Chapter Nine: Mayhem in the Ministry

'During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.' -George Orwell

Hailey stepped out of the Floo in the Ministry Atrium, wrestling with the overwhelming desire to hex Cornelius Fudge. For years she had thought the man to be an annoyance, had frowned to herself when he made an uncharitable comment about a muggle-born or a Squib, but at the same time had managed to disregard most of it. He may not be the best Minister we have had, she had thought, but at the very least he is not the worst.

Now she was not so sure. Her opinion of the Minister had changed over the years, especially with his behaviour as of late. By refusing to even entertain the notion that Voldemort had returned he was endangering the lives of those he had sworn to protect. He was behaving injudiciously, unwilling or unable to consider the consequences of his actions.

Having neither the patience to wait for the lift nor endure the trepidatious silence of those on it, Hailey marched up the stairs to the fifth floor to the Minister's office; she hoped Fudge was there and not at his residence at Upping Street.

Dolores Umbridge may have been the one who signed the order, but Hailey did not believe for a second that Cornelius Fudge was uninvolved. He was, after all, responsible for appointing Umbridge to head the Committee for the Assurance of Ethics and Accountability of Ministry Employees: the three-person committee responsible for receiving the complaints on those who supposedly broke Fudge's edict and then firing the employee in question (after allegedly reviewing the evidence, of course). Not to mention that Harry Potter's silence would have benefited him most of all.

Hailey flung open the door to the Department of International Magical Cooperation and, storming past Fudge's secretary, barged into Cornelius's office.

A young girl, her arms full of scrolls and files and envelopes, started at the intrusion and dropped the tea she was handing the Minister. Fudge leapt to his feet with a curse and Hailey felt a stab of vindictive pleasure to see that much of the hot tea had wound up in his lap. The girl Hailey belatedly recognised as Phoebe, a timid Squib who acted as an errand-runner. 'Oh, Merlin, I'm sorry!' Phoebe dropped her armload and took out her handkerchief. 'I'm-I'm so sorry sir-' she stammered.

'Quiet!' Fudge swore again, this time at her, and took out his wand to spell away the mess. 'You're completely useless-can't even fetch a cup of tea!'

Eyes filling with tears, Phoebe crouched down and haphazardly retrieved the scattered documents and made to flee the office, but the mountain of files fell to the ground again. Hailey knelt on the floor and helped Phoebe regather the load. Phoebe looked up in surprise, her tears causing her eye make-up to run in black streaks down her face. Hailey hoped her own eyes conveyed the sympathy she could not find the words to say. Phoebe dragged her sleeve across her face, smearing the make-up further, and managed a wan, watery smile. The girl glanced back over her shoulder at Fudge, her eyes flinty over the regathered stack of parchments; she shouldered the door open and hurried out, kicking it shut behind her.

Hailey had lost her grand entrance but not an ounce of her ire, if anything it had intensified at seeing the awful treatment of the poor girl.

Fudge puffed himself up. 'You cannot just storm into my office and-'

Hailey flung open her briefcase and slammed the scroll from Azkaban on his desk. 'How dare you try and pin this on me?'

Fudge glanced from her to the scroll, back to her again. He swallowed. Hailey could read the guilt on his face, confirming he was as implicit in the plot as she had suspected. That did not stop him from attempting to deny it, however. 'I-I don't know what you're-'

'Your Senior Undersecretary, Fudge! The sycophant you appointed to head that joke of a committee- she signed an order that could have removed the soul of two innocent boys! Do you expect me to believe you knew nothing of this? Do you truly think I am that daft?'

Fudge bristled, both at the accusation and the uncharacteristically harsh tone in which she delivered it. 'Enough!" he shouted, spittle flying from his lips. 'I will not be spoken to in that way! Not by a-'

'A what, Cornelius?" she snapped. 'I'm not a Squib, a Muggle, a half-blood, a muggle-born, a werewolf or a vampire! By all accounts, you should have no complaint with me!'

