24

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[3rd Person Camera]

Harry and crew find their way to the ministry's main entrance. Surprisingly, not a single muggle is in sight as they enter the telephone booth and dial in the numbers. Soon enough, the magical telephone booth/elevator descends with the party in tow and presents them to…an empty hallway.

"It's the middle of the day. Why is it empty?" Ron mutters as they see not a single soul within the halls.

"That just means Voldemort got here first." Harry replies quickly. "Come on, we need to go." He leads his team towards the hallway of the department of mysteries. They enter the doorway to the department and are immediately confused by the swirling arrangement of doors and blue candlelights.

"Wow." Fred groans after the spinning stops and one door slams open. "How do people get around in this place?"

"They probably have to think about where they want to go or whatever." George says, being a little better against spinning. "Maybe we should try that?"

"Let's see where we are first." Harry says, stepping into the room. The room, incidentally, is full of brains floating around in tanks of some odd fluid.

"No touch, I imagine." Hermione muses. "Also, he's not here."

The brain room lacks any kind of major visual occluding element, so the party could see clearly that, apart from themselves, there wasn't any other fully bodied human around. The group retreats hastily from the creepy room of brains and go back into the twisty room.

"So should we do it like the Room of Requirement and think about where we want to go?" Fred asks as the room begins spinning again. "Do you know what that place looks like, Harry?"

Harry is a bit unsure about this. "I think so." Nevertheless, he focuses on the room of cabinets of strange spheres and tries his utmost to ignore the spinning going on around him.

After a few more seconds, the spinning stops, and the door that stopped in front of Harry opens to reveal rows upon rows of wooden shelves.

"Looks like we're in the right place." Harry muses as he sees the rows upon rows of…something, sitting on those shelves. "Let's look around. They're in here somewhere." He leads the way and steps into the room.

"It's dark in here." George remarks. No lights exist in the room except for the dimly glowing rows. "Watch your footing, everyone."

As the last person exits the central spinny room, Hermione suddenly snaps her fingers. "I almost forgot." She says before pointing her wand at the foot of the door they just passed through.

A small, thin, nearly invisible wire spins from her wand and connects itself to the door's frame about an inch off of the ground.

"It's better to be prepared." She says.

"Good thinking." Harry nods, letting himself think things through a little. "We'll search the rows in teams of two. Hermione will be our tactical advisor."

"I'll guard." Ron offers.

The team of eight splits into four teams of two and each team takes a few seconds to talk over their formations.

With another wave of her wand, Hermione creates a shimmering blanket of light that hovers in front of her like a giant newspaper. "I'm ready." She says, letting Ron take her hand as little balls of light leave the blanket to float high over the room.

The spell is unique to Hermione. When active, the little balls of light act as detectors that fan out from the origin point (her) and let her maintain large area combat awareness at the cost of needing somebody to cover her defensively.

Fred and George pull a bag from beneath their cloaks. "We have something too." They pass out short pieces of multicolored yarn. "Wireless Extendable Ears." They demonstrate its use, tying the little yarn to their ear. Everyone else follows suit.

They're basically wireless headsets. Ash had pressed the two of them to develop a wireless version after taking them out of the school grounds (via Flying America Van) to demonstrate the value of a wireless phone.

With their preparations ready (and still not hearing any sounds of torture or combat) the groups of two fan out to their rows. Each pair of two would take cover against the left and right sides of a row, shoot a light down the path just in case, and then clear it physically to make sure there weren't any hidden enemies.

Ten minutes in, Harry is getting dubious. "I can't imagine either Ash or Voldemort being this quiet." He notes of the stark silence. "Maybe they're not actually here?"

Hermione, with great difficulty, restrains what she wants to say.

Ginny is less careful. "We told you so."

Harry rolls his eyes. "Voldemort does want something here, so it's worth looking for that." He says, largely to salvage his own ego.

