Ch. 13: Spontaneous Running

Song for the Chapter: Kids - Mikky Ekko

". . . Harry?"

     Suddenly, the dead room was alive.

     I watched along side the other Muggleborn people, confused as the three present Ministry workers quickly raced towards us, one of them being Harry Potter. The Death Eaters that had been guarding us drew their wands and prepared to fight the rogue workers, but, when a couple of them saw Harry Potter getting closer, they Disapparated.

     The others that stood their ground tossed me and my comrades aside, throwing hexes as the Ministry workers tossed disarming spells with surprising accuracy. In a matter of moments, all the Death Eaters seemed to be unconscious, and a quiet fell over the small congregation of people in the dungeons.

     I watched in the silence as Harry strode to Umbridge and yanked an amulet off her neck before turning to the crowd. "Come on, then!" Harry Potter yelled, motioning for us to follow him.

     Frowning, I stood my ground for a moment as the others rushed behind the Chosen One, overjoyed with their luck. The flighty assistant to Umbridge quickly grabbed my arm and began pulling me along, towards the exit.

      "Wait!" I yanked my arm out of her grasp.

     "Elle, we need to go, now!"

     Ignoring the shrill tone of the lady's voice, I skid to the large, overly empowered throne that was Umbridge's pedestal and clambered up to her unconscious body, shooting the toad a malicious glare. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," I waved off the woman. "You think we are going to get out of the bloody Ministry alive with only three wands?" I prodded, shifting through the trash and crap littered on Umbridge's desk, finally finding what I was searching for with an 'Ah-ha!'.

     "Is she dead?" The man named Reginald called with a squeaky tone, un-cuffing his wife while I grabbed the drawer full of confiscated wands.

     Stuffing the handful of wood into my pajama pants' pockets, I shot Reginald a disappointed frown. "Unfortunately no."

     The flighty woman, Mafalda, motioned for me to come down and for everyone to leave. "Come on, we need to get out of here! Hurry up!"  She was right, of course, but the only thing I could feel was the cold, lingering feeling of depression. After all, the Dementors were still sucking the emotion out of everything from above.

     I jumped from the pedestal and took off running behind Mary, Mafalda, and Reginald, the last of the fugitives to leave the room. I bare feet ached against the unrelenting stone of the Ministry floor, but I kept pushing myself further and further.

           I couldn't back down now. If I did, I would die.

      That thought sparked the first note of panic within me as the door to the dungeon court room slammed shut behind me. 'Keep moving. You can't die. Not today. Not ever.'

     I didn't want think about how irrational that thought pattern was, thinking I could never die. But, I let it lead me out of the basement of the Ministry. And, for a moment, I could let myself believe that I indeed was invincible. Even if it would just barely keep me alive for a little while.

     I allowed myself not to question anything about this situation for as long as I could allow, but, soon the odd nature of Harry Potter infiltrating the Ministry alone and with two Ministry workers seemed too much to ignore.

      We ran down the ebony hallway, our reflections glowering back at us in the shiny surfaces. Mafalda kept her head down as we ran, but I directed my confusion at her, since she seemed to know a lot more than she led on.

     "What the hell is going on here?" I wheezed, feeling my sluggish, non-athletic body begin to protest at the spontaneous running, "not that I have a problem with this coincidental circumstance, I mean, I love being lucky, but —"

     The woman shot me a nervous glance and frowned, "Elle, don't you recognize my voice?" Mafalda stumbled a bit as we ran and tripped, tumbling onto the slick ground with an 'oomph'. Stopping, I glanced down to see that her shoes had come off in the process. I wasn't sure why that fact had stood out to me, but I figured it was odd.

     On the ground, a disgruntled Hermione peered up at me, her wild curls sticking to the sides of her pained and slightly panicked face.

          "Oh. . ."

     "Get in," Reginald squeaked from the golden elevator doors, stretching his hand out to keep the doors from closing. Hermione offered me a small quiver of a smile and pushed me forward, ditching the shoes behind us.

