a woman's liberty possibly depending on the outcome; and she, Elara, was wandering around on the top floor when she knew perfectly well that her quarry had just gone down in the lift.
Harry stopped walking and leaned against a wall.
"What's wrong?" asked Elara quietly.
"What the hell are we supposed to do?"
"Get into Umbitch's office?"
"But — "
"There's no point in panic, Harry. We just have to do."
Harry exhaled loudly.
"I can't believe I'm about to take your advice."
Elara smiled.
"Come on, let's get moving."
They set off along the corridor again, passing nobody but a frowning wizard who was murmuring instructions to a quill that floated in front of him, scribbling on a trail of parchment. Now paying attention to the names on the doors, Elara turned a corner.
Halfway along the next corridor they emerged into a wide, open space where a dozen witches and wizards sat in row sat small desks not unlike school desks, though much more highly polished and free from graffiti.
Elara paused to watch them, for the effect was quite mesmerizing. They were all waving and twiddling their wands in unison, and squares of colored paper were flying in every direction like little pink kites.
After a few seconds, Elara realized that there was a rhythm to the proceedings, that the papers all formed the same pattern; and after a few more seconds she realized that what she was watching was the creation of pamphlets — that the paper squares were pages, which, when assembled, folded, and magicked into place, fell into neat stacks beside each witch or wizard.
Elara crept closer, although the workers were so intent on what they were doing that he doubted they would notice a carpet-muffled footstep, and she slid a completed pamphlet from the pile beside a young witch. She examined it beneath the Invisibility Cloak.
Its pink cover was emblazoned with a golden title:
MUDBLOODS and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society
Beneath the title was a picture of a red rose with a simpering face in the middle of its petals, being strangled by a green weed with fangs and a scowl. There was no author's name upon the pamphlet, but again, the scars on the back of her right hand seemed to tingle as she examined it.
Only Umbitch would print slurs.
Then the young witch beside her confirmed her suspicion as she said, still waving and twirling her wand, "Will the old hag be interrogating Mudbloods all day, does anyone know?"
"Careful," said the wizard beside her, glancing around nervously; one of his pages slipped and fell to the floor.
"What, has she got magic ears as well as an eye, now?"
The witch glanced toward the shining mahogany door facing the space full of pamphlet makers; Elara looked too, and rage reared in her like a snake. Where there might have been a peephole on a Muggle front door, a large, round eye with a bright blue iris had been set into the wood — an eye that was shockingly familiar to anybody who had known Alastor Moody.
For a split second Elara forgot where she was and what she was doing there: She even forgot that she was invisible and with Harry. She strode straight over to the door to examine the eye. It was not moving: It gazed blindly upward, frozen. The plaque beneath it read:
DOLORES UMBRIDGE
SENIOR UNDERSECRETARY TO THE MINISTER
Below that, a slightly shinier new plaque read:
HEAD OF THE MUGGLE-BORN REGISTRATION COMMISSION
Elara looked back at the dozen pamphlet-makers: Though they were intent upon their work, she could hardly suppose that they would not notice if the door of an empty office opened in front of them. She therefore withdrew from an inner pocket an odd object with little waving legs and a rubber-bulbed horn for a body.
"Of course," Harry whispered amusedly.
Crouching down beneath the Cloak, she placed the Decoy Detonator on the ground. It scuttled away at once through the legs of the witches and wizards in front of him. A few moments later, during which Elara waited with her hand upon the doorknob, there came a loud bang and a great deal of acrid black smoke billowed from a corner.
The young witch in the front row shrieked: Pink pages flew everywhere as she and her fellows jumped up, looking around for the source of the commotion. Elara turned the doorknob, stepped into Umbridge's office, and Harry closed the door behind them.
Elara felt she had stepped back in time. The room was exactly like Umbridge's office at Hogwarts: Lace draperies, doilies, and dried flowers covered every available surface. The walls bore the same ornamental plates, each featuring a highly colored, beribboned kitten, gambolingand frisking with sickening cuteness.
The desk was covered with a flouncy, flowered cloth. Behind Mad-Eye's eye, a telescopic attachment enabled Umbridge to spy on the workers on the other side of the door. Elara took a look through it and saw that they were all still gathered around the Decoy Detonator.
In a moment of anger, she wrenched the telescope out of the door, leaving a hole behind, pulled the magical eyeball out of it, and placed it in her pocket. Then she turned to face the room again, raised her wand, and murmured, "Accio Locket."