"If that dream of yours is wrong, then there's a good chance this is a trap." Hermione says. "Ginny, Neville, take watch on the door we just came through. Are there more doors we need to worry about?"

"Probably not in this room." Fred says. "I'm at a wall, the door we came from is on my left, and I don't see anything."

"Right-side wall, I don't see anything either." Neville replies as he and Ginny move to their new position.

"Back wall is solid, no doors." Harry adds. "But they could just be hidden or something."

Ron, escorting Hermione away from the only entrance into this room, notes something on the row of spheres he just passed through. He doubles back to take a better look after making sure Hermione was well situated. "Harry, I found something with your name on it." He says cautiously after that better look.

Harry, a bit conflicted at being right and wrong, frowns. "Really?"

"Yeah, it's a little crystal ball. It's got your name labeled underneath." Ron says. "Wanna take a look?"

"Sure." Harry (with Luna in tow) skips their row check to rendezvous with Ron.

Harry takes the crystal ball that contains the prophecy (though he doesn't know that part), stares at it for a moment, then pockets it. "Alright, we got what we came for. Let's get out of here."

"Did we really come for that?" Hermione says with an implied jab at Harry.

Neville, smiling to himself, watches as the only door leading into this room opens again. "Beep beep." He says quietly, unwilling to risk being overheard with a more coherent sentence.

As the first figure crosses the threshold, the thread that Hermione had laid down snaps with no resistance.

"Bogeys." Hermione alerts everyone immediately. Ash had drilled the bogey/bandit terminology into the group. "Neville, keep your eyes on them if you can. Everyone else, fall back." She sees a chain of blips begin to show themselves on her screen.

Bogey = unknown, Bandit = enemy.

"Is it good or bad that this place is dark?" Ron mutters as he returns to Hermione's side. He takes out a small card and transfigures it into a large piece of (extremely shoddy) cloth. He makes it float in front of Hermione to provide a little shield for her extremely bright sheet of light.

"Good, probably." Fred says, bolting down the hallway with George. The two see Hermione's sheet of light and regroup towards her.

Before the Death Eaters come anywhere close to an ambushing position, the Hogwarts team has already regrouped despite the low light conditions.

"Lead me, Ron." Hermione orders. "Go right." She has her eyes firmly fixed on her screen. "Harry, take point."

"Ok."

The group quickly and quietly moves in the near-darkness, and regroups with Neville with no problem. Well, almost no problem.

"Halt." Hermione scowls at the screen. Her spell detected magic, and was useful because people are magical. At the moment, the area in front of where the door should be was positively buzzing with magic power. Is there a trap? She thinks it over. We would have to trigger it in order to leave. "They set a trap in front of the door." She says.

"I didn't see it." Neville notes.

In this instance, Hermione's spell screwed her over: the power was residual and not actually a trap. This misidentification slowed them enough for the other group, the Death Eaters, to turn back and head for the entrance.

I guess we missed our window. Hermione grits her teeth and dispels her screen. "Harry."

Harry takes command. "Cards out; we're fighting."

Ash had demonstrated that the best defense against certain spells was to make sure that it misses, and sometimes the best way to do that was with a shield. To that end, everyone carries around a deck of about twenty cards (either muggle playing cards or scraps of parchment) and is skilled in using them to soak hits in some shape or form.

Now, they all take their cards out of the robes and hold them in their off hand, and wait.

In short time, they hear the gravelly voice of Fenrir Greyback. "They know we're here, Lestrange." He growls.

"Yes, I noticed." Bellatrix Lestrange says in utter nonchalance. The room suddenly brightens as she fires a hideously powerful ball of light into the air, illuminating Harry's party hiding around the corner. "Good work, Harry Potter." She says with a sneering smirk. "Now give it to me."

"Who are you?" Harry asks cautiously. He, in a move that was not missed, subconsciously checks his pocket for the prophecy ball.

