The Crowded Office
Harry stepped out into the main hall of the ministry of magic, it was silent.
The echoey hall rang with Harry’s foot steps as he exited the fireplace and waited for George.
It felt unnatural. He had been working in the auror department for 4 months after a sped up training period and not once had he seen the hall this empty. He could hear his own breaths against the starkly quiet hall.
George stepped softly out the green flames, it felt wholly wrong to interrupt the soundless room. He put his hand on Harry’s shoulder, he jolted at the touch and they made their way to the golden gates of the elevators.
As they got closer, the sounds of trickling water grew. ‘The fountain of magical brethren’ as it used to be called was always a sign of which era the ministry was in, during Harry’s time it had come to represent; masked corruption, outright oppression and finally - change. A golden Phoenix erupting from a body of water with names carved into every inch of it’s body, the inscription on the base of the fountain read, ‘The dead we love never truly leave us’, a warning and a sentiment.
Now, in the empty atrium, what used to stand as a promise of a better future stood as a threat, conformation of their worst fears.
They walked past it, heads down. No need to present ID or sign in a guest, the security desk was empty, chair at an angle.
Clattering lift doors closed behind them and Harry reached forward and pressed a button embossed with a golden number 1.
They waited in tense silence until a cool female voice rang out,
“Level 1, Ministry of Magic Head Office, including Head of Disciplinary Action, Head of the Department of Records and Office for the Minister of Magic.”
Neither men let the familiar voice finish before rushing out of the half open doors and towards the end of of curved corridor. The secretary’s desk was empty, surely the disappearance of several war heros, two of which had order of merlin first class, wouldn’t need an appointment. With no other option Harry and George made their way towards the imposing dark oak door.
Several muffled voices could be heard behind the it.Harry pushed it open.
“Bloody hell.”
What had to be at least 30 people crowded the large office. Making sure George was behind him, Harry started side stepping and shoving his way through the room of officials towards the back desk. Several people saw who he was and hastily made way, but most where far too absorbed in their conversations or simply didn’t care. The room was buzzing with heated discussion, Harry thought he heard a group of french accents shouting at, what sounded like, an American. He finally spotted Kingsley standing in front of his desk with the Bulgarian ambassador.
“I understand your concern but I can’t prioritise fixing a trade agreement over everything else right now, we still need to document who died-“
“Minister! My country will not be pushed to the side because you have better things to do.”
“Minister Shaklebolt!” Harry tried to grab his attention whilst a member of the wizengamot tried to shove him aside.
“Kingsley!”
He finally turned and Harry shoved his way into the gap by the desk, pulling George with him.
“Harry, thank god your ok.”
“What’s going on?” Harry asked, half indicating to the mess of people behind him.
“Where are Ron and Hermione?” Kingsley asked desperately.
“They disappeared or got turned to dust- that’s why where here. I couldn’t get a hold of Robards-“
“Robards is gone? Shit, at least your alive.”
“Alive?! Sir what happened to my friends?!”
Harry had never seen Kingsley loose his cool at all, let alone like this.
“Minister Shacklebolt, if we could get back to the matter at hand.”
“God, I should have noticed. I need to get hold of the auror department.
“Why?! What happened?!”
“Not now,” Kingsley muttered, clearly thinking of something else.
“NOT NOW!? MY FAMILY JUST DISAPPEARED IN FRONT OF ME!” George roared.
Harry put a hand out to catch George on instinct, He looked like he was about to murder someone.
The front half of the room had hushed, whilst the back continued to buzz with voices.
“All of them?” Kingsley weakly asked, paling till he was nearly grey.
“What happened?” Harry firmly restated.
“The alien behind the New York attack a few years ago came back. Thanos’ aim was too wipe out half of each living species, he succeeded. The ‘dusting’ you saw was the effect of that.”
“‘Wipe out’, are they dead?”
“Wiped from existence rather, but for all extent and purposes, yes, they’re dead”
“That sounds exactly like dying to me” George added, looking half torn between anger and crippling grief.
“Do you have any idea of numbers?”
“From our estimate it looks like wizarding kind was treated as a different species, which is lucky because we definitely don’t make up half of humanity.”
“I sure feel lucky,”George scoffed.
“We need to get a count on who’s alive and who got dusted.” Harry stated
“We do.” Kingsley agreed.
“Who’s head of the auror department now.”
“I need to look through a seniority list, we don’t even know which of the senior aurors are alive.”
“Ok, we’ll just have to divide the job between anyone on duty and then track down the off duty aurors.” Harry planned on the spot.
“Minister Shacklebolt, could you possibly give a statement on the sudden disappearances around the country?”
“No-ones there to stop the press,” Kingsley realised. “Harry, that sounds great, could you get me that list as soon as possible.” He shouted over the horde.
“Oh, mister Potter! Do you think that he-who-must-not-be-named has anything to do with the disappearances?”
“No he doesn’t, and use his name.” Harry said, grabbing George by the arm and shoving his way through the packed room. The corridor was no better, they continued to shove their way through the reporters until Harry pulled George into a passage way to the right of the undoubtedly packed elevator and then once more through a open door on the left. Harry knew the area well from his countless visits to Kingsley’s office after the war, everyone seemed to suddenly want his input.
He and George now stood in a spiralling stairwell to be used in the case of an emergency, but since the lifts had never broken before, no-one had ever used it.
Harry quickly started to descend the stairs, the auror department was only one floor below…
The second pair of foot steps had stopped.
George sat on the third step down, staring blankly at the wall.
“George?”
“They’re dead, they’re all dead.”
There was a moment of silence as the realisation of what was happening dawned upon the pair.
“Oh god,” and George started to cry.
Not the gut wrenching sobs Ginny and Harry had found him in on the door step to number 12, but a kind of quiet cry that was sometimes interrupted by short gasps.
“Do you remember the battle of Hogwarts?”
“Yes, I remember the battle my twin died in.” George said, turning to stare at the idiot.
“Sorry stupid question. What I really meant was, do you remember when we knew that something awful had happened or someone had died and we continued to fight, because we knew there was nothing we could do for them, and that we could grieve later, but we could help people now.”
“I didn’t know Fred died until after the main fighting stopped, I thought…” George broke off with a sob.
“Ron knew.” George turned to him, “Ron saw Fred die but he got up and left him to continue fighting because he knew he could help someone else.”
“I’m not Ron.” He stopped to think, “I know we made fun of him a lot for being the youngest and your mate but, god, he was so brave. I don’t even remember what the last thing I said to him was, bet it was something stupid, I wish he knew how much I-“
“It was you telling him he had a smudge on his nose.”
“What?”
“The last-“ Harry’s voice caught for a second, “the last thing you said to him was that he had a smudge on his nose after you came to show off a new prototype at number 12.”
“The Rudolph remedy.”
“He had a glowing red nose for a week.” Harry laughed sadly and George gave a faint smile.
“He always admired you y’know. Ron was always anxious to live up to Bill, Charlie and Percy but he always admired the fact you and Fred just did you own think and said ‘screw ‘em’ to all of it, he loved that you could pull off a joke without being cruel, well, except for the spider teddy bear thing. Whenever Ron talked about a childhood memory you were always part of it. He knew you cared, and I need you to show the courage and heart he always talked by putting this aside for a bit and helping the people who are still here. Then I promise we can get drunk and sob our hearts out.”
“Ok.”
George gave a curt nod, stood up and both men continued their decent to the auror department.