Nothing happened, but she had not expected it to; no doubt Umbridge knew all about protective charms and spells. Harry hurried behind her desk and began pulling open the drawers.
Elara moved to the countless cabinets. She saw quills and notebooks and Spellotape; enchanted paper clips that coiled snakelike from their drawer and had to be beaten back; a fussy little lace box full of spare hair bows and clips; but no sign of a locket.
There was a filing cabinet behind the desk: Elara set to searching it. Like Filch's filing cabinets at Hogwarts, it was full of folders, each labeled with a name. It was not until Elara reached the bottommost drawer that she saw something to distract her from her search: Mr.Weasley's file.
"Harry," whispered Elara, moving to place the file on the desk.
ARTHUR WEASLEY
BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood, 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 inspectors have confirmed.
SECURITY STATUS: TRACKED. All movements are being monitored. Strong likelihood Undesirable No. 1 and Undesirable No. 2 will contact (both have stayed with Weasley family previously)
"Undesirable Number One and Two," Elara muttered under her breath as she replaced Mr. Weasley's folder and shut the drawer.
She had an idea she knew who that was, and sure enough, as she straightened up and glanced around the office for fresh hiding places, she saw a poster of herself on the wall, with the words UNDESIRABLE NO. 1 emblazoned across her chest. A poster with Harry with the words UNDESIRABLE NO. 2 was pinned neatly next her Elara's poster.
A little pink note was stuck to the wall between the pictures of them with a kitten in the corner. Elara moved across to read it and saw that Umbridge had written, "To be punished."
Angrier than ever, she proceeded to grope in the bottoms of the vases and baskets of dried flowers, but was not at all surprised that the locket was not there. The violent will to ransack and destroy the office subdued Elara as she fought with herself.
Huffing angrily, she turned and reached behind the books on the bookshelves. After a moment, she paused, an ominous feeling setting over her shoulders. She dashed over to Harry, yanked the Cloak from him, and threw it over the pair of them.
At that moment, the door of the office opened. As it was, Elara thought Thicknesse might have caught a glimpse of movement, because for a moment or two he remained quite still, staring curiously at the place where Elara and Harry had just vanished.
Perhaps deciding that all he had seen was Dumbledore scratching his nose on the front of the book, for Harry had hastily replaced it upon the shelf, Thicknesse finally walked to the desk and pointed his wand at the quill standing ready in the ink pot. It sprang out and began scribbling a note to Umbridge.
Very slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Elara and Harry backed out of the office into the open area beyond. The pamphlet-makers were still clustered around the remains of the Decoy Detonator, which continued to hoot feebly as it smoked.
Elara and Harry hurried off up the corridor as the young witch said, "I bet it sneaked up here from Experimental Charms, they're so careless, remember that poisonous duck?"
Speeding back toward the lifts, Elara reviewed her options. It had never been likely that the locket was here at the Ministry, and there was no hope of bewitching its whereabouts out of Umbridge while she was sitting in a crowded court. Their priority now had to be to leave the Ministry before they were exposed, and try again another day.
The first thing to do was to find Ron, and then they could work out a way of extracting Hermione from the courtroom. The lift was empty when it arrived. Elara and Harry jumped in and pulled off the Invisibility Cloak as its tarted its descent. To Elara's enormous relief, when it rattled to a halt at level two, a soaking-wet and wild-eyed Ron got in.
"M-morning," he stammered to Elara and Harry as the lift set off again.
"Ron, it's us!"
"Harry! Blimey, I forgot what you two 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 Elara could finish the lift had stopped again: The doors opened and Mr. Weasley walked inside, talking to an elderly witch whose blonde hair was teased so high it resembled an anthill.
". . . I quite understand what you're saying, Wakanda, but I'm afraid I cannot be party to —"
Mr. Weasley broke off; he had noticed Harry. The lift doors closed and the five of them trundled downward once more.
"Oh, hello, Reg," said 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 happened to you? Why areyou so wet?"
"Yaxley's office is raining," said Ron.
He addressed Mr. Weasley's shoulder, and Elara felt sure he was scared that his father might recognize him if they looked directly into each other's eyes.
"I couldn't stop it, so they've sent me to get Bernie — Pillsworth, I think they said —"
"Yes, a lot of offices have been raining lately," said Mr. Weasley. "Did you try Meteolojinx Recanto? It worked for Bletchley."
