Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to JK Rowling.

From the last chapter:

For the first time, the prime minister of Britain spoke up. "I'm afraid it's too late." He pointed out the small window on the opposite side of the room. "A bunch of chaps with wooden sticks have just popped in."

Kingsley rushed across the room. Seven aurors fanned out around the bottom of the hill. He stifled an urge to groan. They had only a few minutes before they were trapped.

Chapter 35

"Dear me, dear me," Xenophilius muttered as he looked over Kingsley's shoulder at the spreading aurors below. "Perhaps if I offer them tea, we can sort this out like civilized people."

Kingsley opened his mouth to reply, but could find no way to persuade the eccentric man next to him the aurors looked more likely to shoot spells first and ask questions later. He shook his head and drew his wand. "Do you have any brooms-"

"THIS IS AUROR DAWLISH. TURN IN KINGSLEY SHACKLEBOLT AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED."

Kingsley winced as the magically amplified voice shook the walls of the rook-shaped house. He'd never been on the receiving end of that particular spell, and he could now testify as to its effectiveness. His three companions looked terrified. Well, perhaps not Luna. She was calmly rifling through her trunk, butterbeer caps spilling onto the floor as she rooted through her clothing.

Butterbeer caps! Kingsley scooped up a large handful of the things, ran over to the still open owl-loading window, and began tossing the caps in the air. He hit each one with an engorgement charm. Then, as the cap expanded to the size of a small horse, he cast in rapid succession a sharpening charm he used daily on his shaving razor and an attraction charm, concentrating carefully during the latter spell on the shining auror's badge. Every active auror was required to one wear on his official robes. Kingsley's grin turned savage for a moment. He'd left his badge and work robes back at his flat.

One bottle cap after another hit the ground and rolled after the aurors. Panicking, aurors dove to the side while casting exploding charms to blew holes in the caps, but that didn't stop them. The smart aurors rolled to their feet immediately and continued blasting away at the caps.

All of them weren't smart.

"I'll have to remember that use for bottle caps. Did you know they make excellent jewelry?" Luna asked.

Kingsley let out a bark of laughter. "We have a few more minutes, now." As he spoke, he attempted to apparate to the other side of the room, without luck. "Anti-apparation spells are in place. We might be able to escape on broom if we've got two here."

Luna shook her head. "That's what I was searching for. We had brooms, but on our last trip we left them by a tree." She shrugged. "Two piles of ash were all that was left when we came back."

Xenophilius nodded his head vigorously. "No doubt the crumple-horned snorkack drained all the the magic out of it. All the life, even."

Kingsley sucked in a deep breath between his teeth. A simple no would have done the job. He'd asked a question, yes, but they seemed to have no concept of how little time they had. He glanced out the window. His bottle caps were still spinning toward the nearest auror's badge they could find, albeit a touch wobbly. Holes littered the caps, and smoke belched upward from a few of them.

As he turned back, he saw Claxton Proudfoot tearing off his auror's robes as he ran, tumbled, and rolled out of the way of the razor sharp edges of a particularly persistent bottle cap. He didn't have long before the rest followed suit.

For good measure, Kingsley tossed out a few more caps and enchanted them, his mind racing to figure out a way to move three inexperienced people – one of whom was a muggle.

A stray though flittered through his mind for a brief moment. If only this house had legs, like the house of the witch Baba Yaga, then I could tell it to move forward. Exhilaration at the fantastical notion made his blood pump faster through his veins, and he whirled around. "Xenophilius, is your house magical enough that we can transfigure limbs onto it?"

Often the dwelling places of magical inhabitants tended to become a bit magical themselves. Hogwarts was a prime example of this. Generations of young magical folk had slowly raised the magic level in the building to the point the castle could shift the stairways herself.

Xenophilius raised his eyebrows with surprise. "It should be. This house used to be a wizarding chess rook after all, but it's magical energy to move ran out. I first had this house down by the stream near the village. The muggles were a bit perturbed when I moved this beauty up here, but the ministry took care of that! The house barely made it up the hill before the magic in it expired."

Kingsley barely gave a thought to the havoc the Lovegoods must have wreaked throughout the muggle countryside that day. He turned to Luna. "Stand to the side of those stairs and stupefy anyone who comes up." He knew she'd had experience fighting with Harry. If he'd asked her father, he most likely would invite the aurors to tea instead.

Luna nodded and pulled her wand out from behind her ear, slipped next to the stairs and stared intently at the curving wall of the staircase. Kingsley nodded with approval. With the amount of sunlight streaming in through the downstairs windows, anyone coming up the spiral staircase would advertise their presence with a shadow.

