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, John aren't you both getting out?"
"Yes, of course." said Harry in Runcorn's deep voice.
"Be sure to give those Muggle-borns the justice that's needed." Y/n said in John's voice though he hated every word of it.
"That is what I aim to do John." Umbridge said sounding pleased.
Y/n and Harry stepped out of the lift. The golden grilles clanged shut behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, Y/n 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.
"What brings you both up here, Runcorn, Smith?" 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 Harry in mind of a crab looking out from beneath a rock.
"We need 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 one of the Undesirables?"
"No." said Y/n crossing his arms. "Not yet at least..."
"Ah, well. It's only a matter of time." said Thicknesse. "If you ask me, the blood traitors are as bad as the Mudbloods. Good day, Runcorn, Smith."
"Good day, Minister." Both said as they 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, and threw it over himself and Y/n, Both set off along the corridor in the opposite direction.
Panic pulsed in the pit of Harry's stomach. As he 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 him so that the plan he had been carefully concocting with Ron, Y/n 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 Harry was sure was beyond him, a woman's liberty possibly depending on the outcome...
His thoughts were interrupted by a hand coming to a rest on his shoulder, He turned his head to see Y/n still in his disguise looking at him. Y/n nodded ahead and Harry turned to see a frowning wizard who was murmuring instructions to a quill that floated in front of them, scribbling on a trail of parchment. The two moved together so he could pass by them without noticing them and when he did Harry let out a sigh.
"I am worried about them both as well you know." Y/n began and Harry looked at him again. "But they entrusted us to complete this task, so let us hurry to finish it."
Harry nodded and together they set off along the corridor again now paying attention to the names on the doors.
Halfway along the next corridor they emerged into a wide, open space where a dozen witches and wizards sat in rows at small desks not unlike school desks, though much more highly polished and free from graffiti. Harry and Y/n 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, Y/n realized that there was a rhythm to the proceedings, that the papers all formed the same pattern, and after a few more seconds he realized that what he 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.
Both crept closer, although the workers were so intent on what they were doing that they doubted they would notice a carpet-muffled footstep, and Harry slid a completed pamphlet from the pile beside a young witch. He lifted it up and both he and Y/n 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 their right hands seemed to tingle as they examined it. Then the young witch besides them confirmed their suspicions 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, Y/n looked too, and rage rose in him like a fire. 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 Harry forgot where they were and what they were doing there, He even forgot that they were invisible as he dragged Y/n with him straight over to the door to examine the eye. Y/n being smart enough to keep a hold of the cloak over them, The eye 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
Y/n looked back at the dozen pamphlet-makers. Though they were intent upon their work, he could hardly suppose that they would not notice if the door of an empty office opened in front of them. Harry seemed to be thinking along the same lines as moments later he withdrew from an inner pocket an odd object with little waving legs and a rubber-bulbed horn for a body.
Y/n quickly nodded in agreement with Harry's idea and crouching down beneath the Cloak, they 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 Harry waited with his 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. Harry turned the doorknob, and he and Y/n stepped into Umbridge's office, and closed the door behind him.
Y/n felt he 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, gamboling and 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. Harry took a look through it and saw that they were all still gathered around the Decoy Detonator. When Harry was done Y/n wrenched the telescope out of the door, leaving a hole behind, then pulled the magical eyeball out of it and placed it in his pocket.
"Mad eye deserved a better fate than this." Y/n said grimly and Harry nodded. "Come on, We will keep the cloak on in case anyone enters while we search."
Harry turned to face the room again, raised his wand, and murmured. "Accio Locket."
Nothing happened, but neither had not expected it to, no doubt Umbridge knew all about protective charms and spells. They therefore hurried behind her desk and began pulling open the drawers. Y/n 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 and both were set to searching it. Like Filch's filing cabinets at Hogwarts, it was full of folders, each labeled with a name. s Y/n searched it three names popped up and he took out their files and slipped them into his clothes to read later. Harry meanwhile had reached the bottommost drawer where he saw something to distract him from the search, Mr. Weasley's file.
He pulled it out and opened it for both and him and Y/n to read.