"Meteolojinx Recanto?" whispered Ron. "No, I didn't. Thanks, D — I mean, thanks, Arthur."
The lift doors opened; the old witch with the anthill hair left, and Ron darted past her out of sight. Elara and Harry made to follow him, but found his path blocked as Percy Weasley strode into the lift, his nose buried in some papers he was reading.
Not until the doors had clanged shut again did Percy realize he was in a lift with his father. He glanced up, saw Mr. Weasley, turned radish red, and left the lift the moment the doors opened again. For the second time, Elara and Harry tried to get out, but this time found their way blocked by Mr. Weasley's arm.
"One moment, Runcorn."
The lift doors closed and as they clanked down another floor, Mr. Weasley said, "I hear you laid information about Dirk Cresswell."
Elara had the impression that Mr. Weasley's anger was no less because of the brush with Percy.
"Sorry?" said Harrt.
"Don't pretend, Runcorn," said Mr. Weasley fiercely. "Scotsly told me you tracked down the wizard who faked his family tree, didn't you?"
"I — so what if I did?" said Harry.
"So Dirk Cresswell is ten times the wizard you are," said Mr. Weasley quietly, as the lift sank 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," Elara interrupted, "I understand you're very angry right now, but I've just learned you're being tracked — "
"Tracked?" said Mr. Weasley loudly. "Where on Earth?"
"I was in Dolores's office, trying to find a recipe and I came across your file. Please, Arthur, be careful. Whatever you do, do no contact Elara Lestrange and Harry Potter. Your family needs you."
The lift doors opened. They had reached the Atrium. Mr. Weasley gave Elara a shaken look and swept from the lift. Elara and Harry stood there as the lift doors clanged shut. Harry pulled out the Invisibility Cloak and put it back on over the pair of them.
They would have to try to extricate Hermione on their own while Ron was dealing with the raining office. When the doors opened, they stepped out into a torch-lit stone passageway quite different from the wood-paneled and carpeted corridors above. As the lift rattled away again, Elara shivered slightly, looking toward the distant black door that marked the entrance to the Department of Mysteries.H
They set off, ther destination not the black door, but the doorway on the left-hand side, which opened onto the flight of stairs down to the court chambers. Her mind grappled with possibilities as they crept down them: She still had a couple of Decoy Detonators, but perhaps it would be better to simply knock on the courtroom door, enter as Scotsly and Runcorn, and ask for a quick word with Mafalda? She could ensue chaos with her molotov sitting snugly in the purse she had taken from Blair.
Lost in thought, she did not immediately register the unnatural chill that was creeping over him, as if she were descending into fog. It was becoming colder and colder with every step she took: a cold that reached right down into her throat and tore at her lungs.
And then he felt that stealing sense of despair, of hopelessness, filling him, expanding inside her. . . .Dementors, she thought. And as they reached the foot of the stairs and turned to Elara's right she saw a dreadful scene. The dark passage outside the courtrooms was packed with tall, black-hooded figures, their faces completely hidden, their ragged breathing the only sound in the place. The petrified Muggleborns brought in for questioning sat huddled and shivering on hard wooden benches.
Most of them were hiding their faces in their hands, perhaps in an instinctive attempt to shield themselves from the dementors' greedy mouths. Some were accompanied by families, others sat alone. The dementors were gliding up and down in front of them, and the cold, and the hopelessness, and the despair of the place laid themselves upon Elara like a curse. . . .
Fight it, she told herself, but she knew that she could not conjure a Patronus here without revealing herself instantly.
So she and Harry moved forward as silently as they could, and with every step ELara took numbness seemed to steal over her brain, but she forced herself to think of Hermione and of Ron, who needed her.
Moving through the towering black figures was terrifying: The eyeless faces hidden beneath their hoods turned as she passed, and she felt sure that they sensed him, sensed, perhaps, a human presence that still had some hope, some resilience. . . .
And then, abruptly and shockingly amid the frozen silence, one of the dungeon doors on the left of the corridor was flung open and screams echoed out of it.
"No, no, I'm half-blood, 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 me, get your hands off —""
This is your final warning," said Umbridge's soft voice, magically magnified so that it sounded clearly over the man's desperate screams. "If you struggle, you will be subjected to the Dementor's Kiss."
The man's screams subsided, but dry sobs echoed through the corridor.
"Take him away," said Umbridge.
