[A/N: Thank you to Calamity Owl for beta-reading this chapter! Just so you all know, I'll be out of town next week visiting my parents. The next chapter should go up in a fortnight.]
Dolores Umbridge cast a quick Human-Presence-Revealing Charm and nodded at the result. Only one man was in the room in the small hotel on the edge of Knockturn Alley; his hands appearing to be spread out and flat upon the table in front of him. Good.
She opened the door with a whispered "Alohomora" and strode into the room. "Good evening, Ludo," she said. "You said you had something, hem-hem, for me that might be interesting enough to buy out your own information?"
"Indeed I do, Dolores." He nodded excitedly. "Indeed I do. In fact, you'll be—"
"I'll be the judge of how interested I'll be," she said. Merlin, that man could talk. "Now, I'm going to—"
Someone in a corner behind her whispered "Confundo" and she spun around just in time for a bolt of pink light to fly right into her chest. Some part of her screamed that it wasn't possible, that she'd cast the Human-Presence-Revealing Charm properly, but the rest of her didn't care. She was too busy telling Ludo how appreciative she was of his information and offering to Apparate him back to her house so they could discuss it in a more private setting.
"No, no, Dolores," Ludo said. "As a gentleman, I simply must insist on Apparating us myself. Why, I remember after a game in '83 a fan splinched herself coming to our victory party because she was so excited about my goals. I couldn't blame her, of course, but I hate to see anyone lose a kneecap, even temporarily."
"That's nice of you. Hem-hem. Now, are you going to keep a lady waiting?" she asked.
Ludo shuddered and rose to take her hand. "Of course not," he said. "Now, let's go."
They disappeared with a crack, leaving the room apparently empty. A few moments later, another crack echoed around the room and left it truly empty.
While Dolores was steadying herself after the side-along apparition, there was a second crack behind her. Before she could spin around and see who it was, though, Ludo murmured "Confundo" and said, "I've got a secret informant here under a Disillusionment Charm. We'll need to bring him in, too."
"Oh, of course," Dolores said. Ludo was holding her right arm, so she held out her left arm and, a moment later, an invisible hand grasped her own. Some part of her mind that was screaming at her to resist the Confundus Charm was momentarily confused at how her Revealing Charm had failed to detect something as simple as a Disillusionment Charm, but it went back to screaming as soon as she guided her guests across her ward line and into the house. As soon as Ludo shut the door behind her, the invisible man cast a nonverbal Stunner.
There were no Cushioning Charms on the floor when she hit it.
Harry slipped the Cloak off and stowed it in its usual belt pouch. "You are disturbingly good at being an overweight, drunken middle-aged man," he said.
"Just wait till you're older and you remember this moment, Pup," Sirius said as he levitated Dolores. "Don't think you won't end up in exactly the same situation." He looked away and sighed.
"I know." Harry gave him a quick one-armed hug, not enough to interfere with the levitation spell once it was cast. "I wonder how they would have aged, too."
Sirius nodded as he walked into the parlour and deposited Dolores on a convenient chesterfield. "They were gorgeous, both of them, and everyone remembers them that way, but I wish they'd been able to grow old and fade away like the rest of us. They deserved to see you grow up and maybe lose sleep to some sprogs of your own."
"Old age hath yet his honour and his toil," Harry said, "but something ere the end, some work of noble note may yet be done, not unbecoming men that strove with Gods."
"I like that," Sirius said. "Scott?"
"Tennyson," Harry replied.
"It's good," Sirius said, "but why do you of all people have it memorised? You're barely out of school."
"It's something I think about sometimes when I wonder if I peaked at twelve when I defeated a Dark Lord and killed a giant basilisk," Harry said.
"Well, I don't think you peaked at twelve," Sirius said, "but I understand how worries like that could creep in." He shook his head. "Enough ruminating. I'm on the clock. Tempus."
"9:15," Harry read out the numbers that appeared in the air above Sirius's wand in a font reminiscent of flaming lace. "So you've got about half an hour left. Ready?"
