July 4th
Sleep was difficult for Hermione the night before she decided she was going to put the final steps of her plan in motion. So much could go terribly wrong that she knew her anxiety wasn't irrational. It was very possible, even likely, that she would be arrested that day. She might not even see her home or her family again. If anyone so much as suspected what she was up to, she would be in deep trouble that even her husband's influence couldn't get her out of. One way or another, her entire life was about to change.
While she sat at the breakfast table the next morning sharing a silent meal with her small family, she worried that she'd put too much trust in Kingsley. What if he betrayed her? Or what if he just simply didn't do what she asked? She knew that she could still get the plan moving without his help, but it would be much easier with it. A frantic tapping at the kitchen window made her spill tea down the front of her robes. Antonin rose from the table to accept the message.
"I have to go. Something urgent has come up."
It was a mark of his true concern that he didn't kiss his wife or his son goodbye. He only did that when there was an emergency. Hermione bit back a smile as she watched her husband rush out of the back door. Whatever Kingsley was up to, it was working. She banished their dirty dishes to the sink.
"Ollie, go next door to Mafalda."
Her son was reluctant to leave, but he knew better than to argue with his mother. It wasn't the first time he was ordered to seek refuge at the Yaxleys' home and it wasn't likely to be the last either. Once she was satisfied that he was out the door and wouldn't be coming back in, Hermione rushed to the basement. Mere short minutes later she was back upstairs with Harry's invisibility cloak tucked into her pocket.
Another quiet day appeared to be on the agenda for the Intelligence Division. Hermione knew that it was crucial that she not act strangely in the slightest. Rabastan would notice if there was something off about his partner. In an effort to busy her hands and hopefully control her nerves, she pulled out the official report she began working on the day before detailing Nott's interrogation. Only someone who could detect her heart rate would know that anything was amiss.
Rabastan strolled into the office around half past eleven still looking exhausted. Based on the practically gooey expression Hermione had the displeasure of seeing plastered across Rachel's face, she thought she knew why the man was so tired. He didn't even attempt to hide his yawns.
"Should we start on the Plunketts this morning?"
"You don't look like you've had enough rest to be at your best, Rabastan. Maybe leave the idiot outside alone for a few days first?"
He smiled smugly, not even trying to deny the truth of her words. She was too used to his behaviors to be disgusted. Everything about the man was foul. Where he once used to charm her, he made her skin crawl.
"Want to wait until tomorrow then?"
"I think it's best. You should go home and sleep. You'll be useless otherwise."
She needed him out of the Ministry. He could easily become a complication.
"It'll give me time to finish up my report on Theodore."
"All right. I'll go. Let me just finish a few things first."
Despite his protestations, she knew that he wasn't genuinely upset that he was leaving. Many times over the years he liked to tell her that he enjoyed making his victims wait. It made the suffering that much worse. Half the fun for him was chucking a suspect in a cell down on Level Eleven and forgetting their existence for weeks at a time. He was in no rush to dispatch of the Plunketts. No doubt he wanted to prolong their fear, make them truly ready for the day he had them dragged to the side room.
Almost an hour passed before he announced he was leaving for the day. Hermione was worried that she was about to finally tip over the edge into complete insanity before he left. Or that she was going to have a stroke. When he left the office, she could've cried in relief. She waited at least half an hour after his exit to demand her assistant hold all of her messages and leave her alone until she was done with the report. She stepped behind the door to her office, covered her entire body with the invisibility cloak, and slid out of the small opening. Rachel didn't even notice that the door was closed from the outside instead of the inside. A non-verbal locking spell would hopefully keep her from wandering in to discover that the room was empty.
Because she was afraid of the possibility of being jostled by someone in a lift while she was invisible, Hermione chose to take the stairs all the way down to Level Ten. No one even met her on the stairs to her relief. There were enough paranoid people living in the post-Harry world who wouldn't have hesitated to send a stunner towards phantom footsteps. As usual, Umbridge was alone in her office. Few ever deigned to enter the corner of the Ministry that belonged to the disgraced witch. Every day since she took her the first box of chocolates laced with love potion she'd been sending her more. The warning the hag gave her about potential overdose was ignored. If Umbridge went completely insane thanks to the potion, she would be pleased.
"Come with me, Dolores."
Hermione didn't even bother to remove the invisibility cloak when she entered the office. It might have been considered odd for a witch to follow the orders of a disembodied voice, but the Imperius Curse was still very much active. Dolores followed without complaint. Once inside the broom cupboard, she sealed the door behind them. She didn't want to risk being caught through the secret entrance.
"We're going to free Aberforth, Dolores. I need your help."
"Oh yes! Thank you, Madam Dolohov. I've been so worried about my Abbie. He shouldn't be locked up at his age. It's too cold down there."
It took another order to get the woman to shut up about how much she was apparently in love with the wizard. They descended the hidden staircase swiftly. There was no time to waste. Hermione wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. She pushed the hidden panel in the wall open very slowly to check for any inhabitants outside of the cells. Satisfied that they were alone but for the prisoners, Hermione crawled out of the panel.
"Stun all of the prisoners except for Aberforth. Do it quickly."