Two dementors appeared in the doorway of the courtroom, their rotting, scabbed hands clutching the upper arms of a wizard who appeared to be fainting. They glided away down the corridor with him, and the darkness they trailed behind them swallowed him from sight.
"Next — Mary Cattermole," called Umbridge.
A small woman stood up; she was trembling from head to foot. Her dark hair was smoothed back into a bun and she wore long, plain robes. Her face was completely bloodless. As she passed the dementors, Elara saw her shudder.
She did it instinctively, without any sort of plan, because she hated the sight of her walking alone into the dungeon: As the door began to swing closed, She slipped into the courtroom behind Cattermole, Harry en tow.
This room was very small, though the ceiling was quite as high; it gave the claustrophobic sense of being stuck at the bottom of a deep well. There were more dementors in here, casting their freezing aura over the place; they stood like faceless sentinels in the corners farthest from the high, raised platform. Here, behind a balustrade, sat Umbridge, with Yaxley on one side of 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 prowled up and down, up and down, and Harry realized that it was there to protect the prosecutors from the despair that emanated from the dementors: That was for the accused to feel, not the accusers. Rage stole over Elara. There was clearly a disadvantage here.
"Sit down," said Umbridge in her soft, silky voice.
Mrs. Cattermole stumbled to the single seat in the middle of the floor beneath the raised platform. The moment she had sat down, chains clinked out of the arms of the chair and bound her there.
"You are Mary Elizabeth Cattermole?" asked Umbridge.
Mrs. Cattermole gave 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 ignored her.
"Mother to Maisie, Ellie, and Alfred Cattermole?"
Mrs. Cattermole sobbed harder than ever.
"They're frightened, they think I might not come home —"
"Spare us," spat Yaxley. "The brats of Mudbloods do not stir our sympathies."
Mrs. Cattermole's sobs masked Elara's and Harry's footsteps as they made their way carefully toward the steps that led up to the raised platform. The moment she had passed the place where the Patronus cat patrolled, she felt the change in temperature: It was warm and comfortable here.
The Patronus, she was sure, was Umbridge's, and it glowed brightly because she was so happy here, in her element, upholding the twisted laws she had helped to write. Slowly and very carefully she edged her way along the platform behind Umbridge, Yaxley, and Hermione, taking a seat behind the latter.
She was worried about making Hermione jump. She thought of casting the Muffliato charm upon Umbridge and Yaxley, but even murmuring the word might cause Hermione alarm. Then Umbridge raised her voice to address Mrs. Cattermole, and Elara seized her chance.
"I'm behind you," she whispered into Hermione's ear.
As she had expected, she jumped so violently she nearly overturned the bottle of ink with which she was supposed to be recording the interview, but both Umbridge and Yaxley were concentrating upon Mrs. Cattermole, and this went unnoticed.
"A wand was taken from you upon your arrival at the Ministry today, Mrs. Cattermole," Umbridge was saying. "Eight-and-three-quarter inches, cherry, unicorn-hair core. Do you recognize that description?"
Mrs. Cattermole nodded, mopping her eyes on her sleeve.
"Could you please tell us from which witch or wizard you took that wand?"
"T-took?" sobbed Mrs. Cattermole. "I didn't t-take it from anybody. I b-bought it when I was eleven years old. It — it — it — chose me."
She cried harder than ever. Umbridge laughed a soft girlish laugh that made Elara want to attack her. She leaned forward over the barrier, the better to observe her victim, and something gold swung forward too, and dangled over the void: the locket.
Hermione had seen it; she let out a little squeak, but Umbridge and Yaxley, still intent upon their prey, were deaf to everything else.
"No," said 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 questionnaire that was sent to you here — Mafalda, pass them to me."
Umbridge held out a small hand: She looked so toadlike at that moment that Elara was quite surprised not to see webs between the stubby fingers. Hermione's hands were shaking withshock. She fumbled 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, Dolores," she said, pointing at the pendant gleaming in the ruffled folds of Umbridge's blouse.
"What?" snapped Umbridge, glancing down. "Oh yes — an old family heirloom," she said, patting the locket lying 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 related. . . . A pity," she continued in a louder voice, flicking through Mrs. Cattermole's questionnaire, "that the same cannot be said for you. 'Parents' professions: greengrocers.'"
