Recuperation.
.
Minerva McGonagall, known to be a pillar of dignity and composure, slapped her palms down on the rickety wooden table. Her eyes flashed.
"Well, what would you have us do?" she seethed in a dangerous, low tone, "They're out for our blood! We can't put a toe across the border without them knowing!"
Her challenger was a handsome man with dark hair and darker eyes. His posture was imposingly perfect, his complexion was flawless; he looked far younger than he really was. Mimicking her pose, he laid his hands on the table in a deliberate manner, and leaned forward menacingly.
"Pathetic," he hissed, "So you want us to cower here in this hole forever? Crushed and craven, practicing minimal Magic–"
"Not forever, Tom!" Minerva railed, "I'm suggesting we lie low until we can properly strategise a way out of this mess!"
"There is no way out! That bitch has total control over the machinery, the forces, the people – the only way to bring her down is to fight! Fight for our rightful place, our home."
Minerva slumped. Her eyes closed, and for a moment – a mere fleeting moment – her face crumpled under the full weight of the sorrow and exhaustion she was feeling.
"Their dampers... we're powerless."
Tom pounded a fist against the table, and his voice soared. "So we hit back their way. Bombs, guns, batons. Anything they do, we can do better. And when they're finally vanquished and mewling pitifully, we'll show them the true might of Magic."
"Tom," she whispered, "Tom. Hasn't there been enough fighting? Haven't enough people died?"
He straightened, just as slowly and deliberately as before.
"No," he pronounced icily, "Nothing will be enough until we get back what's ours."
"This is not what Albus would've wanted."
"Albus Dumbledore is dead."
She flinched, as if it was news to her... a blow. As if she hadn't been carrying that grief with her all day.
Tom took several steps back, so that the light from the low taper on the table could barely reach him. With his dark clothes, he seemed to blend into the inky shadows that owned the enormous cavern they were in.
"Albus Dumbledore died a fool," he went on with a callous curl of his lip. "Look at what has come of his outrageous dream of living alongside the rabble? He was a barmy old man who–"
"YOU WILL NOT SAY A WORD AGAINST HIM, RIDDLE!"
Minerva had rediscovered her fire, and as it blazed within her, it blazed in the cave: The tiny candle-flame scorched its way up to the ceiling. That blaze of light struck the walls, and revealed the fifty-or-so ashen faces that were watching the dispute.
"Oh my," Tom crooned, a sardonic grin slicing across his face, "Accidental magic, and at your age? For shame, Minerva."
His grin didn't fit him. His face wasn't meant to smile. Minerva ignored his slight and raised her chin defiantly. Her glasses caught the light and flared.
"You're going down the wrong path, Tom."
"I'm finally correcting the path," he countered, "You can sit on your hands all you want, but I know it's high time we show those pathetic mice their true place."
Out from the pocket of his coat, he pulled out his wand and brazenly dispelled multiple shards of light across the cavern.
"Come with me," he called, "Those who wish to take charge, take arms, and take control. Come with me, brave ones... ones with vision and drive and conviction. Come. Let us rain fire and wrath upon those who dared to annihilate us."
He swept away, down a narrow track that was just one of the many, many arms that comprised the dizzying underground network. The flickers he'd conjured raced after him.
The first ones on his tail were Bellatrix Lestrange, her tangle of hair spilling over her leather jacket, her gaunt husband and his gaunter brother. Then went Dolohov. Then gristly, bare-chested Greyback.
Rosier. Nott senior and then junior, with his haunted, glassy eyes.
Lucius Malfoy stalked out; one arm around his wife and the other grasping the arm of his young son.
Bit by bit, the crowd thinned. It Halved. And finally –
"Even you, Severus?" Minerva croaked. She was sitting on a rock by then, drained of strength entirely.
The man in question didn't spare her a glance as he left.
A profound silence followed.
A man with mousey brown hair and tattered clothes turned on a transistor. After a second or two of static, Umbridge's pitchy voice swelled from its speakers:
"...victorious, and finally free from the tyranny of the Magical Ones! Celebrate, oh liberated citizens of Diagon! We are now entering a new age of –"
"Remus... No. Please."
He turned the transistor off again.