Chapter 12

1:32 PM

Malfoy Manor

Lucius Malfoy stood at the front of the long dining room table that was magnificently loaded with delectable foods. He actually considered complimenting his house-elf staff on their duties, but then dismissed the thought. A glance at his guests told him that the majority of them, excluding Crabbe and Goyle, had finished eating for now; thus, he determined to begin their discussion before Crabbe and Goyle ate themselves into a food coma.

"My friends," he began, his eyes seeking out each of them. "I gathered you here to inform you of events."

"You've recaptured the mudblood you let escape?" Thorfinn Rowle asked in a challenging tone.

The two wizards exchanged icy glares. Once Rowle leaned back into his chair, Lucius continued. "Unfortunately, she managed to meet up with the Potter brat and they absconded to his Gingotts family vault. When I finally did get close to the mudblood, I could not enact the contract on her because she now wears the Potter betrothal ring."

The room broke out in a series of laughter and outraged curses. Lucius made careful note of who mocked his circumstances.

"And you just let them escape?" Rancor Nott spat out. "Because of that, the aurors have been rounding up all the mudblood bints we'd bought from that bloody damned orphanage! Bones will try use this to drag us to sodding Azkaban! And you think sharing your larder with us will make it all right?!"

As the room quieted down, Lucius calmly raised his left hand which wore a white glove. He loosened a strap and gently removed his glove to reveal a ghastly horror. While it was covered in a green gel, the ligaments, bone and some muscle tissue were all that remained of the limb.

"I didn't just let them escape. But I did pay a price for not getting to her sooner."

"Put it away, Lucius, I'm gonna be sick," Bluto Crabbe groaned, trying to look away from the ruined hand, while pushing his plate of food away from him.

Lucius was already putting his hand inside the camouflaged bandage that looked like a glove. He eased his hand in glad that the pain-removing charm of the glove had not dissipated from his hand during the brief time he had it out.

"Even though I could not claim her in Gringotts," Lucius began, before anyone else tried to turn the others on him. "I wanted you to all know that I have our friend, Minister Fudge, straightening things out at the Ministry even as we speak."

That brought out a few cheers, a few even raised their drinks up in a toast to the minister.

Corban Yaxley raised his wand, which gave off sparks of light. "Lucius, you usually have the best ear in the Ministry. Something is going on inside the building; most of the workers are not being allowed inside."

Finishing his fastening of the bandage glove, he looked out at the crowd. They had all bought mudblood witches from the Solum Orphanage, just as he had purchased Hermione Granger. They also knew that he had helped institute this plan concocted by Delores Umbridge with the help of a few others like the Solum Orphanage administrator, Madam Saeva Jackals. He had also organized the teams that went to the muggle homes and imperiused the muggle parents into disowning their daughters at the orphanage so the orphanage could sell the mudbloods to the noble purebloods. They planed to get away with it by citing a four hundred year old event several Wizarding families had passed though the Wizengamot that due to the decimated number of witches and wizards, the muggleborn witches could be taken from orphanages to be used as concubines to increase the Wizarding population. Technically, the original wording had been to make the orphans part of their family, but hardly any of the Pureblood families had made such an effort, and instead used them the mudbloods for breeding stock. True, Lucius may have gotten a bit greedy in gathering all the mudblood school age witches to the orphanage, but in his defense, it was largely the fault of all those currently at his table. Ever since they had heard of the plan, they had all been insisting to buy one or more of bints for themselves and possibly some for their boys. The demand grew so much he just had to bring in more girls. If they had tried for a smaller number of girls, Lucius was sure that it would have been more manageable and less conspicuous.

"The ministry…"

Lucius shook his head as he rethought how to broach the matter.

"For one thing, there seems to be some sort of civil war among the Unspeakables."

Lucius let them murmur among themselves for a few moments. Even Nott and Rowle were surprise about that enough to drop their vitriol for the moment.

"Also, this other bit of news may be related, but I can't say for sure, there seems to be some kind of unknown beast roaming the building, killing several aurors and causing all sorts of destruction and chaos."

"How serious is it?" Gibbon asked, with a calculating eye.

Lucius spared him a cold smile. "Serious enough that our friend, Walden Macnair, has been there since early morning hunting this thing. And a report this morning said Macnair was still on the hunt, and… smiling."