"Ready," Sirius said.
"OK. Before I forget, though, could you give me the third vial, the one Hermione didn't end up needing?"
"Sure." Sirius rummaged around in his belt pouch and produced a vial of Polyjuice Potion.
"Thanks." Harry took it and stashed it in his belt. He pulled out an empty vial, plucked a couple of Umbridge's hairs, and sealed them up in it. "There we go. If things go badly, I'm going to need that quickly and I don't want to be in a hurry and accidentally grab a cat hair or something."
He looked around and raised his eyebrows. "You know, for all of the cat decor she has in here and her office, I'm surprised she doesn't actually seem to have any cats. I was assuming this place would have a ton of cat hair, or at least it would collect in the corners where cleaning spells missed."
"That's definitely odd," Sirius said while Harry pulled another vial out of his belt and dripped three drops into the woman's mouth.
"She's dosed," Harry said. He rose back to his feet, pulled out a notepad and a Dicta-Quill, and then knelt down at the edge of the room and threw the Cloak over himself and the writing implements. "Muffliato. Room is now silenced. Transcription is active. I'm going silent in three, two, one, now."
As soon as Harry stopped speaking, Sirius aimed his wand at Dolores and said, "Rennervate."
She gasped and jerked herself upright, but that was as far as she got before Sirius said, "Petrificus Partialis" and an eggshell-coloured jet of light flew into her shoulder. Her whole body went rigid except for her head, which she was able to turn toward her guest. "You washed-up worthless sack of crup shite!" she shouted. "I hate you and I loathe myself for being attracted to you."
Dolores froze again, this time in shock. "Wait…why in Merlin's name did I admit that?"
"Probably the Veritaserum," Sirius said cheerfully.
She glared at him. "I will talk, you know," she said. "I'm useless at fighting Veritaserum. I've tried. Wait, that's not what I wanted to say, either."
Her guest chuckled and a suppressed snort of laughter seemed to come from somewhere near the bay window.
"Not that I mind hearing how attractive I still am," Sirius said, "But we should get down to business. Tell me, Dolores, where do you keep your blackmail material?"
"Behind the bookshelf in the living room, in a space-expanded room," she said, glaring at him. "I will absolutely let you take it because I'm frozen here and can't otherwise stop you. Merlin, this is so frustrating!"
"How do we get in there?" Sirius asked.
"Pull out Cantankerus Nott's Pure-Blood Directory, flip it around, put it back in, take it out again, flip it around, and put it back in normally, all without opening it," she said.
"Are there any traps in this house?"
"Many," Dolores responded.
"What are they?" Dealing with an obstreperous witness under Veritaserum was an art, but this wasn't Sirius's first time. Umbridge listed off a variety of traps ranging from ingenious to ridiculous, but it was the last one that caught their attention.
"If any more than three of the blackmail binders are removed simultaneously," she said, "it sets off the burglar alarm ward, drops an anti-apparition ward over the property, and summons the Aurors."
"How do I get around that?" Sirius asked.
"You can't," Dolores said. "I installed that as a way to ensure nobody could steal all of my material at once."
"What if you needed to escape Britain on short notice?" Sirius asked. "Surely you must have a contingency plan."
"Why would I ever need to do that?" she responded. "This island would fall apart without me to keep things functioning."
Sirius sighed. "Tell me your most embarrassing moment."
"James Potter picking that mudblood whore Lily Evans instead of all of the girls with better breeding who were falling all over him, like me," Dolores said. "I cried myself to sleep for months after they got together. Damn you for asking me that, you unutterable bastard. "
"Damn it, the Veritaserum is still working," Sirius said. "She really believes that."
"Of course I do!" Dolores said.
"Anyway," Sirius said, "let's switch the topic. How are you finding and binding the magic of muggleborns? Tell me everything."
