“Wha”what d’you mean a miracle?” Harry asked, not taking her hand.
Before Bethany said anything, she dragged him up and made their way to the house. “Well,” she corrected, “it’s not as if we had to make a dashing escape on a hippogriff or a dragon or something…but we got out without any real resistance from the goblins. Especially after they saw you took this.” From her robes she took out the locket of Salazar Slytherin, and gave it to Harry once reaching the front door.
“So…you helped me?” he asked, looking from her to the locket.
She smiled. “’Course.”
Harry cracked an amused smile as he took out his wand to unlock the door. He was about to ask Bethany how she knew where to be, when the sight of McGonagall standing at the entrance caught his attention.
“It seems that you have some explaining to do, Mr. Potter,” she said.
“Do I?” Harry asked in a self-pleased tone that he would have never of dared use back at Hogwarts.
“Yes,” McGonagall went on, ignoring Harry’s insolence, “and Ms. Granger and Mr. Weasley are already doing that upstairs. It will be your turn after he’s done, Williams.” She turned her back on them and went started down the hall towards the staircase.
“Please, Minerva, I haven’t answered to you since I gave Ian Boyd fungus for ears.” Bethany nonetheless followed, and Harry did too not knowing what else to do.
They reached the upstairs landing, and from inside the Council room Harry heard Lupin say, “I can’t believe Aberforth didn’t confirm this with us.”
“Well I’ve been going in and out of there for months now, what d’you expect?” he heard Ron retort.
“Aberforth?” Harry asked out loud. Why did that sound so familiar to him?
“You know, Dumbledore’s brother, the one who owns the Hog’s Head,” Professor McGonagall answered, opening the door to the Council room.
“Him?” Harry blurted out. Before he could make any more inquiries he was led inside.
“Harry!” Ron and Hermione shouted before colliding onto him with hugs.
“Oh, my goodness, Harry, we were so worried after we heard the alarm being raised,” said Hermione.
“How did you get out, mate? The goblins were in a right state,” Ron said worriedly. “And what about Bill and the Horcrux?”
“He can explain when the two of you are done,” McGonagall interrupted, taking her seat behind the table next to Lupin. “What have they said so far, Remus?”
“Our suspicions were right,” he responded heavily. “They were responsible for last night’s incident, and they have Dempsher tied up under the Hog’s Head. And not only have they committed treason, but Ron reserved the bar’s basement for their own use under our authority without permission.”
“And after that?”
Lupin waved for Ron and Hermione to continue.
Ron rolled his eyes as he said, “Harry interrogated Dempsher and we found out that the locket was in his vault, so we got the key””
“Hold on,” Lupin said skeptically. “First of all, I doubt that Dempsher just told you where it was.”
“Veritaserum,” Harry said, just wanting to get through all this as quickly as possible. There were other far more important matters that had to be discussed now.
“What? Where in Merlin’s name did you get that?”
“You mean you didn’t give it to him?” Hermione asked just as confused as Harry was to that reaction.
“Who?”
“Ron.”
“No. Do you know how hard it is to make that?”
“Well from what I’ve read it very complicated,” Hermione started off. “It would take””
“That was rhetorical,” Lupin cut in. “Look, let’s deal with that later. Just tell me where you got the key.”
“I gave it to them, Remus,” said Bethany. “Sent it to them by owl after I found it in Demspher’s mansion.”
“Really?” Harry, Ron, and Hermione all said in unison. Immediately they knew it was a mistake.
“Gauging from your reactions I assume she wasn’t in on your plans,” Lupin deduced, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It was Tonks, wasn’t it? She’s the only person that you know well enough that could feed you information that’ll almost guarantee a success.”
Harry, Hermione, and Ron looked at once another with some guilt. It would be their fault if they had driven some sort of wedge between Lupin and Tonks.
“Well since that’s out,” Bethany went on carelessly, “it was her who asked me to check out the mansion, and told me to send it to these three.”
“Lucky we have someone else from the Ministry that’s willing to go so far,” Harry told her appreciatively.
She gave him a bemused smirk. “Also helps that she was so swamped with what you guys did that she had to ask me. The present Ministry can go to hell as long as the Death Eaters are stopped.”
“Okay then, let’s get to the events at Gringotts,” said McGonagall. “Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger, if you’ll tell your side of the story.”
Ron and Hermione recapped from the time the key had arrived at Grimmauld Place to when the two of them, Harry, and Bill split up. Afterwards they had no problems getting to the goblin’s break room. Harry expected that he would want to shy away from the conversation but it turns out that all they did to offend the goblins was show off their magic in front of them. It was nothing more than arrogantly serving themselves tea and biscuits by wand. Hermione was very hesitant to do so, so it was Ron that did most of the taunting.
“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” accused Hermione, smacking his upper arm rather hard.
“Ouch! Well anyways,” Ron finished off, rubbing his hurt spot, “Beth showed up, and told us that she’d make sure Harry got out.”
