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Power Plays Chapter 41
🕑 Added 2024-08-08 15:59:01 +0000 UTCGabrielle let out a long sigh as she stared at Roch, the man who’d nearly killed her sister, through the one-way mirror they had in place in most of the interrogation rooms. His head was in his hands, exhausted from the long hours of interrogation they’d already gone through.
Despite Gabrielle and her father’s best efforts, Roch had remained steadfastly tight-lipped about any Death Eater activity. He was perfectly content to talk about his work, his life, his hatred of muggleborns, but nothing about the Death Eaters or their plans.
“Here,” her dad said as he entered the small room they were observing Roch in. There wasn’t much more than a desk, a couple of chairs, and some enchanted quills that copied down everything that anyone in the interrogation room said. Sebastian set down a warm mug of coffee on the table for her.
“Thanks,” Gabrielle said, grimacing as she took a sip of the bitter brew. It was all they had left here at the office—Aurors loved their coffee more than anything else it seemed—and her dad refused to put more than a tiny teaspoon of sugar into their cups. Oh well, it wasn’t the end of the world, and Gabrielle needed her caffeine. Neither her or her dad were willing to let Roch rest until they’d gotten the answers they wanted from him.
“Has he said anything?” He asked as he glanced down at the parchment the quill was hovering above.
“Just some mumblings about how fucked this is,” Gabrielle commented with amusement.
Sebastian frowned at her use of language, but if he wouldn’t stop the other Aurors from cursing, then he couldn't do it to Gabrielle while she was on the job.
“There has to be something we can do to get him to crack,” Sebastian murmured to himself as he stared down the man with an intense gaze.
It was rare to see her dad so rattled. Gabrielle had always known him to be a cool, calm, and collected man. Even now that he was under so much stress and pressure from the Minister and the public, he hadn’t had any major outbursts that she knew of. He just buried himself in his work, pushing his body to his limits, but never did she see so much intense hatred in her eyes for someone. She wondered if this was what he was like whenever he was going after a suspect in a particularly brutal case.
“I’m sure that if we just keep at him, he’ll break eventually,” Gabrielle said.
Roch ended up crossing his arms on the table and resting his cheek against it, hoping for a moment to sleep. They wouldn’t let that happen though. The Minister had opened up her dad’s authority as Head Auror to extend some limited emergency measures to allow him to interrogate subjects past the normal limits instilled by the Ministry. They could hold their prisoners for longer and resort to some… questionable methods of interrogation. There were still limits in place of course, but denying someone sleep was safely below those limits.
A sharp rap at the door drew both of their attentions.
“Come in,” Sebastian yawned.
Senior Auror Elwyn—one of Harry’s men—popped his balding head into the room with a curious look. “Has the man said anything yet?”
“Nothing of value,” Sebastian shook his head with a frustrated sigh. “But it’s only a matter of time before we get something out of him.”
“You two have been at it all night,” Elwyn pointed out as he stepped into the room fully now. “Why don’t you go home for some sleep? Or take a break at least? I know that my men would be more than happy to take a crack at him. We’ve become quite good at interrogating Death Eaters, you know.”
Gabrielle could only imagine. It was exhausting enough dealing with these attacks; she couldn’t imagine how bad it had been during the war itself in Britain.
“Thank you for the offer, but we’ll handle it,” Sebastian told him firmly. He was too protective over Fleur to let this task fall to anyone else who might get it wrong.
“Alright then,” Elwyn nodded. “But you might want to step out anyway. Your wife is here to see you.”
“Again?” Sebastian frowned.
Gabrielle frowned too. It had only been a few hours since she’d shown up with supper for the three of them. They’d sat in her dads office and ate together briefly before returning to their interrogation. What could’ve happened that would have her coming back to the Ministry in the dead of night.
Elwyn shrugged. “She said it was something about your daughter. Your other daughter, I’m presuming.”
Has something happened? Surely if it was dire, her mum would’ve said so immediately.
“I’ll go,” Sebastain sighed as he got to his feet. He placed a kiss atop Gabrielle’s head. “You stay here and keep an eye on him. See if he says anything more.”
Sebastian slid past Elwyn out of the room. Elwyn took her father’s seat, looking just as exhausted.
Gabrielle had spoken to Elwyn once or twice in passing, but never for an extended period of time. He was one of the Senior Aurors Harry had brought along with him on his mission. Elwyn seemed like a nice enough guy, if a bit snarky at times.