Her jaw dropped, but the potion compelled her to answer the question before asking her own. "After the Potter brat killed the Dark Lord somehow, some of the artefacts he'd collected but had never been able to use ended up among his surviving followers. I'd been helping Grendel and Quinsy Snyde hunt down muggleborns for the Death Eaters, but they realised the Aurors were closing in by 1983. Their daughter was only ten at the time and couldn't carry on their work, so they gave me the Diadem of Ravenclaw. It has some of the same magic the Hogwarts Book and Pen do, so I'm able to find young magicals. Separately, I acquired a crystal knife from Ricbert Jugson, who was selling off family heirlooms after his father went to Azkaban with the Dark Lord's other followers. It lets me bind muggleborns' magic so they can't steal it from deserving Purebloods anymore, and a secondary effect alerts me if they're somehow unbound. I also kept a detailed journal of my activities so I can pass it on to a successor one day. Now how could you possibly know about that?"
"None of your business," Sirius said. "How could the Diadem find them before they exhibited accidental magic, though?"
"It was Ravenclaw's greatest work, far greater than the Book of Admission. She somehow managed to merge the power of the Book and Quill while making them even more sensitive, so it can find children before anyone else realises they're magical."
"I see." Sirius nodded. "Who else knows that you're binding muggleborns' magic?"
"No one knows," Umbridge replied. "I can't risk anyone turning me in or being imprisoned for unrelated crimes and having this discovered during interrogation. I have yet to find a successor who meets my high standards, but I'm not at all old and can take my time."
"I'm curious; why didn't you kill them instead of bind them?"
"Too many dead children might have attracted attention eventually," Umbridge said. "Besides, why bother? They're just muggles now, so who cares if they live or die? The important thing was that I was able to continue my binding work without being noticed by either muggle or magical authorities."
She was still on the Veritaserum, so she must have been telling what she believed was the truth, but something about that statement still sounded like she was trying to convince herself it was the answer. Sirius made a mental note to mull that over later and switched to a different line of questioning. "Are there any traps on the knife, journal, or Diadem?"
"Yes," she said. "Removing the Diadem from the room will trigger the Burglar Alarm."
"Alright, one more question: why don't you have any cats?" Sirius asked. "It's been bugging me."
"I've tried before," Umbridge said, "but they're such needy little things, bothering me for food and attention every day. I tried a couple of times, but I ended up turning them out. I think one of my neighbours ended up taking the cats in because I still see the blasted things sometimes."
Sirius obliviated her, stunned her, and very carefully re-holstered his wand. "End the transcription," he said.
"Transcription concluded," Harry said. "Are you OK?"
"Are you sure we can't kill her tonight?" Sirius asked. "She's a monster."
"She is," Harry said, "but it's not worth the risk and you know it. Stick with the plan."
"Fine," he said. "How are we going to get past that burglar alarm ward, though?"
Harry shrugged and pulled out the vials of Polyjuice and Umbridge's hair. "I don't intend to."
Sirius glared at Harry. "What part of that is 'sticking with the plan'?"
"We knew this could get messy when we started," Harry said. "We can't let her—or anyone—continue to do this to muggleborns, and that blackmail material might help bring down the kinds of people in the Wizengamot who make life hard for muggleborns in the first place."
"You're right," Sirius said, "not that I like it. Your witch is going to make me wish Umbridge had caught me if anything happens to you here."
"And if I survive," Harry said, "she'll probably do that to me, instead."
Sirius laughed. "You're probably right. Is it still worth it?"
"Definitely," Harry said.
"Alright." Sirius nodded. "Let's do this."
Harry unstoppered the vial with the hairs in it and put those into the Polyjuice Potion, which promptly turned into a thick brown sludge. "This is the worst-looking Polyjuice I've ever even heard of, much less seen," he said.
"Better you than me," Sirius said. He was back in his ordinary form and clothes by now, with the Ludo Bagman outfit safely vanished now that it was no longer needed. "This is your last chance to back out."
"I have to see this through," Harry said, and drank the potion. He'd never tasted diarrhoea before, but he suspected this stuff probably tasted more like diarrhoea than actual diarrhoea did.