A collective shudder went through the room at the thought of that. They all knew how depraved Macnair was. And if he was enjoying himself… None of them wanted to go anywhere near the Ministry building in the near future.

Maynard Flint stood to his feet, and gazed cruelly up to the lord of the house. "We want our property back. When can we see them returned?"

Lucius liked Flint's blunt mannerisms, but wished he had more patience. "I am supposed to have Cornelius over for dinner tonight. I will dispatch owls to you of the breakthroughs as soon as I can."

"Lucius," called Cadman Pyrites from the far end of the table. "Include news of the Ministry events, if you would be so kind. This civil war seems rather intriguing."

There was a slight pop, and a battered house-elf appeared trembling at Lucius' side holding a note on a small tray over his head.

Frowning, Lucius snapped up the note. He raised an eyebrow as he read. When he finished, he waved Dobby away with a hand, causing the house-elf to happily pop away.

"Gentlemen, please, continue eating. I just received news that our acquaintance, Severus Snape, has returned from his venture throughout the countryside collecting ingredients for his potions. I need to catch him up on events. Good day."

Some of his guests tried to coax more information from him as he walked to the door, but he had no more that he was willing to share. What he wanted now was to find out if Severus had any new information for him.

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1:48 PM

Amelia Bones' office

Dept. of Magical Law Enforcement

Ministry of Magic

"Damn them all!" shouted Cornelius Fudge. "What the hell were they thinking?"

Amelia Bones gave a wry grin as he poured him a small helping of fire-whiskey. "It wasn't their heads they were thinking with."

Fudge quickly slammed down the drink, and belched up a small amount of flame. A part of him wanted to ask for more fire-whiskey, but knew that Amelia would decline him. And he knew she was right. He needed to be sober to deal with this. Damn it.

He had a newly discovered niece. Tiffany Crofton. An unusual name, but still she was the child of his dead brother. But because she was thought to be a muggle-born, she had been included in the roundup of muggle-born girls to the Solum Orphanage. And after being taken from there, she had been brutally assaulted. Not so much sexually, but brutally beaten because she had not submitted sexually. It all made Cornelius feel sick.

And to make matters even more confusing, the aurors that were bringing all the muggle-born girls back had several horror stories. Genealogy tests were now being given to the muggle-born witches. Eleven of those young witches were proven to be descended from squibs that came from magical families thought extinct. Twenty-nine of the girls were shown to be related to existing magical families, eighteen of whom were locked up in Azkaban or died while serving He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the eleven other girls had pure-blood fathers who had all pleaded to have been under the Imperius curse while serving as Death Eaters. Lucius was the father of two of them.

Cornelius knew that his career as Minister of Magic was all but over… but he could at least do some good. Therefore, he turned to the only one he trusted enough to answer him honestly. "What do you want me to do?" he humbly asked Amelia.

Amelia was gob smacked, but shook it off. "I want you to support me in recovering all of those girls. I want everyone affiliated with that Solum Orphanage arrested. I want to be allowed to give veritaserum to everyone who 'adopted' one of those poor girls. And I want protection for every one of those girls, especially those that we have found to now have families that are most likely Death Eaters. Some of those girls will have newfound relatives wanting to sink their claws into these girls just as the Notts would want to get ahold of Tiffany."

She knew she was driving the knife in further by bringing up the fact that Cornelius' newly discovered niece was also the daughter of a Nott squib. Cornelius was already devastated by what had happened to the poor girl that he was not about to let the cruel Nott family get their hands on her.

Cornelius drew in a ragged breath. "The girls must definitely all be retrieved and given every aid to recover. They most definitely will not be going to any abusive households. If fact, if at all possible, these girls should be reunited with their parents. If their parents have been truly imperio-ed so these girls could be treated like chattel, then the ministry needs to make it right. I know the parents had been mindwiped of their child's history, but perhaps the Unspeakables know of some why to undo that. Or even if that can't work… maybe just explain to the parents what has happened, and see if they will take their child back." He looked helplessly over to Amelia, the picture of his niece still in his hand. "I don't know what to do Amelia. I really do want to make it right… I just don't know."

Amelia never thought she would ever see the Minister ever behaving like a human being. "Those are good ideas. And they deal with the symptoms. I need to go after the cause of problem. I need to go after those who did this. And I need veritaserum to prove it."

Fudge sighed and sunk further into his chair. "Even if I gave you permission, the Wizengamot would not let it be admissible to prosecution."

