Chapter 10 - Delores Umbridge
It had been one week, Lizzie counted seven days on her little fingers but the contents of those days and everything before was a haze. Her first thought was that there were too many flowers on the walls, and she tried to touch all the hydrangeas in the back garden, but they didn't do anything special like her mother's flowers had. She looked around for the cat, but there wasn't one, and Petunia didn't know what she was referring to when she asked, "where's Tabi-ta?"
Her second thought was that she was really hungry and started to despise watching people eat with more anger than she was even remotely old enough to regulate. She didn't understand why she had to wait until everyone else was done or why she couldn't ask for more, much less food she actually wanted.
Her third thought was that Dudley cried and whined a lot. She waited in anticipation for her uncle to turn him over his knee like he'd done with her when she whined for something to eat, and then again when she had an accident, and then again when she said "bloody hell" because her father had never kicked the habit of cursing around her.
The third time she'd set him off, her uncle got up and went to the kitchen for a paddle. His hand hurt badly enough as it was, and she cried hard as soon as the wooden board landed. She'd reached back to force her skirt back down and tried to squirm free, but he threatened to keep her over his knee all afternoon until she shut up and held still.
"Your daddy didn't hit you?" He'd spat, each word punctuated with a blow that brought burning tears to her eyes. He hadn't, not once. She couldn't even imagine it. Somehow her father's face was already fading, and it had only been seven days. Maybe it was how tired she was, unable to sleep without bad dreams, without Snuffles, and without someone to curl up next to.
That night, unable to hug herself tightly enough to pretend her mother was there, Lizzie pushed open the door to the cupboard. Petunia didn't like to lock it and told Vernon she wasn't old enough not to have accidents at night if they did. She crawled up the stairs one step at a time, still smarting from the paddle, with a blanket dragging behind her as she went into her aunt and uncle's bedroom.
They were asleep, Vernon rolled on his side facing the window and Petunia faced the opposite. She was curled up much like Lizzie usually did. Lizzie stopped at the bedside and stared at her sleeping aunt for a moment. She looked a little bit like her mother at least with the lack of light in the room.
Dreamily, and without opening her eyes, Petunia seemed to sense a child by the bed and moved the covers for Lizzie to get in. Desperate for any affection at this point, she climbed in, curled up, and felt an arm wrap around her in a motherly way. Lizzie fell asleep almost immediately. Maybe her aunt thought it was Dudley in her only semi-conscious state because she jolted awake at some point in the night, whipped her head around in a panic to see if Vernon was asleep, which he was, and Lizzie felt a hand clasp around her arm as she was swiftly lifted out of the short slumber and carried downstairs before she could register what was going on.
Lizzie steadied on her feet in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, and Petunia snatched her chin between her thumb and forefinger. "What are you doing? What do you think you're doing?" She asked sharply. Petunia's eyes looked scared, and they flicked up the stairs several times to make sure nobody was coming.
"I couldn't sleep," Lizzie muttered and her face bubbled up in a pathetic cry. "I'm hungry," she panted. "I want... Snuffles... or daddy, or mommy..." she said as her face pooled in tears. Petunia's eyes fixed on Lizzie's drowning green ones, and she had to muster every bit of resolve not to hug the little girl for both their sakes.
"You cannot go up to our room. That is never allowed! You stay down here, if I ever catch you up there... your uncle will see to you, do you understand?" Petunia hissed, her mouth twitched in a perfectly lethal mixture of anger, fear, and pity.
Lizzie cried harder at the thought of another paddling, then over how much she missed her parents. "I want my daddy," she said, completely erupting in grief, normal toddlers were unable to regulate much of any emotion much less what she was feeling. Petunia slapped a hand over Lizzie's mouth and restrained her with her other arm in a tight sort of hug that wasn't the least bit comforting. But she let her niece cry for a long time, at one point bundling the blanket around her face to further muffle the sound.
"I'm sorry you're here," Petunia whispered into the top of her head. "I'm sorry," she repeated a few times. She shook a little too in an effort not to cry herself. Lizzie went almost limp in her arms, the outpour of suppressed sobs pushed her into a level of exhaustion that couldn't resist sleep any longer.