“Knew at least Potter would need come sort of help getting out,” said Bethany.
“Harry, just tell me what you were up to,” Lupin asked of him.
Harry did so in a rushed sort of way. He ended it by showing the table the Horcrux, and saying strongly, “Now we need to destroy it, and then Voldemort is next.” Then to Harry’s utter surprise he saw and heard a tiny crack appear on the face of the locket.
Lupin’s eyes then shifted from the Horcrux to Harry, and his face softened. “Okay…let’s drop this issue for now. But just so you know we were never going to turn you in, just deciding if we should expel you from anymore operations.”
Harry breathed a sigh of relief and put the Horcrux in his pocket. It would be he who would destroy it. “Thanks. Now, why don’t you tell me where Voldemort is so I can kill him later?”
McGonagall ignored that comment. “We should start making plans to raid You-Know-Who’s fortress, Remus.”
Lupin nodded. “I agree. But unfortunately it’ll have to coincide with the Ministry’s force, which we’ll need Kingsley for. But he’s probably tied up investigating last night.”
“Potter,” McGonagall immediately said to him, “you shall immediately wipe Henry Dempsher’s memory”I don’t care if he forgets his name in the process, just do it! After that dump him back into the Ministry’s hands as discreetly as possible.”
“Okay, but I want to be part of the planning,” Harry demanded.
“Please, Potter, keeping you away from the planning would be like keeping a niffler from digging up the ground.”
“We’ll send word of when the first meeting will be,” said Lupin, waving them off. “You three are dismissed.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione all nodded and turned to leave, but were stopped when McGonagall called out, “We didn’t mean you, Mr. Weasley.”
“Oh, okay,” Bethany said with a tone of realization, “well see you then.”
“Just tell Kingsley that Dempsher is going to be brought back to the Ministry,” asked Lupin. Bethany nodded and left.
Knowing that he wasn’t allowed inside anymore, and not wanting to be told to leave, Harry said, “See you back at the house, Ron.”
“What?” Hermione asked. “Bu”” Harry grabbed her shoulders from behind and led her out of the Council room. When the door slammed behind them she jerked herself free. “What was that for?”
“You know just as much as I do there was no point in trying to stay,” responded Harry, digging into his pocket to retrieve his fake Galleon. On it he etched one word with his wand: “Success.” “Let’s just focus on getting rid of Dempsher.”
“Well, okay,” she said, with one last hopeful look at the door before turning to go down the stairs.
When getting back to the basement of the Hog’s Head, Harry and Hermione once again donned the white ski masks from the previous night. It was harder for Harry to see this time around but he was still able to make out Dempsher’s form still sitting on the chair.
“Got what you were looking for, have you?” Dempsher asked menacingly. It was clear from his tone that he took the Veritaserum as a personal insult, and to add to it Harry showed him the locket. “It’s cracked! What the bloody hell did you do to it?”
They gave no response. Harry and Hermione pointed their wands at Dempsher, and shouted, “Obliviate!”
There was no flash of light, but Dempsher’s head was jerked back, his eyes became pale, and finally he hunched over unconscious.
“Not the usual side effect,” observed Hermione, taking off her mask and taking a closer look at Dempsher. “But we did it.” She then flicked her wand in the air to release the anti-Appariation Jinx that must have been in place. “So how do we take him back to the Ministry?”
Harry untied Dempsher, and put his arm around his neck. “The front door, of course.”
A minute later they arrived at the rundown street with the broken-down telephone box. After checking that no Muggles could see what they were doing, Harry and Hermione stuffed the unconscious Dempsher in it.
“Six…two…four…four…two,” Harry counted off as he spun the dial over the body. When the dial spun back in place the same female voice resonated in the telephone box.
“Welcome to the Ministry of””
“Henry Dempsher, here to turn myself in,” Harry interrupted. And before the visitor’s badge even appeared out of the change slot, he slammed the door shut, and watched as the box slowly began to descend.
“That wasn’t very nice,” said Hermione when Dempsher disappeared under the sidewalk.
“Right, next time I see her I’ll apologize,” said Harry sarcastically. “Let’s just go home.”
It wasn’t until they did that Harry realized how tired he was. With a kidnapping and a robbing of a bank behind him, he was able to concentrate on other things. Hermione wanted to wait up for Ron, so Harry went up to his room for some well-earned sleep.
A large rumbling in his stomach woke Harry up. He opened his eyes to find that the sun had set and the streetlights outside were glowing brightly. Rubbing a crick on his neck he found a little bit of dirt clung to him that was either from the fight of the robbery. Need a shower, Harry reasoned, but filling his stomach came first.
Down in the kitchen he was a little surprised to see Hermione sleeping with her head down on the table and a flask resting nearby. Harry was about to wake her up but the job was done for him when green fire sprung up in the fireplace, and Ron stumbled out of the flames. Hermione jerked awake.
