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Third Time's the Charm by Linus
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Format: Novella
Chapters: 5
Word Count: 17,402
Status: Abandoned

Rating: Mature
Warnings: Strong Language, Strong Violence

Genres: General
Characters: James (II), OC
Pairings:

First Published: 01/06/2010
Last Chapter: 09/29/2010
Last Updated: 09/29/2010

Summary:


Credit to SwissMiss of the Dark Arts for the banner!
The wizarding world was taken by surprise.  It took no time at all for Voldemort to rise up and conquer them a third time.  His biggest obstacles... Harry Potter, Dumbledore, the Aurors... dead.  Little stands in his way as he wreaks havoc on the world again.  Perhaps a Potter is the only hope the world has left.  It's a shame the only one left who can help is stuck in Azkaban.

Chapter 5: Chapter 5
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"What do you mean she has a Dark Mark?"

"Well, it's there on her arm and-"

"I know it's on her bloody arm, but why is it there?"

"Maybe they just, you know, put it there and-"

"Shut up, Finnigan. No, better yet, get out of the room. Everyone but Potter, out!"

They had arrived at the resistance's headquarters about ten minutes ago. Scorpius had been busy with something (Lysander had said something about a conversation with Dean Thomas about Kingsley and his branch in Manchester; something about losing contact with them), though upon learning that Rose had been found he wrapped up what he was doing and rushed out to meet them.

The four had debated whether or not to tell Scorpius. Ultimately, they had decided that he'd find out anyway. Somehow. They just needed to figure out who. Deimos had no problem saying anything, but the other three quickly agreed that anyone but him should do it. Somehow, they doubted Deimos would do a good job of breaking the news.

The responsibility fell on James' shoulders. He waited as long as he could; Scorpius asked about how things had gone, what type of resistance they had encountered and other things, yet he didn't seem interested in the answers. He was focused on Rose.
They didn't wake her up right away, and it was probably a good thing. James mumbled something about the dark mark as Scorpius listened to Cassandra tell him about Haven's disappearance and death. Unfortunately, Scorpius heard him.

The leader of the London resistance effort did not appear to take it well.

He hadn't expected him to. After all, he had seemed (and still did seem) quite concerned with Rose. The revelation that she had a dark mark and, for all they knew, was a Death Eater, was not something the young Malfoy likely wanted to hear.

When everyone had been forced out of the room, Scorpius looked at James and demanded he tell him what had happened. He had already heard the whole story, of course. Cassandra had told him, with Cillian adding something in here and there. The boy hadn't been listening, of course, as he had been paying attention to Rose. Now he wanted to hear it from James.

James told him everything; he had no reason to hide anything, after all. They had entered the prison easily. Things had started smoothly, and then Death Eaters had appeared, separated them and, in his opinion, herded them toward Rose. Scorpius didn't find that idea the slightest bit believable. Regardless, James continued. They had taken Rose from her cell and then left. There had been no resistance after they had rescued her. Nothing at all.

Scorpius nodded. "So who do you think it is?"

"What?" asked James, confused by the question.

"The spy."

"What spy?" James suddenly felt like an idiot. He was beginning to grow accustomed to that feeling. He didn't like that.

"The spy here. In the resistance. Among us." As James persisted in his ignorance, Scorpius sighed and tried again. "You went to Azkaban to rescue Rose. The Death Eaters seemed to be expecting you. So, obviously, someone had to have alerted them to your visit."

A spy? No, that wasn't possible. Who was he kidding, of course it was. They had two spies in Voldemort's Ministry, why wouldn't the Death Eaters have their own spies? They'd be foolish to not at least attempt it. But who? "I dunno," said James after a moment of thought. "Maybe it was Graves."

"Yes, and that's why the Death Eaters killed him." Scorpius frowned and glanced at Rose. "Find Lorcan and Lysander. The three of you wait for me in the room just to the left of the main area. I'll be there shortly. I'm going to get Creevey and Abercrombie to get her into a bed."

James had a fairly easy time of finding the Scamander twins. Lorcan led the way to the room, as James still didn't know his way around the place. They stood around a long and ugly table for about five minutes until Scorpius arrived, looking annoyed.

"That idiot Creevey can't do anything without bitching about it," he muttered to himself before he shut the door and turned to the three others in the room. "Alright. We're here to figure out just who could be spying on us and what our next move is."

"I think we should start being a bit concerned about Jericho," said Lorcan. "He's been gone almost three days now; Carver and Varney haven't reported back either."