Still on her knees, Petunia opened the cupboard, placed her niece in, fixed the blanket, wiped the little girl's very puffy eyes and cheeks, and then closed the door. With trembling hands, she locked the latch and pressed her forehead against door in shame. It was the lesser of evils if Vernon had caught her in bed with them, she told herself.
On her way upstairs, she stopped at Dudley's bedroom and scooped her sleeping son up in a warm hug. She rocked on her feet and hummed faintly while she carried him to her room, laid down, and held him close while he slept peacefully. It put her mind back at ease, primal motherly instincts satisfied while the marks on her own body still ached from her husband's fury over her agreeing without his permission to take the little girl in the first place.
Lizzie woke with a dreadful emptiness in her stomach when the bunched-up blanket on the bed that looked for a brief moment like Snuffles, became just a black blanket when she reached out to touch it. She rubbed her puffy eyes, looked around at the room she since cleaned up, and then got dressed in a loose shirt and jeans.
"Alright, I've decided I'm not using Polyjuice," Lizzie said, while Kreacher gaped at the third empty coffee pot before refilling.
"What do you mean?" Hermione snapped.
"I mean, I can make myself look different as it is. If I go in as somebody else who is supposed to be there and don't play the role up to par, it's suspicious. If it wears off and I'm seen, I'll be hauled off to the courtrooms and either executed or handed off to Voldemort..." Lizzie reasoned.
"You can change your hair and your eyes, Lizzie, not much else," Hermione reminded her.
"Yeah, but that's always just enough to keep people from staring too long, isn't it?" She retorted. "Long sleeved blouse from upstairs will cover most scars and published identifiers unless they have me strip for some ridiculous reason. Add some heels for height, glasses, secretarial badge to match... Apparently, they've hired a ton of young witches to make all the propaganda pamphlets and that's Umbridge's department, so it makes sense," Lizzie rationalized. "Ron should be one of the men from Magical Maintenance. They're on the floor just above her and are usually left alone. They wander a lot as well to tend to various issues, so it won't be a red flag if he's out of his office," she added remembering all of Ron's input from his in-depth knowledge of the ministry departments and employee classifications. "Hermione, you need to be someone from the Misuse of Magic office, that is going to be wide open for access to Umbridge, she's heading the muggle born registration commission and alleging that anyone of non-magical heritage has somehow stolen magic," she continued.
"And you'll be a... secretary?" Hermione asked, she wasn't convinced.
"If Umbridge treats her secretaries anything like she did her students, I'd have an excuse to be in her office. If I have an excuse to be in her office, then I can take a look around assuming she's distracted. I don't see a better way," Lizzie reasoned.
"What's the excuse going to be?" Hermione asked.
"Manipulate the pamphlets, then... tattle to her about it. She loves a snitch, doesn't she?" Lizzie asked. Hermione frowned but seemed to think it might work.
"I don't think you should draw attention to yourself if you can help it," she said finally.
"No, perhaps set off a detonator then?" Lizzie asked sarcastically. Hermione rolled her eyes.
While they prepared to leave, the roots of Lizzie's hair washed and straightened into a long drape of very dark brown hair with thick bangs to cover the marks on her face. She slipped on a pair of glasses over now ice blue eyes and tied the top layer of her hair up into a wound bun at the crown of her head. Then, she headed up the stairs and came back down wearing a modest length pencil skirt, black tights, modestly heeled shoes, and a blouse that came down loosely over both wrists. She tied a rose-pink sash-like bow loosely around her neck the way she had seen a secretary witch she'd followed onto the underground fashion one. The outfit appeared to be in regulation to what she had seen the women wear when they approached the ministry barriers.
Not only had she swiped that woman's sash, but Lizzie swiped her badge, and confounded it in her image with the name, Mallory Padget.
"Good. Wouldn't recognize you at all if I didn't know it was you...We need to switch wands," Hermione said.
"Why?" Lizzie asked.