'My complaint with you, Miss Ahlgrim,' the Minister began in an icy voice, leaving Hailey to wonder where the bumbling, affable public servant had gone, 'is that you are far too naive! You believe the darkness in this world can be cured by sufficient legislation. That if you simply follow the law and live righteously no harm may befall you, because after all, everyone does the right thing, right?' He laughed hollowly. 'You don't realise that people act as they do not because they are bound by any sort of moral code, but because they are bound by their own self-interests. You don't understand that the ends can justify the means and that sometimes the suffering of a minority is permissible for the welfare of the majority.'

As Hailey looked into Fudge's wild, desperate eyes she realised that Fudge was in this far, far deeper than she had ever imagined. Her hands flew to her mouth. 'You know,' she gasped in a terrified whisper. 'You know they're not just rumours... you know it's the truth.' She swallowed. 'You know He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned.'

It all tumbled into place: his edict, his determined attempts to discredit Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, his impassioned denials that anything was amiss... Fudge was merely buying his time until the election, hiding the truth of Voldemort's resurrection until it would no longer be his obligation. Hailey did not believe he was in league with Voldemort, but his actions had aided Him all the same. She felt as if she had taken a Bludger to the gut; she could not comprehend how anyone could rationalise such a course of action. Fear she could understand, on occasion, she still had nightmares of the Massacre, of wizards in black robes and blank, silver masks, but what Fudge had done, what he had willingly blinded himself to simply because it was more convenient... it may have doomed them all.

Fudge was stark white and shaking, beads of sweat popping up on his forehead. He was in abject terror, but Hailey did not feel an ounce of pity. Only anger and the acute sense of having been betrayed. '"The welfare of the majority?"' she spat. 'Is that what you call it? You think that lying about His return will actually benefit anyone? Other than the Him and His Death Eaters?'

The Minister was silent for a full minute. Then he licked his dry lips and said, 'I believe I said that anyone who spoke of You-Know-Who's so-called return would be immediately removed from the Ministry.'

Hailey's heart nearly stopped in her chest. This was not happening. Not now, not on top of everything else. But Fudge's cold eyes told her that it was. It was a seldom occurrence for Hailey to let her temper get away from her, but now that she had, in front of the Minister no less, she should have known she would pay for it in spades. Without another word, Hailey fled from the office (she barely remembered to grab the scroll from Azkaban along with her briefcase) and, ignoring all the stares she received, ran until she made it into an empty lift. After hitting the button for level two several times with her fist, Hailey leaned against the back of the lift. Running her hand over her face, she fought the urges to scream, curse or cry, or some combination thereof. She had bungled things so fantastically she should end up on a Famous Wizard card for it. What had she been thinking in confronting Fudge? What could she have possibly gained? She should have kept her head down and given the evidence to Rufus Scrimgeour, the head of the Auror Office, and had him investigate the matter. Hailey took a deep, shuddering breath. Now was not the time for self-recriminations; what was done was done. She needed to think. Closing her eyes, Hailey made an effort to clear her mind.

Instead, she was met with the smell of filth and decay, the sounds of moans and shrieks as her mind took her back to that afternoon's visit to Azkaban Fortress. Hailey had never visited Azkaban before and found that it was far more vile, dark and despairing than her most frightful imaginings. The dementors were all around her... and the light of her Patronus seemed so faint...

The jolt of the lift as it stopped wrenched her back to the present. 'Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters and Wizengamot Administration Services.' Hailey stepped out of the lift and hurried down the hall and through the door marked 'Wizengamot Administration Services.' She would miss this place, miss it terribly.

Melissa the receptionist was seated at her desk near the door. She smiled in greeting and wordlessly handed her a stack of scrolls and envelopes. Melissa's smile faded as she noticed Hailey's distress. Glancing about to ensure they were alone, Melissa whispered, "Are you okay? You look ill."

Hailey accepted the pile without a word and set out through the rows of desks where wizards and witches were immersed in their work. Around the perimeter of the room were doors leading to the offices of each one of the fifty Wizengamot Elders.

She stopped in front of her door, arrested by the gold lettering wrought upon the dark wood.

