A/N: I'm alliiiiiiiiveeee! And finally have an update for you. I know it's been forever, but this was on hiatus for a reason. Still, hope you like it... OMG what happened to my formatting? All of my other chapters... squished... Ok, I'm going back and fixing it, however all of my documents will be from my files, not fanfiction's. IF YOU FIND ANY FORMATTING OR SPELLING OR DETAIL ERRORS AT ALL IN THE PRIOR CHAPTERS BECAUSE OF THIS PLEASE NOTIFY ME! And then I shall fix it.
Chapter Eleven
By the time the shinigami, Lupin, and the Weasleys arrived, the Ministry was in complete chaos. It was lucky that the floo hadn't been sealed by the time they had gotten through.
Hitsugaya grasped Hyourinmaru, adjusting his stance. He could already sense the presence of numerous hollows. There were dozens of them, he could tell.
"James, take a few people with you and cover the right wing. Lily, you take the left. Try to get all of the hollows on the lower floors first. Make sure no one but the Order sees you. I'll meet you at the top." James nodded, running to the right of the building with Bill and Lupin, while Lily took Charlie, Mr. Weasley, and Mrs. Weasley. Hitsugaya ran down the center with the Twins following close behind.
Percy Weasley held his wand in shaky fingers, trying with all his might to be the Gryffindor the Hat had told him he once was. He wasn't cut out for this sort of thing. Fighting was not what he was good at. He'd left that to his brothers. That was part of the reason he'd started looking into politics in the first place.
A masked, robed figure almost leisurely passed through the corridor, idly firing curses. Walls crumbled and fires sprouted under the Death Eater's command. Clearly he was there to cause as much chaos as possible.
Percy steeled himself for a fight; there weren't any Aurors nearby so he'd have to take care of it himself. Trying to steady his hands, he let loose a stunner in the Death Eater's direction.
It was a weak spell, Percy knew. He had never been a powerful wizard.
The Death Eater turned from his work, lazily casting a shield. It didn't even waver as the stunner hit, staying as solid as a transparent sheet of stone.
"Stupefy!" he tried again. The masked man in front of him didn't even bother to strengthen his shield, letting the second stunner impact it. It flickered slightly, but returned to its powerful solidity less than a second later.
"Is this all you can do, blood-traitor?" He asked. "I've got better things to do than waste my time on weak, pathetic wizards such as you."
Percy flushed angrily. That comment had mirrored his previous thoughts far too closely for comfort.
"Reducto!" Another jet of red light was released from his wand, this one brighter than the previous two.
The shield shook, then broke apart slowly, pieces of it falling to the floor.
The Death Eater glanced down at the fading light, still clearly unimpressed. "So you can cast a spell or two. Oh well. It won't help you anyway."
Percy tensed as the Death Eater raised his wand, swirling sparks of energy gathered at the tip. There was no room to dodge in the small hallway. "Protego!"
"Avada…"
The corridor shook as a section of it blew inward, pieces of the ceiling toppling to the ground. The Death Eater jumped back, forced to abandon his spell.
"Perce!"
Percy's eyes widened. "Fred, is that you?"
"'Course not, it's George!"
Percy nearly sighed in relief. His brothers were here. The twins jumped through the hole they had created in the wall. "You're here by yourself?" he asked, curious despite himself. Where was everyone else?
"Not really…"
"We were here with another Order member…"
"But we couldn't keep up with him…"
"So we decided to stay down here a bit longer…"
"And here we are!"
He nodded, then looked back at where the ceiling had collapsed. Had the Death Eater been caught under that or was he waiting on the other side? He shook his head. It didn't matter; they couldn't get over there at the moment. And anyway…
"Thanks," he muttered.
Fred and George just gave him identical shit-eating grins. "No problem, Perce!" They looked at him shrewdly. "Anything for family, right?"
For the first time in a long time, Percy felt a true smile forming on his features. "Yeah…"
Sirius Black was upset. He was a grown man, fully capable of taking care of himself. And what had happened? His best friend and his captain/son had both acted like he was incapable of taking out a few Death Eaters.
He'd been on the run for years. He knew how to be inconspicuous, even in a firefight. Hell, he probably knew how better than the rest of the Order did.
It wasn't that difficult. A hood, a couple of sticking and obscuring charms, and presto! Instant disguise.
But what truly galled him was that they had ordered him to stay; marked him as useless because of his status as an escaped convict.
Sirius growled low in his throat, the sound catching the attention of the remaining occupants of the house. Ron and Hermione both looked like they couldn't stand waiting around, but Sirius knew that was what they would do. After the chewing out they'd gotten last time, he supposed it was for the best. Ginny, however, was looking rebellious and slightly insulted; it was the same look he imagined was on his face as well.
He growled again and stood. "You three, stay here." He made his way over to the fireplace, cursing when it didn't connect to the Ministry. He stomped in the general direction of the exit.
Hermione glanced at him. "And where do you think you're going?"
Sirius pursed his lips. "I'm going to go help, whether they like it or not. I'm a fully capable wizard, dammit."
