Fate

Chapter 17 - Interlude One: Rather Complicated

"Miss Weasley? Miss Weasley, a word, if you please..."

Ginny turned, surprised and wondering what exactly she had done to merit staying behind in Transfiguration class. Sure her rabbit hadn't exactly looked perfect, but she was sure that its ears would grow back eventually.

She gathered her things quickly, stuffing them into her bag and then hurried forward to Professor McGonagall's desk.

"No you're not in trouble, Miss Weasley," McGonagall assured her, obviously noticing her tense posture and questioning eyes. "I merely wanted to ask you a question."

Ginny let out a sigh, relieved and relaxed her shoulders a bit. "Yes, Professor?"

"I saw you coming out of Professor Dumbledore's office earlier today."

"Yes Ma'am."

"Did you have a meeting with the Headmaster?"

"Not exactly..."

"I am not trying to accuse you; it's just that no one has heard anything from Professor Dumbledore since last night."

Ginny's eyes went wide and she bit her bottom lip.

"Would you know anything about that?" McGonagall questioned.

Ginny looked down. "I actually didn't see the Headmaster there, professor."

"Then who were you up there with?"

"Well...I went to see Harry."

McGonagall leaned slightly back in her chair. "Ah, yes, Mr. Potter. No one has seen him today either. Was he ill?"

"No."

"Miss Weasley, would you like to tell me something?"

Ginny looked up to see Professor McGonagall looking at her persuasively.

"You mean you don't know?" Ginny wondered aloud. Dumbledore had not even told McGonagall and yet Harry had told her? Her heart clenched, wondering if Harry wasn't supposed to tell her but had anyway.

"Know what?"

Ginny looked hesitantly at her teacher, wondering if she should tell her or not. On the one hand, Ginny could tell that Dumbledore had not wanted anyone to know about it, but on the other hand, if no one had seen Dumbledore all day...

"Sirius and Remus were up there with Harry," Ginny started explaining. "I went to tell Harry goodbye. He told me he was...he was leaving," she finished lamely.

"Leaving where?"

"That's rather complicated."

McGonagall huffed once and sat up straighter. "Well then, perhaps you could tell me where Professor Dumbledore is?"

Ginny could not bear to meet the animagus' eyes. "I don't know where he is."

"Guess."

Still not looking up, Ginny, dropped her voice lower. "The Department of Mysteries."

McGonagall's eyes widened considerably. Ginny flinched slightly as McGonagall lifted her wand, but she just flicked it quickly, causing the door to slam behind them and Ginny jumped slightly at the noise.

"Miss Weasley, is there something you would like to tell me?" she repeated.

Ginny gulped and nodded slightly.

Professor McGonagall just raised a questioning eyebrow and waited patiently.

"Harry came to me last night," Ginny finally started. "He explained that he was going to be gone for a while, and that Sirius Black and Remus Lupin would be going with him."

"Did he tell you where he was going?"

"Yes. He was going to go back in time."

Ginny had never seen her strict professor so shocked before.

"Surely you can't be serious."

"That's what Harry told me," Ginny defended. "He wouldn't lie. Besides, he told me about what Sirius, Remus and Professor Dumbledore have been working on for the past few weeks."

McGonagall nodded understandingly. "I had been wondering..." she trailed off, then cleared her throat and looked sternly back at Ginny. "You're saying that Professor Dumbledore was not going back with them?" She still sounded skeptical and it made Ginny slightly cross.

"Not that I know of," she answered in a guarded tone.

McGonagall stood up suddenly and started walking towards the door as she spoke. "Come Miss Weasley, you are going to accompany me to the Department of Mysteries."

Ginny opened her mouth to object but her professor cut her off.

"And you are excused from your classes for the rest of the day."

Smiling, Ginny, hurried out after her.

---

The panic seemed to seep through the walls as Ginny entered the Department of Mysteries alongside McGonagall. It was like a bomb had gone off inside, causing the walls to crumble, dust to fly through the air and a whole lot of people to be agitated. One younger worker came right up to them as she saw them first.

"I'm sorry, this area is closed off-"

"I am well aware of that," McGonagall cut her off, her eyes flaring. "It seemed quite obvious by the large signs posted outside the door."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am but I'm going to have to ask you to leave-"

"Where is Albus Dumbledore?" McGonagall said impatiently cutting off the girl again.

The young Ministry employee paled slightly and made a big show of checking her parchment as she looked for the information.

"I believe Professor Dumbledore has been moved to the intensive care section of St. Mung-"

"WHAT!?" Both Ginny and McGonagall exploded at the same time. The frazzled young woman seemed positively terrified of them both and Ginny didn't blame her. McGonagall's gaze looked like it was shooting daggers.

"Look, we're really quite busy and I don't think that-"

"Kingsley!" McGonagall called out sharply, making the young woman jump high into the air and look frantically around. Ginny sighed with relief as Kingsley Shacklebolt walked quickly up to them, shooing the now terrified assistant away.

"What happened? Where's Albus?" McGonagall said quickly as Kingsley led them deeper into the Department, ministry workers rushing all around them and quite a few alarms going off in the background.

"What's she doing here?" Kingsley asked, surprised as he looked at Ginny who looked back defiantly, as if daring him to tell her she was too young.

"She knows more about where Albus is then anyone else," McGonagall said, waving impatiently. "What happened?"