As Kingsley turned back to Xenophilius, his eyes narrowed as they fell on the glittering erumpant horn. Not many knew that erumpant liquid was explosive due to the high concentration of magic stored in the viscous gel inside. If they could get the house to recharge on that magic without blowing up, they just might get out of this alive.

He explained his plan to Xenophilius, who exclaimed with childlike enthusiasm at the challenge involved. Kingsley repressed an aggravated sigh. After all, he got the Lovegoods into this situation. It was his responsibility to help them out. At least the prime minister knew enough of his helplessness in this magical situation to avoid bothering him.

Xenophilius tapped the area around the erumpant horn with his wand while speaking to himself. "Hmm. A magical conduit between the horn and the house. It's already mounted on the wall. If I remove the wood behind it and fuse the actual horn into the wall itself without jostling it, this horn here from a crumple-horned snorkack might save us all!"

Kingsley rolled his eyes at his insistence it was from the crumple-horned snorkack and moved to the stairs. With his wand at the ready to stun any auror creeping up the stairs, his ears strained to hear any sounds from the house below. A small squeak from door hinges followed by a quiet thud confirmed his suspicions. There was at least one auror in the house.

The sharp sound of metal on stone followed by a reverberating thunk when that same large object embedded itself into the door made him smile. Opening the door would be exceedingly difficult now, especially if they were lucky enough that the bottle cap rammed into both the door and the door frame. They'd figure out how to get out later.

He caught Luna's eye and gestured toward her trunk with his free hand. "Draught of living death!" He whispered, almost inaudibly. Her eyes looked confused for a moment before widening in comprehension. As she hurried away, he focused again on the wrought-iron staircase in front of him. Aiming carefully, he transfigured the surface of the dark railing into highly polished silver.

The flicker of a shadow reflected off the newly polished silver, and Kingsley threw himself to the ground. As luck would have it, he'd shaved his head that morning. The lack of an extra inch of hair saved him as a red beam reflected off the railing, nearly skimmed the bare surface of his head and smashed into the wall behind him.

Thankfully, the erumpant horn was not on the wall opposite the stairs, else little bits of him and his fellow fugitives would be landing near the Weasley and Diggory houses right about now.

Kingsley finished his fall and landed hard on the ground with his wand arm extended, the air whooshing out of his lungs on impact. He didn't make any effort to quiet the noise. If he sounded stunned, the ruse might fool Claxton, who'd never been cautious enough. Perhaps that wasn't his fault - he hadn't been trained by Mad-eye Moody, after all.

Sure enough, he saw Claxton Proudfoot's distorted reflection in a bit of the polished silver railing at the same time another stupefy shot harmlessly over his head. Kingsley cast a silent stupefy back at the slowly moving reflection. His stunner was too wide for the delicate curling decorations of the stairway rail. Part of the moving red beam passed through the decorative work, while part of the spell hit the metal squarely and reflected off at an angle at the lone auror.

Several thuds sounded as Claxton rolled down the stairs and landed in a heap. Kingsley carefully examined the distorted reflections on the transfigured metal as he crept downward. Claxton was indeed alone. He cast a locking charm on the door, stupefied the auror at his feet again to ensure he got a full dose of the spell, and ran back upstairs. If the aurors broke the windows to get in, he'd have to do this all over again. He had to take care of them quickly.

Just as he caught a glimpse of the second floor landing a dark blur caused Kingsley to duck to the side. A pewter dragon paper weight smashed against his shoulder. Not expecting friendly fire, he threw himself on the stairs as he called out, "It's me, Kingsley!"

The prime minister cleared his throat sheepishly. "I'm terribly sorry. Just trying to take precautions, you know."

Yes, Kingsley did know. He ignored the soreness from his bruised shoulder. He supposed he was lucky that Xenophilius hadn't chucked the erumpant horn at him.

"Here's our draught of sleeping death." Luna announced and held out two small flasks to him as he stepped out onto the second floor. Clothes and books littered the ground around her school trunk. "There's not enough for all of us to take, though."

Kingsley smiled at her. "It's not for us." He grabbed the bottles and sprinted to the open owl-ledge window. With a glance he checked that the window could be securely shut and locked. That would be crucial for his plan. He tapped one potion bottle while whispering a time-delayed explosion charm and tossed it out the window near several regrouping aurors.

He laughed out loud as Dawlish shot a reducto at the potion, exploding it prematurely and showering the group with a fine mist of draught. Kingsley slammed shut the window and watched as Dawlish took one breath, then two, swayed woozily to one side and fell face forward in the thick grass.

