Power Corrupts - Absolutely
Battle Royale
While Arthur was ascending to the Atrium level, a disembodied voice
sounded, "All Ministry personnel to the Entrance imatelately. Security
breach, security breach… All Ministry personnel to the Entrance
immediately… Security breach, security breach…" and kept repeating.
Well at least the emergency measures were still operational, he
thought.
Then he remembered. Harry, Ron and Hermione were all
visiting the Ministry today. They were being given a tour of the
different departments as a way of helping them decide what they
wanted to do once they finished at Hogwarts. If one of them were
hurt… Arthur's hand tightened around his wand reflexively.
The scene that greeted him as he exited from the lift was chaos.
There were Ministry wizards exiting lifts all around him. The Atrium
was filled with the glow of battle as Ministry wizards battled with a
number of masked Death Eaters. Arthur spotted Eric, the wizard that
manned the Enquiry counter taking cover behind his desk, and
occasionally leaning out to shoot a spell in the direction of the
attackers. He called to him. "Eric, call the Aurors back."
"Already donthurthur, they'll be here shortly." Eric replied.
Arthur nodded quickly, ignoring that he had been called by his first
name and not Minister. He dodged a spell, fired back, and hid himself
behind the statue of the house elf in the fountain. He noticed a few ominously
inert bodies lying of the floor.
Anger coursed through his body. Dammit all to hell. The victorious
coup that had been his was being swept away right in front of his
eyes. The place in history he so desperately wanted… needed was being
snatched from within his grasp. There was nothing for it now but to
repel the attack and catch as many of that scum as possible. Revenge
would be his one day he vowed. And it would be sweet.
Then in horror he watched, as three figures entered the battle.
Harry, Hermione and… Ron.
"NO!" he yelled, and flung himself through the line of fire trying to reach his son and his friends, calling as he went, "Get down!" Good Lord, let nothing happen to Ron, he silently begged. Molly would kill him if anything happened to any of them.
While all this was happening upstairs, Draco took out his wand, pointed it at the door and opened it with the simplest of charms. Poor old man must have been losing his memory in his advancing age. Did he not realise how easy it would be to get out of the office?
He didn't bother closing the doors behind him as he made his way
down the hall towards the lift wand still in his hand, as he got in
and pressed the button to go up to the Atrium. He could hear the
commotion as he got closer and closer to the scene of the battle.
The sound of curses flying back and forricoricocheting off objects
and bouncing across the room. Things being smashed, people shouting
and screaming. And then he heard Potter's voice.
How wonderful... Potter was here to see his side fail miserably.
This was going to be even more rewarding than Draco had first
thought.
As the lift doors opened, a curse shot past Draco's head, narrowly
missing his ear. Instantly the blond ducked. He couldn't see
where the curse had come from, or who, but he knew that he couldn't
afford to be less than one hundred percent focused now. He'd had his fun and now hd tod to be on the ball. This was literally a matter of life or death.
He shot out from the lift and darted quickly across the hall,
missing all curses fired in his direction. He found cover behind a
large plant pot and glanced round it to see where everyone was. He
saw most of the Death Eaters to his right and what was left of the
Ministry workers to his left. The Ministry was out numbered nearly
five to one and Draco liked those odds.
Smirking and making sure he had a tight hold on his wand, he leaned
round the plant pot and pointed his wand at a Ministry worker.
"Crucio!" he shouted and watched as the unsuspecting individual fell to the floor, screaming and writhing in agony, his plight going un-noticed as the curses and hexes continued to fly back and forth across the room.
Draco had never known exactly how utterly exhilarating casting this
curse could be. He had only ever been allowed to use it on animals
but now, seeing the effect of a curse HE had cast... watching someone
suffer so acutely because of something he had done... it was
amazing. If he had ever been in two minds about what he really wanted to
do with his life, his mind had been made up fully in that instant.
The plant pot he was using to hide behind suddenly shattered as a
curse hit it. Quickly, he jumped back to avoid being hit by the
splinters of clay that scattered across the floor and looked for the
caster of the curse.
His eyes narrowed to almost slits as he saw who it was. Granger!