"Where did he go?" asked James, being the only one of the four who had no idea.

"Jericho apparated into Manchester with Amelia Carver and Elias Varney about three days ago to check with Kingsley Shacklebolt and the resistance effort there. He was going to leave yesterday, and we expected him an hour or so after you arrived. We haven't heard a thing from him since he let us know he was leaving."

"Kingsley's gone silent too," added Lysander quietly. This knowledge was new to everyone but him, it seemed. Scorpius and Lorcan both looked at him in surprise. The boy frowned. "What? Am I not allowed to know things?"

Lorcan ignored him. "This changes things. We need to check on Kingsley. We need to find Jericho. We need to check in with Nott and Vaisey at the Ministry. It's been weeks since we've heard something from them." He paused. "We can't waste time chasing pretty girls. We need to do something or the Death Eaters will crush us."

Scorpius turned a faint pink at Lorcan's words. He was visibly irritated. "Yes, we do. Potter, you and Greyback are going to check on Nott and Vaisey. Lysander can fill you in on that." When neither James nor Lysander moved, he motioned impatiently for the two to leave. "What are you waiting for? Go!"

The two left, though as they were closing the door James could hear Scorpius continue to talk. "...and nobody else can ever bloody do anything- get Lupin to check on Shacklebolt! He's closer to Manchester than we are. Tell them to send Longbottom, they're always talking about how he's some bloody one man army. Get them on the job! And another thing..."

--------------------------------------------------------

"My Lord?"

"What is it, Lestrange?"

"We have news from both Azkaban and Manchester."

"Yes?"

"The Weasley girl was rescued."

"Excellent."

"In addition, the Manchester resistance effort has been destroyed. Shacklebolt has been captured and the others killed."

"Good. Learn what you can from Shacklebolt. Then dispose of him."

"Yes, My Lord."

--------------------------------------------------------

Lysander led him through the hallways of the resistance's headquarters without a word. It seemed that it was too difficult for Lysander to remain quiet, however, and he eventually spoke.

"So what was Malfoy talking about? With the spy and all?"

They had never actually gotten around to talking about it. Lorcan had moved straight to the second topic they had needed to discuss and the first had been forgotten. But now it was brought to the front of James' mind and he shrugged. "Scorpius thinks that there's a spy in the resistance here. We just don't know who."

Lysander bit his lip as he quickly ran through the members of the London resistance. "Well, there's Kenneth, Madeleine, Scorpius, Lorcan, Greyback, Cillian, Cassandra, Jericho, the other two Aurors who I can never remember the names of, me and you. Then there was Parson and Haven, but since they're dead we can eliminate them as suspects, I think."

"I think we can eliminate the two of us, as well," added James, grinning.

"Yeah. Scorpius and Lysander, too. Greyback. Kenneth wouldn't do it, you and I both know that." James gave a quick and rather forced nod, and Lysander continued. "So that leaves Madeleine, Cillain, Cassandra, Jericho and those two Aurors. Personally, I think Cillian's kind of incompetent and I highly doubt the Death Eaters would pick him as their spy. Madeleine never leaves headquarters, for whatever reason, so I'm going to eliminate her. That and if she ever heard me nominate her as a Death Eater spy, I think she'd kill me."

"Cassandra seemed alright."

"Yeah, she's great. Lorcan doesn't like her, though. He says it's because they're too different, but he knows just as well as I do that it's because she likes me."

"He fancies her then?" asked James.

"Nah. He just hates it when people like me. Whether it's as a friend or any other way." Lysander paused. "He claims everyone likes me in some way, shape or form. He's just not as charismatic as I am, that's all. He needs some charisma."

James rolled his eyes and kept walking. "So what about Jericho and those Aurors?"

"Honestly? I don't think it's any of them. I don't see how anybody here could be the spy. If I had to pick, my money would be on Cillian. That's just because he gets on my nerves, though. Jericho's a good candidate with his disappearance, if you want to pretend that he's in hiding with the Death Eaters now. You could claim it's Greyback, even."

"Greyback?"

"Sure. I mean, he helped you break out of Azkaban, didn't he? Say he was working for the Death Eaters and they wanted to know where we were. You led them straight to us."

That was not a comforting thought. Then again, James doubted this was the case. Deimos had shown he wasn't very fond of Death Eaters; not to mention he had killed sixteen of them before. He silently wondered if that was all he had killed.

