A/N: Delay on this chapter wasn't helped by my recent move (and the last one, dammit!), my recent acquisition of a "job" (what now?), or my keen consciousness that the entire chapter could be most pithily summed up thus:
UMBRIDGE: I'm still being evil. EVIL, I tell you, EVIL!
HARRY: Oh thank God. Someone's still acting in-character this book.
But I had a feeling that readers might feel cheated if that's all they got, and, hey, pulling-it-out-of-our-arses escape plans are always fun to write, so I parodied this chapter properly.
Would have happened much faster if anyone had been more helpful with my L/T challenge. ;-( But I submitted and stuff by the deadline so all was well. [Insert multiple smiley faces here!]
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Execution of Said Foolproof Plan by Particularly Dedicated Gryffindor Fools
HERMIONE-DURING-OotP: *was all like, 'I'm a smart teenager with attitude, and I will not hesitate to raise my hand and get in your face, Professor Bitch. Here's a hand, you may talk to it! *mouthclick*'
HERMIONE-TWO-BOOKS-LATER-UPON-ENCOUNTERING-UMBRIDGE: *pale* *squeaky* *stuttering* O-O-Of c-course, Un-Undersecretary! Whatever you s-s-s-ay!
UMBRIDGE: Excellent! I like having Wormtailesque lackeys when I interrogate my prisoners. Good morning, Albert, aren't you getting out?
RUNCORN!HARRY: Crap, the Umbitch and I are on first-name terms? I knew I hated my Polyjuice character.
SMALL TALK AT THE MINISTRY LIFTS THESE DAYS AMONG HIGHER-UPS RUNNING THE COUNTRY: *all consists of murmuring "Mudbloods, blood traitors, Mudbloods, blood traitors, good day Albert". It's like Mrs Black dialed down to a few decibels and somehow injected with superficial manners *
HARRY: *scuttles under Invisibility Cloak through Level One and starts to find his innocent heroic heart, in all its recklessness, quailing before the might of the bureaucracy he sees* We'll never pull this off! This place is so… organized.
READERS: Well, you're organized, aren't you? You and Ron and, most importantly, Hermione just spent the last month gathering parchment rolls full of intelligence and plans.
HARRY: *miserably* Please refer to narrative.
NARRATIVE: They had concentrated all their efforts on getting inside without being detected: They had not given a moment's thought to what they would do if they were forced to separate.
READERS: B—Mw—Wh—H—
READERS' DESKS: Psst! Down here.
READERS: Ah, right, thanks… *HEADDESK*
UMBRIDGE'S BRIGADE OF MAGICAL FACTORY WORKERS: We are the normal, average people upon whom racist dystopias are built.
THEIR SPUNKY YOUNG SPOKESWOMAN: Hi, readers, nice to meet you!
READERS: *somehow all manage to feel morally superior*
HARRY: All right, I'll just glance about, hoping perhaps that Umbridge has left a Horcrux hanging about her mini-printing press—
HARRY: And holy *$&#^*!, I just found out what happened to Mad-Eye's body.
MAD-EYE'S MAD EYE (FORGIVE ME): *has the hitherto unknown magical quality of setting off Harry's innocent heroic heart to perform acts of instinctive goodness and uncertain wisdom*
THEN AGAIN: What doesn't?
So Harry prowls around Umbridge's office. Again. The subtext here is getting creepy even by the standards of this series. Even by the standards of Umbridge.
NARRATIVE: There was a filing cabinet behind Umbridge's desk: Harry set to searching it. Like Filch's filing cabinets—
NARRATIVE: *pause*
NARRATIVE: *clears throat* Like Filch's filing cabinets at Hogwarts—
NARRATIVE: *pause*
READERSHIP: … Yes?
NARRATIVE: Just leaving the field open for Umbridge/Filch shippers to squeal… I guess I have a lot to learn about this strange human phenomenon of "shipping."
READERSHIP: … Yeah.
UMBRIDGE'S NOTE ON HARRY'S FILE: To be punished.
FANDOM: *calmly* Well, the lemonficcers will be happy.
LEMONFICCERS: *in a frenzy of disgust* Oh ew yuck! We repent, we reform!
ROWLING: *pleasantly* My work here is done.
FANDOM: … hello, lady? Six Horcruxes to be found, umpteen couples left to hook up, and bunches of characters to kill off yet.