Amelia did not let up. "Veritaserum may not be used on a pure-blood in matters of prosecution, but it may be usefully in finding the remaining girls."

Fudge's eyes widened in understanding. "Yes, yes, you must use it for that! I didn't think-"

A house-elf in an orange toga appeared and handed Amelia a note.

"Thank you, Gerald."

The house-elf bowed and popped away.

"Strange house-elf that one," Fudge commented, somewhat grateful to have a distraction from his thoughts.

"I like him. Croaker has been encouraging the house-elves that work in the Department of Mysteries to express their individuality."

Fudge gave a weak chuckle. "The Unspeakables like to study everything. Sometimes I wonder if we are all just experiments for their studies."

"Merlin, I hope not," Amelia said, a chill going down her spine at the thought. She lowered the note. "Speaking of the devil, Croaker says they have broken thought the wards that Stu Curmudgeon and his followers had around the Hall of Mysteries."

Fudge groaned at the thought of what this could all mean. "Are they fighting? Are there many deaths? Crap, they are in one of the lower sections of the building. If they damage the support beams, they could potentially bring down the Ministry of Magic! Oh, I just know that the Daily Prophet will have a field day with this."

"There's been no fighting according to this," Amelia said, as she continued to read. "Croaker says that once he and his loyal Unspeakables broached the wards, they couldn't find anyone inside the department. Currently, Croaker is having his team trying to determine how Curmudgeon got the rebel Unspeakables out while the wards were up."

Fudge sighed and slumped in his chair despite the news, letting his bowler hat fall to the floor. "This is all going to get me kicked out of the Ministry. I'll have to resign. I might even have to go to Azkaban for my part in some of this, despite me not knowing the worst parts of everything." He moved his glass over for another shot of fire-whiskey.

"We need you sober, Cornelius," Amelia stated. "And while I do believe you had a hand in some of this, I also believe you were ignorant of the 'worst parts', as you claim. You will most likely lose your position as Minister of Magic." She paused at the deep sigh from the weary man. "However, I do think we can keep you out of Azkaban, and maybe even turn a positive light on you at the end of all this.

Dull eyes looked up at her. "How?" he asked apathetically, as if he were already resigned to his fate.

"Well, your testimony will help a lot, but I think a few concessions on your part will do the rest."

He sighed again. "How much money do you want?"

"I don't want your money, Cornelius," she said coldly. "I would think after all these years you would know I don't take bribes."

The man nodded. "Yes, sorry. 'Old habits die hard', as they say."

She steepled her fingers. "Let me explain my idea."

And she did.

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1:52 PM

Aurors' Medical Wing

Dept. of Magical Law Enforcement

Ministry of Magic

Jane sat on a cushion next to the injured Snorkack. On the other side of the Snorkack, slept the elderly figure of Newt Scamander, on a magical cot that he normally kept shrunk in one of his pockets. Several yards away several house-elves ministered to the warrior-elf Jane had brought with her from that side dimension. The warrior-elf, Bo'antar, was still unconscious, recovering from being cut off from his normal environment, and the poisoning of magic he had absorbed from this dimension. Somewhere inside her, Jane could feel where she had bound the warrior-elf to her magical core, so that her core would filter magic for Bo'antar.

Noticing movement off to the side, Jane saw Lord Lovegood pulling out yet another quill as he made notes about the warrior-elf and the ministering house-elves. Lord Lovegood was ecstatic over the revelation of new data, and was determined to write it all down.

"Hey," spoke a low voice behind her, causing her to jump.

She whirled around, ready to send the person flying into the wall when she noticed it was just her cousin, Harry Potter. "You finally woke up," she decided to say, pointing out the obvious.

Harry stifled a yawn. "Yeah, sorry for sleeping so late. Long night, you know." He managed to shoot her a grin. Behind him, Jane could see Hermione stretching, having just woken up, too. "Anything to eat around here?"

They were all startled when a small table loaded with food items suddenly appeared.

Jane was the first to turn to the house-elves around Bo'antar and say thank you. Hermione, still unsure how she felt about the whole house-elf/servant thing, was a bit reluctant to partake of the repast, until Harry pointed out that to not eat would be insulting the effort of the house-elves. Hermione's resolve broke and she settled in to start the meal with some cantaloupe.

As they ate, Hermione asked, "So what did Harry and I miss while we slept?"