A few minutes later and they found Deimos. He was sleeping in his room and James had to wake him up. Lysander refused to do it; he was convinced that the werewolf would kill him if he did.

When he was awake, Deimos followed the other two back down the hallway and into another room. The room strongly reminded James of the dungeons at Hogwarts. More specifically, it reminded him of his Potions class. That and how little he knew about potions. There were ten cauldrons set up in a straight line in the center of the room, and from what James could tell they were entirely different. They had different colors and vaguely different odors; that was all he needed to begin assuming they were different.

"What's with all the different potions?" he asked, stopping at one that smelled faintly of butterscotch.

"They're all the same potion," replied Lysander. "Polyjuice Potion. How else do you expect to slip into the Ministry with all of those Death Eaters crawling about?"

Ah. Polyjuice Potion. Luckily, he knew how it worked; his father had told him several stories before about how he'd used it. Lysander continued, ignoring James as the older boy smelled the different potions. "We've got ten different Ministry officials here. All Death Eaters. Except for that last one. I think that's some reporter for the Prophet. Urquhart, maybe."

James glanced at the last potion; it was a deep, ugly gray. He looked away.

"So the plan is just to fake being a Death Eater, find Nott and Vaisey, get whatever information they have for us, and then take off before the potion wears off?"

Lysander nodded. He moved across the room to pick up two flasks; he dunked the flasks in separate cauldrons, put a stopper in them and then offered one to both James and Deimos. "Pick one and get ready to go. Drink it when you get there; you allow yourself more time that way. Oh, one other thing." He hurried over to the other side of the room where a stack of robes sat on a table. "Death Eater robes. Any Death Eaters walking into the Ministry won't be wearing robes like yours, after all."

The robes looked brand new; this was because they were. Lysander explained that the resistance had gone to great lengths to acquire the materials necessary for the Polyjuice Potions, though the robes had been fairly easy to acquire. They'd just bought some. From who? Madam Malkin.

As for why the potions were so important, Lysander said that it was Scorpius' idea. As far as he was aware, none of the other branches of the resistance bothered with the potion. He assumed their reason was something along the lines of "it's a waste of time and resources."

Just before they left the compound to apparate, James asked, "So who will we be turning into?"

Lysander took a minute to think before he replied. "I don't know their names. Scorpius usually fills people in on the potions, so I'm a little uninformed. I think the lime green one might be Baddock and the one that looks like vomit is Flint."

He recognized those names. "Alastair Baddock and Ursula Flint?" Those two names were very familiar. They were two of the five Slytherins who had aided the Death Eaters nine months ago. He glanced at his own flask; he had the vomit one. "Why the hell am I turning into a woman?"

Lysander avoided answering the question until they were both out the door. "I wasn't going to make Greyback do it, if you know what I mean. Good luck, James. Don't get killed. Oh, and don't get spotted by Flint or Baddock either. That would be bad."

"Why? Has it happened before?"

Lysander nodded.

"What happened to the guy who got caught?"

"We don't know. The Death Eaters never sent him back."


Ten minutes later they had apparated and were standing outside the Ministry of Magic. Rather, they stood just outside of the telephone booth that served as a visitor's entrance. James had wondered silently as to why they hadn't gone in some other way. Wouldn't coming in the visitor's entrance as a Death Eater give them the idea that something was amiss?

Deimos didn't seem to care. In fact, he seemed oddly focused on not letting James get distracted; he gave him a rather condescending look and said, as James continued to wonder whether they should enter by some other means, "Shut up and drink the damn potion, Potter. Let's get in there so you can do what you're here to do."

James had been hoping to put this off for at least a few minutes more. His potion looked absolutely disgusting. Like vomit. At least Deimos' potion didn't look so horrendous. "Are you sure you don't want to switch?" he asked weakly.

In response, Deimos drank his potion. He immediately began to change and, by the time James had drank his own, he was nearly finished transforming into Alastair Baddock. James, meanwhile, was only just beginning to turn into Ursula Flint. It wasn't like he had expected; he had thought it would hurt, but instead it really didn't feel like much at all.

When he had finished his transformation, he found that the robes he had on were now too big for him. Deimos was in the same predicament. With a quick bit of magic, however, the robes were shrunk down to a good size. Deimos did this quickly; it took James several tries to get it right. The first time he only made the robes larger. The second time he made them a bright orange.