Sirius shoved a glass of water into his hand, which did nowhere near enough to get the taste out of his mouth. "Merlin!" Harry gasped. "That was awful!"
"I'm not surprised," he said. "Now strip. I'll bring your clothes back along with this stuff."
Harry changed into one of Umbridge's dresses that they'd left out for the purpose, trying as hard as possible not to catch a glimpse of any more of his borrowed body than he had to both on general principles and because…ew.
Once he was ready, they moved Umbridge into the hidden room, placed the letter they'd written on her body, and prepared the space-expanded bag for Sirius. "Are you ready?" Harry asked him.
Sirius shuddered. "It's so weird hearing her voice speak with some amount of concern for another human being," he said. "I never noticed it was missing until now. Anyway, I am."
"Good." Harry raised his wand. "Attack the wards in three, two, one, now."
Susan sat down at the watch desk next to Owen Davies with two cups of the terrible coffee from the break room in her hands. She handed him one, which he accepted gratefully.
"Thank you," he said. "This is my first night shift out of the academy and I'm not used to it yet."
"The first of a series of night shifts is always the hardest," she said. "It'll be easier tomorrow."
"I hope so," he said. "At least it's been quiet so far."
Sue cringed. "Damn it, rookie! Now you've gone and fucked it up."
Osbeorn poked his head out from the cubicle where he was catching up on paperwork. "What'd he do?"
"He said it was quiet," Sue said.
Osbeorn sighed and started organising the paperwork. "Damn it. I'll have to get back to this later."
"I don't understand," Owen said. "What did I do?"
"You said the 'Q' word," Sue said. "Never say the 'Q' word."
"But how can that—"
A DMLE monitoring agent burst into the room. "Ward alert from Deputy Undersecretary Umbridge's house," he said.
"We're on it," Sue said. "Let's go, Rookie."
"But…how?" Owen asked as he rose and grabbed his Auror cloak.
"Don't ask questions unless you want to know the answers," Sue said.
"But why are Oz and John preparing to go, too?" Own asked. "It might be a false alarm."
"You used the 'Q' word," Sue said, "so there's no way in hell it's a false alarm. Frank, did you make the portkey?"
"Right here." The DMLE man passed her a length of rope. "Activation word is 'pink.'"
Sue smirked and held the rope out to Owen. "Let's go see what fresh hell you've wrought for us now, rookie."
"I didn't mean to," Owen said as he took the rope.
"Whatever cruel god we serve doesn't give a fuck," Sue said. "Pink."
The portkey pulled them through the eye of that nameless god's darning needle and deposited them in front of a well-kept cottage with a well-kept garden and an iron fence and gate that looked sturdy enough to keep out an entire army of inferi. Its owner was hurrying out of the door just as they arrived.
"It's about time you got here!" Umbridge said as she unlocked the gate with a wave of her wand. "There's a man in my house!" Something about her wand looked familiar, but it was dark enough out that Sue couldn't really see much and chalked it up to nerves.
"That's definitely suspicious," Sue said. "I'll send for backup immediately."
Owen's face turned bright red, but he managed to avoid laughing.
Umbridge sputtered. "Backup? There are two of you! Get in there and arrest that foul miscreant!"
Sue ignored her and launched her badger patronus off into the night with a request for assistance to John and Oz. "Standard protocol," she explained when she was done, "is to bring in backup before engaging with a suspect capable of breaching wards of this calibre. Did he bring them entirely down?"
"No," Umbridge said, as if scandalised by the very thought. "He just took them down long enough to breach the perimeter. Hem-hem. They're back up now. Should I lower them or bring you through?"
"Bring us through," Sue said. "If we leave them up, then we don't have to waste time putting up our own anti-apparition wards."
"Very well," Umbridge replied. A minute later, Osbeorn Savage and John Dawlish portkeyed in.
"Is everyone finally here?" Umbridge tapped her foot as she spoke. "That man could be in there…hem-hem…despoiling my unmentionables for all I know!"