Jane grinned. "Mr. Scamander sent me out to gather some potions and you will never guess who I found?"

"McGonagall? Madam Bones?" Harry blurted out.

"No!" she said, grinning even more. "I found Sirius! Madam Bones said she would check out his innocence when I spoke to her earlier. Evidently she did so really fast and the aurors had him up in one of the cells in this building for questioning." She paused, and her smile faltered. "The Umgubular Slashkilter that I bashed into this reality…" She looked around uneasily, her eyes turning to the unconscious Bo'antar who had given her the name of the monster. "It's been running amok throughout the Ministry. It got into where Sirius was… He was hurt, but going to be okay."

"Was he able to tell you anything?" asked Hermione.

"No, he couldn't. He had evidently transformed into his canine animagus form to fight the Slashkilter and he broke a hip. He can't transform back until it is healed."

"That could be weeks!" Hermione expelled.

Harry grinned at Hermione. "You seem to forget, Hermione. They can use magic to heal him."

Jane nodded. "Skele-Gro potion. Nasty stuff from the smell, can't imagine how bad it is to taste."

"But he will be okay?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, he should be able to transform to his wizard-self again in a little over twelve hours. But the others that the Umgubular Slashkilter got to… I saw some of the… dead bodies." Tears started to fall down her face. "That thing is still out there somewhere. Maybe hunting more people."

Hermione saw the guilt in Jane's eyes. "It's not your fault. You weren't trying to bring that thing here."

"But I still did!"

Harry motioned with his hands to be quiet, looking over guiltily to where Lord Lovegood was regarding them with a raised eyebrow.

"Sorry," Jane said quietly, and then turned back to her companions.

Hermione brought Jane into a hug, leaving Harry unsure what to do.

"Uh, Jane…" Harry began. "Can you tell us more about Sirius?"

That brought the faintest of smiles to her lips. "Sirius calls me 'El', which is short for Eleven. He says it's not because that is what they called me at the Hawkins National Laboratory." She lifted her arm to show the '011' tattoo on her arm. "He says it's because of my tattoo, and that I am so cool to have gotten one so young." She gave a brief giggle. "Lily hexed him for that saying she didn't want anyone encouraging me to get more tattoos."

Hermione cast her a questioning look. "Why didn't they use magic to remove the tattoo from your arm."

Jane traced the numbers with a finger. "So I can never forget what happened to me, but also so I can remember to be grateful for all the good in my life." She began to tremble again, and then broke down crying. This time Harry joined Hermione in hugging Jane.

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2:16 PM

The Other Side of the Veil of Death

Unspeakable Knot-Weaver, otherwise known as Stu Curmudgeon, leader of the rebelling Unspeakables, cast a bludgeoning curse followed by a withering curse at some kind of rock-like creature. Behind him, another Unspeakable was using a wind spell to blow away a curious fiery apparition.

"Merlin's beard! What dank level of hell is this?" exclaimed Number-Cruncher.

"Someone get those squid-bee things out of Scribe-Reader's ear before they do irreparable damage!" Stu hollered.

They had been trying to get their group through this bizarre copy of the Ministry building for what seemed like forever at this point, but in actuality it had only been a few hours. The darkness was offsetting. The air seemed to be difficult to breathe, so everyone used the bubble-head charm. Even so, the walls were covered in an unusual fungus and cobweb-like structure. They had all wanted to stop and take samples, but Stu had been insistent that if they were to regain the upper hand over their comrades, they had to hurry. The fact that they knew how to get back there later was the only consolation to them. Shortly after that, the Unspeakables began to meet the denizens of this unholy realm.

Something with batwings, but with a body that seemed to be only a mouth with rows upon rows of shark teeth, dove out of the air at them only to be snapped out of the sky by a long thin tentacle that had shot out from behind the resource desk. The flying ball of teeth screeched as it was reeled in behind the desk where a disturbing crunching sound signaled the end of the screeching.

"Time-Stamper!" someone cried out.

Several Unspeakables turned to see one of their number that had been helping the wounded, appeared to have several spiny projectiles sticking out of his chest and left leg.

Number-Cruncher hurried forward. Seeing that Time-Stamper was dead on his feet, she let him fall. Then she hurried and gathered the small suitcase that contained the Unspeakables that had been seriously injured but were now held in stasis within the enlarged space inside. She also gathered the portfolio he had which held within it much of the stolen library of the Unspeakables.