Bellatrix draws herself up to her full height. "I am the right hand of the Dark Lord." She says proudly. "The lone loyal servant of his every whim."

Ok, but I still don't know who you are. Harry says in his head. "Why do you want it?" He asks next.

Another hooded figure strides forward. "That is none of your concern, Potter." Lucius Malfoy says dismissively. "Just hand it over."

"Does your son know you're a prat?" Fred says, "Draco must be wondering where his cloak has gone."

Lucius has no reaction save for a small sneer.

"This is not good for us." Hermione whispers. "We're outnumbered here." She does realize that there's no trap. "Exit's open, what should we do?"

"Where's Ash?" Harry asks as a means of buying time.

Bellatrix exaggeratedly looks to her left and right. "Why, he's not here!" She says mockingly. "Surely you must have realized that by now?"

"I suppose." Harry feels his adrenaline starting to kick in. "It's not like you lot would be able to capture him anyway."

"You think so?" Fenrir Greyback pulls back his hood, causing Harry and Ron to step back in shock at the wolf-like snarl on his face. "You brats know nothing."

"Ready to break out." Fred whispers.

"Same here." Neville echoes.

"Let's go." Hermione hisses.

"Fine." Harry takes out the crystal ball and tosses it to Bellatrix.

"How unusually agreeable of you!" Bellatrix laughs, catching the ball. "The Dark Lord will be pleased."

None of the Death Eaters notice the army of cards gliding near the ground.

Harry grins. "Tell Voldemort he can go fuck a bag of lemons."

Before the Death Eaters could process the hideously un-British saying, the cards suddenly fly up to their eye level. Every last card suddenly explodes with a dazzling light. Every Death Eater goes blind with screams of pain.

Unfortunately, the sudden attack meant that, in retaliation, the Death Eaters were now shooting blindly towards the kids.

Fortunately, the kids were already making their way towards the exit.

"I'd like to stop them here but boy was this unexpected." Harry grouses as he parries another spell with a shield charm. He brings up the rear as the group goes back into the spinny room.

Fenrir Greyback, his eyes shut, homes in on the strongest unfamiliar smell he could detect, and bolts in that direction.

Harry, not expecting a grown man to get on all fours and charge, is slow on the uptake and gets rammed by the man moving at full speed. He's spent sprawling into the room behind him. Fenrir, eyes still closed, homes in on his scent.

"GINNY!" Fred yells as a warning.

Ginny Weasley turns around just in time to see Fenrir Greyback charging directly towards her. She, arguably the scrappiest fighter in the group aside from Ash, runs directly towards him.

Of all of his decades of attacking children, the one thing that Fenrir has never really expected is for one of the children to begin running towards him, much less for that child to be charging with such intensity. Fenrir slows much faster than normal in order to maul the approaching child. He then hits a solid air wall.

Ash, in an effort to expand the repertoire of his classmates without having the requisite magical knowledge to do so, compromised by making available a set of muggle textbooks on the sciences (physics, chemistry, so on). Ginny rather liked the ones on physics, and as such is the team's resident master on manipulating air to do her bidding. For example, she's really good at solidifying air to the point where it might as well be iron.

Thus, Fenrir Greyback staggers back, dazed by his full-speed impact on a small, invisible wall of iron that was positioned exactly at the height of his face. He wants to shake off the dizziness, but the charging Ginny forces him to pay attention.

Ginny suddenly ends her charge with a stomp of her foot and a covert motion of her wand. The resulting blast of air solidifies and slams into Fenrir's face again, toppling him. Fenrir hits his head on the ground hard, and falls unconscious.

"Nice hit!" Fred gives Ginny a high-five as she plucks Fenrir's wand from him.

First rule of dungeoning: always loot the body.

Luna, being Luna, bows politely to the Death Eaters and Fenrir before shoving the downed werewolf out of the room with a wave of her wand. Luna, being Luna, then politely shuts the door behind her.

The Death Eaters recover their senses just as Luna shuts the door.