    The presence of two more bodies in the elevator seemed impossible, and yet, somehow Hermione and I managed to cram ourselves into the horde of refugees. "Ouch, you're on my bloody toe!" The old, crotchety man named Antony hissed in my ear.

     "Good," I hissed back, slamming my bare foot back down on his leather boot with a stomp. Antony raised his cane through the sea of flesh, as if to hit me, but Harry swatted his hand down as the monotone voice of the elevator chimed out the floors of the Ministry. Quickly, I handed back all of the confiscated wands to their owners.

      "Harry? Hermione?" I frowned, shuffling around the packed elevator to question my friends. "What the hell?!"

      Harry pushed the bridge of his glasses up his nose and shot me an unsure smile. "Well of course. Who else would it be?" Even in this life and death situation, his green eyes still seemed to spark with a sense of adventure and sure-ness.

     "I don't know." I admitted, rubbing the goosebumps down on my arms. "I mean, anyone? I don't imagine a lot of people particularly like Dolores Umbridge."

     I had been expecting a lecture from Hermione as soon as I had realized she was Mafalda, but, as I glanced towards her, she didn't seem as if she was going to start one. Surprised, I simply offered my sister a goofy grin and a childish wave. " 'Ello, 'Mione."

     Hermione's brown eyes sharpened at the sight. That's when I knew I had somehow ignited a sleeping volcano. "Honestly," she huffed, tucking her coarse curls behind her tanned ear, "I should have known you would find trouble if I had taken you or not! I mean, what was I thinking? How could I have been so stupid. You find trouble where there is none —"

      "—you should have."

      There was a lot more than that to say. I could have told Hermione that she was being daft for thinking I'd be safe in London. I could I have told her that I never went looking for trouble. I could have told her that she had pissed me off more than I had ever been in my life. But, all I could do was remind her that yes, she had been stupid for thinking I wouldn't be exactly where I had initially planned. With her and the boys.

     Hermione seemed as if she were about to respond to that quip, but she was interrupted by the elevator's commanding tone.

      "Ministry of Magic: Main Floor." The monotone voice chimed out with a cold tone.

      "That seemed quicker than when I had gone down . . . " I murmured under my breath as the doors slowly swung open. Like the opening of floodgates, my fellow Muggleborns poured out from it's doors and rushed to the exits, exploding through the awaiting fire grates in puffs of green flames.

     Bystanders who noticed the running refugees began to stop what they were doing to watch the spectacle with sharp eyes and bated breath. Only Mary Cattermole remained, clutching tightly to the arm of her husband, head bouncing from side to side as she watched the Ministry come to a halt.

     I teetered towards Hermione and whispered lowly in her ear. "I think that we need to leave. Now."

     Reginald turned to his wife, grabbing her arms while I paused to assess the situation with a better clarity. Now that I was away from the grasp of the Dementors, I could piece together the fact that there was a missing man in action.

      "Hermione, where's Ronald?"

     My sister sighed and shot the couple behind us a pointed look. "Well . . . "

     " — take the kids and go into hiding." Ron's voice commanded from inside the meat suit of Mr. Cattermole. Mary sobbed a bit and took her 'husband' into her arms, planting a wet kiss on him as Ron tried to push her away, ears burning red as he began to shrink in width and grow in height, red hair sprouting in thick tuffs on the top of a balding head.

     "Awk-ward." I coughed, then I caught sight of the real Reginald walking up behind the scene of his wife embracing another man. "Double awkward."

     "Mary?"

      "Reg?" Mary blinked a few times, jolting away from Ron when she realized that she didn't know the man in her arms. "W-what?"

      "I hate to spoil the moment, but, we need to go. Now." I snapped, pulling on Ron's collar while Hermione nodded in agreement and Harry tightened his grip on his wand.

     "By Merlin! That's Harry Potter!"

      Shit.

      "POTTER! SOMEONE CATCH HIM!"

      Fuck.

     Hermione grabbed my hand and pulled our small group through the now immensely growing hordes of onlookers. "Head for the Apparation portals, we'll go through there!"

     I dodged a woman who was trying to snap a photo of the scene with a rather large photographic device, and ended up shoving a man out of the way, earning a foul curse word in the process. "Yeah, fuck you too mate!" I shouted back.