Yaxley laughed jeeringly. Below, the fluffy silver cat patrolled up and down, and the dementors stood waiting in the corners. It was Umbridge's lie that brought the blood surging into Elara's brain and obliterated her sense of caution — that the locket she had taken as a bribe from a petty criminal was being used to bolster her own pure-blood credentials.
She raised her wand, not even troubling to keep it concealed beneath the Invisibility Cloak, and said, "Stupefy!"
There was a flash of red light; Umbridge crumpled and her forehead hit the edge of the balustrade: Mrs. Cattermole's papers slid off her lap onto the floor and, down below, the prowling silver cat vanished. Ice-cold air hit them like an oncoming wind: Yaxley, confused,looked around for the source of the trouble and saw Elara's disembodied hand and wand pointing at him. He tried to draw his own wand, but too late: "Stupefy!"
Yaxley slid to the ground to lie curled on the floor.
"Elara!"
"Hermione, if you think I was going to sit here and let her pretend —"
"Elara, Mrs. Cattermole!"
Elara whirled around, throwing off the Invisibility Cloak; down below, the dementors had moved out of their corners; they were gliding toward the woman chained to the chair: Whether because the Patronus had vanished or because they sensed that their masters were no longer incontrol, they seemed to have abandoned restraint.
Mrs. Cattermole let out a terrible scream of fear as a slimy, scabbed hand grasped her chin and forced her face back.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" shouted Elara and Harry simultaneously.
The silver stag and doe soared from the tips of their wand and leaped toward the dementors, which fell back and melted into the dark shadows again. The deers' light, more powerful and more warming than the cat's protection, filled the whole dungeon as they cantered around and around the room.
"You two get the Horcrux," said Elara.
She ran back down the steps and approached Mrs. Cattermole.
"You?" she whispered, gazing into her face. "Reg said you were the one who fought against my submission for questioning!"
"Did I?" muttered Elara, tugging at the chains binding her arms. "Well, I'm sorry to have come at the eleventh hour. Diffindo!"
Nothing happened.
"Hermione, how do I get rid of these chains?"
"Wait, I'm trying something up here —"
"Hermione, we're surrounded by dementors!"
"I know that, Elara, but if she wakes up and the locket's gone — I need to duplicate it —Geminio! There . . . That should fool her. . . ."
Elara groaned and lit her hands. Mrs. Cattermole squeaked loudly.
"But — but — "
"Stay still," demanded Elara, as she placed her hands on the cuffs.
The roaring anger took over Elara, and the fire reflecting the emotion. The cuffs melted within half a minute, and Harry came up and offered his hand to Mrs. Cattermole. She looked just as frightened as ever before.
"I don't understand," she whispered.
"You're going to leave here with us," said Harry, pulling 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 anything like a fair hearing here."
"Elara," said Hermione, "how are we going to get out of here with all those dementors outside the door?"
"Patronuses," said Elara, pointing her wand at her own: The doe slowed and walked, still gleaming brightly, toward the door. "As many as we can muster; do yours, Hermione."
"Expec — Expecto patronum," said Hermione.
Nothing happened.
"It's the only spell she ever has trouble with," Elara told a completely bemused Mrs.Cattermole. "Bit unfortunate, really . . . Come on, Hermione. . . ."
"Expecto patronum!"
A silver otter burst from the end of Hermione's wand and swam gracefully through the air to join the stag.
"C'mon," said Elara, and she led Harry, Hermione, and Mrs. Cattermole to the door.
When the Patronuses glided out of the dungeon there were cries of shock from the people waiting outside. Elara looked around; the dementors were falling back on both sides of them, melding into the darkness, scattering before the silver creatures.
"All right everyone!" called Elara, commanding the room's attention. "Because the Ministry is corrupt and full of bastards, you're to go home and go into hiding with your families. I've heard Italy is wonderful this time of year — Now, if you'll just follow the Patronuses, you'll be able to leave from the Atrium."
They managed to get up the stone steps without being intercepted, but as they approached the lifts Elara started to have misgivings. If they emerged into the Atrium with a silver doe and stag, an otter soaring alongside it, and twenty or so people, half of them accused Muggle-borns, she could not help feeling that they would attract unwanted attention.
She had just reached this unwelcome conclusion when the lift clanged to a halt in front of them.
"Reg!" screamed Mrs. Cattermole, and she threw herself into Ron's arms. "Runcorn and Scotsly let me out, he 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," muttered Ron, disengaging himself. "Harry, Lara, 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 vanished with a pop as she turned a horror-struck face to Elara and Harry.