Umbridge didn't hesitate to complete her orders. Not for the first time Hermione thought about how remarkably pleasant she was under the curse. If she'd been aware that this was possible, she might have even been tempted to curse her years earlier. While Umbridge began the process of stunning each of the prisoners to prevent them from being witnesses to what was about to happen next, Hermione made her way to Aberforth's cell. She cloaked her magic to cast an untraceable unlocking spell on the door. Dumbledore didn't even flinch when his door was opened by an invisible hand. He must have been expecting her to return again at some point.
"We're here to help you, Dumbledore."
He started to say something in response to the corner of the cell where her voice was coming from, but stopped when Umbridge returned to give a report that all of the prisoners were stunned. Pleased that she didn't take more than a minute or two to complete her task, Hermione was almost tempted to praise her. The words caught on her tongue, however. This was Umbridge after all.
"Dolores, take your clothes off."
The horror on Aberforth's face when the short witch began disrobing in his cell only steps away would forever be burned into Hermione's memory. She knew she would be able to call it up years from then to have another good laugh.
"I have not been locked up in this cell for that long, Hermione. I have no interest in this woman in the slightest."
He averted his eyes, clearly not concerned that he was no doubt hurting the feelings of the woman who believed she was in love with him. Hermione wasn't strong enough to keep from laughing. Nor could she ignore the perfect moment to tease the man.
"Me thinks you doth protest too much, Dumbledore."
"I can assure you…"
She cut him off before he could get going on a good rant. There wasn't time. Every second they wasted could bring someone else down to the Level who wouldn't let any of them leave. She slipped out of the invisibility cloak, hating how vulnerable and exposed she felt without it. After reaching over to rip some hairs from Umbridge's head, Hermione dropped them into one of the two flasks she carried in her pocket. Once that was completed, she repeated the same process with the second flask, but added Aberforth's hair he'd given her during her earlier visit.
"Take your clothes off, Dumbledore, and switch. She's staying down here and you're coming upstairs."
The logic in her plan made sense. She ordered Umbridge to drink the polyjuice potion first. When it was evident that there were no dangerous side effects, Aberforth drank from his own. No more than ten minutes could've passed from the time they entered his cell to when he was ready to exit fully transformed and dressed as Umbridge, but time seemed to pass so slowly. Hermione was terrified that at any moment they were going to be discovered.
"Umbridge, stay in this cell. Keep drinking the potion every hour until it's gone. I'll get Aberforth somewhere safe and then come back for you later."
Hermione pulled the cloak back over her body. When she witnessed Umbridge sit down on the bed with the remaining polyjuice potion in her hand, she urged Aberforth out of the cell. The clang of the cell closing shut rang in her ears. They were making too much noise. The others prisoners would be coming back into consciousness soon. She grabbed Aberforth's wrist through the invisibility cloak to lead him towards the secret panel. Only when they were inside did either of them speak.
"You're not really going back there for her, are you?"
It was bizarre having a conversation with a person that looked like Umbridge while knowing that it wasn't her at all. She'd experienced it other times in her life, of course, but it never ceased being strange.
"Of course not. She's going to stay down there until she runs out of polyjuice potion. When she does, she'll be discovered and will take the blame for your escape. I'm hoping that you can have enough of a head start that you can get somewhere safe before that happens."
"But won't she tell the truth?"
"I've been feeding her love potions for days. A lot of love potions. She won't be sane enough to tell the truth. And if for some reason, she can, I hope to be far away too."
The hidden door inside the broom cupboard was unlocked. She cautiously peered out. When no one appeared to be around, she stepped out. Aberforth followed, cursing the witch's clothes under his breath. Confident that there would be no witnesses, Hermione removed the invisibility cloak and stuffed it back into her pockets. She pressed Umbridge's stolen wand into Aberforth's hand. While she didn't think any magic he performed under the influence of polyjuice potion would register as belonging to Aberforth Dumbledore instead of Dolores Umbridge, she wasn't completely sure. It would be a gamble. She didn't voice her concerns. He was intelligent enough to know that his first order of business once he was outside the walls of the Ministry was to get somewhere safe. Wands and magic could be worried about at that time.
They climbed the staircase to Level Nine in silence. Down the empty corridor outside of the Department of Mysteries, neither of them said a word. Inside the lift, they didn't speak. It was only when they were outside in the Atrium that Hermione began a loud and public dressing down of the hated file clerk. She gripped his arm, practically dragging his disguised form across the busy Atrium.
"I won't stand for this any longer, Umbridge! You have to be the worst employee this Ministry has ever had. You never have the files I need when I need them. We'll see what Pius has to say about all of this. Maybe I'll finally get my wish and you'll be out of a job."
There were lots of eyes on them. She wasn't trying to be quiet. It was necessary that she be seen with the transformed witch. When it all was discovered that Umbridge was responsible for the escape, Hermione needed to have plausible deniability. Of course the ideal plan was to be halfway to South America by the time the subterfuge was uncovered.
"Stun me."
She whispered the words to Aberforth. His borrowed eyes widened in shock. When she repeated the single word, he still didn't move for his wand.
"Stun me and run. Make it look real."
Aberforth Dumbledore was not a wizard that should've ever been discounted. He was much more powerful than he was given credit for. His movements were so fast that Hermione saw only a red light coming straight for her before nothing but darkness.