Chapter 10
- Perseverance and Polyjuice Potion -
Teddy walked down the busy street in London, a carefree look on his face. Everywhere around him there were muggles rushing to get to work. Mixed into the muggles were witches and wizards also trying to get to their work place.
Ever since Voldemort took over the Ministry, all lower classed workers were forced to use a different form of transportation to get to work other than using Floo powder and apparation.
Teddy ambled down the street, looking exceptionally like a young muggle teen, in his baggy jeans and flannel top with a 'I Love NY!' cap over his neat hair. Behind him trotted a thin, boney women with a face that looked like she was sucking a lemon. From her over-the-top muggles clothes, Teddy knew she was a witch in disguise.
He continued walking a few paces in front of the witch before dropping down onto his knee to tie up a non-existent shoelace. The witch walked past him and Teddy glanced at the open door on her right. A white light came from within and hit the witch, who fainted. Teddy caught her quickly and, with the help of Ron, carried her inside the door to the small storage room.
The two placed her down beside four other unconscious Ministry workers. "I think we're getting the hang of this." Ron laughed silently to Teddy, who grinned back. Hermione looked nervous, her lips pursed together so tightly that at first glance, Teddy thought she didn't have any.
Arkie was beginning to spoon a bubbling, grey, lumpy liquid into five cups. Teddy watched her, wrinkling his nose at the sour smell.
"Right, remember what we said." Hermione repeated for the fifth time that morning, grabbing the full cups of Polyjuice potion and passing one to each member in the cramped storage room. "Don't speak to anyone unless absolutely necessary. Just try and act normal. Do what everybody else is doing."
Together they all chose one of the Ministry workers each, plucking a hair from their head. Harry took a hair from a large, square shouldered man with a stern looking on his sleeping face. Ron took his from a plump, red haired man with a brush moustache. Hermione got the hair off the lemon-faced woman they'd just kidnapped and Arkie plucked a hair from a messy brown haired woman, who looked in her 20's.
Teddy bent down, taking the hair from skinny, long dark haired man with a hooked nose and small eyes. He held the hair above his helping of Polyjuice.
"If we do that, then with a bit of luck, we'll get inside." Hermione sounded far from confident.
Teddy gulped in disgust at the mud-like substance in his cup. "That's where it'll get really tricky." He said. There was an anxious silence. Ron shook his head. "This is completely mental."
"Completely." Arkie muttered in an unappetizing tone. Harry glanced at the others, looking more determined than any of them. "Come on. We've got a Horcrux to find."
Teddy felt awkward wearing the clothes of a man unconscious in a storage room. It was even weirder to be walking among stranger that weren't really strangers. From the weird, anxious and tense looks on the others faces, they were feeling the same way.
Together they followed after other Ministry workers, until they reached two public toilets. All the wizards filed into the men's toilet, while the witches trotted into the ladies. They all glanced at each other.
Teddy instinctively pressed his forehead to Arkie's, before seeing a witch glancing at the two of them in confusion. He took a step back and followed Ron and Harry into the men's. The wizards were all lined up outside the toilets. Like a well oiled machine they'd walk into a cubicle, there was a flushing sound, then the door would open, revealing an empty cubicle.
Teddy followed everyone else and was soon standing inside a cubicle. The flushing noises echoed from the other cubicles. He bent down, glancing under the wall into the next cubicle. His neighbor raise his foot and stepped into the toilet, then the next foot went. Flush! He was gone.
He wrinkled his hook-like nose as he stood back up. "This is why I'd never suite a Ministry job." He whispered to himself before plunging one foot into the toilet, then the other. He turned around awkwardly and flushed himself down. He gasped as he landed in the familiar black bricked hall of the Ministry of Magic. Witches and wizards were pushing through the crowd, yet there was an even more dreary feeling there than ever before.
Aurors were forming a wide barrier nearby, occasionally asking witches and wizards to present identification. Luckily, Teddy slipped past them without any questions, but spotted a young man getting stopped by an Auror. "You. Come."
"W-what?" The man stammered as two wizards grabbed him by the arms. "What did I do?"
"Just keep walking."
Teddy watched them drag the man off then he looked around. No one seemed to have even noticed what had happened, that or they were choosing to ignore it. Pushing down the sick feeling in his stomach, he continued searching for the others. Finally, he found them all crowded together by the huge golden fountain that had been repaired since the Battle of the Department of Mysteries.