Without waiting to watch the others, Kingsley rushed to the other window and tossed out the second bottle near the last group of aurors. He'd been lucky that he'd caught them while they were regrouping. If they had spread out again, the draught of living death mist might have been too diluted to have an effect. As it was, this would only knock them out for a short time. The sopophorous bean in the brew had that effect, whether inhaled or swallowed. For once, Kingsley was grateful to Horace Slughorn for his potion classes decades ago.

This time, the second bottle hit the ground before exploding on impact. He'd miscalculated how long it took for a the bottle to fall. Thankfully, the other three aurors lost consciousness, although Savage managed to nearly make it to the house before collapsing.

He turned around as Xenophilius let out a shout of triumph. "It worked?"

"Yes, my good man, it worked!" Xenophilius threw both arms up in the air in his excitement. "Look, you can see the transfer of the magical energy from the horn to the house!"

Kingsley looked closer. The iridescent glitter of the horn indeed was transferring to the house, but slowly. As he watched, the sparkle inched outward. "Perhaps we should abandon the house. It may take longer than we have to rejuvenate the magical energy lines of the house."

Xenophilius gasped with dismay. "How will we disseminate information to the good public if we abandon it? Are you that ready to give up the good fight?"

I'd rather escape with my life intact, thank you very much. Kingsley was a bit irritated at the intimation of cowardice. "If you can speed up the transfer, then I'll see what I can do." He sighed. He had to figure out what to do with his friends, anyway. The public needed protectors, but at this rate, they'd need protection from the aurors themselves. Unless he took them with him. But then Kingsley would have to pick up their families, else they'd be used as hostages against the aurors by Voldemort.

"Excellent! I'll just send a message off to the Diggorys to tell them to prepare for pick up. Let's say, half an hour?"

Kingsley wanted to groan and hide his head in his hands. Dealing with Xenophilius was like trying to corral a heard of rampaging hippogriffs. It was impossible. He managed to keep his face straight as he said, "Why the Diggorys?"

"They're my neighbors, of course. Very good people. It was horribly sad when their son died, killed by You-Know-Who. I'm sure they want to fight him." As Xenophilius spoke, he waved his wand in a complicated runic pattern over the erumpant horn. Instead of inching along, the glittering light began flooding out by the yard.

"We still have to figure out transport to where we're going," Kingsley called over his shoulder as he took the stairs two-by-two.

"No problem! We'll just take the house!" Xenophilius' voice floated downstairs as Kingsley prepared to break a window to retrieve the aurors. "This rook had invisibility charms on it before I turned it into a house. It was part of a disappearing chess set some wizard used to bait muggles. If that charm hadn't lost it's power before I finished moving this place the first time, the ministry would never have had to obliviate all those muggles!"

Kingsley shook his head as he quickly tied up and gathered the aurors, floating them one by one into the house with mobilicorpus. A few bandages stemmed the worst of the bleeding on the aurors unfortunate enough to have direct contact with the enhanced butterbeer caps. What Harry Potter would think when he showed up with all these people, their families, and a house in tow, he had no idea. He just hoped they had enough food to feed everyone there.

He repaired the window and then stumbled as the house shuddered and raised itself off its foundation. Houses shouldn't move like this, Kingsley told himself as the house glided slowly down the hill in the direction of the Diggorys.

He looked out the front window and braced himself for impact. A boulder loomed in front of him. Kingsley lost his feet entirely as the house took a quick jog to the right before straightening out. Plates flew out of the kitchen cupboards on the wall and smashed to the ground, littering the floor with debris.

Luna jogged down the stairs. "What an excellent ride this is!" She flicked her wand and repaired the dishes, sending them back into the cupboards and locking the doors.

This time Kingsley really did groan. This was worse than riding the Knight bus. The thought of traveling hundreds of miles in this thing turned his stomach. "Can we raise this thing up a bit? Like a hundred feet?" In his mind's eye, he could see the havoc the invisible house would leave in its wake. Downed power lines, broken telephone poles. Not that it mattered to the muggles with their electricity out. But that trail of devastation could lead an alert wizard right to them.

"Of course!" Xenophilius' voice trickled down the stairs. "After we leave the Diggorys, I'll raise this pretty little thing high up in the air. It can even fly on its side, you know!"

Kingsley cast about for a good place to strap himself in – the silver stair railing seemed promising. He was beginning to regret his impulse to inform the wizarding populace of just who Alrick Armstrong really was.

To be continued...