They stepped into the phone booth that would take them down into the Ministry and, as Deimos spoke with the woman on the phone about letting them in, James examined him. He definitely looked like Baddock; when he opened his mouth he could see that his teeth were still that shocking white that he had grown to dislike so much. His eyes had turned a muddy shade of brown, and Deimos' brown hair had turned black. Baddock had always been good looking. James could see few differences on the former Slytherin's face aside from several ugly looking scars that he must have acquired in the past few months.

He glanced into the glass of the booth to see his own reflection. He felt he taken turning into a woman surprisingly well. Now that he looked at his reflection, he wished he had been able to turn into someone other than Flint.

It wasn't because she was ugly; she was fairly good looking, in fact. She was a fairly repulsive person; everything else about her made James want to throw her off a ridiculously high tower. She was one of the stereotypical Slytherins, though as she was no longer a Slytherin, James supposed she was now just a stereotypical pureblood elitist. She was arrogant, vain, judgemental, and he could have gone on and on. She had a laugh that sounded like the squeal of a pig. He hoped no one made him laugh. He'd hate hearing himself laugh like that.

He frowned as the booth began to descend and pulled up his left sleeve. There was the Dark Mark; he shivered, not comfortable with it being on his skin, and itched at it for a few seconds before Deimos gave him an annoyed look that stopped him.

It hardly took a minute before the booth stopped. He glanced at Deimos; the werewolf didn't bother waiting for him to lead and stepped out, walking straight through the Atrium and over to the elevators. It appeared as though he was familiar with the place.
James had to make an effort to catch up with him before he could ask him if this was true. Deimos shook his head. "I've never been to the Ministry in my life. I just figured we could ask someone where we're going, since that idiot Scamander didn't have a clue."

Deimos continued to walk and James could see that he was not, in fact, heading for the elevators. He was instead heading for an elderly man who was sitting near a set of golden gates. He appeared to recognize James and Deimos; rather, he recognized Baddock and Flint.

"Hello, Mr. Baddock! Miss Flint. I... I was certain I saw the two of you come in already." The old man frowned; James read his nametag quickly. Eric Munch.

When neither Deimos nor James said anything in reply (James was momentarily distracted as he tried to find his wand while Deimos was just being rude), Munch shrugged. "Suppose it's just me getting old. What can I do for the two of you?"

Deimos spoke. "We need to find Octavian Nott and Liam Vaisey. Care to tell us where they are?"

Munch nodded. He looked from James to Deimos before he replied, "Those two work with that bloke Mulciber in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. I think that Vaisey had mentioned something about being called down to the second floor for something or another. Dolohov wanted a word, I suppose."

Deimos began paying considerably more attention at the mention of Dolohov, something that neither James nor Munch failed to notice. Munch, however, merely grinned and shook his head. "I doubt it has nothing to do with you, Mr. Baddock. If Dolohov wanted to involve you, he'd have let you know, wouldn't he? He can't leave his Death Eaters standing around clueless."

"No, I suppose not," said Deimos, though it sounded quite forced.

"Thanks, Eric," said James. "We've got to go."

"Of course, Miss Flint," replied Munch. James thought it was incredibly strange to be addressed like that. He nodded to Munch and followed Deimos over the elevators. He looked around the Atrium as they walked; it looked relatively unchanged since the last time he had been there, prior to Voldemort's takeover. One of the few significant changes he could see was The Fountain of Magical Brethren. Before, it had a wizard, a witch, a centaur, a goblin, and a house-elf; now, the centaur, goblin and house-elf had all been beheaded and defaced. The witch and wizard didn't look to be in the best shape either, for that matter.

They entered the elevator and James pushed the button for the second floor. As they descended, Deimos asked, "So how are we going to find them?"

"We keep asking around," replied James with a shrug.

"Do you ever plan ahead, Potter?"

"Not when I can help it."

"Then think for a change. Dolohov wanted these two on the second floor for something. So you can assume that they're already here and, if not, they'll be here soon."

"So we avoid them. Simple."

"I'll humor you. Let's say that we do. Now how are going to avoid everyone else on this floor? We're here to see Dolohov, not have a chat with... who are we here to see again? Varney and Nott?"

"Vaisey and Nott. If we run into anyone, well, we can figure it out. Let's just hope we don't run into Dolohov."

Deimos' expression hardened. "For his sake, he'd better hope he doesn't run into us."

James ignored the comment, though he could tell that something was up with Deimos and Dolohov. What it was, he couldn't be sure, but it was already getting to the werewolf. They'd need to resolve this quickly. Otherwise, James was worried that Deimos might get out of control.

