Although difficult, getting into the Ministry turned out to be a great deal smoother than I expected. The trio had their own method of getting in, and whilst mine was similar, I went in much earlier than they were scheduled to arrive. The Ministry was quieter in the early hours of the morning, and it suited me perfectly for what I needed to get done before I actually went ahead with my plan, which was to establish contacts within the Ministry. There were very few people whom I could think of as even remotely trustworthy, but they were there. Bones was one, to begin with, though she had been shunted out of office according to the Order's information, but she was still working for the Ministry. Amos Diggory was another, as I felt that Cedric would have talked to him about what was going on and he was far too clever to be fooled, I just hoped his father would be in a listening mood. There were several names on my list, including ones I wanted to follow and investigate, one of them being none other than Percy Weasley.
I had purposefully omitted this part of my plan on account that Ron would have probably called me mental to even begin to think that Percy would ever betray the Ministry, but once again, I knew that Percy was clever. He was insightful, and far too aware to be completely bamboozled by everything that was happening around here, all the changes in the Ministry, and as much of a pretentious prick he was, he wasn't an idiot. He had no such prejudices against the muggle-borns of our world, and I refused to believe that he would be corrupted into thinking along their lines. Still, it was worth at least finding him and seeing what he was about.
The earliness of the day allowed me to move about freely, completely invisible to the naked eye whilst inspecting the security measures. They were extensive and thorough, and they would detect me walking through the golden gates into the Atrium even if I were invisible, so I had to plan accordingly. Taking some polyjuice potion to change my appearance into that of a random stranger I had plucked a hair from off the streets in London, I removed the spell and walked forwards to join the crowd, announcing myself as a muggle-born come to register. I was immediately allowed through and asked numerous questions, so I gave a name from one of the many witches and families I had helped smuggle out of Britain, knowing that they were completely safe, then proceeded to be escorted to the downstairs hearing rooms to face interrogation.
They took my false wand that Fred and George had developed, one of their newer versions which when waved, would actually produce a few sparks to make them believable and pass any inspection. It worked perfectly, so I went on through with my real wand tucked up my sleeve and two wizards walked me towards the lifts. They made room and emptied out one of them so that we were perfectly alone, allowing me to slip my wand free and moderate their memories so they completely forgot about me and instead, went to go find out where they kept the Muggle Registry for me so that they could help me out later.
Smiling to myself, I pushed the short, mousy brown hair back from my face in a gesture that was rather my own, though it felt strange not to be met with a head full of ebony curls. Brushing it off, I pressed the button for one of the upper floors, checking my charm bracelet to see how much time I had before I'd need a refill of the potion. Forty-five minutes. Tapping the charm again, the time vanished as the lift swept upwards to a different floor, remembering that Amos Diggory had been introduced as working for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Soon enough I had found him.
He looked a great deal less cheerful than I remembered him, the ruddy complexion having turned sallow and his plump figure having lost a great deal of its weight. I felt a little sorry for him. Standing there, invisible, I observed Amos for a little while, overheard his conversations and was glad to find that there were plenty of mutterings of discontent, but it seemed to me like Amos wasn't the type of person who would stick his neck out for others. He was afraid, and that fear was enough to keep him in line, so I decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to try and recruit him. We needed solid, completely trustworthy people that we could count on to not betray anything. It was a shame, but in a stroke of genius, I quickly wrote a letter on some parchment, borrowing a quill and ink from a different station then sealed it shut with wax and addressed it to Cedric, knowing that he would be more than willing to cooperate. I just didn't know where he was. I had a feeling he'd still be living with his parents, he had been last time we'd talked, though our letters had fallen silent after I had gone travelling on my mission for Dumbledore.
It was worth a shot at least, so after sealing and addressing the letter, I then tucked it into Amos's bag so that he would end up taking it home and hoped for the best. Moving on, I then studied and observed a great number of people, either striking their names off my mental list or upon finding them to be feasible allies, I would make contact by leaving a charmed copy of 'The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore' either on their desks or in their bags for them to find, and should they open it, discover a coded message inside.
Everything had been carefully planned, and I was heartened by the number of people who had seemed like good allies in the making. Before I knew it, I'd been at the Ministry for over three hours, and soon enough it would be the general opening time for the majority of workers to come flooding through the Atrium. I had saved Percy for last, and as I followed him around, I found him to be quiet and subdued. He remained a dedicated worker, but I noticed a distinctive lack of enthusiasm for his job now, and every moment I observed him, I was increasingly convinced that he knew exactly what was going on and didn't agree with it, but had no choice but to keep his head down. So, rather than a book, I left him a note and charmed it to be disguised as something I hoped he would recognise. A Head Boy badge.