      Black streams of smoke descended upon us, and I knew that we were in trouble. We still had half of the Ministry ground to cover, and the Death Eaters were already upon us. Yanking my hand out of Hermione's grasp, I reached for my wand instead.

      "Hermione," I called to her, "you can't Apparate with this many people."

      A flash of red buzzed past my ear, slicing against the side on my head. Hot, sticky blood slowly began to trickle it's way from my temple, but I kept running, only turning back to toss a few hexes behind me. "Hermione, listen to me," I started, knowing that she would need to leave some body behind, or risk some serious problems, "you have to lea—"

     "I've got to try, Elle." In her eyes, I could see that she knew exactly what I was getting at. "I'm not leaving you. You're not going to be sent to Azkaban."

     Another curse whizzed by, almost catching me in the back, but I deflected it in time. However, the quick turning of my head was causing blood to blur my vision and I knew that I was going to be in a very dangerous predicament if we didn't get out soon.

     "Arcus!" I shouted, shooting a steady stream of sharp-tipped arrows from the tip of my wand. Ron, who had been (unknown to me) running closely behind me, dropped onto the stone floor of the Ministry to avoid the hex.

     "Watch it!" He hollered, rolling back onto his feet, catching up with Harry, Hermione, and I.

      "S'rry, Ron!" I heaved out in a wheeze, hardly able to catch my breath. I had never been the most athletic of the group, and I sure as hell hadn't suddenly gone through an exercise  phase, so this whole 'running' thing probably wasn't the best idea.

          I suddenly missed the flat. More importantly, the flat's couch.

     'Just  a few more meters!' I encouraged myself, almost tasting the tangy earth of the fire grates. We were so close to being free, I could picture myself already doing a jig of freedom. It's the American way, of course.

     Blood and sweat pebbled my face now, and I felt sticky all over.

    "Everyone grab hands!" Hermione shouted in a sense of victory, pushing herself and Harry into the fireplace. I greedily caught onto her open hand and latched my other onto Ron's sweaty palm as we took off.

     However, as we began to contort into odd spaces, I felt a sudden jolt of weight weigh us down even more. There was a high pitched screech, perhaps a scream, perhaps the ripping of the fabric of time, either way I wasn't sure.

      For a moment, it all stopped. I loosed my grip on Hermione's hand, only for the jumble of time and physical things to begin once more. The space around my body contracted, and, something felt wrong. I wasn't sure what it was, but it was a feeling in my gut that I couldn't shake.

      It was hard to breathe. I couldn't find any oxygen as the world seemed to have been contorted into a two dimensional frame. I felt Ron's hand begin to slip from mine, so I gripped him tighter. The colours in front of my eyes seemed to bleed away, and my oxygen deprived brain screamed for air, fading darker and darker.

     For a fraction of a second, I was horrified by the thought that I'd never breathe again. To have gone through that whole ordeal just to be murdered in mid-Apparation? It was a crime.

          And then, the world snapped back into place.

          And then, I could breathe.

          And then, only pain.

     "Ugh!" I wailed, reaching for my left leg. A screech of pain gurgled from my mouth, but I clamped my lips shut. Rolling to my side, I sputtered for air and coughed through the pain. Beside me, Ron was steady bleeding out. " 'M-Mione!"

     "I'm so sorry," Hermione sputtered, tossing contents out of her bag, digging around for something. "Ron! Oh my — I — Elle, hold on! I didn't expect . . . Harry! Can you please set up some barrier spells?" I noticed how calm Hermione's voice had become. It startled me.

     "I'll help," I hissed out, wobbling onto my feet only to fall back on the ground. A ground that was hard with what seemed to be slightly frozen dirt and a soft cushioning of fall leaves. Blood oozed from my leg.

      Hermione shook her head no, but I could tell she was more worried for Ron. He was quickly loosing the colouring in his face, and the pool of blood beneath him made me feel woozy.

      Harry put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't do anything, Elle. Seriously. Not a good idea."

I guess I wouldn't be doing a jig after all.

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