"If you're caught with your wand, the one they identified in the Prophet, they will know it's you, only two wands were made with a phoenix core," she said and got out makeup to put on Lizzie to cover identifiable blemishes and marks on her face even though they'd be under her hair. It also helped make her look just a little bit older, early to mid-twenties instead of eighteen. "I can't see the scar with the makeup, the skin just looks bumpy like you have a skin condition or an old burn," she said.
"Good, that was the point, bloody hurt like hell on acid to do it," Lizzie said with a phantom pain in her head from the memory.
"Alright, we've got darkness powder, detonators, puking pastils, the cloak... but Hermione you take it in your bag, if we can nab Hopkirk, then you're higher ranked, they are unlikely to search you, if mine is searched and it's found..." Lizzie said.
"Right, ok," Hermione agreed.
They each rehearsed the detailed plan until they had memorized it verbatim. Then the three of them stationed themselves near the alley entrance they had been using for days to snoop on ministry employees. Only their feet could be seen under the cloak, but there was too much junk in the alley for anyone to be able to tell.
Hermione took the position closest to the sidewalk, where, once she saw Mathilda Hopkirk approaching, she stunned and swiftly pulled her limp body aside. Mathilda was much older than Hermione, but similarly framed in stature. Behind a large dumpster, Hermione slipped out from under the cloak, pulled some hair for the potion, slipped off her clothes and Mathilda's, and changed quickly. She was sure to grab her badge, the coins for the special underground that certain departments took into the ministry and duplicated her glasses as to not leave the woman blind when she woke up. Hermione considered taking her wand as well, but her better nature decided against it.
When Ron spotted Reginald Cattermole approaching, he signaled to Hermione to take the potion. Once she looked identical to the woman on the ground in the alley, she followed Reginald until she was an appropriate distance to greet him in a friendly fashion.
Meanwhile, Lizzie disillusioned Mathilda, and in a wave of resentment for the woman who once sent the letter explaining her expulsion two years prior, which subsequently led to being assaulted to an inch of her life that evening, she took the woman's wand and reasoned that she'd return it to her office at the ministry before leaving, assuming she gained safe passage.
Ron waited and watched while Hermione convinced an extremely wayward looking Reginald to eat a puking pastel. She assumed his demeanor must have been from sending his daughter Ellie and son Alfred off to Hogwarts. Had she been a parent, it would terrify her to release her kids to these monsters. But then again, he was also forced to work for them. All of it made her sick and uneasy to think about.
The man made his way back up the street with severe waves of sick pouring from his mouth. Hermione walked back to the alley shaking with adrenaline and heels clicking under her in a fast pace to hand a polyjuice to Ron. He pulled the robes Sirius still had hanging in his closet that had since been confunded to look just like the dark navy ones the members of magical maintenance wore. Ron took his potion and Lizzie stared back at the plump, blonde man with a weak chin and gray, sad eyes. "Well, if anything gives you motivation to age well, it's stepping into the body of this bloke," Ron said. Lizzie snorted on a laugh, then handed Mathilda's wand to Hermione.
"Put mine in your bag," Lizzie said.
"Lizzie!" Hermione whispered harshly.
"You said so yourself, only two wands made with that core and the evil fucking snake man would have never given his to Mathilda Bloody Hopkirk," Lizzie retorted. "This is war, Hermione. We can leave that in her office once we get in, if it's that important to you, but I doubt she's going to be in dire need of it," Lizzie added. Hermione sighed with regret but agreed reluctantly.
"Ron, take the bogs down, it looks like most of the men enter down that passage. I don't think you need a coin for that. We'll take the special underground where I see most of the other secretaries... Let's go," Hermione instructed.
Hermione walked an appropriate distance from Lizzie, enough to seem like they were striking casual conversation but also not closely affiliated. Ron headed in an adjacent direction following others who looked to be either in his department or in a similar line of work.
When Lizzie and Hermione stepped off the underground rail that disappeared through the wall of a train tunnel and unloaded at the entrance of the ministry atrium, they saw hundreds of men and women entering through the fireplaces that lined the corridor into the main threshold. When Lizzie spotted Ron, she gave Hermione nothing more than a meaningful look to follow her.
