Chapter 51
AMELIA BONES
Amelia Bones was worried. Not because she may be wrong. No. She had enough confidence in her skills as a witch to know that she was right in her assessment of the wards.
She was worried about her comrade.
Alder Evans had joined the DMLE through a very strange procedure. His apprenticeship was a secret, and so it had been really surprising when he had been attacked in the dorms by two Death Eaters, yet unlike them he had been expecting the attack and had managed to turn the tides using that single thing as an opportunity.
Amelia had always known that he was special. She had seen him at Hogwarts for many a years, always smiling and helping students and while the brilliance remained still, the smile on his face was now long gone.
"Is it really right of us to put all this on him?" she questioned, as she sat beside her brother as they waited for Alder to come back from the Malfoy mission.
"I am worried about him," she added as Edgar turned to look at her.
"I am not much fond of it either, but we don't have much of a choice," and his frustrations were obvious.
"The Ministry has been on the backfoot ever since the attack on the Express, and we need a win to change the momentum," and that was true.
"But still, he is too young and too emotionally invested in this," and while his powers were one obvious reason for his recruitment, his recklessness was another.
As he was right now, Alder did not care at all about his life and was focused solely on hunting down the perpetrators behind the attack on the Express. He was out for revenge.
"She is right," and Shacklebolt supported her in this as he stepped forward.
"The way he is acting, makes it seem like he's got a death wish," Shacklebolt added, and Edgar sighed.
"I know, but what can I do?" he asked, looking at them helplessly.
"It was our mistake that pushed him to the centre stage in this war. Bagnold and I had never expected that Voldemort's ideologies held such sympathy within our own ranks," and Amelia held much of the blame here as well, for she had been the one to coordinate the contact between them.
"He is the one who has paid the steepest price in this war, and so by what right do I ask him to take a backseat?" and that was all true, as silence filled the air.
"Honestly, I was hoping you lot could help me with this," he added, looking towards her and Shacklebolt.
"How?" she asked.
"Alder's not just left Hogwarts. He has left his family, his friends, and his sister. He is all alone, and since you lot are around the same age as him, you should befriend him," he suggested, as her and Shacklebolt exchanged glances.
"I tried," Shacklebolt suggested.
"Try harder," Edgar added, as he glanced at them both.
"Because as bad as thing are neither I nor Bagnold want to win this war at the cost of his life or conscience," and with that Edgar's head snap as the mansion doors were thrown open, and Alder Evans walked out of the Malfoy hideout with a grim expression on his face.
His face remained cold and impassive as always, but now it was splattered with drops of blood, and his once glistening eyes were dark and ominous as they all rushed out of the bushes.
"What happened in there?" he asked, and Alder looked him in the eye as he answered.
"It is done," and so the mission was a success, and the words should have brought her some semblance of joy and happiness, yet none came, as her eyes remained fixed on Alder's face.
"The Malfoys are finished," and with that, he walked past them and closed his eyes.
"I am going to the next destination to scout things out. You should get there as well," and with that, he vanished with a pop, as the three of them were left there standing.
"The Malfoys were one of Voldemort's greatest backers, and now they are gone," Edgar began as he looked at the mansion.
"This is a great win for the Ministry, and yet for some reason I fear that the cost of this victory was far greater than any of us had thought,"
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MILICENT BAGNOLD
She had known that such a day would come. Alder's apprenticeship was a well-guarded secret, and even if one was to learn about the apprenticeship, the young lad had been given dorms at the far end of the academy.
He had made the choice himself, and initially, Bagnold had thought that he had done so because of fear of bullying or privacy, she had no shame in admitting that she was wrong.
None of them had expected the extent of the Dark Lord's animosity for the boy, but he had. He had also known about the sympathisers that lay hidden amongst their ranks, and so he had chosen the dorm to force them out.
The attack on him had come as a surprise, and to think that it had involved two very high-ranking members of her Department of Mysteries was a great humiliation for her. But this was the challenge she faced.
Voldemort had not emerged out of thin air. The name had been whispered in parties and galas for years, and his sympathisers and followers had always existed within their society.
It was only now that he had chosen to show the world his true nature, but the man had spent years plotting this. His followers and sympathisers had entrenched themselves in all of the departments and were undermining all and any operations being planned against their leader.
"You lied to me," Crouch uttered, and she knew that such a thing would happen sooner or later. Honestly, she was surprised that it had taken him this long to figure out the truth.
"About what?" she still chose to put on an act, as Crouch's face contorted.
"No more games, Bagnold! I am not a fool for you and Bones to play around with!" and he was definitely angry.
"The boy! I was told that he had been injured during an attack, and that I was to keep this a secret for the morale, and yet now I find out that it was all a hoax, and he was never in St. Mungo's in the first place," and Bagnold smiled.
"I never said he was in St. Mungo's," and that was the last straw as his face flushed.
"Enough with these lies!" and he was on his feet, and this was one reason why Crouch was not so well-liked in the Ministry. The man was quick to anger and was known to hold a grudge.