'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 Undesirables No. 1 and 2 will contact. (both have stayed with Weasley family previously)
"Undesirable Numbers One and two..." Harry muttered under his breath as he replaced Mr. Weasley's folder and shut the drawer. He had an idea he knew who that was, and sure enough, as he straightened up and glanced around the office for fresh hiding places, he saw two posters of himself and Y/n on the wall, with the words UNDESIRABLE NO. 1 and UNDESIRABLE NO. 2 emblazoned across their chests. A little pink note was stuck to it each picture of a kitten in the corner. Y/n and Harry moved across to read it and saw that Umbridge had written. 'To be punished.'
"What a disgusting woman..." Y/n said in a low voice.
Angrier than ever, they proceeded to grope in the bottoms of the vases and baskets of dried flowers, but were not at all surprised that the locket was not there. He gave the office one last sweeping look, and Harry's heart skipped a beat. Dumbledore was staring at him from a small rectangular mirror, propped up on a bookcase beside the desk. He elbowed Y/n for his attention and both crossed the room. Harry snatched it up, but realized the moment he touched it that it was not a mirror at all. Dumbledore was smiling wistfully out of the front cover of a glossy book.
Y/n looked puzzled to see a book about Dumbledore in Umbridge's office considering how they had come to blows the year she had tried to take over. He had not immediately noticed the curly green writing across Dumbledore's hat 'The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.' nor the slightly smaller writing across his chest. 'By Rita Skeeter, bestselling author of Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?'
Having seen Rita Skeeter's name Y/n scoffed and turned his eyes away from the book to look at the door.
Harry meanwhile opened the book at random and saw 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, had grown a tiny wispy beard that recalled the one on Krum's chin. The boy who roared in silent amusement beside Dumbledore had a gleeful, wild look about him. His golden hair fell in curls to his shoulders. Harry wondered whether it was a young Doge, but before he could check the caption he felt Y/n grab his shoulder and he had turned to see the door of the office open.
It was Thicknesse...
Harry was worried he might have caught a glimpse of their movement, because for a moment or two he remained quite still, staring curiously at the place where they were stood. Perhaps deciding that all he had seen was Dumbledore scratching his nose on the front of the book, for Harry had hastily placed it back 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, Y/n 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. Both boys 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, Y/n reviewed their 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. Y/n and Harry jumped in and pulled off the Invisibility Cloak as it started its descent.
"We find Ron, then fetch Hermione and get out of here. We are pushing our luck enough as it is." Y/n said to Harry expecting a small argument but his surprise Harry was in very much the same thought.
"We'll come back another day." Harry said and Y/n nodded.
To their enormous relief, when the lift rattled to a halt at level two, a soaking-wet and wild-eyed Ron got in.
"M-morning," he stammered to Y/n and Harry as the lift set off again.
"Ron, it's us!" Harry said.
"Harry! Y/n! Blimey, I forgot what you both looked like...why isn't Hermione with you?"
"She had to go down to the courtrooms with Umbridge." Y/n revealed. "She could not refuse, and..."
But before Y/n 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 Y/n and Harry. It was very strange to have Mr. Weasley glare at them with dislike. The lift doors closed and the four of them trundled downward once more.
Y/n silently took out a quill and tiny piece of parchment beginning to scribble upon it in silence as Mr Weasley had turned his gaze away.
"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 are you so wet?"
"Yaxley's office is raining." said Ron. He addressed Mr. Weasley's shoulder, and Harry 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."
Y/n had just finished his note as the lift doors opened, the old witch with the anthill hair left, and Ron darted past her out of sight. Harry and Y/n 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, Harry tried to get out, but this time found his 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."
Harry had the impression that Mr. Weasley's anger was no less because of the brush with Percy. He decided his best chance was to act stupid.
"Sorry?" he said.
"Don't pretend, Runcorn." said Mr. Weasley fiercely. "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..."
"Come now Arthur." Y/n interrupted as John Smith putting his hand on Mr Weasley's shoulder and looking straight at him. Mr Weasley was about to say something but stopped with shock when he saw one of John's eyes turn to silver with a large scar for just a moment before changing back. "Can you not play nice?"
Y/n took Mr Weasley's hand now seemingly tight and Mr Weasley felt something being placed in it but he dared not open it. He kept his gaze upon Y/n who winked at him and let go of his hand and stepped back.
Mr Weasley didn't dare open his hand in the lift and kept whatever had been slipped into it firmly closed.
"You know you're being tracked, don't you?" Harry said as Runcorn now.
"Is that a threat, Runcorn?" said Mr. Weasley loudly turning his head to Harry.