The girl looked down. "That's what we thought."
"I'm thirty-six. Not sixteen."
"You've also been in prison for over a decade," Ron pointed out.
Ginny frowned. "So? He's a member of the Order too, isn't he? It's his right to be able to help his friends when he needs to."
Hermione shook her head. "Sirius, please sit down. They only want to make sure you don't go back to Azkaban."
Sirius sighed, but realized there wasn't a way to get to the battle quickly enough to be of any use. "Fine." If the floo was blocked, there was no way he was going to be able to apparate anywhere near the Ministry, either. By the time he got there the battle would probably be over.
That didn't mean he wasn't going to rip James a new one when he got back, though.
"Iki o Suru, Tatsumaki!"
James swung the comforting weight of his zanpakuto in a wide arc, slicing through a hollow's arm and causing it to roar in surprised pain. His wand was in his other hand, but he couldn't concentrate on casting spells at the same time. That left the Death Eaters to Bill and Remus. Luckily, they didn't seem to be having too many problems fighting off the dark wizards.
The wounded hollow reared and struck with a secondary set of arms, each bearing claws at least half a meter long. James dodged backward, swinging Tatsumaki and releasing a wave of compressed air. The air struck, colliding with the hollow's mask and crushing it.
"Holy crap," he bit out as another swiftly took the defeated hollow's place, "how many are there?" How was Voldemort gaining so many followers so quickly?
Twisting aside, James ran his blade through the hollow's mask. He had to try not to use any more of his zanpakuto's abilities. He was running out of energy, fast.
"James!"
The former wizard spun, catching sight of another hollow towering over Bill and Remus who, without the reiatsu to combat it, were helpless. Flash-stepping, he caught the beast's claws with his blade and gave a quick counter-strike. That had been too close. They needed to end this. But how?
He hoped Lily and Higsugaya were having more luck than he was.
Lily was not having quite as easy of a time as her husband. Her zanpakuto, unlike James', was far more suited to healing. She did, however, know how to kill a hollow without the use of extra abilities. What's more, she knew how to do so better than James.
Darting forward Lily dodged under a massive claw, striking upwards and cleaving through the lizard-like hollow. Partially spinning to gain momentum, she struck again, cutting the mask in two.
Flipping a lock of red hair over her shoulder, she scanned the hall for enemies, but it was almost eerily quiet.
"By Merlin…" Arthur gasped, holding open a door. Molly's hands flew to her mouth and Charlie looked ill.
Lily gently nudged Arthur aside, eyes widening when she caught sight of what was inside. The minister was clearly dead, but worse than that was the hollow hovering over the body, licking blood off its jaws. Fudge's soul hadn't made it to safety.
The hollow, shaped vaguely like a spider, grinned and let its reiatsu flare. Lily's knees buckled and the Weasleys collapsed.
Adjuchas…
Flashes of light seared through the stairwell as combatants tried to aim at each other. A few of the Ministry's Aurors had joined in the fight, adding manpower and confusion both. Hitsugaya flash-stepped around them all, quickly enough that they wouldn't be able to catch a glimpse of his ghost-like form.
At the top of the stairwell a man was furiously shouting orders at his fellow Aurors, gold piping on his uniform designating a higher rank. His graying hair flew about his face in a wild mane, which he impatiently brushed aside.
Rushing off at inhuman speeds, Hitsugaya bypassed the man and went up another floor. Oddly there had been no signs of any hollows yet, though he could sense the ones Lily and James were fighting. There were however, quite a few Death Eaters; some upturning desks and tearing open filing cabinets, others scrabbling through loose papers on the floor.
After a quick mental debate Hitsugaya soundlessly slipped by the Death Eaters as well. Whatever they were after, the hollows took priority. And they wouldn't be able to search for long; the Auror he had seen was heading back this way, having defeated the Death Eaters in the stairwell.
A sudden flare of reiatsu made him pause, turning automatically to the direction Lily had gone. An adjuchas? What was a hollow of that level doing here? As yet, Voldemort had only been able to control weaker ones.
It was then that he recalled something particularly important. Lily, a 14th seat medical shinigami, was not anywhere near ready to face an adjuchas. If he didn't hurry, the hollow would kill her…
A few quick flash-steps had him hurtling back downstairs and to the left wing of the building, barely missing furious red eyes gleaming in the shadows behind him.
Block, parry, dodge, guard. It was all Lily could do to keep the powerful beast off of herself, let alone the three wizards behind her. "Get away, you three!" she snapped, swinging Shokubutsuen in a quick counterstrike. The blade connected harshly with pale hide, barely scratching the hollow's thick carapace.
She felt the wizards hastily exit the room, knowing they wouldn't be any help without reiatsu. Her moment of inattention cost her as two of the hollow's seven legs slipped under her guard and struck her side. Gasping in pain, she hacked inelegantly at the monster's legs with Shokubutsuen but did little damage.
It leered at her and stretched its jaws wide, wider, then so wide that its lower jaw… fell… off?