"How the nine hells did she do it?" Stu muttered.

"Sir?" Chalk-Writer, who was nearest asked.

"The subject Eleven. Somehow she managed to get through all of this and found a way out."

Chalk-Writer considered the question before answering. "She probably stirred up the local flora and fauna as she rushed through. They were probably still stirred up when we got here and run right into defensive posturing of everything living here."

It made the most sense. And with the limited intel they had, he had no choice but to lead them through as fast and straight as he can.

"I'm not sure I want to put her back together after vivisecting her after all this," he spoke with a snarl.

Along the wall, a large flower that was nearly eight feet wide opened to expose a mouth of jagged stone-like teeth. It shot out of the wall like a cannonball, biting into the back of an unexpecting Unspeakable, dragging the screaming meal with it as it retracted itself to it's place on the wall.

"This way!" Stu shouted, as he led his ragtag team onwards.

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2:36 PM

Malfoy Manor

Draco looked around the table to his guests. "What do you think of my plan?"

There were nearly a dozen young boys sitting at the table in the Malfoy library. Some seemed contemplative, others looked stunned (though in Crabbe's case it was constipation), and then there was -

"Are you out of your bloody mind, Malfoy! How did you not get put in Gryffindor with ideas like that?" Adrian Pucey jumped to his feet, knocking the antique wooden chair over onto the floor. "You expect us, who are all Third Year or under, to sneak into the Ministry and somehow discover where the aurors took our mudbloods from us? You do know that the Ministry is in lockdown right now, right?"

Draco frowned. He knew he had to expect some opposition. His father said that opposition was always raise it's head eventually, especially when your leadership hasn't been established among your peers. It made sense that the opposition came from Pucey since he was two years older than Draco and the oldest boy in the room. Even so, Draco didn't like it.

"Let me explain further." He waited until Pucey righted his chair and sat down. "Most of us know the Ministry building having gone there plenty of times with our parents. I suspect at least half of us have also been told of the many secret passageways and areas were sensitive information is kept."

"You expect us to go in there and be able to just take it away from the aurors?" Cassius Warrington asked with surprise.

"First, like I said, we have insider information. Second, the aurors are dealing with some creature running around the building, so they are distracted. And third, if we are caught, we are all minors; they can't prosecute us for sneaking into the Ministry."

The boys all looked at each other, checking to see that everyone was as young as Draco had said.

"And if they ask what we are doing there," continued Draco. "We just say that we were concerned for the mudblo- er, muggleborn – remember to say muggleborn – that we were concerned for the muggleborn that our families recently adopted."

Graham Montague sneered. "Do you really think a dozen early year Hogwarts students can recover over a hundred mudblood bints from the Ministry? What are you trying to pull, Malfoy?"

Draco waited for the angry voices to quiet down. "Really, Montague? You thought I'd have us try to swipe all those mudbloods? Just us?" He shook his head in disdain. "My plan was to get the location of the girls so we can come back and present the information to our fathers. What our fathers do with that information is up to them? Whether they us it or not, they will have already seen that their children would go to great lengths to aid them.

"What is this beast running through the Ministry?" Blaise Zabini asked.

"How would I know? All I know is that it is running away from all the aurors, and they are having trouble getting it cornered."

Senret Theakston raised a hand. "Do you know if it is a predator?"

"If it was a predator, the thing would be stupidly going after the aurors. This thing is just very evasive; therefore, it is prey."

Being all well-to-do Pure-Bloods, they had never really studied animals and their traits, so were unable to refute what Draco was telling them.

Miles Bletchley looked around, but noticed no one else coming up with any more questions. "This all sounds fun, but it's pointless. The Ministry building is locked up tight. No one who isn't an auror is getting in today."

Draco delivered a full caliber smug grin. "You forget who you are talking to. 'Where there is a Malfoy, there is a way'," he said, quoting one of the Malfoy portraits from the 1700's. "I know of three ways into the Ministry of Magic."

He let the boys have a moment to seriously consider the task he had suggested. Or, in Gregory Goyle's case, the finger with which he was picking his nose.

Draco could not hide the smirk on his face as he could see each boy determining to go about his plan. He loves it when a plan comes together.

AuThOr'S NoTeS: 5-17-2020

It's been a long time and I apologize. I do hope you like the story. Things are going to get hairy again soon, but I think most people can probably guess that from how things were being set up.