"No Arthur." said Y/n. "It is a fact! They are watching your every move..." He said sinisterly hoping Mr Weasley would have picked up their warning.
The lift doors opened. They had reached the Atrium. Mr. Weasley gave Harry a scathing look and swept from the lift. Harry stood there, shaken. He wished he was impersonating somebody other than Runcorn. The lift doors clanged shut.
"I gave him a note." Y/n whispered to Harry.
"You did?" Harry asked surprised.
"Let him know we are safe. You were right to try warn him." Y/n said.
"Come on we'll go for Hermione now and find Ron after." Harry said as he pulled out the Invisibility Cloak and put it back over him and Y/n.
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, Harry shivered slightly, looking toward the distant black door that marked the entrance to the Department of Mysteries.
Y/n felt a slight coldness as he remembered this was where his grandmother and Sirius had died.
No wasting time they set off, their 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. Y/n tried to think of all the possibilities as they crept down them. They still had a couple of Decoy Detonators, but perhaps it would be better to simply knock on the courtroom door and have himself and Harry enter as Smith and Runcorn to ask for a quick word with Mafalda? Of course, he did not know whether Smith and Runcorn were sufficiently important enough to get away with this, and even if he managed it, Hermione's non-reappearance might trigger a search before they were clear of the Ministry...
Lost in thought, he did not immediately register the unnatural chill that was creeping over him, as if he were descending into fog. It was becoming colder and colder with every step they took, a cold that reached right down into his throat and tore at his lungs. And then he felt that stealing sense of despair, of hopelessness, filling him, expanding inside him...
Dementors, he thought.
And as the two reached the foot of the stairs and turned to the right they 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 Muggle-borns 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 Y/n like a curse...
He desperately wanted to help them, but he knew that he nor Harry could not conjure a Patronus here without revealing themselves instantly. He felt Harry tearing his eyes away from the scene and so they moved forward as silently as they could, and with every step Y/n took numbness seemed to steal over his brain, but he forced himself to think of Hermione, who needed him.
Moving through the towering black figures was terrifying. The eyeless faces hidden beneath their hoods turned as they passed, and he 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, Y/n and Harry saw her shudder.
Acting without any sort of plan, because they hated the sight of her walking alone into the dungeon the two slipped into the courtroom behind her as the door shut behind them.
It was not the same room in which Harry had once been interrogated for improper use of magic. This one was much smaller, 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 Y/n 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.
"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 Y/n and Harry's footsteps as they made their way carefully toward the steps that led up to the raised platform. The moment they had passed the place where the Patronus cat patrolled, Y/n felt the change in temperature, It was warm and comfortable here. The Patronus, he 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 he and Harry edged their way along the platform behind Umbridge, Yaxley, and Hermione, taking a seat behind the latter. Y/n was slightly worried about making Hermione jump but then Umbridge raised her voice to address Mrs. Cattermole, and Y/n seized his chance.
"I am here with you..." he whispered into Hermione's ear.
As he 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 Y/n 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 too, she let out a little squeak, but Umbridge and Yaxley, still intent upon their prey, were deaf to everything else.
Y/n took out his wand now and Harry did the same.
"I will stun Umbridge you take the other." Y/n whispered and Harry nodded getting ready.
"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 Y/n was quite surprised not to see webs between the stubby fingers. Hermione's hands were shaking with shock. 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.
Sensing there was no better time Y/n raised his 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 in way that oddly satisifed Y/n.
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 Y/n's disembodied hand and wand pointing at him. He tried to draw his own wand, but too late.
"Stupefy!" Harry had cried his own wand pointed out and Yaxley slid to the ground to lie curled on the floor.
"Y/n! Harry!"
"Hermione, if you think we were going to sit here and let her pretend..." Harry began.
"Harry, Y/n, Mrs. Cattermole!"
Harry 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 in control, 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!"
A silver cat soared from the tip of Y/n's wand and leaped toward the dementors, which fell back and melted into the dark shadows again. The cat's light, more powerful and more warming than the Umbridge's own protection, it filled the whole dungeon as it cantered around and around the room.
"Get the Horcrux." Harry told Hermione.
He ran back down the steps, stuffing the Invisibility Cloak back into his bag, and approached Mrs. Cattermole.
"You?" she whispered, gazing into his face. "But...but Reg said you were the one who submitted my name for questioning!"
