The hallway became crowded with silver forms, as everyone that could sent their Patronus to try and protect the three children. Unfortunately, the unprecedented number of Patroni in such a small space actually pushed the Dementors towards the children.
"Shit!" Amelia Bones summed up the situation succinctly.
"This can not get any worse," Fudge said, paling as he realized he was going to go down in history as the minister who murdered the Boy-Who-Lived.
Corporeal Patroni began to explode into clouds of silver mist as something tore through them, creating an impenetrable fog, just before a couple of high-pitched screams rang out.
"The children!" an Auror said in horror.
"Now, things could not get any worse," Fudge corrected himself.
The sounds of hundreds of booted feet marching in step reached them, getting louder and louder as they approached.
"Minister Fudge, if you say that one more time..." Amelia began.
"A goblin army is approaching!" someone called out from the rear.
Amelia sighed. "You can think it, just don't say it."
Fudge whimpered.
The clang of jangling keys, to remind the wizards who had whose wealth locked up, sounded as the goblin General K'han approached wearing silver scale mail and carrying a spiked war hammer, a young goblin female at his side and an army of goblins behind him. "You have kidnapped the princess's intended," he announced. "Return him or die!"
A Dementor exited the fog at a run, screaming like a little girl. A chain shot out of the mist to wrap around its ankles and drag it back as it clawed ineffectually at the floor. A couple of seconds later, as everyone stared, a pair of Dementors were launched out of the fog to slam against the ceiling and crash to the ground where they staggered to their feet. A small form leapt out of the fog and onto a Dementor, knocking it to the ground once more where it wrapped one of the chains dangling from its arms around the Dementor's throat and with its feet on its back, began to pull. The other Dementor backed into the wall, clearly terrified.
"Can I say it now?!" Fudge begged.
*POP!*
Harry Potter roared, which in other circumstances would've sounded cute, like a kitten pretending to be a lion, however the Dementor's head in his hands made it seem a bit more impressive. Seeing Harry turn towards it, the other Dementor stiffened up, grabbed its chest, and gave the worst performance ever seen of a man faking a heart-attack before collapsing to the ground. Harry nudged the 'corpse' with his foot a few times before the tension went out of him and he straightened up from the animalistic half-crouch he'd been in.
"Harry?" Shank-ko asked, hoping he'd recovered from his berserk state.
"Shank-ko?" he asked slowly, still recovering.
"Harry?" a voice asked from the fog as a pair of preteen prisoners slowly approached, using their cell door as a shield.
"Seline, Billy?" he asked. "Err, sorry about that," he apologized. "I just felt them in my head and it made me so angry."
"Harry!" Seline squealed, seeing he was back to normal, and rushed to him.
An Auror began to raise his wand, but Rufus grabbed his arm. "Before you point your wand at that girl, consider what your neck strength is in comparison to a Dementor's."
"Isn't she dangerous?" the Auror whispered, as Harry was sandwiched between two girls checking him for injury.
"Not more dangerous than him when she's threatened."
"Shouldn't we be escaping?" Billy asked moving the door between them and the Aurors.
"I forgot" Harry admitted. "Everyone act non-chalant and sneak out through the goblins."
"What's that mean?" Billy asked.
"Be sneaky and act like nothing's wrong," Shank-ko explained.
Keeping the door between them and the Aurors, the three whistled three different tunes and crept towards the goblin lines.
Shank-ko turned to K'han. "At least he's an impressive warrior."
K'han turned to Fudge. "You're just going to let him walk out?"
Fudge smiled. "Let who walk out?"
"Harry Potter, who you arrested illegally?" k'han asked. He'd been looking forward to at least a little bloodletting, even if marching through Diagon Alley in force had served its purpose of reminding the wizards of the goblins' strength.
"Where's your proof?" Fudge demanded.
"What's all this then?" K'han asked, waving his arm around.
"Fire drill," Fudge replied.
"And, my friends still in cells?" Shank-ko asked.
"Testing the cells' security, for 5 galleons each," Fudge said.
"Fifty!" she snapped out.
"Twenty!"
"Thirty five and a favor to be named later!"
"Deal!" Fudge grabbed her hand.
K'han chuckled and decided to let Fudge save face. "You won this time, human!"
Fudge looked smug while the goblins retreated. "Bones, you've got clean-up. I don't want the records to show a hint about what happened here. As far as everyone is concerned, it's a fire drill."
"Yes sir," Bones said. "Drills and testing, as realistic as possible, before that new pay increase for Aurors we were talking about."
Fudge froze and considered that, deciding he could see several ways to make that work for him, he nodded. "Spotless," he said as he left.
0o0o0o0o0o0
"It's not often a human is brought before me in chains," K'han joked in Gringotts as the goblins celebrated.
"You call them chains, I call them weapons that can't be taken from me," Harry said cheerfully. "At least, according to your armorer they can't be taken from me."
K'han turned to Kr'Ature. "No luck removing them?"
"Vanish all the bones in his wrists and we may be able to slip them off," the goblin armorer replied. "Then again, we might not. It's impossible to tell what the original enchantments were, as he's channeled a lot of magic through them and they're impregnated with a combination of Dementor blood and...I'm guessing, solidified Patroni. Until today, I didn't even know Dementors could bleed, much less that you could impregnate metal with corporeal Patroni particles."
Selena cheerfully wove silk around the chains, strapping them to Harry's arms and coiling the extra around Harry's waist.
"And her manacles?" K'han asked.
"She wouldn't let us remove them," Kr'Ature replied.
"It took half a dozen Aurors casting at once to stun her while she was using them to block spells," Harry pointed out as Seline started weaving a shirt on him.
K'han nodded, impressed. "See if you can make them look like jewelry, so no-one questions them."
"I'll get right on that, sire."
"And the door?" he asked, seeing Billy still carrying their cell door.
"We put some straps on it so he can use it as a shield," the goblin armorer explained. "He's decided to keep it."
"If they lock you in a cage, turn the bars into weapons," K'han quoted.
"What's that from?" Harry asked curiously.
"Goblin history," K'han said proudly.
Harry wasn't sure, but it sounded like either the beginning of a side-quest or important background data to him. "Really? Tell me more."
AN: Typing by Lucilla!