That and they had the potions to worry about.

The elevator stopped and they quickly got out, heading straight down the hall to what had used to be the Auror's offices. When they opened the door, James found that this was still sort of the case.

It was the same room he had grown to know so well over the years, after countless visits to his father, but it was entirely different at the same time. Death Eaters walked past him, giving him curt nods as he walked by. The walls were covered with pictures of people James recognized; Scorpius had a whole section of the wall to himself, in fact. He could see Ted Lupin on the walls in various posters; many of the Weasleys were there as well, not to mention Samuel Longbottom and countless other people that he hadn't seen in months. Not since his imprisonment.

One of the posters regarding Samuel caught his eye; apparently, Neville's son was causing quite a problem for the Death Eaters. The article was titled RESISTANCE STRIKES; DEATH EATERS FAIL TO STOP LONGBOTTOM. Not the most creative title, James thought, but it told him what he wanted to know. Nevertheless, he scanned the first few sentences before he hurried along to catch up with Deimos.

A Death Eater recruitment post set up near the center of London was taken by surprise today when Samuel Longbottom, a well known member of the resistance effort, came to visit. The young man showed surprising skill as he easily stunned all three Death Eaters manning the post in a matter of minutes. Witnesses say that left hardly two minutes later after burning the words "For Freedom" into the walls.

Longbottom is earning the reputation of a "one man army" among many for...

"Deimos, hold on," said James, a few minutes after he had stopped reading and walked around the room with Deimos. "There they are."

Octavian Nott and Liam Vaisey were sitting in a dark corner of the room; Vaisey was staring out the window (there was a hurricane outside) and Nott was scanning the room cautiously. He spotted James and Deimos and frowned.

James approached him, followed closely by Deimos. Nott looked suspicious of the two of them. He also looked like he genuinely loathed them. Vaisey turned to look at them and then promptly turned to look back out the window.

"What do you two want?" asked Nott. If the loathing hadn't been obvious before, it was certainly apparent now from the tone of his voice.

"We're here for information. Scorpius sent us," said James quietly. The last thing they needed was to be overheard

Nott gave no reaction. "And who are you?"

"James Potter."

A look of surprise appeared on his face for a brief second before Nott asked another question. "What type of magic did I perform in the dungeons when Hogwarts was attacked?"

Deimos looked somewhat thrown off guard. James figured it was a test to see that he wasn't Ursula. It was a rather bad test. "Wordless magic."

Nott nodded, and Vaisey voiced James' concerns. "That was a rather lame test, Octavian."

"We're in the middle of a battle between good and evil, Liam," replied Nott. "We don't have the time to ask him twenty questions."

----------------------------------------

"Mr. Dolohov, I'm sorry we were late, we-"

"Shut your mouth, Baddock. You and Flint walked right past me just five minutes ago. Where the hell were you going in such a hurry?"

"Sir? We just got here. We were on the fifth floor all morning."

"Really, now? So there are two of you?"

"Two of... you're confusing me, Mr. Dolohov."

"That isn't hard to do, I can tell. Round up a few of our friends around the office here and find your look alikes."

-----------------------------------------

"Scorpius said you'd have information for us."

"For the resistance," corrected Octavian. "And we do. I could tell you quite a bit, too, but we don't have the time. That polyjuice potion won't last forever and people will start getting suspicious if we talk for too long."

"Our contact was supposed to show up yesterday, and when she didn't we assumed something was up."

"Who was your contact?"

"It had been a bloke named Terrence, or something like that. He got himself killed awhile ago and he was replaced by some girl. What was her name again, Octavian?"

"Haven Boot." James felt like he should be making some connections here, but failed to do so. "She was always very quiet.  Listened and everything but never said a word unless we basically forced it out of her."

"She was killed yesterday," said James. "She disappeared while we making a rescue at Azkaban."

Octavian nodded, obviously not that bothered by this, and continued. "We've got plenty of stuff to tell, but from the looks of it we need to make this fast, so we'll give you the most important piece of info."

"Well, what we think is the most important," Vaisey chimed in, frowning faintly at the top of James' head. James pulled Ursula's long dark hair in front of his face; it was growing shorter.

Octavian paused for a moment, looking around the busy office before saying, in a hushed tone, "There's a prophecy."

James' reaction was simple. "So what?"

"It involves the Dark Lord. And, well, possibly you."

That interested James.

