The Time-Meddlers [Harmione]

29. Britain Falls Into Shadow

"Well, I guess it's time," said Ulysses Sangleton to his partner, Francis Vladamour. Both were mercenary purebloods working for the Shadow. She was able to pay the highest wages around, due to her possession of the Philosopher's Stone, and therefore was easily able to attract any mercenaries in Europe. However, she did only hire purebloods to be her minions.

The mission they were on was very simple yet important to Umbridge. Throughout the day, several mercenaries had visited the Ministry of Magic under different disguises for different excuses, and had placed certain magical devices at key positions on every floor of the building before disillusioning them. After planting the devices, the mercenaries left, making sure to check out at the front desk.

It was now exactly 2 a.m. on July 3rd, which meant that it was time to enact the plan. All they had to do was activate the devices, which had the Protean charm on them. Once activated, the devices would perform a wide-area-stunner, knocking everyone near them unconscious, to be sorted out later after interrogation by the Shadow.

Obviously, not every single person in the building would happen to be in the right place to be stunned, so the mercenaries would storm the building immediately afterward, killing anyone who tried to interfere with this takeover. The next morning, the majority of Ministry employees would find out their work environment had changed.

Ulysses took his wand out, pointed it at the control device, and muttered the activation phrase a moment before flooing into the Ministry building, followed by his partner. As they began running toward the elevator, others began appearing in the many floo entrances. After determining that the few people on that floor had been stunned, as many mercenaries as could fit into the elevator entered it while the others, a hundred in total, took the stairs.

It didn't take long for them to locate and kill the people who had been out of range at the time, as there weren't very many. A few had been in the bathroom at the time while others had been walking between departments, but were quickly subdued. The skeleton crew that stayed at the Ministry in the middle of the night was small as it was, but with ninety percent of them unconscious, it was an easy takeover. All the stunned employees were put into cells where their loyalty would be determined by the new boss when she arrived. They'd either join her or die.

❾¾ ❾¾❾¾❾¾ ❾¾❾¾❾¾

The next morning, Minister Amelia Bones woke up in her bed as usual, got ready for work and had breakfast with Susan. After saying goodbye and wishing her niece a good day, she Apparated into the atrium of the Ministry building.

The sight that greeted Amelia was not what she expected. She saw no less than fifty strangers, all of whom had their wands out. As people flooed into the place, they were immediately stunned. It was only her years of experience as an Auror that alerted her to the fact that a red beam of light was headed her way. She shifted to the right just in time to avoid it as she pulled out her wand, silently stunning the guard who'd attacked her.

"It's her! The former Minister!" one of the Shadow's mercenaries shouted while Bones tried to Apparate out, quickly learning that wards were up that didn't allow people to leave. She barely managed to dodge a green beam of light as she formulated an escape plan. Obviously, they were stunning the normal employees, hoping to make recruits out of them, but she was wanted dead. Amelia's mind fixed on the visitor's entrance, the one that didn't require magical means of travel. If she could get there, she might be able to escape.

Moving faster than one would expect a woman of her age to do, she started running, while shooting reducto's over her shoulder for cover. From the sound of things, she'd hit at least one of them as she kept changing her position so she wouldn't be easily shot. When she got to her destination, she turned around, shooting about ten reducto's at the mercenaries before jumping into the fake phone booth and dialing the numbers to be taken to the street.