"If we're trapped here — !"
"We won't be if we move fast," said Elara. "Remember, I've got molotovs."
She addressed the silent group behind them, who were all gawping at her.
"Who's got wands?"
About half of them raised 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. Anyone else here have some trapped anger?"
A rather tiny woman raised her hand. Elara handed her a molotov.
"Careful now, and when you have a clear shot, aim for that dreadful statue. Come on."
They managed to cram themselves into two lifts. Elara's and Harry's Patronus stood sentinel before the golden grilles as they shut and the lifts began to rise.
"Level eight," said the witch's cool voice, "Atrium."
Elara knew at once that they were in trouble. The Atrium was full of people moving from fireplace to fireplace, sealing them off.
"Harry!" squeaked Hermione. "What are we going to — ?"
"STOP!" Harry thundered, and the powerful voice of Runcorn echoed through the Atrium: The wizards sealing the fireplaces froze.
"Follow me," Elara whispered to the group of terrified Muggle-borns, who moved forward in a huddle, shepherded by Ron and Hermione.
"What's up, Blair?" said the same old witch who had followed Elara out of the fireplace earlier.
She looked nervous.
"This lot need to leave before you seal the exits," said Elara with all the authority she could muster.
The group of wizards in front of him looked at one another.
"We've been told to seal all exits and not let anyone —"
"Are you contradicting me?" Elara blustered.
"Would you like me to have your family tree examined, like I had Dirk Cresswell's?" barked Harry.
"Sorry!" gasped the old witch, backing away. "I didn't mean nothing, Albert, but I thought . . . I thought they were in for questioning and . . ."
"Their blood is pure," said Harry, and his deep voice echoed impressively through the hall. "Purer than many of yours, I daresay. Off you go," he boomed to the Muggle-borns, who scurried forward into the fireplaces and began to vanish in pairs.
The tiny woman who Elara handed the molotov handed it back to her with a grateful smile on her face.
The Ministry wizards hung back, some looking confused, others scared and resentful. Then: "Mary!"
Mrs. Cattermole looked over her shoulder. The real Reg Cattermole, no longer vomiting but pale and wan, had just come running out of a lift.
"R-Reg?"She looked from her husband to Ron, who swore loudly.
The old witch gaped, her head turning ludicrously from one Reg Cattermole to the other.
"Hey — what's going on? What is this?"
"Seal the exit! SEAL IT!"
Yaxley had burst out of another lift and was running toward the group beside the fireplaces, into which all of the Muggle-borns but Mrs. Cattermole had now vanished. As the old witch lifted her wand, Elara waved her hand and sent her flying through the air.
"She's been helping Muggle-borns escape, Yaxley!" Harry shouted.
The old witch's colleagues set up an uproar, under cover of which Ron grabbed Mrs. Cattermole, pulled her into the still-open fireplace, and disappeared. Confused, Yaxley looked from Elara to the spread-eagled witch, while the real Reg Cattermole screamed, "My wife! Who was that with my wife? What's going on?"
Elara saw Yaxley's head turn, saw an inkling of the truth dawn in that brutish face. She let her disguise fall.
"No hard feelings," said Elara nonchalantly, as with all the force she could muster, she threw the molotov across the Atrium.
"Come on!" Harry shouted at Elara; he seized her and Hermione's hands and they jumped into the fireplace together as the statue exploded and Yaxley's curse sailed over Harry's head.
They spun for a few seconds before shooting up out of a toilet into a cubicle. Elara flung open the door; Ron was 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 was a noise in the cubicle behind them; Harry looked around; Yaxley had just appeared.
"LET'S GO!" Elara yelled.
She seized Hermione by the hand and Ron by the arm as Harry linked his arm with hers and turned on the spot. Darkness engulfed them, along with the sensation of compressing bands, but something was wrong. . . . Hermione's hand seemed to be sliding out of her grip. . . .She wondered whether she was going to suffocate; she could not breathe or see and the only solid things in the world were Ron's and Harry's arms and Hermione's fingers, which were slowly slipping away. . . .
And then she saw the door of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, with its serpent door knocker, but before she could draw breath, there was a scream and a flash of purple light; Hermione's hand was suddenly vice like upon hers and everything went dark again.
·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .
AUTHORS NOTE
— oh my god i updated
written: october 26, 2020
published: october 26, 2020