“Ron?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. “You just got here?”
“Yeah,” he answered, sounding particularly peeved. “Sorry, but the Order made me go out.” Ron sat down across from Hermione with his face in his palms. “Bloody hell.”
“What?” asked Harry, hoping to get some information out of him in his riled up state.
Ron shook his head. “Same thing as always. Well, the only good news is that Kingsley dropped by headquarters after I got back there. We’re due back for the beginning stages of the plan of attack tomorrow.”
“But it’ll take some time to destroy the Horcrux,” Harry stated uncertainly. “Isn’t it a little premature to plan things right now?”
“Let’s worry about that tomorrow,” said Hermione. “You should get some rest, Ron.”
The next day’s meeting didn’t go how Harry had thought it would. He figured that Kinglsey would be going over some diagram, telling who to go where and how to break through the dozens of Death Eaters they would be undoubtedly facing. But the only people from the Ministry there were Tonks, Mr. Weasley, and another that seemed slightly familiar to Harry. They were all sitting in a circle of chairs in the Council room.
“How are things with Dempsher?” Lupin asked Tonks. Harry gave a sideways look towards at Hermione, who smiled when Lupin asked the question. That was all Harry needed to see to know those two were okay.
“Kingsley is handling the investigation,” she answered. “You have no idea how peeved Minster Barnes at all this. Only about a month in power and this happens, so he’s trying to keep it quiet as best he can.”
Harry honestly didn’t know whether to feel relieved or angry. On the one hand if the case didn’t get any publicity then it would fizzle out faster. On the other, the new Minister was just covering things up like his predecessors.
“Which is proving quite a challenge,” one man said. Harry looked at the man’s sharp nose and silver streaked hair, and recognized him from a few photos in the Prophet of him alongside the Minister. “Dempsher appeared out of nowhere in front of the entire Atrium, when everybody thought he was in Azkaban. It’ll be days”God forbid weeks”until all this quiets down enough to pull out some of our forces to focus on new things.”
“Excuse me,” Harry spoke up. “But what does this have to do with our attack on the Death Eaters.”
“Everything, Potter,” Moody replied. “Incase you haven’t noticed we’re deciding when to leak the location of the Death Eater’s main base of operations to the Ministry.”
“If we do it now the Minister will be too eager to regain some face,” the man went on. “He’ll send out forces far too early. How much more time do we need?”
“About a week left for the cup,” said McGonagall. “And the locket, Potter?”
Retrieving it from his pocket, Harry was happy to see some more damage appearing on the locket. “Two weeks at the most.”
“Think it’ll be possible to do it in two weeks, Dominic? Tonks?” McGonagall asked the man.
“I can’t remember being involved on something this potentially big,” Tonks said in thought. “But Kingsley and Robards would at least want a week to prepare.”
“That means the location has to be leaked in a week,” Dominic took over. “If you really want it to happen in that timeframe, then I’ll do my best to calm him down. That way he won’t fly off the handle when the information first gets to him.”
“Does anybody disagree with this?” Lupin asked all the people present. When nobody spoke up, he said, “Then it’s settled: the location of Voldemort’s stronghold will be revealed by next week.”
“And how exactly are we going about that, Remus?” Mr. Weasley asked. “This sort of information can only come from a Death Eater in custody or one who’s looking to make a deal.”
“We have an idea, but it’ll take some refining,” said Moody. Harry saw the magical eyeball do a complete turn in its socket. “And if that won’t be possible then we have another…. Best we not go into details at this time.”
“I must disagree, Alastor,” Dominic protested. “You should at least let one or two Ministry personnel in on””
“We were already going to do that,” Lupin interrupted. “Sorry but we’ll have to leave it at that.”
After a few moments of silence, McGonagall asked, “Does somebody have anything they would like to add?”
“Yeah,” Harry said in annoyance, “how come it’s you three that knows everything and keep the rest of us in the dark?”
“Listen,” Moody piped up, “believe it or not, what we’re having Weasley do is the only secret that we’ve been keeping from everybody.
“And even that is going to too far,” Mr. Weasley said, throwing a look at Ron. “Making him do something”that as far as I know can get him killed”and then making him lie about it.”
“I volunteered, Dad,” said Ron, his guilt showing. “I mean, yeah, they approached me, but ultimately it was up to me.”
“Sorry, Arthur, but that’s how it has to be,” apologized Lupin. Mr. Weasley waved it off with a tired hand. “Listen, this isn’t the best time, but can you tell Charlie what’s going on. We’ll need his help.”
Mr. Weasley cracked a smile. “Even if I don’t tell him, as soon as Bill hears about this he will. Sure, I’ll give him the message.”
“Does anybody else have something to say?” asked Lupin. This time nobody spoke up. “Okay, our next meeting is in the basement two days from now. Tonks, Arthur, Dominic, we need all Order members in the Ministry that will be fighting to attend.”