“I feel like I’m going to lose my mind in here,” Elwyn admitted with a weak chuckle. “All of the rooms in this place look the same. It’s like a maze.”
“It’s intentional,” Gabrielle said, perking up a bit. She had fond memories of visiting the ministry when she was quite young and being amazed by the history of it all. “Our last one was damaged quite heavily during a war in the 18th century. Our leader at the time had gotten assassinated right here in the heart of the Ministry, and the perpetrators were able to escape. No one really knows who did it, though they did execute a few people over it. It led to some riots, and half of the Ministry was destroyed. When they rebuilt the place, they tried to make it all look similar so that it’d be harder for any invaders to be able to escape.”
“It doesn’t seem like it’d be that hard,” Elwyn countered gruffly. “All you’d need is a woman or man on the inside to map out a route in advance.”
“You’re not wrong,” Gabrielle admitted. “It’s not exactly a foolproof plan, but it’s better than what we had. The Ministry’s defence systems will make any escape tricky anyways.”
“True enough,” Elwyn nodded. “Still, I just wish you lot would put up some signs or something.”
“I’ll ask dad to get right on that,” Gabrielle snorted.
Elwyn leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk lackadaisically. “You sure I can’t take a crack at him. I’m bored out of my mind waiting around for one of my Aurors to finally report back to me about their dull reconnaissance missions.”
“Sorry, but my dad said it’s just him and me who can interrogate him,” Gabrielle replied. “Even his Senior Aurors aren’t allowed in.”
Elwyn hummed in a way that spoke of his disapproval without being outright challenging. Gabrielle didn’t know why he seemed so keen on interrogating this man. Aurors were used to spending hours waiting around doing absolutely nothing.
“Don’t take it personally, he’s just—”
Suddenly, Gabrielle was blasted out of her seat. Her entire body spun with a tremendous amount of force, sending her crashing into the nearby wall. Her head snapped back and she heard a terrible crack as she crumpled to the floor.
The world spun, blurry and unfocused, for what seemed like hours. Faintly, Gabrielle recognised that she was groaning from whatever explosion had just gone off, but she couldn’t hear any of it. All she heard was a piercing ringing in her ears that left her even more disoriented than she was.
Scraps of parchment floated down on the ground around her. Somehow, Gabrielle just knew that they were the remnants of Roch’s words that’d been recorded.
There were several more thuds on the ground that sounded off every few seconds. And then Gabrielle heard a series of doors begin to slam open.
When she tried to sit up, her brain screamed in protest. It felt like it was about to expand beyond the confines of her skull from the way it throbbed painfully. She managed to get one foot planted firmly on the ground for about two seconds before her leg crumpled out from beneath her.
Gabrielle fell face first back down onto the floor, landing on a pile of sharp, wooden debris. Her hands searched around aimlessly for anything to grab onto. She found the soft feathers of a quill.
Even in her disoriented state, Gabrielle knew the right way to pinch the quill to get it to activate. It flew off into the air, searching for some parchment to write on.
Gabrielle gasped, feeling a sharp pain in her side when she tried to move again. This time, she pushed off of the ground with her hands. She managed a bit better. She got both of her feet under her, but she still staggered forward into the door frame. She caught herself against it, groaning in pain from her sore ribs.
The world was slowly regaining focus now that she was on her feet. The room around her was a complete mess. Some type of explosive hex had gone off, and Elwyn was nowhere to be seen.
Through the one-way mirror, Roch was cowering beneath the interrogation desk.
The door to the interrogation room slammed open, and Elwyn came storming in. He kicked Roch, knocking him out of his hiding place, before his wand snapped forward.
“Avada Kedavra!”
A flash of green light was all it took to see Roch dead on the floor. And then Elwyn was gone again.
Gabrielle needed to warn someone. She needed to do something! Even the ringing in her ears wasn’t enough to mask the fact that there weren’t any alarms going off.
By the time she managed to stagger out of the room, the corridor outside was completely vacant. The door that Elwyn had used to get to Roch was torn off of its hinges from another explosion.
Gabrielle had to lean up against the wall as she shuffled her way down the corridor towards the central room of the Bureau des Aurors. She could set the alarm off there and find someone who could help her.
How had they all been so foolish as to miss what Elwyn actually has? Did Harry know? Were his other Aurors also Death Eaters?
The questions faded in Gabrielle’s fuzzy mind. She still wasn’t entirely stable. Their mediwitch was bound to have a fit when she saw her.