She still had her wand pointed at him, and he rolled to the side and
dived behind a statue as he saw a flash of blue light escape the end
of her wand and race towards him. He'd let Crabbe and Goyle have
ownership of his groin before he let Granger get the better of him
today. He didn't care how many people were participating, how many Death
Eaters it took to bring the Ministry to its knees. This was HIS
fight.
In the blink of an eye the blond had sprinted across the room from
behind the statue and pointed his wand at Granger. "Imperio!" He
said and all but squealed with satisfaction as he saw the curse take
effect. Granger's face went blank, expressionless, and Draco felt the
link of minds as he took shelter once again behind another large
plant pot.
'You fight for Voldemort now. Bring down as many Ministry workers as
you can.' Draco said, passing the message to Granger mentally. As
Granger suddenly turned and pointed her wand at Potter, Draco felt
himself growing hard. His father had never told him being a Death
Eater was so much fun.
A warning was shouted behind Arthur, telling him to get down. He
instinctively ducked, only missing the curse by a few
centimetres. He turned to thank Kingsley for the `heads up' but just
at the exact moment Kingsley was distracted, a curse hit him
force, and he crumpled to the ground. "Kingsley," Arthur called. He
crawled over to the body and tested the pulse points to see if he
were still alive.
Arthur let out a howl of pain when he realised that the head Auror
was dead. With a ROAR Arthur plunged back into the attack in time to see
Hermione Granger being attacked by Malfoy, placed under the
Imperious curse and made to attack workers. He aimed and called
out `Finite Incantatem' and watched as Hermione stopped, blinked and
stared round eyed at Malfoy, too shocked to say anything. Harry
tugged at her arm to pull her down behind something.
Draco swore at Granger and was planning his next move;
taking a look around and making a mental note of the best hiding places,
when all the fireplaces came alight with green flame and horde after horde of Aurors came pouring into the hall.
"NO!" Draco screamed, watching in horror as the Ministry's ranks
doubled, tripled, quadrupled. How could this be happening? He had
sent them away... they had all gone... He had made Weasley tell them
to go! Why where they here? How did they know?! And they didn't seem
to stop coming. It was like an endless sea of Aurors gushing out of
every fireplace in the hall.
He wasn't going to allow it, Dammit! This was not the plan. This
wasn't meant to happen. Jumpout out from behind his plant pot, he
began pointing his wand at random Aurors shouting curses, hexes
and charms at as many as he could. A few of them fired at him, but
he was able to block them and dive behind the main desk. Eric was
lying there, either unconscious or dead... Draco didn't care.
Arthur tried to continue to fight his way across the battle to reach
his son, Harry and Hermione, but he was hit with a leg-locker curse
and fell heavily. He slowly raised himself and removed the spell,
sending one back of his own. A muffled gasp was heard in response
and Arthur knew a momentary fragment of satisfaction, but by the time
he had gotten up again, he had lost the three in the crowds of Aurors
that had been flooding the place through the floo network. Ernie must
have had time to warn them that it was a trick.
As the Aurors entered the Atrium, they began to outnumber
the Death Eaters for the first time since the battle started. The
tide was turning.
Draco sat there for a while, teeth clenched, trying to get himself
together. They WOULD win this. He knew it. He peered out from behind
the desk and saw, to his horror, that they were outnumbered by
nearly ten to one now. Oh God... He hoped there had been a backup
plan. He blasted a few Aurors before ducking back behind the desk
again.
Suddenly he wasn't having as much fun as he had been minutes before.
Cries of "Retreat" and "Get out." echoed across the hall and Draco
recognised his father's voice. They were leaving!!
He stood and dashed to the side of the hall, cursing anyone that got
in his way. He had a sea of Ministry workers and Aurors to battle
his way through, and he could see over the tops of their heads that
the Death Eaters numbers were getting smaller and smaller. They were
leaving without him!
Luckily, hardly anyone noticed him, and he managed to get past the
main group of Aurors and run round the side, dodging behind statues
and plants, nearing the rapidly departing crowed of black robes and
white masks.
