A/N: This adventure has taken much more time to write than I thought it would. But there's only one chapter left after this one, and then I'll go back to writing about rebuilding.
They found Sirius right away, searching for Harry. Everyone else had scattered all over the school grounds. To find them faster, they separated and went in search in all four directions. The appointed meeting place was the Chamber of Reception, now again empty. The time to leave was set in a quarter of an hour, and they would have to contend themselves with whom they could collect until then.
With every step he took, Harry was aware that he was losing valuable time. He hurried along deserted corridors, abandoned classrooms, along the well-known paths of the school grounds, looking for everyone who could be of help.
There were not many people left at Hogwarts, and not everyone who was there was someone Harry could trust with the sort of news he was about to give. He came across a couple of seventh years, surrounded by their families, being reassured and soothed by their parents. Harry could not do it, could not take them away from their regained safety and ask them to fight again. The teachers, he thought at once. Where were the teachers?
He found them in the staffroom. Their voices reached him through the door, a quiet murmur of conversation, and a few hesitant, abruptly cut off chuckles. He felt like an intruder even before he knocked. Startled faces met him when he entered, and everyone fell silent. Harry looked around, unsure how to start.
It could almost have passed for a scene like thousands of others that room had seen, like it used to be before the war. But even ignoring all the injuries, the teachers seemed subdued, shrunk into themselves somehow, as if they did not quite dare yet to return to normalcy.
There were spaces left to fill, for one. Even an outsider like Harry could notice the gaps between the teachers, left almost deliberately. One of them belongs to Dumbledore, thought Harry. And that one female teacher whom he knew had died. Harry vaguely recalled she used to teach art. Then there was Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies professor who had 'disappeared'. Harry knew exactly what had happened to her. He had witnessed it through his connection with Voldemort.
Despite their injuries, everyone else seemed to be there; even Snape, who was reading a book in a corner far in the back.
"Mr. Potter!" McGonagall turned to him. "Is something the matter?" Her tone reflected the concern in everyone's eyes.
"Yes, I'm afraid so." He hesitated, feeling the worried glances of everyone in the room on him.
"You might want to tone down on the dramatics," Snape said while getting up and moving over to the entrance. "Or else people will actually start to believe there's trouble." His voice still sounded mangled. It felt awfully wrong somehow, hearing it in broad daylight. Snape's oily voice had always been an unalterable constant before. It made Harry hesitate long enough to see the look Snape was giving him. It was the exact same look he had given him when Harry had mentioned discussing the Elder Wand with Voldemort in the Great Hall.
Harry scanned the room once more. There was Slughorn, pulling at his bandaged arm and looking almost exactly like he had when Dumbledore had transfigured him back from an armchair. And Trelawney, who had been about to take a sip from her cup of tea, now sat with her mouth opened to drink and the cup suspended in mid-air, her eyes fixed on him. Not far from her Professors Sinistra, Vector and a few others sat together, exchanging worried looks.
As bravely as they had defended the school, most of those people were no fighters. Harry's heart sank at the realization, but for what was very likely the first time in their mutual history, he listened to Snape's warning and backtracked. "No, no trouble. Just a little problem we need some help with... But there's nothing to worry about..." He made for the door slowly, hoping in vain that the professors would follow him.
"Anyone feel up to it?" asked McGonagall.
Flitwick and Sprout stood up.
Slughorn, the fourth Head of House, gave a jerk, then seeing that all the other professors remained seated, he hesitated. "Do you think... That is, will you be needing my help as well?"
"No, that's all right, Horace. I'm sure we can deal with whatever it is," McGonagall told him. And the look she gave Harry clearly told him not to argue.
As soon as they were out of the staffroom, Harry turned to her. "Professor, I'm afraid it's a little more serious than I made it sound like."
"Yes, Harry, I realize that. I ignored your asking for help once, in your first year, and let you face danger alone. I'm not going to do that again."
"Thank you." Harry said quietly, hoping it would express all her confession meant to him.
"Yes, well." She cleared her throat, and amused, Harry realized that she was embarrassed.