When Gabrielle staggered through the archway into the Bureau des Aurors, she saw dozens of men and women slumped over at their desks. Bodies lined the aisles between the hundred or so cubicles in the room, but none of them seemed to be dead. Their chests continued to rise and fall. At least, Gabrielle thought they were. Her dizziness had returned, and it was getting harder to make out the fine details of everything.
“Help,” she called out weakly, surprised at how hoarse her voice sounded.
No response came besides the sound of distant spellfire sounding off.
Groaning, Gabrielle moved as quickly as she could along the outer wall until she found a small glass case. She pressed the tip of her wand against it, and the glass vanished, revealing a simple red button.
“Gabrielle!”
Her head whipped round too fast, and she nearly collapsed onto the ground. She could see her dad sprinting down a nearby corridor that led to the Ministry’s main entrance. He looked haggard, and he had a bloodstain on the left arm of his robes.
Leaving the alarm behind, she staggered forward towards her dad. He looked horrified at the state of her. Despite that, it made her feel warm inside that he showed so much care for her.
“Elwyn,” Gabrielle managed to get out. “Traitor.”
He was just a few feet away from her when all of the fireplaces in sight grew alight with green flames.
Sirens sounded off as thick metal gates started descending down from every single archway within sight in a cascading, linear pattern. The domed ceiling above Gabrielle’s head was suddenly engulfed in protective wards. The pale-blue, shimmering, bubble-like structure of magic was there to stop any damage from bringing the roof of the ministry down upon the poor men and women below.
“Papa!” Gabrielle shouted as yet another grate crash down, separating them.
Sebastian came to a skidding halt as his shoulder smashed into the gate. It made a dull thud, and the gate didn’t even shudder. It was goblin-forged iron, inlaid with countless enchantments to prevent them from being destroyed or altered in any way. It was the ultimate failsafe if there were to ever be an attack on the Ministry of Magic, and only a select few held the key to undo these protections.
“Go!” Sebastian shouted. “Get back to Roch and make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”
Dead, he was dead, she wanted to say. But there was no time.
Behind Sebastian, a series of fireplaces that lined the walls ignited as dark, malevolent figures stepped out of the verdant flames. Cloaked in black and donning silver masks with intricate designs on them, the Death Eaters truly did have a terrifying look about them. Grates slammed over the fireplaces just as the Death Eaters stepped out, leaving everyone trapped inside with them.
A poor office worker coming out of a nearby doorway to see what was going on was cut down in seconds as a killing curse struck her.
“Run!” Sebastian shouted at Gabrielle as he turned to face the new threat. “Stay safe! I’ll make my way to you!”
It was a lie but a comforting one nonetheless. Until the Minister or one of her Senior Aides got here, there was no one who could stop or breach the lockdown.
She wished she had the strength to say the same words to her father, but she could feel her energy being sapped away. Whatever injuries she’d sustained from Elwyn’s ambush weren’t getting any better.
“There’s still one up!”
This time when Gabrielle whipped her head around, the world flipped end over end, and she went tumbling to the floor. It was for the best though because it sent her flying out of the way of a killing curse.
Death Eaters were in here with her too!
Gabrielle scrambled to the closest cubicle to get some type of cover. She was breathing hard and everything hurt, but there was no other option.
With a shaky hand, she did the first thing that came to mind. The only thing that came to mind.
“Expecto Patronum,” she said weakly, thinking about the day that Harry rescued her from the Black Lake.
A silvery, short-haired cat appeared in the air right in front of Gabrielle’s face. It let out a big yawn and stretched out its limbs in an adorable fashion.
“I need you to deliver a message to Harry,” Gabrielle whispered to her patronus. “The Ministry is under attack. I need help.”
Her patronus bobbed its head up and down and then scampered away, phasing straight through the closest wall.
Gabrielle could hear the Death Eaters coming for her. Their heavy footfalls were cautious but steadily moving in her direction. They didn’t know exactly where she was, but they had a general idea. This was good, she could work with that.
Laying down flat on her belly, Gabrielle silently cast a few cutting curses to slice through the base of the cubicle wall, creating a small gap that she could crawl through in order to reach the next on the opposite side. Her goal was to push towards the centre of the room. From there, she’d take stock of the situation and decide where to go next.
Gabrielle crawled underneath the desk in the cubicle, cringing in pain as she went. All it took was a gentle push with her hand to knock out the rectangular-shaped piece of wall and allow her safe passage to the next side.
