Change the Future

DH 11

"Ah, Mafalda!" Umbridge said, looking at Hermione. "Travers sent you, did he?"

"Y—yes," squeaked Hermione. 

"Good, you'll do perfectly well." Umbridge spoke to the wizard in black and gold. "That's that problem solved, Minister, if Mafalda can be spared for record-keeping we shall be able to start straightaway." She consulted her clipboard. "Ten people today and one of them the wife of a Ministry employee!! Tut, tut even here, in the heart of the Ministry!" She stepped into the lift beside Hermione, as did the two wizards who had been listening to Umbridge's conversation with the Minister. "We'll go straight down, Mafalda, and you'll find everything you need in the
courtroom. Good morning, Albert, aren't you getting out?"

"Yes, of course," Harry said. Harry stepped out of the lift. The golden grilles clanged shut behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, Harry saw Hermione's anxious face sinking back out of sight, a tall wizard on either side of her, Umbridge's velvet hair-bow level with her shoulder. 

"What brings you up here, Runcorn?" asked the new Minister of Magic. 

"Needed a quick word with," Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second, "Arthur Weasley. Someone said he was up on level one." 

"That was quick thinking" Hermione says looking at Harry.

"Ah," Pius Thickness said. "Has he been caught having contact with an Undesirable?"

"No," Harry said. "No, nothing like that." 

"Ah, well. It's only a matter of time. If you ask me, the blood traitors are as bad as the Mudbloods. Good day, Runcorn."

"Good day, Minister." Harry watched Thicknesse march away along the corridor. The moment the Minister had passed out of sight, Harry tugged the Invisibility Cloak out from under his cloak, threw it over himself, and set off along the corridor in the opposite direction. As he passed gleaming wooden door after gleaming wooden door, each bearing a small plaque with the owner's name and occupation upon it. He stopped walking and leaned against a wall. The silence pressed upon him. There was no bustling or talk or swift footsteps here. He set off along the corridor again, passing nobody but a frowning wizard who was murmuring instructions to a quill that floated in front of him, scribbling on a trail of parchment. Now paying attention to the names on the doors, Harry turned a corner. Halfway along the next corridor he emerged into a wide open space where a dozen witches and wizards sat in rows at small desks not unlike school desks, though much more highly polished and free from graffiti. Harry crept closer and he slid a completed pamphlet from the pile beside a young witch. He examined it beneath the Invisibility Cloak. Its
pink cover was emblazoned with a golden title

MUDBLOODS
and the Dangers They Pose to
a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society

Beneath the title was a picture of a red rose with a simpering face in the middle of its petals, being strangled by a green weed with fangs and a scowl. There was no author's name upon the pamphlet. Then the young witch beside him confirmed his suspicion as she said, still waving and twirling her wand, 

"Will the old hag be interrogating Mudbloods all day, does anyone know?"

"Careful," said the wizard beside her, glancing around nervously; one of his pages slipped and fell to the floor.

"What, has she got magic ears as well as an eye, now?" The witch glanced toward the shining mahogany door facing the space full of pamphlet-makers, Harry looked too. A large, round eye with a bright blue iris had been set into the wood. He strode straight over to the door to examine the eye. It was not moving. It gazed blindly upward, frozen.