Shouts of “Retreat" and “Fall back” were resounding through the Atrium and the Death Eaters appeared to be retreating. Arthur thought there was something familiar about one of the Death Eaters he saw sprinting away.
Then he realised! The hair! It was Malfoy. That cheeky, bloody, traitorous snob!"You are not going anywhere," he growled. Quickly he lifted his wand, pointed it at Malfoy's back and yelled "Immobilius." The spell hit Draco in the back and he fell forward, face first onto the floor. Arthur was so livid that he had
been duped that he didn't care if Malfoy's nose was broken. And just
in case he was picked up by any straggling Death Eaters, Arthur used
a transfiguration charm to turn Malfoy into a pink pot plant, so no
one would even know he was there.
From across the room Arthur could hear struggles and cries of
wizards fighting off different spells. Amidst the last battle
cries, Arthur heard Ron's voice calling "Let me go, you bastard, let
me go!" Searching frantically for his son, he spotted Harry and Hermione trying to hold off four Death Eaters by themselves. Two of them had Ron between them and were sending curses and hexes with the other two flanking them. These four seemed to know what they were doing, and as the horror of what was unfolding before him took hold of Arthur's brain, the last of them exited the doors and were gone, taking Ron with them.
All their curses and all their spells had not saved six of the Ministry
workers and thirteen Death Eaters, none of whom Arthur even bothered to
identify; he was still numb. Everyone was looking to him because of
Kingsley's death. There had been no deputy appointed yet, so Arthur
had to take on that role. The Ministry workers looked to him because
he was their boss, and the Aurors, because they had lost theirs.
Appointing Emmaline Vance as the Director of the Auror Department on the spot, he directed her to assign her best to find Ron. “They have Ron, they have Ron…Molly will kill me…they have Ron…” kept repeating itself over and over again in his head. He walked around and helped clear away the debris of the battle, and helped to manage the care of the bodies of those wizards who had lost their lives defending the Ministry.
As the last pieces of mess had been cleared away, Arthur wearily
stood by a pink pot plant, and remembered that it was Malfoy transfigured so no one would know he was still there. Arthur had a bargaining tool now. He had a Malfoy. Surely they would swap a Malfoy for a Weasley. He quietly picked up the pot plant and returned to his office. He would keep it there until the other Death Eaters had been taken care of.
Arthur was so livid at Malfoy for tricking him, that he had decided
that Malfoy's punishment was going to be undertaken by the Ministry
itself and himself in particular. After all, it was Arthur's dreams
and plans that Malfoy ruined; Arthur’s son that had been taken. He
would leave it a short while then take the pot down to the dungeon level.
With a heavy heart, he threw some floo powder into the fireplace, stuck his head in and called, “The Burrow”. A few seconds later, he saw Molly, worried and sobbing, obviously waiting for him. “Molly…” he said and she looked up with a cry.
“Oh Arthur, what’s happened? I saw…saw Ron on the clock…mortal peril! Tell me he’s alright, please,” begged Molly.
“There was an attack on the Ministry, Molly, and they t...took Ron.” The build up of the battle was beginning to take its toll and his voice was shaky. This was the worst thing he had ever done. Telling Molly and watching her face crumple in grief made him more determined than ever to ensure Ron’s safe return to the bosom of his family. Anything it took.
Arthur spent some time in his office dealing with the many memos that came in demanding information about the attack. He finally managed to get away and headed off down to the dungeons with his pink pot plant under his arm.
He ensured that there were no staff around as he entered the dungeon
level. There were two rooms down here that not everyone new about.
They were the old torture chambers, littered with Muggle torture
devices, most rusty and old, but some still serviceable. Once he was in the
room with the door charmed locked and silenced, no one would even know
it was there.
It was to one of these rooms that Arthur took Malfoy.
He entered, locked the door and placed the pink pot plant on the table
in the middle of the room. He said "Finite Incantatem" and watched as
Malfoy reappeared lying still out cold on the table. Arthur made
light work of tying his arms and legs to the table and also binding
his neck and head to the table. A whispered `Finite Incantatem' again,
and Malfoy awoke slowly. Arthur watched with a crazed predatory gleam
and the seeming destruction of his political career.