Hailey Ahlgrim

Wizengamot Elder

Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards

The addition of 'Supreme' to her title had been added only three weeks prior. When Dumbledore had been thrown off the International Confederation of Wizards Hailey had been promoted from Mugwump of Britain to Supreme Mugwump of Britain. Of the seventy countries represented in the Confederation, seven countries (each representing one of the seven continents) had two representatives: a Mugwump and a Supreme Mugwump. For a week, Britain was in the awkward place of having a Mugwump but no Supreme Mugwump, but thankfully the Confederation was as eager to remedy the situation as Hailey herself was, and they had therefore accepted her proposed nomination almost unanimously. And now the Confederation would be thrown into turmoil once more.

Hailey pictured a worker from Magical Maintenance scraping the letters off of her door; the image made her feel sick. She shook her head; now was not the time for self-pity, she had to move quickly. Inside her office, Clark and Alice Ruggles were hard at work: Clark was at his desk, sorting through the mail while Alice was sending an owl through the Floo. 'There you are, Miss Ahlgrim,' Clark said, looking up. 'We had been wondering where you had gotten off to. These-' he pointed to a stack of scrolls he had placed on her desk- 'are merely awaiting your signature.'

Hailey snatched her quill and began to sign the papers furiously, careless of the splotches of ink her quill scattered across the parchment.

'Miss Ahlgrim,' Clark asked, his brow furrowed in concern, 'are you quite all right?'

'I am about to be sacked,' she said without preamble.

Clark gaped while Alice cursed.

'Clark,' Hailey said, 'I am terminating your contract, right now you do not want to be employed by me; the Ministry is surely going to try and drag you through the mud as well.' He nodded mutely. 'I want you to continue working for my campaign, you can work at my residence, I'll match your current salary-'

'Of course.' Clark did not hesitate. 'I told you I would follow you down a dragon's throat.'

'Why are you being let go?' Alice Ruggles asked. 'We are going to have to find a way to spin this...' she muttered distractedly.

Hailey hesitated. 'I got into a row with Cornelius Fudge,' she said simply. The truth of Fudge's motivations was far too troubling for her to discuss at the moment, she was still absorbing it as it was. Instead, she grabbed a blank memo and scrawled a few lines to Brian Daly. The International Confederation of Wizards had just accepted her nomination of the wizard; now he would have to find someone to fill her vacancy. After hurriedly signing her name, Hailey tapped the memo with her wand. The parchment crinkled and folded itself until it resembled a paper aeroplane. The note then flapped its wings and flew through the letterbox in the door.

Digging through her briefcase, Hailey pulled out the Propositum Innocentiae, which stated that Harry J. Potter was cleared of all charges against him and the scroll from Azkaban. The first scroll she deposited in the basket on her desk where it vanished to be processed by the Office of Files and Records, the second she held out for Clark to take. 'This needs to be taken to Rufus Scrimgeour.' Clark reached out to take the proffered scroll when Hailey yanked her hand back, suddenly indecisive. Just how deep did the conspiracy to frame herself and Harry Potter run? The Senior Undersecretary and the Minister himself was involved- surely it was not beyond the realm of possibility that the Head of the Auror Office might be complicit as well. But did she have any other choice but to give the evidence to Scrimgeour? Clark frowned in concern at her hesitation but said nothing.

Reaching a decision, she pointed her wand at the scroll. 'Geminio.' An identical scroll appeared beside the first, and she managed to catch it before it fell to the floor. The original she passed on to her assistant while she stowed the replica in the inner pockets of her robe.

She then rifled through the papers on her desk, ignoring the mess she made as neat columns tipped over and carefully sorted stacks became a disorganised pile as she searched for anything that could be completed in the few minutes she had left in the Ministry. But there was nothing else. The exhaustion that had been hounding her for days finally caught up with her and she sank into her chair. Her political career was finished. She had done so much during her years in the Ministry, yet there was so much more to do. There would always be more to do. Muggles, muggle-born, Squibs, even wizards and witches who were afflicted by lycanthropy or who were born with vampirism were mistrusted or maligned by far too many. Fudge had also effectively murdered her aspirations for Minister for Magic as well. Her main draw as a candidate was her experience and record as a Mugwump and Wizengamot Elder; if she was removed from both positions what did that say about her capabilities? Hailey might have baulked at the idea of entering the campaign initially, but now that she was committed she wanted to win with her whole heart. Her vision began to blur and she put her hand over her eyes.