"But then, why didn't you let Professor Slughorn come along? I mean, he almost-"
"I'm afraid Horace has exhausted his courage for a while," McGonagall interrupted his complaint. "And many of the other Professors aren't that great at duelling." She sighed. "No, I'm afraid we'll have to do."
Harry let it go, and did not mention that Sprout was not much of a dueller, either. He started leading them towards the Chamber of Reception, all the while filling them in on what was happening.
Luckily, the others had done better at getting hold of people, as Harry found out when they arrived. Besides the regular fighters, meaning Hermione, the Weasleys, Sirius, Remus, Neville and Luna, there were also most of the old DA members. Harry immediately saw Dean and Seamus, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott, and interestingly, his grandmother, standing next to Neville. Lee, and most of the old Gryffindor quidditch team were standing around George. Andromeda Tonks was there as well, and Teddy, now awake, kept making odd noises and changing his hair colour, making him the centre of attention. The female members of the group especially were distracted by him.
"Where's everyone from the order?" Sirius was asking.
"Well, Emmeline and Mad-Eye were killed," Remus told him.
Sirius' face turned sombre. Then he lowered his head and nodded.
"Sturgis is in hospital, and Hestia and Dedalus are still guarding the Muggle families. I don't think anyone's told them that the war's over," supplied McGonagall.
With a jolt Harry remembered the Dursleys and wondered what had happened to them, but let it go for the moment. Now was not the time.
"And Dung hasn't turned up since he disappeared during that battle. We have no idea where he is," finished Arthur Weasley.
"So it's just us, then," Sirius concluded.
"You won't all be coming along, though," Hermione began explaining her plan. "Some of you have to go and find Kingsley, tell him what's happening so that he'll get back to the ministry as fast as possible.
"The next problem is how to get into the ministry," Hermione went on. "Umbridge will have had enough sense to put out all the fires in the fireplaces."
"There is another way of getting in," Percy told her. It was surprising enough to see him there, but for him to actively try to help was a different matter. In an instant, everyone's attention was on him, and he proved once more that he really was a Weasley by blushing that ridiculously bright red that only members of his family seemed capable of. "As – as I was saying – there's another way in. In fact, the floo network was barely used any more this last year. We had this new coin system-"
"Yes, the coins," Hermione interrupted him. "We-" she pointed at herself, Ron and Harry, "have a coin each." At the surprised murmurs following her announcement she smiled cheekily. "Well, we wanted to see what this new ministry looked like, you see."
Harry and Ron snorted, while everyone else was sending them intrigued glances, trying to guess at their adventures.
"I have a coin as well," Mr Weasley told them, then turned to his most troublesome son. "What about you, Percy?"
"I – No. My fireplace was connected to the ministry-"
"Oh, that's great! That's exactly what we needed." Hermione interrupted him once again, this time sending him an apologetic look.
Percy did not seem bothered. On the contrary, his hesitancy when he had mentioned that his fireplace had been allowed to connect to the ministry, and what it implied, seemed to vanish. He looked relieved that instead of being held against him, it had turned out to be useful.
"That's it?" Snape's voice sounded even worse this time, or maybe it just drew more attention to itself because it already sounded out of place due to Snape's interruption. "That's your whole plan?"
Sirius snorted at the sound of his voice, and received a murderous glare in return. Before he could say anything, though, Harry looked at him pleadingly, and mouthed: "Not now."
Snape was standing suspiciously close to a wall, and Harry would bet he had been leaning on it before starting to speak and drawing attention to himself. His damaged voice, ill health and barely concealed suspicions about his loyalties in everyone around him should have been reason enough for him not to draw attention to himself. That he chose to speak could only mean that he thought what he had to say to be important enough that the other concerns did not matter.
"Well, you haven't heard the plan yet." Hermione sounded put out. "I was about to-"
"Your plan – if it can be called that – is for you three – and perhaps Arthur, as well – to get inside the ministry using the coins-"
"Now, wait a minute," Mrs. Weasley piped up in the background. "What do you mean by those three? I, for one, don't see why they need to go first, of all people. They've done more than enough fighting to last a lifetime-"
"Molly, dear," her husband interrupted her, "you know it won't do any good."
Mrs. Weasley opened her mouth to argue, then looked at the determined faces of the trio and let it go.
