Chapter Nine

For some reason, whenever the others were questioning my loyalties, I found myself upstairs, in the attic. And so, when Lupin thought that I had let the death eaters know where we were that day, I went up there. As I wondered around the dusty room for the next hour, my thoughts went to my mother. I hadn't heard from her since my wedding, when she had told me to go ahead with it. She had informed me that she was going to head to America, and I hoped she had made it.

I sank into one of the armchairs and closed my eyes, just as the door opened and Hermione entered. "Kreacher's returned," she told me. "And he has Mundungus."I stood up, and looked at her. Her eyes were red, like she had been crying.

"What happened?"

She just shook her head. "Are you coming downstairs?"

I sighed. "Yeah." I followed her out of the attic and into the kitchen.

"It's not about the goblets either, although you're getting warmer," I heard Harry say as we entered. "Shut up and listen."

Mundungus eyes grew wide when he saw me come in. "What's she doing here?"

"She happens to be Harry's wife, mate, and she deserves to be here," Ron snapped.

Harry cleared his throat. "When you cleaned out this house of anything valuable," Harry began.

"Sirius never cared about any of the junk – "

Kreacher rushed at Fletcher and began to hit him on the head with a saucepan.

"Call him off!"

"Kreacher, stop!" Harry and I cried at the same time.

"Perhaps just one more, Master and Mistress, for luck?"

Ron and I laughed. "We need him conscious, Kreacher, but if he needs persuading you can do the honors," Harry told him.

Kreacher backed away, still glaring at Fletcher.

"When you stripped this house of all the valuables you could find, you took a bunch of stuff from the kitchen cupboard. There was a locket there. What did you do with it?"

"Why, is it valuable?"

"Do you still have it?" I whispered, not daring to get my hopes up.

"No, he hasn't," Ron said. "He's wondering whether he should have asked more money for it."

"More? That wouldn't have been effing difficult. Bleedin gave it away, di'n' I? No choice."

Harry and I exchanged a glance. "What do you mean?"

And I listened in dawning horror as he informed us that Delores Umbridge had taken it.

Time passed, and before we knew it, September first had arrived. Harry had gone out for a little bit, and came back, slamming a newspaper down on the table in front of us.

"Severus Snape confirmed as Hogwarts headmaster," Hermione read, then glanced over at me.

"What?" I hissed, snatching it from her. "Severus Snape, long standing Potions master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was today appointed headmaster in the most important of several staffing changes at the ancient school. Following the resignation of the previous Muggle Studies teacher, Alecto Carrow will take over the post while her brother, Amycus, fills the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts." I stopped. "Damn."

"What?" Hermione looked at me curiously.

"I know those two, the Carrows. They're among the worst of the death eaters. And they're at the school."

"So… that's not good?" Ron said slowly.

"Of course not! They enjoy casting the cruciatus nearly as much as Bellatrix, and that's saying something!"

Ron paled. "Ginny's there."

"She'll be fine," I muttered absentmindedly, rereading the article. "And Burbage didn't resign, they killed her." I paused. "At least my dad's going to be there. He might be able to protect the students some…"

"He'd better," Ron growled. "Or I'll kill him."

"Right. I think we should do it tomorrow," Harry said, changing the subject.

Ron, Hermione, and I stared at him. "Tomorrow?" I repeated. "Are you completely insane?"

"I'm serious, Mia," he said. "I don't think we're going to be much better prepared then we are now even if we skulk around the Ministry entrance for another month. We know everything important. We know that you can't apparate in, only the most senior Ministry members are allowed to connect their homes to the Floo Network, and we know roughly where Umbridge's office is. We know you need those tokens to get in-"

"But we don't have any!" I reminded him.

"If the plan works, we will have."

"There's a lot that could go wrong-" Hermione began.

I sighed. "That could be true no matter how long we wait," I said. "I think Harry's right. Tomorrow's as good a day as any."

"Let's say we go tomorrow," Ron said slowly. "I think only Harry and I should go."

"Don't start that again!" Hermione said. "I thought we'd settled this!"

"We're all going," Harry said. Suddenly, he stood up and walked out of the room. I exchanged a glance with Hermione, and we followed him.

We had planned breaking into the ministry all that night. We had gotten the horcrux, and had rescued some muggleborns along the way. But even things that you plan perfectly can go wrong, I realized. Yaxley had followed us from the court chambers up to the Atrium. He was catching up to me, even as the other three gripped hands.

"GO!" I screamed, as I felt Yaxley's hand close around my wrist. As his other hand covered my mouth, I watched Harry, Hermione, and Ron disapparate.

So... there you go. chapter nine. I've been planning that since day one, but... idk. It didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to. I skipped a bunch of stuff, like Harry's vision, and all the details because one, if you've actually read the book, then you already know that, and two, I don't have the patience to type it all out.

Hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a review.