Tucking it into the bag he carried around with him everywhere as he had his nose buried into some papers he was reading thoroughly, I prayed he would find it, pick it up, then have the badge transform itself back into the letter for him to read. I'd charmed it to react only to his fingerprints, taking them off a mug of coffee he'd drunk at his desk. I was rather impressed with myself, and now having completed the first aim of my trip here, I proceeded with the second. Harry and the others should be here by now, so I went in search of those two escorts I had modified earlier and they promptly told me all about the Muggle Registry and where it was kept.
Unfortunately, the full copy was kept in the Minister's office, including the original list of all future muggle-born children which were currently being watched but were not yet old enough to attend Hogwarts. This made things a little trickier, as I expected that nowhere would be kept quite as safe as the Minister of Magic's office, but I was determined to follow through with my plan, and I set out to find him and his office. Along the way, I happened to run into Arthur Weasley in the Atrium, with made me grin even before I knew what I was doing.
We bumped into each other, our shoulders connecting and Arthur dropped his briefcase, papers flying everywhere as I gasped. "Oh my! Goodness me, I'm so sorry, how clumsy I am. Here, allow me to help you." I insisted as Arthur frowned at me, unable to recognise who I was due to the fact that I had refilled myself with the polyjuice potion and was now a read headed woman, the hair taken from another stranger off the street.
"Do I know you?" He asked me with a frown so I flashed him a grin.
"No, not at all. I'm new here, though I do believe we have a mutual friend. Well, your son, actually. I've been a dear friend of Percy's for…oh let's say…eight years now? Almost to the day, we met yesterday eight years ago when we were off to Hogwarts, it was my first year then, we got acquainted on the journey where I also met your delightfully devilish twin boys." It took a moment as I continued to rifle through papers, sorting them neatly and tucking them back into the briefcase by hand as to give us more time to speak. When Arthur's face brightened whilst his jaw dropped, I winked at him. "Have a pleasant morning, Mr Weasley. I expect you'll hear from me soon." With a wave of my wand, I returned all the rest of the papers back into the briefcase, having neatly arranged them into order then snapped the case shut, standing up as Arthur also climbed to his feet and as I handed the case over, I then leaned forwards to kiss his cheek. "Be careful. They are watching you still. Ron is safe." I whispered to him in warning, my lips barely moving before I was then gone, vanished from sight where Arthur had to carry on about his day whilst fighting to keep his expression straight.
I needed to give him the warning, knowing that today was an exceedingly dangerous day to be linked with any of us, and I had a feeling that Voldemort would be of the same mind. Arthur couldn't afford to relax in his appearance of having nothing to do with Dumbledore or Harry as of this moment, they would continue watching him until…well. Forever, probably. I had noticed recently Arthur had been trying to reach out to us in the Order, but it wasn't for an emergency, he just wanted news. It felt awful having to cut off their messages to make sure that they didn't get found out, I'd charged Crookshanks with keeping an eye on them and keeping any letters from actually leaving their house, which wasn't difficult considering it was Errol they had to use.
He was an expert now at keep tabs on the movements of the Weasley family, and occasionally I would meet up with him in the village near the Burrow and he'd pass on any information I needed, giving me updates as we communicated through our feline instincts. He really wasn't an ordinary cat, I understood him better and better every time we conversed. I had fingers practically in every pie, and sometimes it felt a little overwhelming keeping track of everything, but then Dumbledore's last words would come to mind, the insinuation that he believed I was capable of almost anything, and I would plough on ahead.
Now I focused on getting to the Minister's office, and I was in luck. He was heading that way right now, so with a disillusionment charm on myself and muffling my footsteps, I followed him. He was dark haired though the streaks of silver alluded to his age, and as the long robes he wore swept rather gracefully behind him, I had to be careful not to tread on the hem as I kept close to him. He entered his office but closed the door so quickly that I only just reached it before it was slammed closed against me. Drat.
I had to wait, patiently stalking outside in order to wait for either him to come out or someone else to go in. Just as I was about to reach the point of hurrying things along myself, one of the clerks approached and knocked the door, requesting permission to enter. I went in with them, my hand stuffed into my pocket in order to hold the gold token I'd charmed but it was cold in my grasp, signalling no message as of yet from the others. Pius Thicknesse spoke in a low tone, perusing through the reports and occasionally made a mark somewhere with the scratch of his quill making the loudest sound of all as I searched the many drawers and files until I had found what I was looking for.