They stopped short of approaching him when Yaxley stopped Ron in his tracks. Lizzie knew Yaxley to be a death eater, both due to his presence at the manor last year watching her take the ophidian potion every evening with his arm sprawled across the back of the armchair he sat in, and an expression of immeasurable satisfaction on his face, and his presence on the tower the night they killed Dumbledore.
He walked alongside Ron, directly past security who faltered at the sight of the formidable looking man, and he seemed to be berating Ron about something specific. Lizzie didn't notice security as she tried to follow in earshot of them but was stopped by a man in a security uniform in a motion that almost dismantled her balance on the heels she was wearing. Another security officer waved Hermione through without checking her, and Lizzie watched with apprehension as Hermione tried to casually stride away toward the lifts where Ron was being lectured by Yaxley.
"Wand," ordered the security guard, who grabbed her badge and examined it, he appeared convinced it was legitimate. She handed over Hermione's wand and he made a note in a record book. He rotated his index finger in a circle for her to turn around, and upon a 360-degree rotation, he handed over what appeared to be a small glass of water.
"What is this?" Lizzie asked innocently.
"New protocol, reveals imposters, drink, it won't hurt you," he said. Lizzie read him, he wasn't lying, and she was grateful to her instincts for not using polyjuice. He smiled weakly at her when nothing happened. Since her methods of disguise were not spells or potions, it made no difference to an anti-imposter draft. She knew this but still breathed a discrete sigh of relief at the promising outcome.
Lizzie managed to make it to Hermione's lift before it carried them away. She was busy whispering to Ron about how to get it to stop raining in Yaxley's office and caught wind of a comment he made about Cattermole's wife being taken down for questioning by the muggle born registration commission.
Before his stop, a man entered the lift and addressed Hermione stiffly, Lizzie recognized him from the department of mysteries a year prior. "Mathilda, good, you've been requested in to help preside in the courtrooms, I already told your department you won't be available until this afternoon," Tavers said evenly. Hermione flushed but nodded and left with him. Ron exited the lift at Yaxley's office floor, where they could distinctly hear a steady downpour of rain, and then Lizzie left the lift at Umbridge's floor where she could hear the steady rhythm of what she imagined was the propaganda assembly line.
Once alone, Lizzie felt the weight of the ministry bear down on her. "What if there isn't an open desk?" she whispered inaudibly to herself. She looked up and saw a young secretary walking in her direction. With a quick look around, not giving herself time to second guess, Lizzie flicked Hermione's wand and the woman collapsed, stunned. Lizzie dragged her into a discrete corner and quickly disillusioned her. When she reentered the hallway, her breath caught in her throat at the sight of Yaxley and a large, muscular man in a leather traveling coat with the name 'Alfred Runcorn' on his badge. They stopped and looked at her.
"Shift started fifteen minutes ago, sweetheart, are you lost?" Yaxley asked.
"I'm sorry," she said in her meekest voice, cultivated, refined, and recalled perfectly by her upbringing. "Ladies room," she said, forcing her face to blush a little.
"Delores only allows specific break periods, are you new?" Runcorn asked.
"Yes, so sorry, first day," she said. "I'm a little turned around now actually," she added with a tone of mock-embarrassment.
Yaxley smirked, a satisfied expression on his face that she remembered, and he held out an arm for her to walk ahead of him. As she walked, he placed a hand on the small of her back and escorted her past a reception credenza and to the secretary desks that sat in rows facing a large pink door to Delores's office.
"Padget," Yaxley said, smirking at her badge. "Good family, sweetheart... Don't step out of line and we'll see about keeping the hiccup from Delores. She's not one to cross," he said with an underbelly to his words that screamed he intended to have her repay the favor later. His thoughts made her ill for a moment and she forced herself out of his head before the image of being on her knees under his desk turned into anything more than perhaps looking for a lost earring or a pencil. Give men power, and they always find a bloody way, she thought bitterly and sat down at the desk in front of a large stack of papers, eyeing the men as they walked away.
