"I'm sorry," Tonks said. "I didn't know what to do."

Moody scowled.

There was an ominous silence as they approached the entrance to the castle. They'd gotten the delegates to safehouses, but it had been almost an hour before they'd managed to get a big enough force of aurors healed to risk attacking the castle.

Even now, there were only eighty of them; if Hebert had been right, they'd be outnumbered over two to one, less whatever damage Hebert had managed to do before Voldemort had killed her.

"Wasn't anything else you could have done. Girl knew what she was doing. Getting the boy to safety and the information out was the most important thing you could have done."

Behind her, the aurors were spreading out.

There'd been discussion about using brooms and entering from the upper floor windows, but Tonks had told them that Hebert had trapped the castle. The last thing they needed was to lose people due to friendly fire issues.

"Wands out," Moody said.

That was a redundant order, of course, but he felt like he had to say something.

None of them disillusioned themselves. One of the problems with doing that in a group was that it led to friendly fire incidents. Even if someone didn't accidentally aim at the wrong person, they could easily overshoot and hit someone else they couldn't see.

Moody himself would be fine; his eye could see through such nonsense. But a large battle where both sides were disillusioned would be a nightmare.

With a gesture from Moody, the front door slammed open.

"I'm not detecting anyone, sir," the auror beside him said. He sounded worried.

If the Death Eaters weren't here, where had they gone? To attack the Ministry itself? St. Mungos, where half their numbers were?

"Two humans in the Great Hall," he said. "And something strange... something that flickers."

"Be on your guard," Moody said.

They approached the door to the Great Hall, which was partially open. They could hear voices inside.

"You can come on in."

It sounded like Hebert's voice, but it had to be a trick.

Moody focused his eye; the wood on the door to the Great Hall was particularly thick, but he could see through it.

He stared at the scene on the other side, before finally gesturing to the others to open the door.

"That's... not what I expected," Tonks said from beside him, whistling under her breath. "How did she do that?"

Hebert was standing on the other side of the room, talking with Lucius Malfoy. A prisoner?

"Talked a house elf into sacrificing herself," Moody said. He stared. "Is that Crouch's house elf?"

"What happened?" Tonks asked.

"Mr. Malfoy here worked heroically to defend the school from the Death Eaters," Hebert said. "And I assisted him."

"What?" Moody asked flatly.

Had Malfoy somehow imperiused her?

"I'll be happy to undergo Master Stranger Screening," she said. "But I'll happily work with Mr. Malfoy again."

Oh.

Malfoy had decided to jump ship.

Moody gritted his teeth.

Didn't she know that Malfoy had been an active participant in just as many of the atrocities as the other Death Eaters?

Or would she have forgiven the others as long as they were willing to work for her.

"Where'd the elf get the time turner?" he asked.

"I presume that it was stolen during Voldemort's raid on the Ministry," Malfoy said smoothly. "And had been given to her master."

"Crouch?"

"His son," Malfoy said. "Who replaced the father. I'd found evidence that this was the case, which is why I had arrived here to confront him. Imagine my surprise to discover the castle was under attack."

"Right," Moody said. "So a house elf did... that to Voldemort. They aren't usually that creative."

"I might have given her a few ideas," Hebert said modestly. "After all, being immortal just means that your enemies have to get a little more creative, hmm?"

"You talked a house elf into committing suicide," Moody said.

"She was the one who poisoned the aurors," Hebert said. "The house elves would have considered her a traitor of the highest order, and Azkaban couldn't hold her. The Ministry would have had her Kissed. Isn't this better?"

Moody glanced behind him, and he shuddered.

"What happened to the rest of the bodies?" he asked. There was a large tarp in the corner, and he could see several bodies underneath it.

The Great Hall was otherwise suspiciously clean; no tables or anything.

"Oh, I left them where they lay," she said. "I've removed all the traps, though, so it's safe to go upstairs."

"Stay with them," he ordered Tonks.

Hebert seemed to like her well enough, so she was less likely to attack her than the aurors she didn't know.

"Search the castle."

The next hour was a nightmare. They only found a hundred and eighty bodies, and the sheer numbers of ways they'd died showed a certain amount of creativity.

"It looks like she used muggle firelegs on these," Wilkins said.

"Any shells left behind?" Moody asked.

"No," Wilkins said. "Presumably she cleaned them all up when she removed the traps."

She'd likely vanished the bullets from the wounds and did everything she could to disguise the manner of death. He was surprised that she hadn't simply had them stripped down to the bones.

Maybe she'd wanted them to be able to identify faces.

"Sir," a different auror said. "You need to see this."

Moody stumped over to one of the bodies. All of them had been mauled to death by some kind of animal, with expressions of horror on their faces.

"Is that..." he asked.

"Yeah. I recognize some of the others too. Norwegian aurors."

"Any chance that they were caught up in all of this and killed by accident?"

"They had no reason to be on British shores," Wilkins said. "Much less at Hogwarts."