ROWLING: Oh yeah. *whets her literary hatchet*
HARRY: *finds photograph in Skeeter's book of teenaged-Dumbledore arm-in-arm with the vivacious golden-haired boy-thief that will be haunting Harry's dreams for umpteenth upcoming months of camping*
HARRY: Hmm, wonder if that's a ve-e-e-e-ry much younger Doge?
WHICH IS: *the most complimentary thing said about Doge in the entire series*
AND WOULD MAKE: *Harry's later dreams much more disturbing, because, seriously? Elphias-in-the-Hat?*
RON: *seeing Runcorn!Harry* M-morning.
HARRY: *hissing* Ron, it's me, Harry!
RON: Harry! Blimely, I forgot what you looked like—
MIZ PARODY LADY: I love Ron, I really do, but I find the interview-canon that he will one day be among Britain's Wizarding Finest very worrisome.
MR WEASLEY: I'm not even in Magical Maintenance, and even I know from the pumpkin-juice cooler you should use Meteolojinx Recanto.
CATTERMOLE!RON: Meteolojinx Recanto? Thanks, D—I mean, thanks, Arthur.
MIZ PARODY LADY: … Please refer to above comment.
MR WEASLEY: Runcorn, the rest of the Ministry might be terrified of you, but I am not. You know who you should be terrified of, Runcorn? Me. Me and my ragtag bunch of vigilantes. Dirk Cresswall will be avenged.
HARRY: … Mr Weasley, you are suddenly awesome in this book?
MR WEASLEY: *modestly* Undesirable Number Ten… *light flashes dramatically off his glasses* … baby.
THE EXTENT TO WHICH MR WEASLEY IS APPARENTLY A BAMF DURING THIS LIFT RIDE: *is such that Harry leaves 'wish[ing] he was impersonating somebody other than Runcorn, like maybe OotP Bob, or anybody who simply wouldn't incur that Muggle-lovin' wrath*
THEN: *Harry decides to go rescue Hermione instead of Ron, because clearly she's the one in need of a little assistance, as it certainly hasn't been her that has been and will continue to be saving the boys' arses throughout the rest of this fine reading experience*
BUT, BUT THEN: *he descends to the Department of Mysteries and discovers…*
SCARY DEMENTORS: *dun dun da dunn!*
But these dementors that once terrified the living daylight out of this kid, despite the swarms and swarms of them in this enclosed space, now pale beside the horror that lies within their centre…
THE HORROR THAT LIES WITHIN THEIR CENTRE: Dolores Umbridge.
HARRY OF THE HEROIC HEART: *throws up his hands before his face* Oh God! Spare me!
Just kidding.
WHAT HARRY'S HEROIC HEART ACTUALLY DOES: *sees Mary Cattermole, walking in to face the dementors and Umbridge—and immediately forgets all of this silly 'planning' nonsense in favour of impulsively walking beside her in his Hallow'd invisibility. So she won't be 'alone'*
READERS: Woman, remember your wretched epilogue to this series known as Tales of Beedle the Bard in which you mock fictional writers for making all sensible kids want to vomit?
ROWLING (AKA 'WOMAN'): Yeah… why?
UMBRIDGE'S PATRONUS: *is one of those girly cats she likes. It's very pressing that some fanficcer gives us the public service of a scene where McGonagall's cat Patronus tears Umbridge's cat Patronus's throat out. Cannot imagine why this was not in the canon.*
So then we have the "trial." Apart from Umbridge and Yaxley competing for the Biggest %#$!* of the Year Award (no easy feat when Runcorn is also in the running), the "interrogation" goes like this:
UMBRIDGE: Your name is Mary Elizabeth Cattermole. Very suspicious!
MRS CATTERMOLE: B—
UMBRIDGE: And you're married to one of our janitors. Tsk, tsk, it's not looking very good for you.
MRS CATTERMOLE: I—
UMBRIDGE: And you have children!
MRS CATTERMOLE: *desperate outburst* If the rest of that is evidence against me, can't I advance this as equally illogical evidence in my favour?
YAXLEY: *grudgingly* Well, we'll count it as neutral. But talking out of turn! We may as well throw away the key now!
UMBRIDGE: And you have a wand. Clearly you are guilty of theft, because there in no way used to be a vendor of wands on Wizarding main street that sold them indiscriminately.
YAXLEY: Shall we simply throw her to the dementors and have done with it?
UMBRIDGE: Let's give her one more chance… oh, look, her parents were greengrocers!