Lizzie glanced through the pamphlet materials in disgust. "Mudbloods and the danger they impose... road to a pure blood society... house elf training tips to avoid unrest... muggles and persecution: when to insist on war..." anger rose as she skimmed them. They even had the audacity to include Cyprian Counsel as a major threat to the suppression of witchcraft, citing that the only obscurial in Britian in recent history was raised under the cult catholic following. They conveniently left out Lizzie's name, perhaps not to garner any overtly apparent sympathy from readers. There was a section on half breeds and the importance of limiting rights and privileges. Simply not being rounded up and executed was implied as a privilege.
Lizzie thought about Remus with a sharp pang in her heart. He'll be fine, she thought and closed her eyes as though in doing so they brewed overt hope that might track him down and give him good luck. Lizzie took this piece from the stack and waved her wand to confund it. It appeared in the image she wanted it to, blazing article headline "Quest for Freedom" subtitled 'The importance of werewolf rights and effective treatment options for a fair and just society.'
"Up to 30 days out of every month, a werewolf is no different from any other witch or wizard..." it started to read and spelled out the many injustices that immediately came to Lizzie's mind.
She waved her wand again until the single confounded page turned into a large stack. Even more discretely, she sent the pages of the stack to be dispersed into the individual stacks of all the secretaries. They were so focused on the task and efficiency; they didn't notice, and Lizzie quickly realized why.
As she moved her wand to assemble the papers, watching the others for direction, Lizzie noticed a return stack that formed on desks when a pamphlet was rejected. The girls looked frightened when one came hovering back toward them, as though it were going to combust. When break was announced and they were released for a ten-minute restroom period, the girls with return stacks remained seated. A man walked through the aisles and inspected them. Based on the thickness of the return stack, he assigned extra hours of work. "An unpaid three additional hours today, Miss Gluksberg," he said to one girl.
"Please see Ms. Umbridge after your shift, Miss Hawthorne," he said to another.
Lizzie, who hadn't been working long enough to have a return stack, used the opportunity to get up and put her plan into motion.
She took the confounded page and a completed pamphlet and headed to Umbridge's office. Affixed to the door was a swiveling blue eye she knew to be Mad Eye's and rage boiled under her skin. She didn't knock, but the door swung open and a toad-like woman in a pink cloak looked up at her without raising her head all the way.
"Come in," she said sweetly, and Lizzie's insides gave a groan of pure displeasure.
"What is it, dear?" She asked, not looking up at her still. Lizzie cleared her throat and attempted a sweet-toned, meek voice far from her own.
"Miss Umbridge, I'm so sorry to bother you..." she said. "I well, I noticed this in the stack of materials to assemble and it struck me as disturbing," Lizzie said. "I-well I don't think it's meant to be in there, is it?" She asked timidly. Umbridge took the sheet and glared at it, the frown forming a deeper line into her face as she read. Her head snapped up and looked at Lizzie, then glanced at her badge.
"No, Mallory, thank you dear, it's not," she said. Lizzie tried to get a look at her chest but couldn't tell if she was wearing jewelry under the cloak. She did feel immeasurably angry and tense, but that could just as easily be attributed to being in this woman's presence again. It was clear to Lizzie she either had high turnover amongst her secretaries or did not bother to learn their names if she didn't stop to wonder where Mallory Padget had come from. But there were several dozen young women in all, certainly she didn't personally vet each.
Umbridge stood up, now flustered, and headed out of the room to inspect the materials where Lizzie knew she would find the sheet in every girl's stack. Lizzie wasted no time in muttering "accio locket" but didn't have faith that would do anything to begin with.
Lizzie moved around her desk while the kittens that lined her walls like they had at Hogwarts stared her down menacingly. She opened drawers to no avail, then found a stack of files. She quickly flipped through them when Arthur Weasley's name and picture caught her attention and she noticed they all either bore the heading "undesirable" or in Arthur's case "tracked." Hermione, Ron, Charlie, Tonks, Remus, and then more with cross marks over the pictures of Mad Eye, Dumbledore, and Sirius. Then she saw her picture, labeled 'undesirable number one,' atop the stack of papers on the desk, along with a personal request form reading "I, Delores Jane Umbridge, hereby respectfully request to personally implement punishment for evading arrest, initiate interrogation, and subsequently preside over the criminal trial of Azalea L. Potter upon her arrest. I also request to be in attendance to witness the dementors kiss and execution upon sentencing." It was addressed to Pius Thickness. Lizzie put the files away when she saw the pink cloak flash near the door, and she quickly stood at attention at the corner of the desk.