"Presumably Hebert wouldn't have murdered them if they weren't aggressors."

"Self defense, not murder," Wilkins said.

"She had time to trap the entire castle without harming a single auror... and we specifically checked the entire castle not two hours before all of this happened. This was clearly premeditated."

"She was defending the country," Wilkins said. "At least, that's what the papers are likely to say."

"She could have left," Moody said. "Instead of... all of this."

"Saw an opportunity, I guess," Wilkins said. "Get all your enemies in one place, best time to get rid of them."

"And who else is she likely to get rid of?" Moody asked.

"I'll bet Malfoy keeps that from happening," Wilkens said.

"What?"

"Whole point of keeping him around, right? Politics is just a way of getting what you want without having to murder people."

Moody frowned.

"And who has a better reason to keep her from going on a bender than Malfoy?"

"Didn't do such a good job with the last Dark Lord, did he?"

"You-know...Voldemort didn't listen to anybody. I've got a feeling that the girl would be just as happy to win politically as having to kill people all the time."

Hmmm.

And Malfoy chained to the feet of a muggleborn. Moody could see the ironic appeal. Malfoy was the perfect Death Eater to spare, as well. Malfoys had a history of going wherever the wind blew, which meant that Lucius was likely less ideologically bound to his former master than the others.

"You think she did him in the Great Hall as a message?" Moody asked.

"Sir?"

"Every schoolkid for the next... however long it is before they figure out how to move him... will have a living example of what happens to people who go against Taylor Hebert," Moody said. "She could just as easily have killed him in one of the side halls, but she wanted it done out in the open."

It wasn't likely that he'd be moved any time soon, either. The Ministry had been trying to break the time loop the other time turners were caught in for more than a year with no results at all.

"How many time turners were missing?" he asked.

It had taken months for a bean counter to notice the discrepancy; someone had counted the number of falling time turners and had noted that there were many of them missing.

"Fifteen," Wilkins said.

Moody stopped.

"You mean Taylor Hebert has fourteen more time turners?" He stared at the other man,

"Official conclusion was that it was the Death Eaters," Wilkins said. "That they destroyed the Trace so that they could go after the kids themselves. Umbridge likely annoyed Voldemort to the point of killing her."

"Who else would have a reason to destroy the Trace?" Moody asked. "Who would have a reason to want the last Minister dead?"

"Hebert wasn't old enough for that kind of dark magic, not back then."

Moody gestured at the pile of corpses in front of them. "You don't think she was holding back on what she could do?"

"Might not be a good idea to complain too much about the Hero of Hogwarts," Wilkins said. "Politically speaking, I mean. She already saved all the muggleborn kids and now she saved the lives of most of the aurors. Two hundred out of a population of ten thousand, where everybody's related?"

Moody frowned.

It stuck in his craw to allow a mass murderer alone, but he was seeing very unfriendly looks from the men around them. Surely they could see how dangerous she was.

As a third year, she'd destroyed an army, something that even Dumbledore and Grindlewald hadn't done in their primes. What would she be like at twenty five? At fifty five?

By the time she was as old as Voldemort, she'd have taken over the entire world.

Still, might not be prudent to risk being "accidentally" shot in the back by his own men.

He'd speak to Minister Bones in private.

In the meantime..,

"Find out who the rest of them are," he said. "Norway wouldn't have done this on their own. They've got their heads so far up the Russians' asses that they sneeze brown."

"Won't be easy," Wilkins said. "If we hadn't done the Mad Cleaver case together, I wouldn't have know Jurgen here."

"It's not like they're muggles!" Moody snapped. "Wizarding world's small. Circles we run in are even smaller."

It wasn't likely that it was going to be the whole world either, or they'd already have armies at their gates. He knew who the likely suspects were, and he knew Wilkins knew as well as he did.

The Russians, the Bulgarians, the Eastern Europeans always voted together as a bloc. France, Germany and Italy were likely to take a dim view of what had been done.

If this wasn't handled well, it was possible that the Wizarding World might end up in a European war; if MACUSA got involved on the side of Britain, it was likely that China might start interfering as well.

It could get very ugly very fast. Seething resentments still existed from the Global Wizarding War started by Grindlewald. Truthfully, some of the grievances had stretched back a thousand years, from times before Wizards even had their own nations.

Sometimes muggle conflicts erupted unasked into Wizarding neighborhoods. Not all Wizards were as blind to the plights of their less gifted neighbors as their governments asked them to be.

The village of Oradour-sur-Glane had been attacked in France, with Nazi soldiers shooting the men and trying to burn the women and children alive inside a church, killing the women and children who tried to escape with firelegs.

Their Wizarding neighbors had taken exception to this, and they'd slaughtered the Nazis to a man. It had been a disaster in many ways, especially for the obliviators.

The fact that the Wizards had been forced to flee afterwards as the village was razed hadn't helped. The German wizards had backed their muggle counterparts, and the French Wizards had helped in the resistance as they could.

Wizards lived twice as long as muggles, which meant that the memories of the war were much fresher in their minds.