"-light one of the fireplaces, and let everyone else come through from Percy Weasley's fireplace," Snape continued talking without letting himself be interrupted by Mrs. Weasley's worries. "And that's where your plan ends."
"That's because we don't have time for more!" Ron came to Hermione's defence. "If Umbridge can force the Wizengamot to make her chief warlock before we get there, we'll be too late!"
"That may be so, Weasley." Snape emphasized every word, and managed to sound intimidating despite his voice breaking in odd places. "But if you just rush in, if you don't prepare for any problems you might encounter, you may do more harm than good."
"Look, Professor," Ron emphasized the title, clearly trying to remain pleasant, "this is not the first time we're preparing to break into the ministry. But if there's one thing we learned last time, it's that you can't plan for everything. We need to act now." At these words he nodded towards Harry, in memory of almost exactly the same speech Harry had given him and Hermione in 12 Grimmauld Place before they had snuck into the ministry.
"What, your misguided attempt to free the Muggleborns didn't go as planned?"
"We weren't there to free the Muggleborns in the first place," Harry answered, because Ron was clearly losing his patience. "That was never part of the plan, but as Ron said, you never know what-"
"What were you doing there, then?" Snape's normal sneer was firmly back in place. "Did you actually go there to retrieve Alastor Moody's eye? It was bad enough, thinking you'd put Dumbledore's plan in jeopardy so you could play the heroes, but-"
"We were there because of Dumbledore's plan." Harry took a deep breath to keep himself from shouting. "Umbridge had come to own one of those things Dumbledore wanted us to find."
Snape did not try to hide his surprise. "Umbridge? Why would she have-"
"That's a really long story. But let's just say she got it by accident."
Snape needed a moment to recover. "Well. Be that as it may. There are still a few questions that need to be answered before you rush off to the ministry.
"As soon as you enter the ministry, the dementors will know. Not to mention any other guards there might be. How do you suppose to fight them off long enough until you can light the fireplace and the others arrive?"
"The usual way, by casting a patronus," replied Harry, already knowing where Snape was going with that question and not liking it at all.
"Ah, yes, of course. Your... preferred method of fighting dementors." Snape sneered.
Harry remembered their argument back in sixth year, about the best method to deal with dementors. Snape, being the skilled Occlumens that he was, of course preferred that method. By completely clearing his mind, he managed to make himself uninteresting to the dementors. This was the method the Death Eaters used, as most were unable to cast a patronus.
"It is the best method," Ron defended him.
"Is it, now? Do you really think four people can keep away hundreds of dementors over any length of time? That sort of drain on your magic-"
"It won't be hundreds of them," Remus interrupted Snape. "The dementors will be where the people are – wherever Umbridge is holding the members of the Wizengamot. And that will hardly be close to the entrance."
"And, anyway, Severus, you're the only reliable Occlumens here," McGonagall told him. "And you're hardly in any condition to come along."
Snape bristled at this, and the looks that passed between the teachers told of the undercurrents of the relationship between the two, the way it had changed during the past year, and more recently, with the end of the war and revelations of Snape's true loyalties. Additionally, McGonagall was now the actual leader of the school, while Snape was still the official Headmaster. After a moment, though, Snape inclined his head, to show that he agreed. His strength was already leaving him, and he was starting to look almost as sickly as the night before.
He had one more comeback, though. "More importantly, how do you want to keep Umbridge from finding out you've arrived?
"You most certainly need to make sure she doesn't find out." Snape had to raise his voice to break off the arguments to the contrary. He coughed, then cleared his throat. "Otherwise, she might take hostages, or worse, lose her head and let the dementors kiss some of the members of the Wizengamot."
Harry had to fight a really misplaced urge to laugh. He just could not imagine Umbridge as someone who negotiated over hostages, or posed a threat. Unintentionally, his mind supplied him with an image of the ministry under Umbridge's rule: pink where it was dark now, full of pictures of kittens where menacing banners had been. He tried to imagine what would happen to the statue of the witch and wizard sitting over the bodies of Muggles, but could not come up with anything.
At that thought he sobered up. As farcical as the whole thing seemed, Harry knew better than anyone what Umbridge was capable of. It did not matter that she was neither talented nor powerful magically, nor fit the usual description of a tyrant. She had no pride, no scruples, nor any beliefs that might prevent her from doing everything to get what she wanted.