Umbridge strode back in but immediately noticed Lizzie's ever so slightly guilty demeanor, she also seemed to notice and recognize the expression on her face now that she was looking at her dead on.
"Who hired you, Mallory?" She asked suspiciously as she peeled off the cloak and hung it on a hook at the end of the room. It was then Lizzie recognized the locket and her heart swelled in both terror and excitement.
"Mathilda Hopkirk, Ma'am," Lizzie said meekly. Umbridge sat down and pulled a large journal from her desk.
"I don't have a blood status record confirmed for you," she said sweetly but with an underbelly of accusation.
She looked up at two men entering her office. "Yaxley, Runcorn, good," she said. Yaxley gave Lizzie a meaningful look and a telling smile.
"Miss Padget, please fill out this questionnaire, these men will escort you to the courtrooms. I would do a private proceeding here, but evidently, I'm needed there to preside over the muggle born interrogations, so I will add your blood status questioning to that que to make everything more efficient for all of us," she said.
"You will also submit to questioning about why you soiled our pamphlet materials," she added with a sinister glare and faked smile.
"I'm sorry? Miss Umbridge, I can assure you I didn't -" but Yaxley had pulled Hermione's wand, and with a flick, priori incantartum displayed the reverse of spells used. Lizzie was relieved when the tediousness of the task she had been performing seemed to play in repetition, but it wasn't more than a few moments before the confundus charm on the pamphlets exposed itself. Umbridge gave her an all-knowing look and could sense suspicion in her eyes. Lizzie knew she saw the resemblance between the girl standing in front of her and the girl on the wanted flyer but was nonetheless confused.
Yaxley took her arm and escorted her out. "I told you not to cross her, didn't I," he laughed. "Really unfortunate too. What do you say we complete the paperwork in my office and then head down to the courtrooms? His other hand had moved to the curve of her waist and Lizzie flinched.
"No?" He asked. "Well, we probably don't have enough time, truth be told, come with me," he said with a grunt of frustration. Lizzie followed him, keeping her breath steady. If she went to the courtrooms she'd at least intersect with Hermione.
Once in the lift, his grip slackened, and he turned to face her. Yaxley looked her in the face with her chin propped up with his finger and smirked, but she could tell he didn't know who he was really looking at, and nobody needed legilimency to be able to tell what he wanted. Before the lift took off, Runcorn pushed his way in and glanced between them with a hint of amusement. Lizzie's insides churned with enough adrenaline to help every fiber of her body stand armed at attention.
The next stop made Lizzie's heart jump. Arthur walked in chatting with a man presumably from his department. Yaxley smirked and spoke louder than he needed to at Runcorn.
"Alfred, good call with Dirk Creswell," he said. Arthur stiffened in response like he so desperately wanted to say something.
"Faked his family tree and didn't think he would get caught. People never learn..." Runcorn said in response. Lizzie went cold all over. "On his way to Azkaban as we speak," he added with a snigger.
Arthur turned to say something but caught himself. "Careful, Arthur," Yaxley said indignantly. Arthur stared at Lizzie for a long moment before turning away looking confused.
"Creswell is twice the wizard either of you are," Arthur said reproachfully. They both laughed. The lift opened again, and two more people walked in. Lizzie caught a glimpse of Percy Weasley who looked uncomfortably in his father's direction but ultimately ignored him. Arthur's jaw clenched tighter, caausing a vein to protrude in his neck, and Lizzie's blood turned to high boil. Arthur exited when a man drenched to the skin in water stumbled into the lift and looked at Yaxley in horror. Lizzie took the opportunity to slip her hand into Yaxley's coat and withdrew Hermione's wand discretely.
