Tonks sighed as she did her best to help with fixing a broken wall. It was probably going to take quite a while to get everyone from Magical Maintenance back into the Ministry - most of them had fled when the fighting broke out and for good reason. She'd known that the Fairy Tail members were powerful, but she hadn't counted on quite how destructive they could be. When she'd seen Gray, Juvia and Lisanna fighting in Brockendale they'd managed to keep themselves from breaking anything. This time… it was like they'd never heard of restraint.
Fortunately though nobody had noticed her stunning two of her fellow Aurors from behind in the final escape to assist Happy and Charla. That would have been a little difficult to explain. She could have always used the excuse that she'd been aiming for the Exceed and missed, but while she was extremely clumsy in most walks of life, when it came to spell casting she was a dead-shot. Most of them wouldn't have believed that excuse.
Still, about a quarter of the Ministry seemed to be a total wreck and if it hadn't been for Mavis telling them where they needed to go, they probably would have trashed a lot more of it before they got loose.
Speaking of Kingsley, he stepped up close to Tonks and murmured, "I assume you know what exactly is going to be happening tonight."
"Big meeting, yeah, yeah, I know," Tonk muttered as she levitated a couple of bricks into place and used Reparo to fix them up. "Something tells me that this one's going to be a doozy."
"Yes… I'd say that it is," Kingsley nodded.
"After all… there's no way that the Ministry's going to be able to cover this up," Tonks muttered. "The entire Wizarding Populace is going to know about this tomorrow… or at least that the Ministry was attacked even if they don't find out exactly who did it…"
"Indeed, but that's not the only reason why this meeting is going to be quite significant," Kingsley agreed. "Still, we can't talk so until tonight."
"You think we'll get some Fairies in attendance?"
"Well… this does concern them… so I would hope so."
"And where's our esteemed Minister Useless?"
"Nymphadora…" Kingsley raised a brow warningly, not just because it wouldn't do for anyone to hear her calling him that but also because he was her superior.
"Sorry… but well… by all accounts he handled the knowledge that they were from another universe with different magic very poorly indeed."
"It certainly could have been handled better, but you know, I cannot entirely blame him for over-reacting. It's a fact of all human life that when faced with something dangerous and above all something we don't understand that we tend to act rashly. Minister Fudge received a dramatic information overload in the space of a couple of minutes and instantly went on the defensive."
"But I didn't react like that when I found out about them. And neither did you or the rest of the Order."
"Yes, but the difference is that you were convinced that they were not dangerous people before you were told the information. And the rest of the Order were given ample warning about who Fairy Tail were before we met them and I'll be honest, even I thought for a while that trusting them might not be the best of ideas when we knew so little about them. The fact that Dumbledore had put his trust in them first greatly helped to assuage my own misgivings. Minister Fudge had no such forewarning. All he saw were powerful intruders in his Ministry which was filled with innocent people… being a Minister and looking out for the well-being of those people is an enormous responsibility. You'd have to be a very calm-headed Minister not to panic under such circumstances."
"…I guess that's true. Maybe I can cut him a little slack then, even though I still think calling in Dementors like that was a bonkers idea," Tonks shrugged. "And even though his paranoia about Dumbledore is still beyond ludicrous… Anyway, like I asked before, where is he? Haven't seen him for a while."
"Well, you pretty much answered your own question," Kingsley chuckled wryly. "He's following up a little more on his paranoia about Dumbledore…"
"Oh… I wish I could see how that goes."
...
"Admit it, Dumbledore. You had something to do with this, didn't you? It's no good lying to me, you know."
Albus Dumbledore interlaced his fingers and stared calmly at the rapidly colouring Minister now standing in his office. Head Auror Rufus Scrimgeour was also there, standing at the door with another Auror and looking rather disgruntled about all this, and Dolores Umbridge was now at the Minister's side, her eyes washing over Dumbledore up and down as if probing him for signs of weakness, while McGonagall was standing off to the side and looking very much like she wanted to intervene, but was barely restraining herself from doing so.
"I am afraid you still have yet to fully enlighten me as to what happened at the Ministry today," Dumbledore replied. "And I assure you that I have had no business there whatsoever. Its almost as though I'm not welcome there anymore."
"Don't play games with me. You know what happened."
"I know that the Ministry was attacked today certainly, as you told me so yourself when you first stormed into my office to begin this pleasant conversation. But I'm afraid I don't know who by, who if I were to hazard a guess, would I be correct in thinking that they were black-robed men with skull-like masks perhaps."
"Ha! You are already fully aware that they were not! They were a total rabble… a collection of men and women of various ages, some of them with oddly coloured hair. They had talking, flying cats with them! And they claimed to have come from another universe and used ridiculous, wandless magic the like of which not one of us has ever seen before."
Dumbledore's expression did momentarily slip into one of surprise, causing him to blink a few times, before he recovered his composure. "How fascinating. And you believe these claims do you?"
"They were given under influence of Veritaserum!"
"I see. Then surely, if Veritaserum was given to one of these intruders, you would have asked them whether or not I was involved, would you not?"
"I did not get the opportunity. Because shortly after that revelation we were invaded by several more intruders that helped to break the original ones out."
"And every one of them claimed that they were from another universe?"
"We didn't get the chance to question each of them but the things they did, Dumbledore… they could only have been from another world. There's nothing like them in this one. But how could they have known that we had some of them in our custody unless somebody told them that we did? These people have been causing chaos on different sides of Britain until yesterday when they're suddenly all in one place. And one of them happened to attack a Muggle settlement not far away from this very school. Can you still deny after all that that you are involved?"
"I can certainly deny that I had anything to do with this break-in at the Ministry, Cornelius," Dumbledore nodded calmly. "What would I have to gain from such an action in the first place?"
"Power, of course. I know you desire it, Dumbledore. Everyone with any sense knows that you are trying to scare your way into the Minister's Chair with all those ridiculous allegations of yours."
"And what ridiculous allegations would those be?"
"That He-Know-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned of course!"
"While I continue to assert that that is far from ridiculous, you have already hit the proverbial nail on the head, Minister. I have been telling you for months now that Lord Voldemort has indeed returned, and I still maintain that it is true now. Sadly most people seem to refuse to heed my warning but can you not see how organising an attack on the Ministry such as this would accomplish nothing for me even if I did want your seat?"
"You aim to spread panic and fear, to get people to rally behind you to oppose this new threat."
"I fear that you are now grasping at straws, Minister. Even in the face of a new threat, as you put it, your attempts to ridicule me would surely ensure that nobody would turn to me for help. After all, these people, whoever they may be, have nothing to do with Voldemort. So, logically, people would still view me as the old man spreading lies in attempts to scare them. Not exactly a figure to rally behind, is it?"
"Well… no… but that doesn't mean you didn't try…" Fudge pressed on, though there was some slight doubt in his voice now.
"I fear that much of my credibility has now gone in the eyes of the public, and I very much doubt I will get it back until you realise that Voldemort truly has returned."
"He is not back!"
"Is that really so difficult to believe? You are willing to believe in people from another universe but are unwilling to believe that a man people thought to be dead can turn out not to be?"
"There is no magic that can raise the dead!"
"Correct. But he was never dead in the first place."
"That's enough… we're getting off topic. This isn't a talk about You-Know-Who, it's about these interlopers."
"Quite right. Go on. You were saying that they couldn't have organised such an attack without help from the inside?"
"Exactly!"
"And yet you also maintain that they must be from another world because they did things that nobody in this world could have?"
"Yes!"