A white blur had streaked through so fast that she had barely seen it, and a flash of silver had the hollow cut in half, body collapsing to the floor and dissolving in a cloud of black.
"Hitsugaya!" she gasped out.
"Lily. Are you alright?"
"I'll be fine," she replied. "Just give me a moment. Sakaeru (Thrive), Shokubutsuen! (Botanical Garden!)" Flowers burst through the floor, pollen blowing off of each in a nonexistent wind. The tiny yellow particles landed on her wounds and slowly they started to knit back together. In a few minutes, all that would be left was a scar. But that was about all she'd have the energy for.
"The battle is starting to wind down," Hitsugaya said, frowning. "The Death Eaters are starting to retreat. We should too, before any of the wizards see us."
Lily nodded, standing with a wince.
"I'll contact the order and James," he added, and promptly chanted the kido that would allow him to speak to them all simultaneously. Orders given, they all exited the Ministry as discretely as possible.
Immediately upon their arrival back at Grimmauld they were besieged by impatient questions. Well, James, Lily, and the Weasleys were, anyway. The children and Sirius were quick to back away from Hitsugaya's frigid glare.
James shook his head and pulled his family aside. Lily looked tired and Hitsugaya was plainly irritated, but they followed nonetheless.
"Are you two alright?" he asked. "I felt the adjuchas. What was it doing there?"
"We're fine, but I don't know," Lily answered wearily. "I didn't think Voldemort was powerful enough to control anything but the lesser hollows."
"We need to finish him off before he grows any stronger," Hitsugaya cut in, running a frustrated hand through his hair.
"But how?" James asked. "We still need to find his last two horcruxes."
"The snake, Nagini, is always with Voldemort, right? We find him, we find the snake. It's the other one that we need to worry about," Lily said.
Hitsugaya frowned. "Get Black and Weasley – I mean Bill – over here."
"Why?" James asked, even as he turned away.
"Because this Lestrange's vault is the only clue we have. We need to find a way to get in there, and they have the tools we'll need."
In the end, the meeting with Black and Weasley had to wait, as the rest of the Order filed in for a meeting. The attack was explained in detail, and a few of the Order members cheered.
"So you kicked him out?" Tonks asked gleefully. She was there as it was her day off, unlike Shacklebolt, who was at the Ministry helping with the cleanup.
"Not necessarily," Hitsugaya replied. When all he got were confused looks he explained, "The Death Eaters were looking for something. The hollows were just a distraction meant to draw our attention away from the Auror offices and the Record-Keeper offices. They weren't planning to take over the Ministry."
James and Lily glanced at him. This was news to them.
Hitsugaya shrugged. "The area around those offices was empty save for Death Eaters. It wasn't hard to figure out."
"So what were they after?" Lupin asked, frowning slightly.
"I don't know. But they most likely got it. We weren't actually winning the battle when they retreated."
"Could it have been about you? Voldemort's prone to overreacting whenever he hears anything about Harry Potter." Black added.
Dumbledore sighed from his place at the head of the table. "It's likely," he admitted. "Hitsugaya-taicho, were you seen by anyone?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so."
The aging wizard hummed in thought. "Very well. Now, I believe you had something else you wished to discuss?"
Hitsugaya blinked. The only other thing they had to talk about was Gringotts… "Yes. Weasley… Bill, if you would tell the Order what you heard today."
Bill recounted his encounter with Lestrange, sending the Order into loud whispers and mutters.
"It's a trap," Moody growled insistently. "Too much of a coincidence."
The captain crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, content to let the Order hash things out for a few minutes before he said anything.
"But if it's really important as Bellatrix said it is then it's something we need to get rid of," Black pointed out.
"Oh, right, and what're we gonna do then? Break into Gringotts? The goblins are neutral; they won't do anything for us," Tonks retorted sarcastically.
"Finally, someone agrees with me!" Black ignored his cousin's tone.
"I believe," Dumbledore started, instantly silencing the commotion, "that there is one item in particular we believe could be within the vault." He peered over his glasses at Hitsugaya, who nodded. It wasn't really in his nature to be so rash (disregarding certain instances with Hinamori), but if Voldemort was strong enough to control adjuchas, then the rate he was gaining power was alarming enough to necessitate a certain amount of haste.
"Yes. If it's what I suspect it is, than this particular item is vital to the destruction of Voldemort," he said simply, ignoring the flinches the name caused. "Bill, we're going to need as much of the layout of Gringotts as is feasible. Everyone else, I don't care if you object or not, but I want all of you to bring suggestions for this operation by the next Order meeting. It is then that we will finalize the plan. No one is to alert the goblins in any manner," he said sharply.
Dumbledore smiled amusedly in the ensuing astonishment. Despite Hitsugaya's rank, none of them had actually heard him give any sort of command before, and the demand was a bit startling. Black just looked surprised that Hitsugaya had changed his mind.
"I can see that these next few weeks will indeed be busy ones," he addressed the Order calmly. "Therefore it is my suggestion that we all get some rest. Good night." Rising from his chair, he vanished into the fireplace, the rest of those staying at Hogwarts following swiftly behind.