"What was that?!" Lucius demands as he shakes off the last of the stars in his eyes. "What have those children been learning?!"

"I'm impressed." Bellatrix says through gritted teeth. Harry had given her a hastily (and covertly) conjured ball of ice, and it had already melted. "I'm very impressed." She says with a maniacally predatory grin. "The Dark Lord waits for our victory." She, with a wave of her wand, tears down the door before her from its hinges. "I will not disappoint him."

"Holy shit!" Fred exclaims as the door flies into the spinny room. The spinny room, incidentally, goes into critical mode and stops spinning almost immediately. Every door slams open.

"You're not going anywhere." Bellatrix waves her wand again. The door she blew off snakes onto the exit of Department of Mysteries and glues itself to the opening. "I'm going to break each and every single—"

The Hogwarts team barrages her with a flurry of Stunners, so she has to stop talking just to guard.

"Move!" Harry orders as he shoots spells.

Fred and George pick the closest exit and take defensive positions after crossing the threshold. "We're ready!" They say and begin shooting spells.

Lucius, despite himself, marvels at the coordination of the children Bellatrix was currently trying to kill. Fred and George alternate their casting so each spell would hit Bellatrix in succession if she didn't guard, giving breathing space for the other six to retreat through the door being guarded by the twins. If any Death Eater that wasn't Bellatrix tries to interfere, the other six would shower him with spells until said Death Eater changes his mind.

In almost no time at all, the Hogwarts team repositions into the room behind them…A room with an ominous stone arch.

"Keep position!" Harry orders. "Hermione, can you dispel that door block?"

The Death Eaters, now taking substantially less fire, fire Stunners of their own into the doorway.

"Not like this." Hermione tries to angle to take a shot at the sealed doorway. She pulls back sharply to avoid a stream of red light sailing through the door. "We need another option."

"Should we retreat?" Ron asks dubiously.

"If we give up this position we're dead." Harry says.

"What about the side entrances?" Neville says, looking to the doors to his left and right.

"Seal them." Harry says. "Every door leads back to this place anyways, and we don't want to be surprised."

"Right." Ginny and Luna both seal one door each before going back to their firing positions.

"That's all fine and good, but…" Hermione is understandably worried. "We can't keep this up forever."

"No, but we can definitely keep it up for longer." Fred says through gritted teeth. "Got one." The Death Eater in his crosshairs goes down to a Stunner right in the chest.

"Keep them suppressed." Harry reminds his team. "There will be a chance to break out."

…

[1st Person Camera]

…

Ok. I'm finally in the ministry. We, the four of us, are finally within the ministry.

"Where is everybody?" Sirius mutters as we get in with our guns trained downrange towards the main elevator. "What the hell's going on here?"

"Shit's hitting the fan, no doubt." I mutter. As we advance down the hallway, I bring out claymores (US military surplus) and scatter them everywhere. The claymores hit the ground, jump up onto their four little legs and skitter off into the dark corners of the hallway.

These are obviously enchanted to have locomotion, and so that they only trigger if either a) I say so or b) a spell hits them. I wanted them to do something amazing like "only target Death Eaters" but that kind of friend or foe distinction is a little hard to make when you only have ten minutes to build the solution.

"What do we do if we see a Death Eater?" Lupin asks, running his hand over his AK uneasily.

That's easy. "Shoot to kill."

We go into the main elevator.

"Kill?" Lupin shoots us a glare. "Are you serious?"

I've been psyching myself up for this. "Yes." I'm not about to be talked out of it, for better or for worse.

"You're rather…adamant…about taking a life." Arthur notes with some worry.

The elevator 'dings' as we hit the correct floor.

"Better me than someone else." I shrug. "I've picked the option to fight, so I'm ready for the consequences, no matter how evil."

"It's not up to us to judge if someone is evil." Lupin notes.

