The golden grille of the lift slid open just as Hermione looked up. Standing in the doorway was a tall witch with wheat-blond hair cascading over her shoulders, Diana Roland, wearing a robe of deep violet embroidered with silver thread. Pinned to her chest was the crest of the Roland family, which Hermione had seen many times before.
Seeing who was inside, Diana's brows drew together slightly.
"Director, just fifteen clauses, right? What about seventeen?" asked the witch beside her, arms full of scrolls. A quill and several sheets of parchment floated in the air, busily taking notes.
"Seventeen stays as is," Diana replied calmly. "You may go."
With that, she stepped into the lift.
"Good morning, Diana!" Umbridge chirped, glancing up from her clipboard, her voice oozing sugary delight.
"Morning, Deputy Minister," Diana said coolly, flipping through the stack of papers in her hands.
"I'm on my way downstairs to handle a rather important matter," Umbridge said, her tone puffed with self-importance. "We caught twenty-three of them last night, filthy little thieves of magic. The kind of scum who belong in prison."
"Congratulations," Diana murmured without looking up, her voice perfectly even.
"Would you like to know who they are?" Umbridge asked brightly.
"No need," said Diana flatly.
A flicker of irritation crossed Umbridge's face, though her tone only grew sweeter, syrupy with false concern.
"I heard your little Anne applied for a leave of absence over the summer?"
Diana's hand froze mid-page. She shot Umbridge a sharp look. Hermione's fingers tightened around her beaded bag; she bit her lip and kept her head down, refusing to meet either woman's eyes.
Umbridge's smile widened, her pink cheeks dimpling smugly. "Oh, don't get me wrong, dear, I mean, poor Anne! Orphaned so young, growing up in that dreadful orphanage, never had a proper childhood. And just a few years into school, you've already piled all those family responsibilities onto her shoulders. It hardly seems fair, does it? Especially when I've heard trade with India has been declining, a rather messy business, I'm told. Sending her there at a time like this? Far too much pressure for a child."
Diana's frown deepened, but that only seemed to encourage Umbridge.
"If you ask me, she ought to come back to school! This is her final year, after all, and with the former Slytherin Head as Headmaster now, I'd wager she'd be made Head Girl for sure. I taught Anne for a year, you know. Such a clever, diligent girl, but clever or not, she's still only a—"
"Thank you for your concern," Diana interrupted curtly. "But this is a family matter. And I believe that even if Anne were to return next year, her chances of becoming Head Girl would remain quite high."
The lift jolted slightly as the disembodied female voice announced,
"Level Eight, Atrium. Security checkpoint, monument, Floo Network fireplaces, lifts."
The golden grille slid open.
"Good day, Deputy Minister," Diana said coldly as she stepped out.
Umbridge straightened her back proudly, puffing out her chest. For once, she seemed to think she'd had the last word.
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Harry moved down a thickly carpeted corridor lined with gleaming wooden doors. Each bore a polished nameplate engraved with the occupant's name and title.
He recalled the map of the Ministry he'd memorized, Umbridge's office should be just around the next corner.
Rounding the bend, he entered a broad workspace. About a dozen witches and wizards sat at neat rows of desks. The sight was oddly hypnotic: every wand moved in the same smooth rhythm, flicking and twisting in unison. Square pieces of colored parchment floated through the air like a swarm of tiny pink kites.
After a few moments, Harry realized what he was seeing, the synchronized production of pamphlets. The enchanted pages folded and stacked themselves neatly as each witch or wizard worked, assembling them into perfect piles.
No one looked up. Each worker was utterly absorbed.
As Harry passed by, he glanced at one of the pamphlets. The bright pink cover glittered with gold lettering:
The Mudblood Threat to a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society
Beneath the title, a crimson rose was being strangled by a green, fanged vine. In the center of the flower, a smiling face, cartoonishly stupid, grinned up at him.
Harry fought down the wave of disgust rising in his chest and continued toward a polished mahogany door.
Two nameplates gleamed on it.
The upper one read:
Dolores Umbridge
Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic
Below it, a newer plate had been added:
Head of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission
Several workers noticed Harry now, but recognizing who he appeared to be, they quickly ducked their heads and redoubled their efforts, pamphlets stacking even faster.
Harry turned the handle and stepped inside.