A quick appraisal told me that there were magical enchantments to ward off the drawer containing all the muggle-born information being opened by anyone other than Thicknesse himself. I needed some time to influence the charm, but it didn't seem impossible to do. I just needed everyone else out of the office. With a devilish smirk, I looked up at the ceiling. Without uttering a word, I swirled my wand which began to churn up a thick, dark cloud above Thicknesse's head, and with a rumble of thunder, a sudden downpour flooded the office, making him cry out and leap from his desk in order to rush out the door, bellowing. "RAIN IN MY OFFICE! GET MAGICAL MAINTENANCE UP HERE!" Snorting to myself, I set to work, meddling with the charm on the door, it took a good couple of minutes before I was able to wrench it open and hurriedly place an impervious charm on all the parchment within. I grabbed the register, the lists of underage muggle-borns as well as everything else that looked remotely useful then stuffed everything into my bag and slammed the drawer shut before bolting from the office. Before I stepped out onto the lush red carpet, I dried myself off as not to leave footprints and not a second later, Magical Maintenance appeared. I made myself scarce, leaving before anyone could know what had happened and just as I entered the lift, I felt the token in my pocket grow hot and heavy so I picked it up, a single word flashing before my eyes. Swamp.
Distraction it was. The moment I stepped out into the Atrium, I discreetly set off some firecrackers and soon enough, there was a mass confusion of people screaming and running as various fireworks started to dance and explode all over the place. Adding fuel to the fire, I then made sure to blow up the horrifying grand statue in the middle of the Atrium, shattering the faces of the witch and wizard so that their thrones of muggles collapsed, causing more people to scream. Through the confusion, I saw that they were starting to seal off the exits so I fired off Confundus Charms at several of the Ministry officials so that they forgot what they were doing and left a few of the exits open and I marked them quickly with an 'X' above them.
That's when Harry, still under the effects of the polyjuice potion, came striding into the Atrium with an entire bunch of muggle borns behind him. The only reason I knew it was Harry was because of the way he walked, and because I recognised the person as Runcorn, someone who we knew to be a muggle-born hunter, and he would have no reason to be leading such a group to safety. Ergo, it was Harry. Hermione must be the rather nervous looking witch behind him, and I had a feeling Ron was the one soaked in water. I'd ask questions later. "STOP!" The deep bellow carried out and had an immediate effect, allowing me to rush over to Harry and quickly whisper as I strode alongside him.
"I've marked the open exits. Leave these people to me, I'll get them all to safety with the Order. You three need to escape. Now. They know we're here." Nodding his head, Harry took the lead as we went to the nearest unsealed exit where a balding wizard was stood, having frozen in his movement to seal up the exit in place of the rather confused witch who was blinking and rubbing her head rather stupidly, wand still in hand.
"What's up, Albert?" Nervously glancing between Harry and I, I felt rather glad that Harry had luckily chosen to impersonate such an intimidating person.
"This lot need to leave before you seal the exits." Speaking clearly and with a great deal of authority, the balding wizard tried to explain that they had orders to seal up the exits and not to let anyone pass, but Harry cleanly cut over him in order to snarl. "Are you contradicting me? Would you like me to have your family tree examined, like I had Dirk Cresswell's?"
"Sorry! I didn't mean nothing, Albert, but I thought…I thought they were in for questioning and…"
"Their blood is pure. Purer than many of yours, I daresay. Off you go." He then directed the muggle-born witches and wizards, all of whom looked exceedingly frightened. "Follow my associate here, she will direct you from this point onwards." Turning around I gave the biggest grin I could possibly manage and waved to them all.
"Hello! Now if you would kindly proceed to the exits here, there and to the right, we can go up topside and see about getting you all home, alright? Be certain to wait for everyone else and for me, otherwise you might run into a spot of trouble." I directed and began to usher people through and there was no hesitation to get out of the Ministry, some of them barely even waiting for the previous person to disappear before stepping into the fireplaces to head on up. Everything was going smoothly, though others were whispering in confusion until a loud voice cut across them all.
"Mary!" The woman, who until this point had been clinging onto Ron, now looked over her shoulder to find her real husband behind her, exiting a lift.
"R-Reg?" Ron swore and quickly started to detangle himself from her and, seeing that we were now found out, I yelled for the others to get moving as someone came running towards us with a powerful bellow.
"Seal the exit! SEAL IT!"
"Stupefy!" Stunning the balding wizard and everyone rushed to get into the lifts as the rest began to be sealed. "You three, go now!" I grabbed Hermione who was closest and practically flung her into the fireplace as I then began to rattle off a multitude of spells, releasing more fireworks and explosions of brightly coloured powdery clouds to obscure people's vision, though the one who had shouted still came running straight for us. Yaxley, I believe. Harry refused to leave without me, grabbing me by the waist and dragging me into the hearth as I fired off a final spell before we both then staggered out of the toilet, the muggle-borns still waiting for us as I sucked in a deep breath. "Hurry! All of you grab onto one another, quickly! I'm going to disapparate with you all, you three, you have to go…" No sooner were the words out of my mouth they were grabbing hold of one another as someone else followed us out of the toilet and I turned just as I grabbed onto Mrs Cattermole, seeing Yaxley dive for Harry, Ron and Hermione who had now lost their disguises. "NO!" The four of them disappeared as they disapparated and, knowing right then I could do nothing, I disapparated too.