"No, it isn't." I agree. "But I don't mind stealing that responsibility if it stops Bellatrix from killing somebody else."

"You are much too young to have reason to give something like this much thought, Ash." Arthur says, a bit sadly.

"Yeah, well…" I shrug again. "I'm lying if I said I was perfectly ok with it, but…better that we definitively handle the problem now than have it pop up later."

As we talk, we move down the hallway towards the Department of mysteries.

…So where is the door to the Department of Mysteries?

"Are we on the wrong floor?" Sirius mutters as we stare at the wall in front of us.

"That's not possible." Arthur says. "This place is definitely the Department of Mysteries."

…Shit, so they've sealed the entrance?

"Alright, slight change of plans." I say and immediately run back. The three adults copy me, though they don't turn their back on the wall like I do.

"What's the plan?" Lupin says with his wand raised.

…Good question. "Does the Reductor Curse work in here?"

"Probably not as well as it could." Arthur says. "It's worth a try."

"Alright, then. On three." I point my gun at the wall. "Fire the curse at the wall."

"One..."

"Two…"

"Three!"

"REDUCTO!" Says all four of us.

Ooh.

The streams of light crash into the wall and reduce a large section of it into a fine mist, which collapses onto the ground.

Contact!

Some of the Death Eaters look in our direction, as we have just created a new source of light for them.

"Oh fucking hell." I raise my gun. "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

We are the only one to actually use their gun.

The three adults begin shooting Stunners into the crowd of Death Eaters, but it's hideously obvious our bullets are the ones doing real damage. Death Eaters begin falling to projectiles too fast for them to react to.

…All but one.

"A mere muggle?" The dangerous-looking woman (Probably Bellatrix) sneers.

The AK in our hand turns into a Snake.

Oh fuck

We toss the gunsnake away. It makes gun noises instead of hissing and will probably be very scary when it escapes into London (spoilers: it does).

Plan B!

We sucker punch Bellatrix. She does not let go of her wand, or make any indication that she felt the hit, even while being shot by the Hogwarts kids from a flanking position.

Ok, so she's a bit tougher than I imagined. "Sirius, keep her busy."

"Aye." Sirius grins. "Hello, Cousin."

Bellatrix homes in on Sirius, and he draws her out of the spinny room, giving me the room to flank. The two begin to duel.

So…why?

As my experience teaching the kids has taught me, a wizard who is focused on you is actually a really hard nut to crack. When they're predisposed dealing with some other threat, though, they become way less able to handle flanking attacks.

…That said, Lestrange was fending off, like, eight spells at once and still snaked my gun.

Lupin and Sirius both engage Bellatrix and keep her occupied.

But let's not mince words, shall we?

I draw my shotgun.

Bellatrix, unable to take her eyes off of the "I'm trying to cut your face" Sirius, can't really do anything about me silently pointing a gun at her.

We wait for a few seconds for Sirius to maneuver to a point where he wouldn't be caught by the crossfire.

BANG

Bellatrix blocks the shot with an extremely powerful (and likely angled) shield, given how the buckshot splashes against the ceiling.

Are you fucking serious

Alright, fine then, be that way.

The sound distracts Sirius and Lupin enough that they falter in their spellcasting long enough for Bellatrix's change in focus to go unpunished.

CHAARGE!

As such, Bellatrix turns to face us just as we rush to her.

Sucker Punch, go!

Her head tilts back as we hit her with the strongest shot we have. It is enough.

She's off balance!

Our charge, full speed, sends us directly into Bellatrix. Without really thinking about what to do next, we hit her in the face with the butt of our shotgun.

The hit sends her

I would make some kind of taunt before firing, but I'm afraid she'd figure it out.

The hit sends her reeling back despite the force behind that charge.

Oh look at how much ammo I have

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG

You have got to be fucking KIDDING

Bellatrix more or less blocked all of them, though the sound and force disoriented her, and her back against the wall. There's a wild look in her eyes now.