"We heard Dolohov talking about it with Lestrange. Liam, you heard it. Tell them."
Liam turned away from the window (the hurricane still raged outside) and spoke. "It's kind of a lame prophecy, to be honest. On the fifth day of the fifth month, the son of a hero shall strike. The darkness shall cower before him as it grows weak."

There was silence for several moments before James said, "That's it?"

Vaisey shrugged. "Yeah."

"What kind of idiot seer thought of that one? I could have came up with that. That can't be all, can it? There's got to be something more to it."

Vaisey shook his head. "That's all I heard when Dolohov and Lestrange talked about it. You could-"

"Here comes Dolohov!" interrupted Octavian, standing up so quickly he made James jump. "Get out of here! He's got Baddock and Flint with him! And... two other people, too. This isn't looking good."

James and Deimos obeyed without another word. They moved quickly past a row of cubicles, stopping only for a moment to listen to what was going on.

"Vaisey! Nott! Where are the imposters? Where are Flint and Baddock?" asked Dolohov, sounding none too pleased.

Deimos made a noise that James interpreted as several vulgarities being combined into one. He assumed they were directed at Dolohov.

"You've got Flint and Baddock with you, sir. We have no idea what you're-"

"Don't lie to me, Vaisey. You two have been working with the resistance for some time now. We know exactly what you're up to."

Both Nott and Vaisey looked so shocked that Dolohov was aware of this that nothing else needed to be said. "Now will you tell us where they are or shall we just dispose of you?"

James wanted to stick around to see what happened; Scorpius had told him back at Hogwarts that Nott was a coward. He would follow the crowd until the going got tough. Then he'd get himself out of trouble however he could. It seemed that Deimos wanted to stick around too, though likely for an entirely different reason. After another few seconds they pulled each other way, as the polyjuice potion was beginning to wear off and it was starting to become obvious. Then they heard the killing curses.

Nott and Vaisey had made their choice, it seemed. He could almost hear their bodies hit the floor.

"Potter, left! Go left, at the door, it's Lestrange!"

James veered left and followed Deimos into an office off to the side as Rodolphus Lestrange entered the Death Eater offices, followed by several other figures who James did not have time to look at. They hid in the office, shutting the door and peering out the window at Lestrange as Dolohov approached him.

They were talking, though James couldn't hear anything they were saying. Instead of trying to, he focused on the others that Lestrange had brought. Two of the three looked like cliche Death Eater goons. Big, tall and probably extraordinarily stupid.

The third was Haven Boot.

He swore under his breath, casting a glance at Deimos. "Do you think she-"

"Yes."

Lestrange and Dolohov had Haven follow them and, to James' horror, they headed for the office that the two were hiding in. James opened a closet and stuffed himself inside; Deimos refused to get in with him, instead performing a charm that rendered him relatively invisible when he stood still. James wished he had thought to do that. He felt like a child hiding in the closet.

Dolohov entered first (James assumed it was his office) and sat down behind his desk. Lestrange let Haven in first and then shut the door after he entered. Haven looked terrified.

"What do you have for us, Boot?"

The young woman attempted to stutter out a response. "I uh... there's uh... n-not much to-"

"I told you, Lestrange!" cried Dolohov, looking at Haven with the utmost contempt. "We brought her in too early. She doesn't have anything useful to tell us now."

"She's been a useful spy, Dolohov. Don't be so harsh." Lestrange, despite his kind words, looked none too pleased. Haven was so scared James almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

"Miss Boot, could you leave us for a moment? I'd like to talk with Antonin privately." As Haven nodded and left the room, Lestrange's demeanor changed instantly.

"Well, Dolohov? Are you done screwing things up yet? First Potter escapes Azkaban, then he joins the resistance, then he rescues Weasley and then the resistance manages to get in the Ministry, our Ministry, and get out without us even catching them. What-"

"Don't worry, Lestrange. It's under control." Dolohov did not look the slightest bit bothered. Lestrange glared at him for a moment before leaving the room without another word. Dolohov smirked and left a few minutes later.

After they waited a few more minutes to be sure that the coast was clear, they emerged from Dolohov's office and left the Ministry of Magic.

----------------------------------------

"Scorpius?"

"What is it, Lorcan? I'm busy with-"

"Kingsley is gone. Manchester is gone."

"...we... we'll have to move on. We can't let them all have died for nothing."

"We've heard something else. From Bristol."

"Well?"

"They're saying that the Death Eaters are preparing to move on Wiltshire."

"What you mean is-"

"Yes. They're going after your family."

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