YAXLEY: *bureaucratic gasp* An honest profession! Off with her head!
IN THE MEANTIME: *Harry tries to alert Hermione to his invisible presence.
HERMIONE: *is almost as smooth as Ron. also lowers herself to complimenting Dolores Umbridge's jewelry. even if it's a wartime necessity, you never really recover from such degradation*
WHICH I THINK IS THE REAL REASON WHY: *Harry completely loses it and decides this is a good moment to break cover and Stun Umbridge*
TO BE COMPLETELY FAIR: *it is deeply satisfying*
THE NEXT FEW MINUTES: are full of Stupefying, Mrs Cattermole's bewilderment, and angry dementors.
IN OTHER WORDS: Awesome!
HERMIONE: *has trouble with her Patronus*
BUT!: Don't forget that she can wipe memories and possibly cast Avada Kedavra.
AND!: Can Disapparate properly, almost. You'll see why this is so important very shortly.
REG "RON WEASLEY" CATTERMOLE: *arrives*
MRS CATTERMOLE, MISTRESS OF PRIORITIZING: Reg! Runcorn has gone off his nut, attacking Umbridge and Yaxley, busting me out, he's told all of us to leave the country, I think we'd better do it, let's hurry home and fetch our three little bundles of heartstring-tugging and—Reg! Why are you so wet? How perplexing!
MIZ PARODY LADY: *is not making this up, Mrs Cattermole really did interrupt her plans to rescue herself and her family to ask that*
CATTERMOLE!RON: *managing to reclaim his personal space* Oh my God all the sudden I'm married and this may be a contributing factor to my later breakdown because bloody hell it's like she's looking for me to be a rock of support or a provider or frickin' Hermione just cannot take this.
ESCAPE SEQUENCE: *features the classic wait-for-an-elevator scene. some dreadful Wizarding equivalent to The Girl from Ipanema is probably playing*
THEY ARRIVE AT THE ATRIUM TO FIND: *that the Ministry is on high alert, sealing off the exits just in case a bunch of Muggle-borns and suspicious rogue employees try to make a break for it*
HERMIONE—WHO, AFTER ALL, IS BOTH: Harry! What are we going to—?
RUNCORN!HARRY: Shut up, Hermione, this is the part where I act like a total arse and it's legitimately for the greater good! ALL RIGHT, PEOPLE, I AM NOW BOSSING YOU AROUND. LOOK SHARP!
It would have worked pretty well, too, if the real Reg Cattermole hadn't shown up. Mrs Cattermole looks from one identical husband to another. It's a tribute to how desperately underdeveloped the Cattermoles are that I have yet to catch wind of a lemony fic inspired by this moment.
RUNCORN'S BALDING ARSE-KISSER FROM REGULATION AND CONTROL OF MAGICAL CREATURES: *looks back and forth, starting to get a wee bit suspicious. apparently doesn't have as much Dark-Arts-induced-brain-damage as real Death Eaters.*
HARRY: How should I assuage these suspicions? I know, I'll punch out balding arse-kisser!
READERS: Harry Potter!
HARRY: Okay, not helpful, but it feels so good!
YAXLEY: Wait, should I be suspicious?
HARRY: Yes, Yaxley—of him! It's the arse-kisser who's been helping Muggle-borns escape! And you know I'm totally Albert Runcorn, because a purist bastard like me is so likely to say "Muggle-born" instead of "Mudblood," and to resort to "Muggle dueling!"
YAXLEY: *very nearly swallows this, too. I told you this book was like a cartoon*
MEANWHILE: *there is a touching scene*
MRS CATTERMOLE: *clinging to Ron* Reg, I don't understand—don't leave me—*uxorial vicegrip*
RON'S TEMPER DURING THIS LIFE-OR-DEATH SITUATION: *is probably not improved by the keen awareness that Fred and George would mickey the hell out of him and Mrs Cattermole*
READERS: Wow, Miz Author Lady! How are we going to end this exciting and highly confusing action scene?
ROWLING: Oh, I thought Harry would just Disapparate Ron and Hermione out.
READERS: Ah, so it's not going to be a clean getaway, now is it?
ROWLING: Why of all the… er, yeah, you'd be right.
THE TRIO: *separation, suffocation, screams, spells, and blackout*
READERS: Huh boy.
THE BOY WHO LIVED: *tinny voice-over in the dark* Man, I suck at Apparation.