Well fuck

We throw the empty shotgun in her face. It turns into a bat and flies away before making contact.

As she's transforming the shotgun, we pull the pistol and unload in her direction while advancing still.

You

PING! She blocks.

Have

PING!

Got

PING!

To

PING!

BE KIDDING ME

PING!

FINE

Now at literal melee range, we pull out a car battery and hit her with it just as the handgun runs dry.

BEST FOR LAST. BEAM!

We nearly break our wand in her chest and cast Prismatic Beam.

The flash attracts everyone's attention, from inside the Department of Mysteries and out. When the light fades, Bellatrix is scorched and panting.

I…what the fuck is with her endurance.

She says, through heavy, heaving panting. "I've had worse, muggle."

…Ha. "Noted."

We pull a handful of spare shotgun shells and throw them at her.

My compliments to Molly Weasley. "Incindio!"

The shells cook off and send fragments everywhere into her body. Even so, she blocked most of them.

Fuck. The shield charm works the best when you're confident.

The Fuck kind of ego do you need to have a shield that tough?

At this point, the fighting has more or less paused in favor of people watching us lay it into Bellatrix.

"If you're not using that, hand it over." I open one hand to Arthur, the other dragging Bellatrix's body by the hair.

Perhaps it's something on my face, but he tosses his AK over without another word.

I'm overdosing on adrenaline and morals and rage and panic and everything else.

We make a very overt and loud reloading noise of the gun.

"WHO'S NEXT?!" I yell and throw Bellatrix's body towards the Department of Mystery's entrance.

Seeing the badly mangled body of Bellatrix, the rest of the Death Eaters look at her, look at each other, and raise their hands up to surrender.

"Disarm them." I command.

"Aye." Sirius says. Wands fly from the Death Eaters' hands in short order.

Whew.

Lupin assists by magicking some rope and tying the Death Eaters up.

"Done." Sirius says after all the Death Eaters are pacified. "What else, Ash?"

"Have them move off to the side." I command. " , Lupin, escort the kids and get them out here."

"Aye aye." Lupin says with a very leery look my way.

With the Death Eaters out of the way, getting the gang organized and out here is an easy thing. In the meantime, I move Bellatrix's body out of the way and, in no particular order, mend her clothes, clean up some blood, make her look presentable. Arthur and Lupin seem to understand my intentions and help out.

We're trying to salvage our soul, as it were.

"You're ok." Harry breathes when he sees us. He stops short upon seeing the somewhat put-back-together Bellatrix lying in repose on the ground.

I am. Somewhat. "Can someone smack Harry Potter for me?" I call out to general confusion. "It's an emergency."

Luna steps up and gives Harry a cursory…pat? To the face.

Pat pat.

"Good enough." I nod. "Harry, you understand why I'm more than just a bit angry at you, right?" My words ring with a certain authority due to, y'know.

Harry scowls. "What the hell, I came here because I thought you were in danger. What if you were actually being hurt?"

"Then that's my problem, not yours." I say by reflex. "If I were being tortured, there would have been absolutely no way for you to guarantee my safety by showing up." Harry opens his mouth to argue, so I stop him with my hand. "Could you have attacked if Bellatrix had her wand to my neck?" Not that she would need to, since Avada is an insta-gib ranged spell…

Harry wants to argue, but can't really, so closes his mouth.

I nod. "I thought so. Ambush tactics trump all other tactics." I jerk my head to Bellatrix's corpse. "You lose advantage, you get beat. Worst case, you die, and take everyone else with you."

"Ash, I think you are being too harsh on Harry." Lupin says.

I shrug. "Probably." I make a very obvious gesture to Bellatrix. "As a rebuttal, that could've been them. Death Eaters on a kill mission? Teenagers can't survive that."

"Point taken." Lupin sighs.

"What do you mean, 'kill mission'?" Arthur takes interest in my phrasing.