As she crawled underneath the next desk, a black boot hit the ground right in front of her face. She nearly screamed in fright, but she managed to hold her breath long enough to allow the person to pass by.
Once they were out of sight, Gabrielle took a deep breath and pushed forward. She crept through the open aisle to reach the next closest cubicle available to her. A man was slumped backwards in his chair, unconscious. She had to push his legs to the side to get underneath his desk, and then she repeated her actions before, cutting a small gap in the cubicle so that she could crawl forward to the next one.
“She’s not here!” One of the Death Eaters called out from behind.
“Find her! She can’t have gotten far!” Another replied.
There was a sense of urgency in their footfalls now as they fanned out in search of her. Every time Gabrielle breathed out or winced in pain, she feared that it would be the sound that finally gave away her position. All it would take was a single killing curse to strike her unprotected back. From the sounds of things, there were at least five Death Eaters in here with her. Too many to take on her own unless she managed to wipe them out one by one.
Did she have the energy to do that?
“Look beneath the desks!” The first Death Eater shouted. “Looks like she’s cutting her way through underneath them!”
Panic flared in Gabrielle’s chest. They knew what she was doing. It was only a matter of time until—
“Got you!” A gruff voice said as he grabbed her ankle.
Gabrielle twisted awkwardly and fired a blasting curse at the man who’d grabbed her. He was knocked clean off of his feet and went flying back into the next cubicle over. Gabrielle scrambled back through the latest gap she’d made to get some distance between her and the man.
There was no sense in hiding anymore. They were on her now.
As she leapt to her feet, the sound of curses whistling through the air surrounded her. She dodged out of the way of a couple and shielded against a third before she managed any kind of rebuttal. Moving her wrist as quickly as she could, she transfigured a desk lamp into a hawk. The wild creature took flight and, following Gabrielle’s willed instructions, dove straight towards the nearest Death Eater.
The man yelled in pain as the hawk’s talons dug into the flesh of his cheeks. He was batting away at it to drive it off, and while a normal hawk might have done exactly that, Gabrielle was in control of this hawk’s actions. She commanded it to continue its assault until the man was dead or it died first.
And yet that was her fatal flaw. The moment it took her to deliver those instructions to the hawk was all the time one Death Eater needed to pivot to her blind spot and hit her from behind with another blasting curse.
All of the air left Gabrielle’s lungs as she was flung onto the floor. She rolled onto her back, desperate to fight back as the man who’d attacked her approached with his wand at the ready.
Suddenly, the most horrific screeching sound erupted as the wards above twisted and wrenched about. They looked like a piece of parchment being crumpled up in an angry fist. They steadily became less translucent, instead shifting to a blood-red colour until…
Gabrielle closed her eyes instinctively as a massive flash of light erupted. The sound of shattering glass rained down all around her, but she didn’t feel any of it hit her skin. Then, there was nothing but silence.
Slowly, Gabrielle peeked her eyes open and saw something that seemed out of a dream.
Harry Potter stood above her, his robes billowing as waves of magical energy washed over them. The wards overhead were gone, shattered until all that remained were faint red wisps of magic. The sight of Harry against that backdrop took Gabrielle’s breath away. He looked like the definitive, epitomised hero out of a storybook.
He’d shattered the wards to get to her, she realised. How powerful did he have to be in order to do something like that?
The Death Eater who’d been bearing down on her now laid in a twisted heap on the ground nearby. The others who’d come to aid him were still reeling from the magical backlash. Harry wasted no time in flicking his wand at each of them in turn, sending them into unconsciousness.
“Gabrielle,” he said softly as he crouched down next to her. He offered his hand, and she took it.
It hurt to stand, but that mattered little right now. It hurt even more to hug Harry, but it was worth it.
“Thank you,” she said into his shoulder.
“Where’s your dad?” Harry asked as he hugged her back.
A spike of panic stabbed through her heart. “Through there,” she gestured down towards the archway she’d last seen him through.
“Stay close,” Harry told her as he let go of her. He readied his wand and moved forward with incredible confidence.
“It’s goblin-forged iron,” Gabrielle said as they neared the gate. “You can’t just…”
And yet he did. With a simple wave of his wand, the gate split apart down the middle. The heavy iron bars bent apart with ease. They groaned under the shift, but they relented nonetheless.
Harry offered her his hand again and helped her through the bars as they went off in search of her father.