"Well, Cattermole, your wife didn't have a chance in hell anyway, she could use a hand to hold though," Yaxley said scathingly. Ron looked at Lizzie wide-eyed and she shook her head a micrometer in response. At least Ron and Hermione would be in the courtrooms, she thought optimistically. Ron stared at Percy reproachfully, noticeably making his brother uncomfortable because Percy didn't seem to understand the emanating hostility from someone in magical maintenance. Percy and company exited at the next stop and the lift descended into the basement court chambers.
The air was astonishingly cold now. Ron shivered violently in his drenched robes as he exited the lift. Yaxley then pushed on the small of Lizzie's back hard to make her stumble into the corridor. Runcorn laughed and Lizzie straightened up in horror at a line of witches and wizards awaiting questioning. Screams filled the hall when a man was dragged out and handed off to dementors. "Please! My father was a wizard! Broom maker! Look him up, please!" He screamed but was silenced quickly by the creatures. Lizzie felt the dread in her bones and her breathing went ragged. She followed Ron into the courtroom with Yaxley close behind.
Hermione was sitting at the presiding bench, then Umbridge entered from a back chambers room and sat at the podium where the minister usually sat. She cast a kitten patronus to patrol the room and protect the interrogators, but the woman chained to the center chair still appeared heavily affected by the dementors.
Yaxley sat Lizzie down at a bench and handed her a form to fill out. Lizzie looked down at it as he handed her something to write with. He watched as she answered what should have been immediately recollected answers to basic questions. Lizzie tried to jot answers down quickly without thinking too hard about it. She handed it back to Yaxley who snatched it impatiently and made his way to the presiding bench. Lizzie watched him nervously, but he didn't read it right away. She looked at Hermione, then at Ron, then glanced at Umbridge's chest and Hermione's eyes widened at the locket.
"Mary Elizabeth Cattermole," Umbridge said in a sickly-sweet tone.
"Yes," the woman chirped sheepishly.
"Mother to Maisie, Ellie, and Alfred, wife to Reginald?" She asked.
"Yes," she confirmed. Lizzie felt a hot rod sear her heart at the thought of Ellie, the Hufflepuff seeker, starting term knowing her mother was bound for Azkaban.
"A wand was taken from you when you arrived Mrs. Cattermole, is this that wand?" Umbridge asked. The woman nodded.
"Yes or no answers please," Umbridge said sharply.
"Yes," the woman said.
"Please tell the court from which witch or wizard you took this wand," Umbridge demanded.
"I - I didn't take it. I bought it when I was eleven..." she said with a noticeable tremble in her voice. Lizzie caught Yaxley looking at her from the corner of her eye. He was reading the questionnaire and frowning. He'd spotted something off, she was certain of it.
"You would not have been permitted to buy a wand, Mrs. Cattermole, you are not a witch," Umbridge said. Lizzie trembled now in anger.
Umbridge turned to ask Hermione for a parchment she was holding. "That's pretty, Delores," Hermione said. Umbridge looked confused until she fingered the locket on her neck and understood.
"Oh, yes... Selwyn family heirloom. There aren't many pureblooded families I'm not related to," she said self-righteously. Hermione returned a weak obligatory smile. Lizzie noticed Yaxley shift and looked at him. He was staring intently at her and she knew he was suspicious. He reached a hand into his pocket and Lizzie's heart stopped momentarily. He realized immediately the wand he'd taken from her was gone and stood up abruptly. The next thirty seconds happened in a flash.
Lizzie pulled the wand and stunned Umbridge straight in the chest, blasting her thrice over for good measure. Ron immediately shot a spell at Yaxley who ducked, leapt out of the way, lost balance, and fell from the bench with a loud thud. Hermione reached forward and snatched the locket from Umbridge's neck, then jumped down to meet Ron at the base of the courtroom.