"I mean, there are a million ways for a wizard to kill another wizard." I say. "Like, McGonagall could probably kill all of us before we could blink, but she doesn't because she's a wonderful teacher and a wonderful woman. They've had fifty years to learn different ways of killing people without being detected, so how does a small band of kids survive just like that?" I snap my fingers for emphasis.

"Because we're amazing at what we do." Fred replies with a small smirk.

"Ash, I apologize." Harry says formally. I guess he's actually sorry. "I should have taken the time to think about my actions before attempting to save the life of a best friend of mine." …so maybe he's not that sorry.

Meh, good enough. "Apology accepted." I grin. "Now let's get out of here before their reinforcements show up."

"What do we do about the Death Eaters?" Sirius asks. The Death Eaters (sans Bellatrix) are tied up and kinda..just left there at a corner.

"Leave them here." I don't care. "We can let the ministry find and take credit for them." Which is a part of my goal. "Speaking of which…" I take out a letter I wrote on the way here (I hope they can read it) and lay it on top of Bellatrix's corpse. "Alright, let's go."

…

The party takes the main elevator up the lobby level, where we find Darth Vader ER I MEAN Tom.

Fucking hell Tom.

He is cloaked and his face is obscured.

"Ok, I guess that's an unpleasant visitor." Sirius mutters. "I can sense that evil from here."

"Who's got shields left?" I murmur.

"Around thirty or so." Hermione says. "But I feel like we can't stop him with just cards."

Voldemort is standing close to the opposite side of the lobby, so he's very far from us.

We come out of the elevator and arrange ourselves before Voldemort.

As we get ready, Tom strides forward and dramatically unhoods himself my god this guy's just a 70 year old 8th grader isn't he

"Harry Potter." Voldemort hisses. "We meet at last."

…it's quite telling of the power behind Voldemort's reputation when the only people here who don't flinch at his tone are Harry, Me, Hermione, and Sirius.

That said, let me just do this real quick…

We make a small wand motion.

"I seem to have sorely underestimated you and your friends." He sneers. "But I should have expected no less from the 'hero' who lives to oppose me."

"Hero? What are you talking about?" Harry, completely unaware of his hero-ness, asks confusedly.

The hidden claymores respond to our command, and start waddling to position and face the target.

"Oh, come now, Harry." Voldemort begins to stride towards us. "You should know better than—"

The claymores detonate.

FUCK

The sudden detonation causes everyone to cower. We're all much too late for the cowering to help our livelihood any, but fortunately the statue and the walls absorb the rest of the beads and nobody unrelated is caught in the splash radius.

In retrospect, putting explosives within an enclosed space was not exactly the brightest idea. I mean, it's the best idea, but it's also the worst idea.

…Either way…

We peer over the statue at the ruined hallway.

…That's more than just a little anticlimactic, but he had like five steps of free room anyways. Voldemort's now in many pieces and the ground is a nice shade of red. Score one for ambush tactics.

"What the hell was that?" Harry demands shakily.

"A trap." I take a deep breath. "I got him, though."

"I think I'm going to be sick." Hermione groans after taking one look at the ex-Voldemort. "You did this?"

"Hell yeah." I nod. "A muggle solution to a magical problem."

"Won't he come back to life again?" Fred asks, pointedly not looking at either us or the mess. "I mean, he seems to do that."

Hmm. "Probably…but considering the circumstances, I think we have a good ten years before it happens."

I mean, what do we need for the revival? What did book four need for the revival? Flesh of a servant, bone of the father, blood of the enemy, and…

…what is babymort? Most importantly, do we have more babymorts?

…We do, don't we.

"Sirius, get everyone out of here and back to Grimmauld place, then back to Hogwarts." I say. "I want to do some cleanup."

"Ok." Sirius says, also looking at neither us nor the mess. He probably just doesn't want to be here.

You'd think he'd be the one person used to body parts flying everywhere.

