Welcome to my first Fanfic everyone. Have had this idea of a story kicking around in my head for a few years and with this COVID-19 crud going around the world, I find myself confined to my home for the foreseeable future. I don't have any idea how long this story will be, but let's see where it will take us. Please be kind, and would appreciate any constructive criticism as I go along in writing more of this. As you can imagine I do not own Harry Potter, or the universe created by J.K. Rowling, I just enjoy playing in the sandbox, coming up with my own ideas along the way. Without further or do:
The Emperor's Revenge:
Chapter One – The Fall
"It's no good Harry! The Death Eaters have closed off this corridor as well!"
"No shite Ron, tell me something I don't know." As Harry ducked behind a monument, barely missing a rather nasty curse that would have likely cut his head off at the neck.
"Would the two of you quit your bickering and get your shields up?" Responded Hermione.
It was hell all around the three fellow former Gryffindors. They were trapped in a hallway deep in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic. They had attempted to break into the Ministry to infiltrate the Department of Records, only to discover that it had been relocated by the shadow Minister of Magic, Lord Voldemort.
It had recently been relocated to floors below the Ministry, secure and hidden away from the wizarding public. It was in this department that secret trials were being held, where Blood-Purists, led by one Delores Jane Umbridge (sometimes referred to as the pink toad). These trials were nothing more than a kangaroo court where innocent Muggleborns and sometimes low society ranking half-bloods were accused of various crimes and misdemeanors they could not have possibly commit and have them hauled away to an unknown site, disappearing from the rest of the world. Within the next month they would be forgotten until their name appeared as another poor innocent would later be charged for the previous person's disappearing.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione mission had been three-fold. First was to determine where the missing wizards and witches were executed or dragged off to a concentration camp. If the later was true, then they would hopefully find that camp's location and smuggle its location to the resistance. The third was to destroy the other lists of Muggleborn and Half-blood witches and wizards so that Voldemort's administration could not use them going forward, even if it meant destroying the whole department and all of it's records.
At first, getting into the Ministry had been fairly easy. Polyjuicing themselves, they had made it past the first level of security. However, when they discovered that the department had been relocated, things went from bad to worse. They had not been good enough to fool the people that they were attempting to imitate, and an alarm was raised when an errant conversation that Ron had been trying to ignore was later realized to be a veiled screening that Death Eaters gave to regular staff to verify allegiance and identity. Before Ron could stun the man, a silent alarm was triggered, and all hell broke loose.
The section that they were in was quickly quarantined and a search party had begun roaming the halls of the ministry looking for the trio. They were able to dodge some parties, and dispatch others but with every passing minute, there would be more death eaters entering the hallways in the subterranean network of passages that made up the Ministry's interior, trying to flush out the perpetrators. After about ten minutes of dodging patrols, and silently putting down those that they could not avoid, the Polyjuice wore off, as their vigilance did not extend to their timekeeping. As they were momentarily incapacitated as their bodies morphed back into themselves, all hell really broke loose.
An alarm rang out in the halls notifying all that the intruders had been identified as the Chosen One and the other members of the famous/infamous Golden Trio. Snatchers, Death Eaters, and all other miscreants began to flood the basement of the Ministry as they sought to overwhelm and hopefully capture and/or kill the trio for their Dark Lord. What was desperate already reached fevered pitches as they found themselves surrounded on both sides of a long corridor that was flanked by statues of great wizards past. Harry, Hermione, and Ron attempted to hide behind what they could, deflecting the beams of light and sound that whizzed by their heads, the air thick and charged with ozone to the point that it was becoming hard to breathe, even with all the energy and effort they were exerting. After a while, the trio was doing less and less retaliating, and more deflecting what spells they could and redirecting them to the other side.
At one point, there was a brief pause on one side of the hallway, and the trio hoped that the attackers were drawing back from their own exertions, but this was not the case. There was a cry of five Bombarda Maximas' at once, trying to take out the group of friends with one massive push. Harry, to his credit, summoned the strongest shield that he knew, yelling "Protego Maximus!" The spell held, and deflected all of the spells, but Harry had been ever so slightly off in the aim of his spherical shield. Rather than reflecting the spells back towards the attackers at the end of the hallway, the five beams of light were deflected downwards towards their feet. While the trio was protected from the spells, the floor beneath them was not. With a mighty explosion, the floor all but disintegrated beneath their feet, a chasm opened and they fell – swallowed up by it's blackness.