There was a trail of destruction that was easy enough to follow. They found bodies, some dead, some alive, and the remnants of a hard-fought battle. Scorch marks, chips of the marble stone floor, and destroyed transfigured creatures strewn about.
“That’s the dark artefact storage rooms,” Gabrielle commented as they reached an open doorway.
“They must have been after something,” Harry said grimly. “Be careful. They might still be around.”
As they stepped through the threshold, a streak of red light shot out from their left side. Harry flicked his wand expertly and blocked the attack before returning only a single stunning spell to take down the Death Eater who’d tried to surprise them.
Distant lights flashed deeper within the storage room. Between the endless rows of shelves littered with various artefacts underneath protective enchantments, the sound of spell-fire reverberated. Gabrielle stayed close to Harry’s back as he proceeded forward. Any fear she had at entering into a dangerous situation while being so badly injured was gone from her mind. Harry was here to keep her safe.
“Papa!” Gabrielle exclaimed as they came upon an intersection in the middle of the room. A wide aisle stretched left to right, allowing easy access to each aisle between the dozens of shelves.
Sebastian’s eyes briefly flickered over towards Harry and Gabrielle, but his focus quickly returned to his four opponents. Three Death Eaters stood dressed in their full regalia, and in the middle of them was Elwyn himself.
If Harry was surprised to see Elwyn there, he didn’t show it. His eyes retained that cool, confident look they’d had ever since he arrived.
Elwyn clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You’re too late,” he said to Harry. “We’ve already completed our mission.”
“And now you’ll pay for it,” Harry said coldly as he stepped out into view, separating the Death Eaters from Sebastian.
Gabrielle hurried over to her dad’s side. He didn’t look much better than she did. His robes were burnt, and there were plenty more bloodstains marking him. He was breathing hard but still in a perfect defensive position.
“Get behind me, Gabrielle,” Sebastian ordered her as he raised his wand.
She shook her head in reply. “Let Harry handle this,” Gabrielle told him seriously.
Sebastian hesitated for only a moment before he lowered his wand arm. He still kept his wand at the ready just in case though.
“I guess the Ministry’s vetting process after the war wasn’t as thorough as it should have been,” Harry snapped at Elwyn. “Tell me, when did the Death Eaters recruit you? Before or after they came to power?”
“It was perfectly fine,” Elwyn replied. “I didn’t join up until after the war’s end.”
Harry was silent for several seconds. “Why?”
“Haven’t you opened your eyes and seen what’s been going on in the Wizarding World?” Elwyn sneered. “Nothing’s changed! The Wizengamot is still bogged down by those old codgers who politic for their own benefits rather than those of the masses. The Ministry is still corrupt, and we have an ineffectual leader in charge who’s leading us nowhere. I don’t care about the pure-blood politics of the Death Eaters, but at least they’ll destroy the corrupt mass that’s plaguing our society!”
Harry scoffed. “And you think that a doomed violent revolution is going to fix all of these problems? Your logic is foolish.”
“Maybe so,” Elwyn said. “But it’s better than sitting around waiting for something to somehow change for the better. I have no regrets doing what I did. Maybe this plan will finally be enough to scare the people enough to make real change happen, or we’ll come out on top and wipe away the rot in the Ministry.”
“The Death Eaters and their pure-blood politics are the rot,” Harry replied coldly. “But I can see it’s too late to change your mind.”
“So, are we going to—” Elwyn began to speak.
Before he could finish his sentence, Harry’s wand came up in a flash. Elwyn and his Death Eaters were barely able to do more than start to lift their wands in reply when they dropped one by one to Harry’s stunning spells.
Gabrielle blinked in surprise. The fight was over before it even began.
Harry stepped over to Elwyn’s unconscious form, and for a split second, Gabrielle feared that Harry was about to kill the man. But then Harry simply levitated all of the bodies into a neat pile.
“I need to call Daphne to warn her about the mess that’s about to come,” Harry sighed as he returned to Gabrielle and Sebastian. “Things are going to get rocky between our countries.”
Comments
Arctis_Shox
Yup, that's more or less the angle I was going for. They justify things like this however they can.
Jonas Kairiūkštis
"There were still limits in place of course, but denying someone sleep was safely below those limits." Also known as torture. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture. Why people keep beating around the bush instead of calling things as they are. To keep feeling better for themselves, I reckon.
jp9901
Man, this is getting good! And scary!
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