Yeah, but I imagine this would remind him of his betraying best friend, so…probably not the best scene for him to see. Either way, I get the feeling everybody believes I've gone over the line as they hurriedly leave. Well, what's one more, really.

They all leave in a minute or so.

…Cool.

We turn back to the Department of Mysteries.

Oh Time Turner, where are yoooouuuu~~~

We find a cabinet loaded with trinkets that look like what we're looking for.

…In retrospect I have no idea if these are time turners rather than just…y'know, gussied up gyroscopes. Moreover, I have no idea how to properly test these.

…You know what? I'm just going to leave these alone for now.

We go back for our letter, write an addendum onto it, and put it back on the body.

There we go.

We leave.

So…where is Ghost!Riddle? That's our next question.

…

[Next Day]

…

The kids are back at Hogwarts, and I'm very obviously not popular with my previous friends, leading to a lot of whispers about what could have possibly happened the previous day.

And then the mail came.

Daily Prophet front page: a picture of the badly damaged lobby entrance (our fault) soaked with blood (our fault) and a massive, blocky title of "BATTLE AT THE MINISTRY: DEATH EATERS RISE AGAIN".

Let's see here…

…Cornelius Fudge says: 'notorious criminals' Fenrir Greyback and Bellatrix Lestrange (as well as the other names that used to be in Azkaban) were found in the ministry, where they were repelled and captured (or occasionally killed) thanks to the efforts of the ex-Death Eaters and other members of the ministry.

Ex-Death Eaters?

People like Lucius. Crabbe's dad was also one, it looks like. I figured that this was a good way to ensure that anybody who died in the battle wouldn't hurt the Ministry's standing any…per my letter.

So what was in the letter?

Basically…if you find some dead people, check them with the list of jailed criminals. If they're a criminal, denounce them as criminals and make them the scapegoats. If they're not (or have been reformed) then hold them up as the shining example of goodness prevailing despite all of their previous failings.

Now, granted, I only got one, but I'm also compensating for any, uh, accidents when we're not around. The ministry basically gets to determine who they want to get the Order of Merlin and who they want to have…killed, as an enemy.

As for the addendum…

We receive a packet with a small trinket inside of it.

Since I don't know if the object I will pilfer is a Time Turner for real (or if it is enchanted in some way that would, say, make it useless the moment it leaves the Department of Mysteries) I just asked for one.

I'm surprised that they would give one to me, no questions asked…though I guess Fudge is cashing in on the good PR after the, y'know, death and murder.

So what are we going to do with the Time Turner?

I dunno. Study it, maybe? I could always use it, but knowing my personality we'd just end up with five of me running around at the same time, messing shit up in un-fun ways. If I want a second opinion I'll just get someone else, because I know I will give myself the same opinion I give to myself inside my head.

…The hell is that last sentence?

Anyways, let's see if we can get the time turner to do some time things that don't involve just turning it back. Like, freeze some tomatoes or something.

Why?

Well, there is a *lot* of utility that comes from the ability to manipulate time freely. I don't think I will make progress on this (especially if the Department has been looking into the same thing) but it won't be for the lack of trying.

…

So, yes, Voldemort is dead because around 16 claymore mines detonated close to his face, Bellatrix is dead because I spent my entire loadout on her, Fenrir is dead because Fudge got Dementors to kiss him, and we are socially dead because we're now a known murderer.

I still have yet to find Ghost!Riddle, and I'm questioning whether if I should turn back time to go to London and see if he's there.

And why we're not doing that is…

…Wizards can go invisible and be undetectable, and they can kill you immediately. I'm not engaging the most dangerous wizard in the world unless I have either a superior position or a numerical advantage, and time-turning back by my lonesome seems like a terribly suicidal idea. Fudge did make it explicit that I can't tell anybody I have this thing, by the way, and I have no reason to believe that, at this juncture, the kids would keep quiet about any toys I share with them.

…so…good times are ahead?

Hmm.

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