"I'll tell the Minister," Moody said. "Keep working and see if anyone can identify any of these guys."

He stumped his way back downstairs.

Minister Bones was in the Great Hall, along with Dumbledore. He'd apparently managed to get back to the United Kingdom in record time. Had he had a portkey, or had he risked an intercontinental apparition, which would be a risk to even someone as skilled in magic as himself.

Dumbledore was staring at the tableaux of Voldemort jumping in terror over and over and over again.

"Oh, Tom," he said. "You wanted to live forever. Now I suppose that you will finally get your wish."

Bones turned toward him.

"Report," she barked.

"It's like the girl said," Moody said. "A hundred and ninety two bodies so far."

Dumbledore closed his eyes.

"And do you believe that Lucius assisted the girl, as they have said?"

Moody shook his head.

"Most of them were killed by muggle firelegs, by what looks like Aromantula attacks, by falling from the Great Stairs or by some dark magic that we haven't identified yet. We've found magical marbles at the base of the stairs and Peruvian darkness powder residue."

"Those would speak to Miss Hebert's methods more than Lucius's, I'm afraid."

"Where is she?" Moody asked.

"In the kitchen," Dumbledore said. "Apparently the attack interrupted her breakfast. The house elves are appreciative of her allowing them to help save the day."

"And her?" Moody asked, looking at the elf staring up at Voldemort.

"I think that if she'd been caught, they'd have been perturbed by her treason. However, now... I think they are a little in awe of her."

"So Hebert's made friends with the house elves and she's the darling of the auror corps. What's to keep her from taking over the country?"

Dumbledore stared off into the distance.

"I think I'll have to take a closer hand in her development. Although Mr. Rowle has done a fine job of being Headmaster, I think I will have to resume my old place."

Minister Bones nodded her head.

"You don't think you might not end up in a similar place to Voldemort here if she gets displeased with you?"

"I will endeavor to be much more pleasant to the house elves under Hogwarts employ," Dumbledore said. "Perhaps give them a game night?"

"It's almost as though you do not like the girl," Minister Bones said, amused.

"She just proved that she's capable of mass murder, and her response to that is to go and have a scone and eggs."

"I think she's having a breakfast burrito," Dumbledore said. At their looks, he shrugged. "It's some kind of American monstrosity that is actually quite tasty, if messy with a beard."

Moody stared at him.

Dumbledore sighed.

"The girl never saw Tom Riddle as her ultimate opponent. She foresees the possible destruction of the world in twenty years, and she's willing to be... creative in stopping that from happening."

"Why wasn't I informed of this?" Minister Bones demanded.

"She did not give me leave," Dumbledore said. "Keeping her trust seemed more important than giving you information about a threat decades away that might not even happen. I suspect that now that the immediate threat is gone that she will be more forthcoming."

"Sir," Wilkins said. "Outside."

They stepped outside, where they saw two hundred schoolchildren. A quarter of them were on brooms, and the rest were on foot. They all had wands drawn in a stalemate with less than twenty aurors outside.

Hermione Granger was at the head of the pack.

"If Taylor's really here, show us to her!" she said. "How do we really know you aren't Death eaters in disguise."

Dumbledore stepped outside.

"She's currently having breakfast," Dumbledore said. "A burrito apparently."

Everyone stared at him, and everyone lowered their wands. Apparently a burrito wasn't something any of them expected a Death Eater would admit to knowing about.

"We heard that the Death Eaters were attacking," Hermione said, "And so we all came. It took us two hours to get here."

"How did you learn this?" Moody asked.

"Harry sent me a patronus," Hermione said. "And it's a good thing too. Professor Snape was transfiguring copies of me and my family and he was going to fake our deaths. He left as soon as he heard."

She frowned.

"He left the bodies behind. I'll have to go home and vanish them."

"It's illegal to do magic at home," Moody said.

"Well, someone come with me then," she said. "Or I'll get one of the seventh years to do it. I doubt that my parents will know what to do with three fake corpses."

"Put little hats on them," one of the boys said, and everybody sniggered.

"I'm here, guys," Taylor said from behind him.

Moody whirled, but the only thing the girl was holding was a cylindrical item that she took a bite of. A smell of eggs and spiciness filled his nostrils.

"Taylor!" Hermione said. She rushed forward and hugged the girl, despite the messy thing she was eating.

The others quickly surrounded her, hugging her tightly.

"Tom's problem was that he didn't have any ties to the world," Dumbledore said quietly. "He cared about no one other than himself. If I thought she was the same, I would kill her before she had a chance to get any stronger."

Moody stared at the schoolchildren.

They all seemed to like the girl. There was a genuine affection there that he doubted Tom Riddle had when he was in school.

"Taylor understands loyalty," Dumbledore said. "And if her darker impulses sometimes overwhelm her, it's our responsibility to reign her in."

The girl's head snapped around, and she gave Moody a nasty grin.

Somehow he didn't feel comforted.