"All units were put on alert about two hours ago," he explained. The three of them stepped into the circular room that Ginny recognized from last year, but it seemed even this room had damaged as none of the door's turned and they walked straight into another one. "High magical disturbances, fluxuated magic coming from the Death Chamber."

Ginny sucked in a sharp breath as she saw the Death Chamber around her once again, memories of last year flying into her head. But it was almost unrecognizable. The benches were all dust, as if someone had "burned" the stone. The walls all had deep cracks in them and pieces of the ceiling were fallen to the ground. She saw the largest piece had fallen right in front of the veil and was completely blocking the entrance.

"What in the-" McGonagall gasped in amazement and both she and Kingsley seemed to have forgotten that Ginny was there. "What happened?"

"We're not very sure," the Auror admitted, scratching the back of his neck. "Tonks was the one who actually found Albus, none of us saw him at first. By the time we got there, he was unconscious, had lost a lot of blood and so we hightailed him over to St. Mungo's." he looked seriously at McGonagall. "He's still in critical condition the last I heard. And we're sure that he's probably the only one who could tell us what happened."

McGonagall pursed her lips and Ginny could tell that she was trying hard not to tear up.

"Why wasn't Hogwart's notified?" McGonagall snapped.

"Someone was actually on their way to tell you in about fifteen minutes," Kingsley said apologetically. "We've spent most of the last two hours trying to shut up Fugde."

"Ah, right. And where is Fudge?" she asked.

"He finally showed up about an hour ago ago, shouting out how Dumbledore had destroyed the Department of Mysteries and whatnot," Kingsley rolled his eyes in exasperation. "We ended up literally kicking him out so we could get out job done. Merlin knows he'd just get in the way."

McGonagall snorted. "You'd think he'd learn, what with last year and everything." Surprisingly then, she turned right to Ginny. "Miss Weasley, did Mr. Potter tell you anything else about what they were planning?"

Ginny cowered a bit under both hers and Kingsley's stares, but managed to keep her confidence up enough. "Harry said that they were using the veil to do it." Ginny didn't want to give so much away in this open area where anyone could overhear. "He said they had found a spell that would work with the, ah, conditions behind the veil."

McGonagall's nostrils flared a bit and she turned to Kingsley who looked rather confused. "It seems that not only Albus but Harry Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin are involved in this," she explained shortly, also not giving much away.

Kingsley didn't seem to mind though, most likely from his job as an Auror and member of the Order.

"Is Tonks here?" McGonagall asked quickly.

Kingsley pointed over towards the veil and they turned and saw Nymphadora Tonks and a few other witches and wizards, all with Auror badges on, who were trying different spells to move the gigantic piece of ceiling that was blocking the veil.

"They're been working on moving that thing for half an hour. Seems this place was more magical that we expected and none of our spells are working," Kingsley explained. "Hey! Tonks!"

Tonks, who was today sporting a bright orange hairdo that was long and pulled into a messy bun, whipped her head around, smiling a bit as she saw Ginny and McGonagall and then jogging up to meet them.

"Believe me, it looked worse when we got here," Tonks explained, shaking McGonagall's hand as she came up and throwing a wink at Ginny. "If only we could get that bloody boulder to move now."

"Where was Albus found?" McGonagall asked her.

Tonks pointed to right near where the front bench would have been. "He was suck under quite a few boulders. His wand seemed to have been knocked out of his hand. Luckily it didn't snap though."

She pulled the wand out and showed McGonagall. "We did Prior Incantato on it, but apparently the spells he was doing were to shield himself, not attack or anything. So we're getting that-"

"That he was attacked," Ginny finished, looking quite horrified.

"Right," Tonks said grimly. "Though it's not really a lot to go on. We won't know more until he wakes up. If he wakes up," she added, even more depressed.

"We probably shouldn't tell you much more," Kingsley said quickly, glancing quickly at Tonks who rolled her eyes. "I'm not saying that I care, but I don't want to see Fudge back in here today, yelling about how we broke the security measures or gave away classified information."

"Right," McGonagall sighed, looking more tired than she had just a few minutes ago. "I've got to get to St. Mungo's..."

"Professor McGonagall?" Ginny asked timidly, cutting off her Professor in her won daring. To her credit, though, she didn't flinch as they all turned to look at her. "I was just wondering...if...well, if they really did go, you know, back, then why hasn't anything, well, changed yet?"

No one but McGonagall seemed to understand, but it was enough to get them curious.

"We'll have to ponder that on our way to St. Mungo's, Miss Weasley," McGonagall said briskly, starting to walk out the door. "Tonks, if you would like to come with us? Kingsley, if you would be so kind as to floo Hogwarts and inform Professor Snape what has just happened. Also, if you by chance run across any of the old crowd, have them get to Hogwart's immediately. I will be there in half an hour."

Ginny knew that "old crowd" was a type of code name for the Order Members, and she watched as Kingsley nodded once, taking off out of the room, and Tonks followed them back out the door and down the broken hallways. Ginny was surprised at how easily they both obeyed McGonagall's instruction, but then she remembered that Professor McGonagall was second only to Dumbledore in the Order, and they were probably used to her being in charge when Dumbledore wasn't around.

As they stepped out into the sun again and began making their way to St. Mungo's on the Knight Bus, Ginny frowned deeply, wondering if Dumbledore would wake up and wondering if Harry was okay.