Clark placed a hand on her shoulder and they commiserated in silence until the sound of indiscriminate shouting outside her office shouting drew Hailey's attention. She ignored it until she recognised the voice of Amelia Bones. What else could have possibly gone wrong? Hailey made her way to the door and pulled it open.

The Committee for the Assurance of Ethics and Accountability of Ministry Employees, Fudge and Amelia Bones were all arguing vehemently outside Hailey's office. They were so caught up in their disputation that they did not even notice her opening the door and listening in on the argument- everyone else on the entire floor was, though they kept their heads bent over their desks and pretended to be occupied with their work to hide their interest, making Hailey one of the more obvious eavesdroppers.

'Minister,' Amelia protested, 'This rule of yours- Bylaw 374- is on shaky legal ground at best. These sackings are-'

'Madam Bones,' Umbridge's high-pitched simper instantly grated on Hailey's nerves, 'if the Minister's new guidelines were in violation of any laws he would, of course, repeal them. But if the most you can say is that we are nearly in violation of laws, there is no reason for the Minister to deviate from his present course of action.'

Amelia's jaw clenched, but she said nothing. The Committee members' worries were not assuaged by Umbridge's words. 'Minister Fudge,' a Scottish wizard, Kinnaird, she believed his name was, said, 'when you selected me for this position you assured me hardly anyone would lose their jobs over this- this edict of yours, and that has most assuredly not been the case!'

At that moment, Umbridge spotted Hailey. 'So kind of you to join us,' she said with a nasty smile that made Hailey decidedly uneasy. 'We were just discussing you. In fact... yes, I do believe we have something for you.' She snatched a scroll from the Minister's hand and held it out to her, eyes alight with vicious triumph.

Hailey stared at the scroll, her heart plummeting in her chest. She did not need to open it to know its contents, the black ribbon tied around it was enough; similarly bound scrolls were given to all employees who were fired. How strange that it should end like this. A Muggle poem came to her mind, she had read it long ago and recalled little of it except that it was very bleak and that the author seemed to be descending into madness... or was that despair? But she did remember the end, the author's parting sentiment that the world would end in a whisper, not a shout. And so had ended her career, not in a 'grand, dramatic display of martyrdom,' as she had once feared, but in a mere slip of the tongue.

Umbridge thrust the scroll under her nose, jarring Hailey from her thoughts. Hailey crossed her arms across her chest and glared down at the squat witch.

She did not take the scroll.

It was a childish display of rebellion, Hailey knew, but even that caused the smirk to slip a little off the witch's pudgy face. Umbridge shook the scroll, her voice losing its saccharine edge and becoming harder. 'Take it! Take it, you silly girl!'

'No.' Hailey was already sacked, there wasn't much else Umbridge could do.

Their stony confrontation was interrupted by the arrival of Phoebe, who was carrying a bulging burlap sack in her arms and had another slung over her shoulder. 'Excuse me...' She seemed to shrink under everyone's stares. 'I-I was told to deliver-'

Fudge snapped at Phoebe to shut up and leave but the girl shook her head, uncharacteristically insistent. 'No, I was told to deliver these,' she indicated the sack in her arms, 'straight away.'

Fudge made a move to grab her, to drag her away, but before he could Phoebe upturned the bag at his feet and parchments, over a hundred sheets, cascaded to the floor. 'These are applications for termination under Bylaw 374.'

'All of these?' gasped Agnus Holt, the third member of the Committee.

'And these.' Phoebe slung the bag off her shoulder and dumped its contents on top of the mountain of parchment.

Hailey stared. There was no way the Ministry could function if only half of the applications turned into notices of termination. And so far the Committee had yet to reject a single application.

