"Go!" Harry ordered, leading Hermione and the wizard toward the door.
As the Patronus swept out of the courtroom, a cry of shock rose from the crowd waiting outside. Harry looked around quickly, the Dementors on either side were retreating, melting back into the darkness, driven off by the blazing silver creatures.
"Listen to me," Harry said loudly to the dazed, blinking Muggle-born witches and wizards, still squinting against the light. "You're all going home now, take your families and hide. If you can, get out of the country. Stay far away from the Ministry. That's, er, the new official policy. Follow the Patronuses, and you'll get out safely."
No one stopped them as they climbed to the top of the stone steps.
When Ron saw Harry and Hermione leading the group, he tore off the Invisibility Cloak and hit the elevator button.
"What's going on?" Ron demanded, glancing at the crowd behind them.
"No time!" Harry said breathlessly. "I got them all out. Once we're upstairs, throw every decoy detonator and flash bomb we've got!"
Even as he spoke, the golden elevator gates clanged open.
"Harry, Polyjuice, fifteen minutes left," Hermione said, checking her watch.
"That's plenty," Harry said. "As long as we move fast!"
He turned to the wide-eyed crowd behind him.
"Who's got wands?"
About half raised their hands.
"All right, those without, stick close to someone who does. When I shout flash bomb, close your eyes. Move fast, and we'll make it out. Go!"
They crammed into two elevators. Harry's silver stag Patronus stood guard at the gates as they clanged shut and the lifts began to rise.
"Level Eight," the disembodied female voice announced. "Atrium."
The hall above was still bustling, witches and wizards hurrying in every direction.
"Flash bomb!" Harry bellowed, hurling every decoy detonator and flash bomb from his pockets.
Smoke burst outward, then came the blinding flare of white light.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut, then shouted again as he opened them:
"Fireplaces! Go! Apparate the moment you're clear!"
But the areas the smoke hadn't reached erupted with chaos.
"Intruders in the Ministry!" someone screamed. "Seal the Floo Network!"
Harry gripped his wand and sprinted after Ron and Hermione. They were barely ten steps from the nearest fireplaces, still unguarded.
Then, without warning, a crushing weight slammed onto Harry's back. He hit the floor hard.
Tartar Methen, his eyes bloodshot, his thin body somehow blazing with manic strength, was pinning Harry down, screaming at the top of his lungs:
"I'VE GOT HARRY POTTER! TEN THOUSAND GALLEONS! TEN THOUSAND! IT'S HIM! HERE! I'M NO MUD-BLOOD ANYMORE! HAHA, TEN THOUSAND AND A JOB AT THE MINISTRY!"
His wild, ecstatic voice echoed through the entire hall.
Spells came flying from every direction, bolts of red, blue, and gold. Death Eaters were running toward them from all sides.
"Protego!" Ron roared. A shimmering wall sprang up before them.
"Protego! Stupefy!" Hermione cried.
Methen collapsed, stunned.
"Harry!" Ron shouted.
Harry snatched up his wand and scrambled to his feet.
Ron and Hermione dragged him upright, throwing more shield charms as they dove headlong into the green flames of the nearest fireplace.
A storm of curses whistled past them as they vanished.
They spun violently, then shot out from a toilet bowl, soaked, gasping, alive.
But before they could move, more bangs erupted. The stalls around them were bursting open, Death Eaters pouring through.
The partitions exploded in a shower of splinters.
Harry seized Ron and Hermione's hands, and the three Disapparated.
Darkness swallowed them whole. The crushing, suffocating pressure of Apparition pressed in, but something was wrong. Hermione's hand was slipping from his grip,
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. The only real things left in the world were Ron's arm and Hermione's fingers, and even they were sliding away,
Then the blackness broke. For a split second Harry saw the front door of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, and the serpent-shaped knocker gleaming in the dark. But before he could take a breath, there came a scream, a flash of violet light, and Hermione's grip clamped on him like an iron claw.
Everything went black again.
⚡︎━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ❖ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⚡︎
When Harry opened his eyes, he saw blinding gold and green. He didn't know what had happened, only that he was lying among twigs and branches, struggling to breathe, his lungs feeling crushed flat.