"Calm down, Barty. Sit, and I will explain everything," and the war had just begun, and she would have need of men like him.
"Calm down! How am I to calm down when you have no trust in me at all? You lied to me! You and Bones both," he accused as he pointed a finger at her.
"Four times!" and he was not the only one who could shout, and she had been cordial enough in respect of his seniority, but if he was not going to listen to reason, then she could shout just as well.
"Four operations you led, and each time we lost more men than the enemy," and Crouch had no reply to that because he knew of his failures.
"Even beyond that, anything we plan or plot is somehow revealed to our enemies before we can even execute any of them," and Barty raised a brow.
"We have known each other for fifteen years, Bagnold. Fifteen years," and they had been classmates at Hogwarts, even though their Houses were different.
"And you are accusing me of this?" and she shook her head.
"I am not accusing you," and while Barty was difficult to work with, she knew that he was no traitor.
"Then why was I lied to? Why was I kept in the dark about this?" and Bagnold met his eyes.
"Because I am accusing the people around you," and now he had no answer.
"It is no secret that we have leaks at the Ministry," and even denying it was a lost cause.
"Some do it for money, others because of blackmail while many are simply sympathetic to Voldemort's cause. The people are losing their trust in us with every passing day, and Voldemort and his Death Eaters have been making a mockery out of us for months," all the while, Bagnold had begun to feel hopeless.
She had come into this job hoping to make things better, and yet every day she was faced with failures. As resilient as she was, even Bagnold had begun to feel a sense of hopelessness, and so when she was offered a chance to strike back at the enemy, she had taken it.
"My niece was on the Express," she told him, and few knew of this little detail, and the words seemed to surprise Crouch.
"My niece. My own sister was worried about her safety, but I assured her that we would handle everything, and yet we failed in our duties," and Crouch's nostrils flared with rage, but he knew that in her place, he might have made a similar decision.
"I am no traitor," Crouch answered.
"I know," she repeated in frustration.
"But there is a doubt that some people very close to you are," and this was not yet confirmed.
"People close to me," Crouch uttered while frowning, before his eyes widened.
"You are accusing my wife," and she was not.
"No. Not your wife," she answered, and even now he failed to recognise the moll. She had no proof of this.
"Then who?"
"Your son," she finally told him the truth, as his face turned ashen pale.
"Barty," he breathed out his name, and Bagnold's lips thinned, and she knew it was a great blow for him, but it was the truth.
"We are not a hundred percent sure yet, but it is very likely that your son is a Death Eater," and she saw him fall to the chair, as he shook his head in denial.
"No. No. It can not be," he said in sheer denial, before he looked up at her.
"It has to be a lie," and she wished that it was.
"I hope that it was," but she had overseen the interrogation of Rookwood and his colleague herself.
"I only told you half a lie. Alder was attacked, but the instigators did not get away," and with Edgar and his team already carrying out the attack, she had nothing to hide.
"Alder captured them both, and then we interrogated them," and now Crouch was frowning.
"But I saw Rookwood a few days ago," and now she was smiling.
"It was Alder's suggestion. He wanted to launch a surprise attack, and we used memory charms to modify their memories to let them think that they had succeeded in injuring Alder." The boys' plan was brilliant and well worked.
And given his preparations, she had an inkling that he had not come up with it on the spot, and that the plan had been in his mind for some time.
"I had the Department Head push Rookwood, and his colleague to the limit and have them do overtime so that they would not have time to participate in any extracurricular activity, and to lessen their exposure to the world," and in that time they planned and plotted, until everything was ready.
"So you are telling me," and she nodded as a smile came onto her lips.
"It's time to strike back....."
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Fenrir Greyback stood amidst a crowd of his fellow Werewolves. For years, he was forced to live the life of a fugitive as the Ministries all over the world hunted him like a dog, but now he was back in his homeland. And not just that he was here to lead the revolution once more.
"For far too long we have been forced into hiding in the shadows!" he shouted, at the hundred or so men and women gathered infront of him.
"We have been hated, and pushed into the darkest corners of the society so that those bastards can forget about us. But no more!" and they roared with him.
"They think of us as their lesser," and tonight was to be a great night. One where he would have his greatest feast.
An entire town. It would be a spectacle.
"But they are wrong! We are not lesser. No. We are their betters!" and a roar followed his words, as he looked up at the darkening skies, and soon enough, the moon would be out.
"And tonight we pr...."
But before he could finish, the glass on the roof shattered, causing some mayhem, as a shadowy creature came and rushed towards the floor.
"Nifelheim!" the shout came, and suddenly a chill spread out, and covered half the Hall as screams filled the air. A thick whitish cloud filled the area, and while others ran away in panic, Fenrir held his ground as a sole figure walked out of the whitish cloud, spinning his wand.
"I am afraid your time is over," the stranger answered, as he looked him in the eye.
"Greyback," and he dropped down on all fours as his skin began to tear itself apart, and he began to transform with a guttural roar.
"We will see about that...."
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