B.Q Book Four: The Black Queen's War

Chapter 24: The Assault

Passing a few sickles across the bar, Jen took the steaming mug of mulled cider from Madam Rosmerta. Not that the pub owner knew who she was with her facial features transfigured into an unremarkable mask. Right now, she was just another paying customer, another nobody turning to the Three Broomsticks for warmth and a moment to pretend that everything was back to normal.

Her disguise faded away once she was leaning against the upstairs railing and looking out at the small clumps of people scattered around the ground floor. She needed this too, though not for the same reason they did. They thought tomorrow would be no different from today, that the war would keep going the way it had been for the last several months.

None of them knew that tomorrow, the Aurors would storm Voldemort's dungeon.

She still had no clue how that was supposed to happened. Dora, her normal source for information regarding the activities of the DMLE, had been unusually tight-lipped about it. Operational security, her cousin had told her. Nor did she understand why, if they knew where he was, the Ministry was not choosing to throw everything they had at the building and bring it down around his ears. Even if it did not kill him, it would definitely wipe out the Death Eaters with him, and it was not as if Voldemort could utilize Slughorn's brewing talents if the potions master was dead, now could he?

Unless they were worried that even with every wand they could gather they still would not be able to assemble a force large enough to hold off his reinforcements while they either bombarded the building to smithereens or put his Death Eaters to the sword?

Jen sighed and took a long pull from her cider. Fine. Fine. If the Aurors wanted to keep her in the dark, that was their decision. They did not and would never know the details of her own piece in the plan, either. Her distraction, if it could even be called that by now, was nearly complete. All it needed was one last step, and then she could make her own attempt at assassinating a Dark Lord. Would it work? She hoped so.

Would it put him off balance? Oh, would it ever.

A faint smile curled her lips, and then she heard voices rising from below her. "So what?!" one man shouted, standing up from his chair. "How long has the Ministry been stuck in this castle with us? Six months! It took them six months to take back one little town right next to the castle. How long do you really think they'll need to reclaim the whole bloody country from You-Know-Who, huh? Will it even be in our lifetimes? I don't really think so. I don't think they'll even be able to succeed. All we're doing is dragging out the inevitable."

"And the alternative is what?" was the demand from the other man at the table. "We lay back and let the Death Eaters go ahead and murder us? Offer ourselves up on a silver platter? No, I'll pass on that. The Ministry took their sweet time to start fighting back, I'll give you that one, but now that they've started they have some momentum behind them." He leaned closer, and Jen cast a quick charm on the table to carry their words to her ears. "I've even heard a couple of rumors that they're planning something big. I couldn't get much in the way of details, but just the fact that they're being so quiet about everything makes me thing it's going to really cause You-Know-Who problems."

"Or they're being so quiet because this all they could do and they don't want the rest of us to find out."

"You're impossible. Alice, what do you think?"

The lone witch at the table sat quietly for a moment. "I hate to say it, Chris, but I don't believe in the Ministry enough anymore to have confidence in their ability to save us." The first wizard let out a self-satisfied huff, but she continued, "That said, I also don't believe that we're entirely without hope. There is Lady Black to consider."