Once again the thought of his father, Tonks and future sibling came to mind. But now was not the time to be thinking of such things. He had to concentrate.
"Hey, guys." He murmured, joining the group by the water edge. Teddy had always been tall, yet thankfully had stopped growing once he reached his dad's height. But now with his added height, he felt like a giant, towering among the others. It almost made him feel more exposed.
"Teddy?" Arkie looked up at him, her brown hair and triangular features making her completely unrecognizable. "Sorry, I forgot what you looked like."
"Yeah, it's me. So... what now?"
"We find Umbridge." Harry said.
Teddy glanced around the employees trotting past, his eye catching the number of wanted posters with Harry's photo piled up to one side. "But how? This place is huge, she could be anywhere."
"Teddy's got a point, Harry." Hermione mumbled.
"Then we better start searching." Harry was already moving off towards one of the golden old fashioned elevators, with shining bar-like doors that creaked open and shut by themselves. The last time Teddy had been in the Ministry he had been running to warn his friends that they were walking into a trap. Now he was sneaking in, in another body, to try and steal a Horcrux from his old Dark Arts professor. If only Mad-Eye could see him now.
The five of them all squeezed into a free elevator, but before the door could creak shut a hand grabbed it, forcing it back open again. "Cattermole." A wizard, dressed in tight, elegant robes, with a long golden braid trailing down his back, glared at Ron fiercely. "It's still raining inside my office. That's two days now."
Teddy and the others looked between the two. Ron stammered slightly. "Have you tried an umbrella?" If Teddy could slap his forehead with his hand, he would have.
The wizard's expression soured. "You do realize I'm going downstairs, don't you, Cattermole?"
"Downstairs?" Ron replied, his voice cracking slightly.
The wizard twisted his lips into a crooked grin. "To interrogate your wife." He leaned against the door in a threatening manner. "Now, if my wife's blood status were in doubt and the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement needed a job doing, I think I might just make that a priority." Ron gulped. "You have one hour."
The doors closed and everything was silent. The elevator moved back and then down. "Oh, my God." Ron finally breathed, his voice was shaking and his hands clammy. "What am I gonna do? My wife's all alone downstairs."
Teddy squinted his eyes and stared at Ron from over his shoulder. "Ron, you don't have a wife."
Ron turned an even brighter shade of red than he had been before. "Oh, right."
"I can't believe it." Arkie whispered from the opposite side of the elevator to Teddy. "They're questioning Mudbloods." She answered to the look on Teddy's face. "It's in the Prophet."
"Level 2." The familiar woman's voice said from within the elevator and the machine came to a slow stop.
"How do I stop it raining?" Ron asked, desperately.
"Try 'Finite Incantatem.'" Hermione whispered, gripping onto the sides of the elevator. "This is you, Ron." She said as the doors squeaked open and Ron stumbled out, looking flustered.
"Finite Incantatem. Okay." He repeated and spun to face them again. "And if that doesn't work...?" But the elevator was already whizzing to the next level. Teddyy released a shaky breath and grabbed Arkie's weirdly boney hand.
"If we don't locate Umbridge within the hour we go find Ron and come back another day. Deal?" Harry said in an authoritative tone, turning to the rest of them. They all nodded in unison as the doors opened once again.
Creak!
Teddy was the first to look up at the person standing on the other side of the door, waiting to get in. Hed froze when he saw the short, stubby witch dressed completely in nauseating pink, standing at the door. A long silver chain hung around her neck, on the end a large crystal locket. It looked exactly like fake one.
Umbridge glanced once at the people inside the elevator. Her black beady eyes rested on Teddy. "Lance. Good, you're on time." She spoke to Teddy sweetly. If only she knew who she was really talking to. He wanted nothing more than to whip out his wand and demonstrate some of the spells Mad-Eye had taught him. "And Mafalda." She blinked at Hermione. "Travers sent you, did he? Good, we'll go straight down."
She trotted into the elevator and waited quietly. When no one moved she glanced at Harry and Arkie. "Albert, Polly. Aren't you getting out?" Teddy let go of Arkie's hand, which had been hidden behind his back, and watched as the two slowly ambled out of the elevator. They turned around, watching the terrified Hermione and awkward Teddy, disappear down to the next floor.