Owen turned bright red and had to look away, and even the more hardened Aurors John and Oz began coughing. Sue fought the urge to roll her eyes and said, "Yes, we are. Owen, stay out here with Ms. Umbridge—"
"Hem-hem. Deputy Undersecretary Umbridge," the older woman corrected.
"Yes, yes," Sue said. "The rest of us will sweep the house. John, you're on point. Deputy Undersecretary, will you take us across the ward line?"
"Of course," Umbridge said. One by one, she pulled all four of them through the gate and across the ward boundary. The wards must have been exceptionally subtle ones, since Sue didn't feel even a tingle as she crossed them. She wasn't sure how Umbridge could have paid for such wards on a civil servant's salary, but she had her suspicions.
They crept toward the house, keeping enough distance between them that a single Exploding Charm wouldn't injure them all. When John reached the open front door, he looked back to confirm they were ready before bursting in with his wand raised. Oz followed a moment later, going right, with Sue next and going left. Regardless of how Sue felt about Umbridge, she was going to get this guy.
None of them noticed the back door was cracked open, too.
As soon as Sue disappeared through the door, Umbridge froze. "What's that?" she asked, pointing her wand at the shrubbery hugging the right corner of her house.
Owen shifted in front of her immediately and said, "Lumos Mobilus." A ball of white light formed at the top of his wand and floated quickly over to where Umbridge had pointed him. His Auror robes would have protected him from at least one of any curse except an Unforgivable, but they didn't cover the back of his head where the Stunner hit him and he fell silently to the ground.
Umbridge knelt next to him and turned him onto his side (tongue-swallowing was rare, but not unheard of, for a stunned victim) before whispering "Verdimillious" and launching a fountain of green sparks thirty feet above the house. The crack of an apparition reverberated from the back of the house a moment later and its echoes quickly mingled with the same sound from the front yard.
Harry was not used to apparating while in someone else's body and, after some rolling and cursing, found himself flat on his back looking up at the stars through the limbs of barren trees. A dusting of snow covered the ground, which meant it also covered him now.
"I was going to ask you for the code word," Sirius said, "but that is definitely you."
"Thanks," Harry said drily. "Help me up?"
"Nah, that would be pointless," Sirius said as a once-again brown-haired missile slammed into Harry and knocked him over again.
"I was worried sick about you!" Hermione said.
"It's alright," Harry said. "We had it under control."
"You could have been—"
"You can yell at me later," Harry said, doing his best to push himself and his bushy-haired limpet back up to a sitting position. "We need to move out before they bring in the artefact to trace our apparition."
"You're right." Hermione stood and helped Harry up. "I will definitely yell at you later, but let's go."
"This way," Remus said from his watch position on the edge of the clearing. The moon was still bright only four days after the full moon, but even so Harry would never have noticed the man had he not spoken up. Remus led them a short distance out of the forest and a hundred yards up a small road to a little pub with a sign on it proclaiming it "The Highwayman." Sirius brought up the rear, using a spell Remus had learnt back at Hogwarts to cover over their tracks in the snow and muddy ground.
"We left the car here with a runic array on it triggering mild aversion," Remus explained as they walked. "It was easy to set up and keeps them from paying any mind to it."
"Nice work," Harry said. He had to really push himself to notice the Vauxhall Astra, and he could see Hermione shaking her head a little and blinking as she tried to focus on the little grey sedan.
"Thank you." Remus walked up to the car, opened the passenger door with a key, and rubbed out the white chalk runes he'd put on inside of the door. Once he'd done so, he gave the key to Hermione and climbed into the back seat.
"It's a bit cramped back here," Sirius said as he belted himself into the back seat next to his husband.
"I'm sorry," Hermione said. "I'm not really comfortable driving a larger car and we wanted to keep this inconspicuous. Just think of it as a glimpse into how most muggles live."
While Hermione was getting into the driver's seat, Harry hopped into the passenger seat. "It's OK," he said. "We're glad you can drive—"
Sounds like two distant gunshots in the direction from which they'd come shattered the stillness of the night.