I brought them to the safe house where I was the Secret Keeper, ushering them inside though most of them were sobbing and trying to tell me about their families, their children. "Alright, ALRIGHT! We're getting to that. Those of you who don't need to collect family members, bugger off down there and you'll be seen to, the rest of you, gather around." I organised them as quickly as possible as several members of the Order came running. Never had I got people in line so quickly, having them disapparate with the muggle-borns back to their houses in order to collect their family. "You are to grab your children, your partners, whoever is in the house and nothing else. Do not pack clothes or personal belongings, you won't have time before the Ministry gets to you. Now go! Go!"
Believing firmly that the Ministry would still be in an uproar over the fact that both the Minister's and Umbridge's office had been ransacked, and the fact that Harry Potter had been seen in the Ministry meant that these muggle-borns would slip by unnoticed, since there were bigger fish to fry. "Fawkes!" He appeared in a burst of flames and I immediately grabbed onto him, letting him carry me directly into the house at Grimmauld Place where I could hear someone screaming. Kreacher. With my wand in my hand I ran into the kitchen to find Yaxley torturing my elf, which caused a thunderous outcry of rage and fury which manifested itself into a furious roar. Yaxley struck the wall so hard that I heard several bones crack but I ignored him, going to Kreacher in order to heal him and get him upright. "Kreacher! Are you alright? Speak to me, if you can."
"Kreacher is well, Mistress. Kreacher is only sorry he did not properly dispose of the intruder, but Kreacher was caught by surprise. Where is Master Harry and his friends?" Kreacher breathed heavily as I looked around with worry.
"They didn't come back? They must have disapparated again after accidentally showing Yaxley the door. He's become one of the Secret Keepers, which means this house won't be safe so long as he remembers…"
"Shall Kreacher deal with the intruder for you, mistress?" Kreacher offered but I had him sit down and rest for a moment, even bringing him a cup of tea to settle his nerves as Fawkes swooped in and settled on the table.
"Any sight of them?" Shaking his head, the house was empty save for us. "Damn it! I hope they got the locket out, otherwise…" I dared not even think about the possibility of failure. "Kreacher, are you feeling better now?"
"Much better, mistress." He confirmed, sliding down off his chair and looked at me in order to await further instruction as I thought carefully.
"We'll wipe his memory, but then we'll clear the house and seal it just in case he's made to remember somehow. I know that he can torture the memory out of someone." I was so angry and worried that I didn't even want to speak Voldemort's name, hissing slightly as I then grit my teeth. "Will you be safe if you go back to Hogwarts, Kreacher? Only, I could really do with having someone on the inside so I know what's going on, and I'd like to check up on my friends there, as well as the teachers. I'm sure they won't bother you, but your safety is a top priority, so don't allow yourself to get caught or injured by some risky venture." I began to list off and Kreacher dutifully bowed.
"I will go wherever Mistress Mia can make use of me. I am happy to serve."
"Oh, you really are such a wonderful house-elf." I sighed, some of my anger fleeing as Kreacher then looked up and grinned at me toothily, making me notice that several of his teeth were missing from having fallen out owing to age. "Alright, let's get to work. Fawkes? Keep an eye out the front for me, let me know if someone tries to get in." Flying off to follow my instructions, Kreacher and I then proceeded to seal up all the rooms with magic, shutting every door so that everything would be properly protected this time as I also gathered up my things and packed them away, still carrying the Muggle Registry in my bag. I needed to get it to Moody and quickly. So, after taking care of the house and wiping Yaxley's memory, Kreacher also added some of his own magic to confuse the Death Eater before together, we took him to another random spot in the countryside and dumped him there to wake up on his own, before we then went our separate ways.
I set up a schedule with Kreacher so that he could be my spy within Hogwarts before I travelled with Fawkes in order to hand over the Registry I had managed to steal, earning high praise from my dad and Moody when I turned up with it. "Excellent Mia!" Dad grinned but the expression quickly dropped when he saw my expression. "What happened? Did something go wrong?"
"A little, Harry and the others were followed out by a Death Eater, Yaxley, who got into Grimmauld Place. I've dealt with it and sealed up the house, but no one can go back there now. Even with his memory altered, it might resurface and it's not worth the risk. The others got away, I think, but they're not answering the mirror even though I've been yelling at it." I worried, showing dad the mirror so he took it off me and promised to keep trying whilst I got some much needed rest. I tried to protest since there was just so much to do, but Moody promptly clamped his hand down on my shoulder and steered me away to one of the camp beds in order to rest, telling me I was no good to anyone half dead on my feet.
So I resigned myself to rest, hoping for better news in the morning and once I'd settled down, Fawkes flew down to nestle with me, warm wings spread across me like a blanket and as I listened to the soft murmur of his birdsong, I soon found myself in a deep sleep.