'What is the meaning of this?' Fudge demanded, his face turning purple.

'How should I know?' Phoebe asked, a shadow of bitterness in her voice. 'I'm just a stupid Squib.'

Fudge could think of no suitable reply.

Phoebe dug a handful of parchments out of the pocket of her robes. 'A couple more for your consideration,' she read the names off them as she tossed the applications onto the pile. 'Cornelius Oswald Fudge... Dolores Jane Umbridge... Agnus Cherie Holt... Robert Scott Kinnaird...'

For a long, uncomfortable moment no one said a word, and all eyes were fixed on the Minister.

Hailey did not see what choice Fudge had but to repeal Bylaw 374. There was no way the Committee could rule on their own applications, and while Fudge might be able to find some others to serve on the Committee, chances were high that their names were in the deluge of applications as well. Also, at this point, it was obvious the vast majority, if not all, of the applications were fraudulent. Sorting out which were legitimate and which were not would take weeks, and if anyone made the suggestion of Veritaserum to aid in the investigation, well, Fudge would not be able to say he had not spoken of Voldemort's resurrection. Fudge had been hoist on his own petard, and Hailey could not deny the satisfaction she felt in that idea.

Fudge's eyes darted from face to face, searching for an escape, a way to extricate himself from the situation, but there was none. He ran a sweaty hand over his mouth. 'Uh...' He swallowed once more before continuing, 'In the interests of... interests of the continued welfare of the Ministry, I...' he closed his eyes as if the words were causing him physical pain, 'I am going to repeal Bylaw 374.'

Hailey felt a wide smile spreading across her face. Clark nodded in satisfaction, Phoebe clapped her hands and one of the wizards listening in actually cheered. She could hear the whispered news spread throughout the office, like ripples in a disturbed pool of water. Hailey was au fait in Ministry policy and thus knew what was coming next.

'And as Bylaw 374 is no longer on the books,' Amelia Bones said, struggling to keep her voice from betraying her relief, 'any terminations made under Bylaw 374 will be made null and void.'

Unable to remain under the weighted stares any longer, the disgraced Minister hurried away. Amelia nodded cordially at Hailey, then left as well, to get started on removing Bylaw 374 from the books. Holt and Kinnaird slunk away as well, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible, acting as if they had been wholly uninvolved in the whole affair.

'Thank you for your excellent timing, Phoebe,' Hailey said, smiling at the young girl, taking her hands in hers. Hailey glanced down: the girl's hands were splattered with ink, similar to how Hailey's were as she had been furiously signing documents. Hailey nearly laughed when she realised that Phoebe had not only delivered the forms, she had written them.

The girl's eyes danced and she smiled mischievously when she saw that Hailey had cottoned on.

'Thank you,' she repeated fervently, squeezing Phoebe's hands.

Phoebe's smile faded as she looked somewhere over Hailey's shoulder. 'It's-it's uh, nothing,' she said quickly, grabbed the empty sacks and scurried off.

Hailey turned around to see Umbridge as furious as Hailey had ever seen her, fat fingers crumpling the scroll in her hands (probably wishing it was my neck, Hailey thought ruefully). Instead, Umbridge flung the scroll on top of the heap and glared up at her.

With a wave of her wand, Hailey Vanished the mound of parchment. She was dreadfully tempted to say something to the squat bigot of a witch but chose to hold her tongue. She had already been sacked once this afternoon. Still... Hailey thought of the terror Harry Potter must have felt when the dementors swept down on him in Little Whinging, and his poor Muggle cousin, and found she could not resist a parting shot. 'I expect you shall be hearing from the Aurors soon, Dolores,' she said in a low voice, turning away to head back into her office.

'GET DOWN!'

Hailey obeyed the voice before she was fully cognisant of its message, throwing herself to the floor as a spell sizzled overhead. Shouts and screams- splintering wood and shattered glass flew everywhere. Hailey threw her arms over her head and squeezed her eyes shut- there was a stab of pain in her arm but it was overridden by the wave of fear and the pounding of her heart.