"I'll get her, go!" Lizzie yelled, running down the steps to unlock Mary's binds. The dementors descended on them and Hermione conjured a patronus to get her and Ron through the door and up the corridor. Lizzie had never seen her do that in the presence of dementors, but her otter soared happily. She only had a split second to admire the feat because the binds on Mary would not budge under normal spells, and Yaxley was getting to his feet. He pointed his wand at Lizzie, and she blocked the spell he cast, and the second, and the third. Lizzie let out a scream of frustration as he approached and several more dementors came through the hall. Lizzie summoned Umbridge's wand on a hunch and it was what was needed to release the binds. It was confunded to only work for her wand. Lizzie focused for the briefest moment on the mental image of the picture she'd found of her dad chasing her on her small broom and cast a patronus at the incoming dementors. Her silver stag burst from the tip of Hermione's wand, and she pushed Mary forward to follow it.
"Run, go!" Lizzie shouted at her, ducking from Yaxley's fresh onslaught of spells and making her way for the door. He let out a sort of roar she knew meant he now knew who she was. The patronus was a dead giveaway as she knew it would be.
Lizzie couldn't run in the shoes and peeled them off as she stumbled clumsily forward and then ran full force down the corridor as though there would be a pole hurdle at the end of it. The first lift containing Ron, Hermione, and Mary left without her even though Hermione fought with the bars for it to reopen. "No! Liz!" She screamed as it shot backwards and up to the higher floors of the ministry.
Lizzie's stag ran ahead of her and Yaxley chased her at full speed, closing in rapidly with much longer strides. Lizzie slipped into the next lift and shut the doors, but Yaxley pried them open and forced himself in. Lizzie attempted to stun him, but he blocked it. He towered over her like a raging bull, and she backed herself into the corner of the lift as it took off. Yaxley smacked a button on the wall to prevent it from stopping at any intermediate floors.
He reached to snatch the collar of her blouse and Lizzie kicked him. It was returned with a hard backhand that sent her flat to the floor, already bleeding from the corner of her eye, her left nostril and her lower lip. He kicked her hard in the ribs and then pressed a foot down on her back to keep her in place. Lizzie was in close enough proximity of his other ankle to bite him and wasted no time in doing so. Flesh sank in her teeth through his pant leg. He shrieked in pain and lifted her by the hair to throw her into the wall. Once he had her pinned by the throat, Lizzie thought it was over.
"Well, Mallory, or should I call you, Azalea? I do hope he gives me some time with you in exchange for your return, don't you?" He said with hot breath baking her ear and breathed in the scent of her hair. "Do you even remember the manor? Or have you blacked that out? You were rather delirious," He asked and grabbed at her chest with his other hand. Lizzie kneed him in the groin and wriggled from the hold as he stammered back, and the lift stopped.
Lizzie grabbed Hermione's wand rolling around on the floor of the lift in a hurry but as she made to run into the crowd for the fireplaces lining the main hall, she nearly collided with Percy. He looked at her wide-eyed, concerned at the sight of a beaten up and disheveled secretary with a furious Yaxley limping out of the lift after her.
"Percy," she whispered frantically.
"Perc, they're tracking your family. They've tortured your brothers. Tell your dad he's being tracked, please tell him," she panted in a hurry, but ran off before she could confirm if he gathered anything she said.
"It's Potter! Grab her!" Yaxley roared at the security guards. Percy took off for a lift and frantically pressed the button for the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office.
Lizzie's stockings were slippery on the stone floor without the shoes, but she caught up to Hermione in enough time to see Ron plead with Mary that he wasn't her husband and convince her to apparate out. Bars were coming down in loud clanks to block every exit as the three of them ran for a free one. Hermione, who now looked like herself, reached for Lizzie, and Ron, no longer Reg Cattermole, but running too fast for anyone to tell who he was, grabbed Hermione's hand and leapt into the fire of a still open hearth. They disappeared, and Lizzie had never welcomed the sick feeling of doing so more than this moment.
Except she could now feel a large hand on her back that belonged to neither Hermione nor Ron. She felt the two of them start to slip, Ron struggle, and Number 12 Grimmauld Place come into view, but then Yaxley's face appeared. He loosened his grip, and Lizzie tightened hers on Ron's arm and Hermione's hand. His face disappeared with another crack. Then the three of them landed hard with a loud thud in a blanket of dry foliage. She stared up at a canopy of trees and the sound of a freight train ran like a blazing horn through her ears.