"Did I?" muttered Harry, tugging at the chains binding her arms. "Well, I've had a change of heart. Diffindo!" Nothing happened. "Y/n, Hermione, how do I get rid of these chains?"
"I am a little trying to keep the Dementors at bay here!" Y/n called back.
"Hermione!" Harry called out.
"Wait, I'm trying something up here..." She said.
"Hermione, we're surrounded by dementors!" Harry pointed out.
"I know that, Harry, but if she wakes up and the locket's gone... I need to duplicate it...Geminio! There...That should fool her..."
Hermione came running downstairs.
"Let's see... Relashio!"
The chains clinked and withdrew into the arms of the chair. Mrs. Cattermole looked just as frightened as ever before.
"We need to leave, now!" Y/n said urgently.
"I don't understand." Mrs Cattermole 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."
"Y/n, Harry" said Hermione. "How are we going to get out of here with all those Dementors outside the door?"
"Patronuses." said Y/n, pointing his wand at the door. The cat slowed and walked, still gleaming brightly, toward the door. "As many as we can conjure."
"Expecto patronum!" Harry cast as a silver stag soon appeared to join Y/n's cat by the door. "Now you Hermione."
"Expec...Expecto patronum." said Hermione. Nothing happened.
"It's the only spell she ever has trouble with." Harry told a completely bemused Mrs. Cattermole. "Bit unfortunate, really...Come on, Hermione..."
"Hermione, look at your finger for a moment." Y/n said but this confused Harry but moments later Hermione started again.
"Expecto patronum!"
A silver otter burst from the end of Hermione's wand and swam gracefully through the air to join the cat and stag.
"C'mon." said Harry, and he and Y/n led 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. Y/n looked around, the dementors were falling back on both sides of them, 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 told the waiting Muggle-borns, who were 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."
They managed to get up the stone steps without being intercepted, but as they approached the lifts Y/n came to a realisation. If they emerged into the Atrium with a silver stag, an otter soaring alongside it, and twenty or so people, half of them accused Muggle-borns, he could not help feeling that they would attract unwanted attention. He 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 let me out, he and Smith attacked Umbridge and Yaxley, and 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, 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 Y/n.
"If we're trapped here..."
"We will not...not if we move fast." said Y/n and he turned to address the silent group behind them, who were all gawping at him and Harry. "Out of you all who has a wand?"
About half of them raised their hands.
"Okay, all of you who have not got a wand, you need to attach yourself to somebody who has. We need to be fast before they stop us. Come on."
They managed to cram themselves into two lifts. Harry and Y/n's Patronus's stood sentinel before the golden grilles as they shut and the lifts began to rise.
"Level eight." said the witch's cool voice. "Atrium."
Y/n knew at once that they were in trouble. The Atrium was full of people moving from fireplace to fireplace, sealing them off.
"Y/n!" 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." he whispered to the group of terrified Muggle-borns, who moved forward in a huddle, shepherded by Ron, Y/n and Hermione.
"What's up, Albert?" said the same balding wizard who had followed Harry out of the fireplace earlier. He looked nervous.
"This lot need to leave before you seal the exits." said Harry with all the authority he 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 us?" Y/n said making his presence known. "Perhaps you would you like us to have your family tree examined, like Dirk Cresswell's?"
"Sorry!" gasped 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." 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 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 balding wizard gaped, 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 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 balding wizard lifted his wand, Harry raised an enormous fist and punched him, sending him flying through the air.
"He's been helping Muggle-borns escape, Yaxley!" Harry shouted.
The balding wizard'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 Harry to the punched wizard, while the real Reg Cattermole screamed, "My wife! Who was that with my wife? What's going on?"
Y/n saw Yaxley's head turn, saw an inkling of the truth dawn in that brutish face.
"Time to leave!" Y/n shouted at Hermione, he seized her hand and Harry's arm as they jumped into the fireplace 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. Harry 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!" Harry yelled and he grabbed Ron by the arm as he and the others turned on the spot.
Darkness engulfed Y/n, along with the sensation of compressing bands, but something was wrong....Hermione's hand seemed to be sliding out of his grip...
He wondered whether he was going to suffocate, he could not breathe or see and the only solid things in the world were Harry's arm and Hermione's fingers, which were slowly slipping away...
And then he saw the door of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, with its serpent door knocker, but before he could draw breath, there was a scream and a flash of purple light. Hermione's hand was suddenly vicelike upon his and everything went dark again.