'Miss Ahlgrim!' Clark was at her side in an instant, helping her into a sitting position. Two Aurors, a black wizard and a purple-haired witch rushed over. Both of their wands were out. Hailey twisted around to look behind her. Umbridge was standing above her, wand extended, pointed right where Hailey had been standing- but Umbridge was frozen by a spell, as still as the statues in the Atrium.

Feeling as though she might be sick, she slowly turned to look at where Umbridge's spell had hit. The door to Hailey's office had been obliterated, along with a sizeable chunk of the wall inside her office. Horatio was squawking in terror as he flew about the room in a panic. Hailey stared at the damage, yet somehow it did not quite sink in. 'What kind of curse...?'

The black Auror did not answer, instead, he gently pulled Hailey to her feet. Her legs felt like jelly, but she managed to stand unaided.

The purple-haired witch, who was fastening iron manacles to Umbridge, muttered, 'Bloody bitch tried to take your head off!'

Hailey's legs nearly gave out. Clark and the Auror lead her to an unoccupied desk and she sank in the seat. She tried not to think about what would have happened if the Aurors had not been there. Her arm throbbed painfully and she looked down. A fragment of the door had lodged itself into her exposed forearm. 'I'm bleeding,' she said flatly.

Clark bent over her arm. The black Auror joined him. 'It does not appear too serious, here I'll-' He glanced up at the crowd of frightened onlookers. 'Can you stand, Miss Ahlgrim? We're just going to move to your office.'

Her legs felt as if the bones had been removed, but she nodded and managed to make it to her feet with Clark's assistance.

'Tonks,' the Auror asked his partner, 'will you be able to take care of things from here?'

''Course.'

Inside her office, Clark pulled out a chair for her while Alice conjured a heavy curtain to replace the door and tried to calm down Horatio who had taken refuge on the top of the bookcase.

The Auror knelt in front of her and examined her arm. The splinter was roughly the size of her finger. He Vanished the piece of wood and healed the gouge with a murmured incantation.

'Thank you,' she whispered. Everything was somehow distant as if it was all happening on some theatre stage and she was merely a spectator. Her brain felt sluggish, as she tried to process what had just happened and what had nearly happened: Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic had just attempted to decapitate her.

Still, there seemed to be something she was forgetting. She thought hard, but it remained out of her reach.

It was Clark who asked it for her.

'We are immensely grateful that you and were here,' he said, 'but may I ask why? Miss Ahlgrim said the Aurors would wish to contact Dolores Umbridge, is that why you were here?'

The Auror hesitated for a fraction of a second before replying. 'We received a tip from a reliable source that Dolores Umbridge had falsified some documents and forged Miss Ahlgrim's signature. Tonks and I were on our way to speak to Miss Ahlgrim about the matter.'

Horatio fluttered from his perch on the bust of Hammurabi and onto her shoulder, a comforting weight, even though his talons dug into her robes. If it was not for the two Aurors' fortuitous timing and the shouted warning...Wishing she possessed more eloquence, Hailey said, 'Thank you, I cannot ever repay this, but if there is anything I can-'

'Nonsense.' The Auror got to his feet. 'I'm just glad you're all right. If there isn't anything else, I need to collect statements from everyone outside. I shall be back to speak with you shortly.'

It wasn't until the Auror left that Hailey realised she had forgotten to ask for his name.

Alice straightened the brass perch Horatio had knocked over while Clark handed her a cup of tea. 'Here you go, Miss Ahlgrim. I can fetch you a Calming Draught if you'd like.'

'No, it's fine.' Her hand absentmindedly reached up to gently stroke Horatio's head.

He dragged a chair next to hers and sat heavily on it. 'It shan't be difficult to cancel the rest of the evening's appointments,' Clark endeavoured to make his tone business-like. 'Mr Laukkanen's assistant Floo'd an hour ago to tell me that Mr Laukkanen will have to reschedule himself.'

'I'm not cancelling any of my appointments.'

