HP/LOTM: Visionary - 409

Chapter 409: Ministry Infiltration (The Prize and a Distant Battle)

"Hmph." Arthur took Harry’s warning as a threat, slammed the lift doors shut, and let it rattle upwards.

Harry led Ron through the ruins of the old Department of Mysteries and on to Level Nine, the Wizengamot.

Dementors clustered around the courtroom entrance. The corridor outside was packed with Muggle-borns and their families awaiting trial, sobbing and shaking as they huddled away from the Dementors’ chill.

Harry marched Ron, still in disguise, down to the Wizengamot courtroom.

"I’m half-blood. My dad’s William Alderton, he worked here thirty years!" one man babbled as he was dragged along.

Harry and Ron watched him being shoved into a chamber full of Dementors.

"Ah—!"

His scream echoed up and down the corridor. Then everything fell deathly silent.

Inside the courtroom, the Dementors were even thicker. Frost rimed the tiles. Cold seeped into every inch of the room.

Yaxley lounged by the benches, one boot on a chair, watching.

Umbridge sat in the central chair of the high bench. A bright, fat-cat Patronus sat beside her, its light flaring up to the ceiling to form a shining canopy overhead.

From the Patronus alone, it was obvious how happy Umbridge was. She was reveling in the pleasure of judging others at will.

"Mary Elizabeth Cattermole, residing at seventy-two Chislehurst Gardens, Evesham Bridge," Umbridge said, pretending to cross-check the prisoner’s identity.

"Yes," said Mary in a small voice from the chair below. Her eyes were fixed in terror on the Dementors clustered at the ceiling.

Umbridge did not like her failure to keep her focus on the bench. She rapped the gavel sharply.

"Mother of Maisie, Ellie, and Alfred. Wife of Reginald," she went on.

"No, don’t hurt my children. They don’t know anything, please," Mary sobbed. However great her fear, it was nothing compared to the place her family held in her heart.

As she begged, she caught sight of Reg being hauled into the courtroom. "Reg?" she gasped.

Harry had no choice but to grab Ron by the collar and shove him inside. Yaxley, watching, propped his chin on his hand. He seemed content to let it happen.

Umbridge was annoyed that her fun had been interrupted, but since Yaxley did not object and the newcomer was one of their own attack dogs, she swallowed it down and said instead, "Thank you, Albert."

"Mary Elizabeth Cattermole. Today, while you were at work, this court confiscated a wand from your possession. Perhaps you can tell us which wizard you stole it from?" Umbridge held up the wand and looked down at the shaking woman with mocking relish.

"It’s mine. I bought it from Ollivander when I was eleven," Mary said, voice breaking.

"You’re lying. Mudbloods are not witches. You have no right to a wand. You must have stolen it from a real witch," Umbridge said, tapping her gavel with a shiver of pleasure.

She turned to Hermione and said, "Mafalda, pass me her last questionnaire."

Hermione did as she was told and added, in a mild tone, "Your earrings look wonderful today."

Umbridge positively blossomed at the compliment and launched into preening mode on the spot.

"Yes. This is an old family heirloom," she said, flicking her hair aside to show the earring. The clear stone gleamed. A P seemed to be carved at its heart.

"P is the mark of the Prewett family. In fact, I am distantly related to the legendary dragon-blooded Prewetts. There are very few pure-blood families who do not share blood ties with me… unfortunately," she said, spinning the lie as far as it would go before even she could not keep it up.

She snatched up Mary’s questionnaire with a show of irritation and read loudly, "But the same cannot be said of you. Father’s occupation: greengrocer."

"Tch."

The sound of someone clicking their tongue in disgust rippled faintly through the room. Overhead, the Dementors’ eyes began to leak grey mist that no one else noticed.

Standing on the floor, Harry could not take any more. Umbridge’s disgusting face, the Ministry’s twisted mockery of justice on the way down, and Mary’s all too predictable fate all rammed home how farcical reality had become.

He flicked his sleeve. A second wand slid into his hand. On the bench, Umbridge sensed something wrong.

"What do you think you are doing, Albert?" she said. However vile her actions, there was no denying her competence as a witch.

"You are the one lying, Umbridge," Harry said coldly from the floor.

"Stupefy!"

The spell hit Umbridge squarely. She slumped in her chair. Hermione shot up from behind her and ripped the earring from her ear.

"Albert, what do you think you are doing!" Yaxley shouted, drawing his wand at the sight of Umbridge going down.

But Ron was faster. A white bolt of spellfire – just a standard attack curse – howled across the chamber, tearing through Yaxley’s wand arm and reducing his forearm and wand to ash.

"Ah—!" he screamed, rolling on the floor in agony.

With the Horcrux no longer a locket, they were no longer afraid of Voldemort tracing it back through its form. The four of them bolted.

As they ran, Harry flung open cells along the corridor, freeing Muggle-borns and their families and driving them toward the lifts.

Without Umbridge to hold them in check, the Dementors on the level went wild. Harry and the others burst onto Level Eight with a mob at their backs as the Dementors swarmed up after them.

Out of sight, several Dementors wreathed in grey mist glided down toward Umbridge and Yaxley, ready to give each of them a very personal Kiss.

But once again, something twisted.

A flicker of violet protection flashed in front of the two bodies. The mist coiled together into a tiny figure. Following the web of connections in all things, it traced the source of the violet magic, gaze sinking ever deeper until it reached the silver coffin at the very bottom of the Deep Realm.

With a crack, three Dementors under the mist’s control exploded. Violet power surged through the Ministry, latching onto every Dementor hunting Harry.

Harry herded the rescued prisoners into a lift, but the space was far too cramped. As he shoved the last of them inside, a sigil flared in his palm.

All the experience of practising the Undetectable Extension Charm a hundred times over flooded his mind. Without hesitating, he widened the lift’s interior.

"Inside. Quickly!" Harry shouted.

When the last person had scrambled in, he dragged the grate shut. The Dementors, hot on their heels, wedged themselves into the gap, jaws gaping as they began to suck every scrap of happiness out of the air.