He blinked. The dazzling color was sunlight pouring through a canopy of leaves. Something twitched beside his face, he braced himself for a creature, but it was only Ron's foot.
Harry pushed himself up and looked around. They were sprawled on the forest floor, he, Hermione, and Ron, and no one else in sight.
His first thought was the Forbidden Forest.
For an instant, though he knew it was foolish and dangerous, his heart leapt at the idea of sneaking through the trees to Hagrid's hut.
But as Ron groaned softly, Harry crawled closer and saw at once that this wasn't Hogwarts. The trees were younger, spaced farther apart; the ground more open.
Hermione was kneeling beside Ron already.
When Harry saw him clearly, his mind went blank, half of Ron's body was soaked in blood. His face, resting on the damp earth and leaves, was the color of ash.
The Polyjuice Potion was wearing off; his features were half Cattermole, half himself. As the last traces of disguise vanished, the color drained completely from his skin, though his hair was flaming red again.
"What happened to him?" Harry gasped.
"He Splinched," Hermione said tightly. Her hands were already at Ron's sleeve, searching the worst of the blood-soaked patches.
Harry froze as she tore open the fabric. He'd always thought Splinching sounded almost comical, but this was anything but. His stomach churned.
A chunk of flesh had vanished from Ron's upper arm, as if sliced away by a knife.
"Harry, quick, in my bag, there's a bottle of Dittany—"
"Your bag, right!"
"Use a Summoning Charm!" Hermione cried.
Harry scrambled to where Hermione had landed, snatched up the beaded handbag, opened it, and pointed his wand inside.
"Accio, Dittany!"
A small brown bottle shot into his hand. He rushed back.
Ron's eyes were half-open, showing only a sliver of white.
"He's fainted," Hermione said, her face nearly as pale. She no longer looked like Mafalda, though a few strands of hair were still gray.
She pulled the stopper from the bottle and dripped three drops onto the wound.
Green smoke hissed up, curling into the air. When it cleared, the bleeding had stopped, and the torn flesh looked days older, covered by a thin layer of new skin.
"Wow," Harry breathed.
"I can't do more than that," Hermione said shakily. "Some spells might heal it completely, but I don't dare, if I get it wrong, I could make it worse."
"How did it even happen?" Harry asked, rubbing his forehead. "And, where are we? We were supposed to go back to Grimmauld Place."
Hermione took a long, trembling breath. Her eyes were shiny with tears.
"Harry, I don't think we can go back."
"What do you mean?"
"When we Apparated, one of the Death Eaters grabbed hold of me. I couldn't shake him off, he was too strong. When we reached Grimmauld Place, he was still holding on. I think he saw the house, he must've realized where we were stopping. So I forced him to let go and brought us here instead."
"But, where is he now? Wait, don't tell me, they're in Grimmauld Place? He can't get inside, can he?"
Tears shimmered in Hermione's eyes. She shook her head.
"Harry… I think he can. I used the Severing Charm to break free, but I'd already brought him inside the Fidelius charm's protection. After Dumbledore died, we became the Secret Keepers. That means… I betrayed the secret, didn't I?"
Harry said nothing for a long time.
"Harry, I'm sorry."
"No," Harry said quickly, sitting down hard on the forest floor. "It's my fault. You planned everything perfectly. If I hadn't stopped to save that man, none of this would've happened. I was stupid, really stupid. You should yell at me."
Before Hermione could answer, Ron stirred with a low groan, his eyes fluttering open. His face was gray and damp with sweat.
"How do you feel?" Hermione asked softly.
"Awful," Ron croaked. He touched his arm and winced. "Where are we?"
"The forest where they held the Quidditch World Cup," Hermione said. "I thought of somewhere isolated, somewhere safe, and this—""
"—"was the first place that came to mind," Harry finished for her. He glanced around at the quiet clearing, sunlight slanting through the trees.
"Do you think we should move?" Ron asked, trying to sit up, but Hermione quickly stopped him. After one attempt, he gave up.
"I don't—" Harry began, then stopped. He felt heat against his ribs, through the inner pocket of his robes.
He stripped off the oversized cloak he'd been wearing, leaving only his shirt beneath, which had four pockets. From the right one he drew a small wooden token.
Carved on it were four words:
"Where are you now?"