Clark looked at her disbelievingly. 'Miss Ahlgrim, the Minister nearly sacked you and Dolores Umbridge nearly murdered you! No one will fault you for taking the rest of the day off. And then there was that meeting earlier, I don't know what happened there...'

'I-I was at Azkaban...' She hated even mentioning that place. Being around dementors brought back memories of the King's Cross Massacre, of being huddled underneath the train while around her curses flashed like lightning and people screamed as they fought to escape the onslaught.

'Alone? Oh, Miss Ahlgrim...'

'It's all right, Clark.' It really was not, but now was not the time to delve into that matter; there was too much that needed to be done. 'We are at war, Clark,' Hailey said firmly, 'things may be difficult, but it will only get worse. If I fall apart now, how am I supposed to manage later?'

'As you say, Miss Ahlgrim...' Clark grabbed a blank memo from his desk. 'I'll get the Magical Maintenance in here, see if they can fix this...' He gestured vaguely to the large hole where her door once stood.

Alice snatched her cloak off the cloakrack. 'My appointment with Barry Curtis is in a quarter of an hour.' She pulled the cloak over today's ensemble: a pair of genes, a dress and some brightly-coloured footwear Hailey believed were called 'rain boots.' 'Curtis is really excited for an opportunity to interview you,' Alice said as she fastened her cloak, 'it'll be a much fairer account than you would get with those louts at The Daily Prophet.' Alice turned to leave but halted when she was confronted by the velvet curtain, a visible reminder of how truly fraught the day had been. Shaking her head, Alice pulled back the curtain and stepped out.

Tearing her eyes away from the curtain, Hailey flicked on the WWN and began to put her office back to rights as the soothing strains of Motet's 38th Symphony filled the room. The chunks of plaster scattered across the floor were able to be cleared with a simple Vanishing Charm, though Hailey discovered that one of the legs on the sofa had a deep gouge in it and the low table in front of it had a large crack in it. The table was an antique, it would be difficult to replace. An armchair had been tipped over; she righted it with a wave of her wand.

The damage done by Umbridge's wayward spell was severe, as was often the way it was with Dark Magic. Even if the spell did not strike its intended target, it still had the capacity to be most destructive. Most spells, jinxes, even curses would only leave a small, radial mark, if any mark at all, on the surface they struck. Not so with Dark Magic.

Satisfied that her office was as presentable as it could be without the expertise of Magical Maintenance, Hailey settled herself behind her desk. She glanced at the scrolls and parchment strewn across her desk. With a sigh, she propped her elbows on the desk and rested her head in her hands. Contrary to what she told Clark, at the moment she wanted nothing more than to go home and soak in her bathtub until her skin pruned and let someone else deal with it all. But she could pretend to be strong and resolute, even if it was the last thing she felt at the moment.

Though Clark remained worried at her current state, he nonetheless slipped away to deliver to Rufus Scrimgeour what would be another nail in Umbridge's coffin. With attempted murder of a member of the Wizengamot, forgery, criminal falsification of records and two counts of attempted casting of Dark Magic that would forever maim or disfigure an individual (since Umbridge was the one who sent the dementors to Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley she would be held responsible for the dementors' attempts to Kiss the two boys), Dolores Umbridge would be in Azkaban for a very, very long time.

That thought should have brought her satisfaction, if not joy. As one of the most vocal opponents of the rights of werewolves and other minorities, Dolores Umbridge had been a thorn in Hailey's side for years. With her gone, legislature promoting equal rights for discriminated groups would doubtlessly flow more smoothly. Umbridge was not the only bigot in the Ministry, but she was one of the more active ones. In the past months she had even been creating trouble for Albus and Hogwarts. Along with Fudge she had proposed and helped pass, various Educational Decrees. They sounded innocuous enough, but Hailey was not fooled. More than ten Educational Decrees had been passed and Hailey had the feeling that she was only warming up. But now that Umbridge would be gone, she doubted the Decrees would continue. They all had more pressing concerns now.

As Hailey straightened the stacks of parchments on her desk her stomach growled fiercely and she realised that she still hadn't eaten any lunch.