The office was a suffocating sea of pink. Lace curtains, frilled cushions, and dried flowers smothered every surface. The walls were hung with decorative plates, each painted with prancing kittens wearing bows, purring and blinking in pastel tones.
Harry grimaced, drew his wand, and muttered,
"Accio locket."
Nothing happened. He'd expected as much. A Horcrux wouldn't be left vulnerable to a Summoning Charm. Pocketing his wand, he moved behind the desk and began to search the drawers.
Quills, notebooks, bottles of ink; enchanted paperclips that slithered like snakes when he disturbed them; a dainty box full of bows and barrettes, but no locket.
He turned to the filing cabinet. Like Filch's back at Hogwarts, it was crammed with folders, each labeled with a name.
Near the bottom, something caught his eye: Arthur Weasley.
He pulled the file out and unfolded it.
Arthur Weasley
Blood status: Pure-blood, but exhibits unacceptable pro-Muggle tendencies.
Known member of the Order of the Phoenix.
Family: Wife (pure-blood), seven children; youngest two currently at Hogwarts.
Note: Youngest son currently ill at home, verified by Ministry inspectors.
Security status: Under surveillance. All movements are monitored.
High-risk contact: Undesirable No. 1 (previously lodged at the Weasley residence).
"Undesirable Number One," Harry muttered bitterly, slipping the file back and scanning the rest. The names of nearly every Order member Mundungus had betrayed were here.
He shut the drawer and stood. On the far wall hung a framed front page of The Daily Prophet, his own face stared back at him, the words Undesirable No. 1 stamped across his chest. A pink sticky note, decorated with a doodled kitten, was attached to the glass. In Umbridge's neat, loopy handwriting, it read: To be punished.
Harry snorted under his breath and began searching the room again, vases, baskets of dried flowers, but still no sign of the locket. He wasn't surprised. If their hunch was right, Umbridge was wearing it.
He checked his watch. A little under two hours left. Time to find Hermione.
As he turned to leave, something caught his eye, a glint on the bookshelf. For a heart-stopping moment he thought it was Dumbledore's mirror: Albus Dumbledore's familiar face seemed to be gazing at him from the reflection.
Harry rushed over and grabbed it, only to realize it wasn't a mirror at all. Dumbledore's image smiled serenely from the glossy cover of a book. He hadn't even noticed the title printed in curling green script across the hat:
The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore
by Rita Skeeter, bestselling author of Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?
Harry flipped it open. A photograph stared up at him, two teenage boys with their arms slung around each other, laughing freely. Dumbledore's hair already brushed his elbows, and he sported a thin, newly grown beard, like the faint stubble Krum had that so annoyed Ron. The boy beside him, all golden curls and wild joy, was clearly not Doge, though Harry wondered for a moment.
Before he could read the caption, the door opened.
Pius Thicknesse stepped inside.
"Albert? What are you doing in here?" he asked suspiciously.
Harry had already set the book back on the shelf and was holding a pink quill and a stack of reports in his hands.
"Good morning, Minister," Harry said smoothly. "The Deputy Minister sent a memo, asked me to fetch some papers for her."
"Oh? More reports?" Thicknesse grunted. "Well, I'm not surprised. Over twenty interviews this morning, I hear. She must be drowning in testimony."
He moved to the desk, flicked his wand toward the inkwell, and the quill sprang to life, scribbling a short note to Umbridge.
"There. Take that down to her while you're at it," he said. "Good work, Runcorn."
Harry nodded, smiling faintly. "Yes, Minister."
The moment Thicknesse left, Harry bolted from the office and down the corridor toward the lifts.
One arrived empty, thankfully. He stepped inside and exhaled hard.
When the lift stopped at Level Three, a drenched, wide-eyed Ron stumbled in, dripping onto the floor.
"M–Morning," he stammered. The lift jerked upward again.
"Ron, it's me, Harry!"
"Harry! Blimey, I'm half drowned! But I fixed it! The rain's stopped!" Ron said, shaking his sleeves. "Where's Hermione?"
Harry tried a drying charm on Ron's robes, though it didn't work nearly as well as Hermione's. The fabric stopped dripping but remained damp.
"She's downstairs with Umbridge. No way to avoid it. The locket isn't in the office."