"If McGonagall is still planning on keeping the school open," Harry muttered. "You can count on Claridina trying to get a hold of it before then."
"What I don't understand," Ron said. "Is why she's so dead set on getting Hogwarts. She has everything else, does it really matter if there's one school that's not in her control. It can't make that much of a difference in the long run."
"It will, though," Harry told him. "If she doesn't control the school, then what's to stop McGonagall and the other teachers from spreading the truth to the students? The thing's that helping her so much right now is that more and more people are beginning to believe that she's the one who's got their best interests in mind and I'm the power hungry tyrant. If kids are taught that that's all a lie and go home and tell their parents, then she's back to being the most wanted witch in Europe."
"But then why isn't she in the open yet?" Ron asked. "Other than building up her own Ministry she's still hiding away. And that Ministry of hers hasn't done anything except make it impossible to openly oppose her."
"I don't know," Harry sighed. "It doesn't make sense to me either. The only reason I can think of is maybe she's hoping to get some more information out of those spies she has here."
"Won't do her any good, seeing as we know of them," Ron pointed out. "They don't know about the Order, and we're not exactly handing out any useful information."
"I know," Harry said frowning, a thought suddenly going through his head. "But we know that Claridina isn't one to wait around for too long."
"What are you saying?" Ron asked.
"I'm saying," Harry said. "That if that's the only reason Claridina is still staying quiet, she won't be for much longer. She'll get impatient and do something more drastic."
"Then we should start feeding those spies of hers some more serious information. Maybe let slip some fake locations of the Hogwarts teachers."
"That might be a good idea," Harry said thoughtfully.
Suddenly, the door to Harry and Ron's cramped office opened and Hermione walked in. "I've just been talking to Kingsley," she said, closing the door behind her.
"What about?" Ron asked.
"Well," she started. "We don't know how serious this is, or if we're just making out too much of it, but none of the eight workers we believe Claridina's using as spies have shown up to work today."
"None of them?" Harry frowned.
She shook her head.
"That can't be a coincidence," Ron said.
"No, it can't," Harry agreed.
"But then what could it mean?" he asked.
"Do you think she's realized that they're not getting as much information as she thought?" Hermione suggested.
"Wait a minute," Harry said slowly. "That's it, Hermione. She knows!"
"Knows what?" Ron asked.
"She knows that we know about her spies!" Harry said. "She put it together! She must've figured out that everything we did leak to them turned out to be dead ends. And I'll bet anything that the reason those spies aren't here today are because Claridina's punished them for not giving her anything significant to work with!"
"You're right," Hermione said softly.
"We knew she was going to eventually take down the underground ministry," Harry continued. "She must've been holding off only so long as she thought she could seek out information."
"And now that she knows that hasn't been working," Ron said, his face turning white. "She'll have no reason to wait any longer."
"We need to have the workers evacuate," Harry said urgently. "And someone will have to run and tell Kingsley, and the Order. She could be here at any-"
Before Harry could finish his sentence, there was a deafening boom, and all three of them were thrown off their feet.
"She's here now!" Hermione exclaimed.
Harry jumped to his feet, his wand clutched tightly in his hand, and threw open the door. He saw dozens of Claridina's followers casting curse after curse at the Ministry workers.
A silvery otter darted past Harry; Hermione had just sent a message to the Order.
"Is she here?" Ron cried, sending a strong curse over to two followers who were about to attack a woman from International Magic Cooperation.
"Yes," Harry said, even though he had not seen Claridina yet. He was going only off of the intuitive feeling in his gut.
Harry's presence was noticed instantly by Claridina's followers, and the moment they registered that he was near them, they placed all of the attention on him.
"Get out of here!" Harry yelled at Ron and Hermione, narrowly blocking a curse that was headed straight for his chest. "Find Claridina!"
"Are you mad?" Ron screamed back. "You're outnumbered about sixty to one right now!"
"He's right, Harry!" Hermione yelled, sending a Stunning spell so powerful that it knocked ten of the followers into a wall. "We're staying to help you!"
Before Harry could protest any further, another series of Stunning spells came towards the followers from behind the trio. Harry quickly glanced over his shoulder and saw Bill, Charlie, Percy and George.
"Rest of us are here too!" Bill yelled, shooting a curse at a particularly large follower. "They went down further! They reckoned they spotted her!"
"Right!" Harry yelled back. Leaving the four Weasley brothers to fight the remaining followers, him, Ron and Hermione rushed over to the staircase and flew down to the next floor.
It was more chaotic down here then it had been upstairs, if that was even possible. The few workers who had not fled were battling with Claridina's followers, and he spotted more Order members fighting as well.
And then he spotted her. A good distance from any of the fighting, Claridina stood, her wand out and pointed to something in the corner.
"Harry!" Mr. Weasley called, blocking a curse that was sent his way just in time. "Get to her! We'll hold them off!"
Wasting no time, Harry ran through the fighting, dodging spells and fighters, towards Claridina.
"Avada Kedavra!" he screamed the second that he was close enough to get a good enough aim.
Claridina, her reflexes clearly working to their peak, quickly moved out of the way. Harry expected her to begin to duel, but instead, she turned her attention back to the corner where her wand was pointed; Harry still wasn't close enough to see what she was pointing to.
"Avad-" Harry started again, but before he could finish, Claridina had uttered the same phrase, and a blinding flash of green light erupted from her wand towards the corner. Harry heard a scream. A familiar scream; one that made his breathing shaky as his brain registered who it belonged to.
Forgetting about Claridina, Harry rushed forward, finally able to see what she had been aiming at in the corner.
Slumped down against the wall, bloody and lifeless, was Kingsley Shacklebolt's body.