She had seemed just as ridiculous at the beginning of his fifth year, when she had first arrived, more annoying than threatening. But slowly, she had managed to take over more and more, until, finally, she was Headmistress, and everything at Hogwarts was going her way. The school had rebelled, of course. No one would allow her to remain in power. And Harry was sure, if Umbridge had learned anything from that disaster, she would not be attempting to become minister now. Just as the students had refused to listen to her after a while, so would the magical community rebel against her.
But Harry refused to let it come to that. The war was over, and the fighting would have to stop. He would not allow Umbridge to upset the regained peace.
Everyone looked glum at Snape's question, thinking how to avoid being sensed by the dementors. To Harry, that seemed quite impossible.
"Well, it's not quite as bad as that," Andromeda said. "It's difficult enough, communicating with dementors. But you also have the advantage that they won't want to tell immediately. They won't care much whether or not Umbridge wants to be informed as soon as someone gets in. The first thing they'll do when they sense you, is to come after you. Only if you survive long enough will they bother to inform Umbridge. So you do have some time." Her tone was light, obviously expecting what she had said to be reassuring.
"Yes, well, that should give us some time," Hermione recovered first. "But not all that much. Umbridge will notice something's off when the dementors around her start leaving."
"We'll just have to act fast, then," concluded Harry.
On that note, they decided they had lost enough time planning, and to hurry up.
The only thing left to decide was who would be staying and who would be coming along. Andromeda Tonks could not leave Teddy, so she had to stay. Of the teachers, only McGonagall would be coming along. The others remained to protect the school in case something unexpected happened. They all felt that the general situation was too chaotic to let their guard down.
Hannah Abbott would stay as well, and inform the remaining students, so they would also be prepared. Neville seemed so happy that she would be out of danger that Harry instantly realized he was interested in her. His eyes scanned the room and fell on Ginny, who was going through her arsenal of spells with Luna. She noticed Harry's gaze, looked up and smiled confidently. Despite the worry in the back of his mind, he felt very proud of her for her fearlessness.
Sirius and Remus, together with George and his friends, and some of the younger students who were unable to cast a patronus, would try to find Shacklebolt and his aurors, and fill them in on what was happening.
That decided, they set off. Harry, Hermione, Ron and Mr. Weasley apparated to London, close to the ministry. The others left for Percy's home. They would be watching one of the old DA coins, enchanted by Hermione, which would tell them when they could travel by floo powder to the ministry.
Harry again found himself in the familiar alleyway where their last break into the ministry had started from. It was empty, as before, and once they were all assembled, they set out for the spiked black railings flanking the public toilets. But this was as far as they could follow the steps of their previous adventure. Chances were high there were guards inside the toilets as well.
They argued for a bit about who was to go in first. Harry, with his Invisibility Cloak was first to volunteer. Mr. Weasley did not want to let him, though. He did not want to let his son or his friends walk into danger first. Before they were done arguing, Harry threw on his Cloak, opened the door labelled Gentlemen, and went in first.
A moment later, they heard a shout and a dull thud. They rushed in after Harry, Hermione not even caring that she might be seen going into the men's toilet.
"There was only one wizard in here. I think he's a snatcher," Harry told them when they reached him. "I stunned him," he added rather unnecessarily, the snatcher in question lying at his feet.
"Harry, you shouldn't have rushed in like that," Hermione told him. "There might have been wards-"
"Very unlikely. Umbridge had neither time nor skill for that."
Before going into different cubicles, they discussed how to proceed once they were inside the ministry. Mr. Weasley, who was the only one who could light the ministry fireplaces, already knew what he had to do. The teenagers would have to keep the dementors – and perhaps snatchers, as well – away to allow him to do that. Being the oldest member of the group, and still thinking of the other three as children, Mr. Weasley was rather uncomfortable with this. But after Harry's impulsive action he fully realized that he was the odd one out. The three friends were so used to working together that they could almost guess each others' thoughts. It was easier to let them do the planning on their own.
It only took them a few moments, then they stepped into separate cubicles and flushed. And they were off into the unknown.