Bertha walked through the hallways of the Ministry, papers held in her arms. Another day working through the bureaucracy of government. She paused in her steps and frowned as she saw several Aurors standing in front of an open door in front of her. They appeared to be disturbed and whispered to each other as they looked into the room out of sight.
“...kill it. Too dangerous,” one Auror said before stepping forward and casting a curse into the hidden room. The others shouted as the man acted alone and yelled at him, but all of them froze when an inhuman growl sounded out from inside. Before Bertha or the Aurors could react, a creature leapt out and landed on top of the Auror that had fired the curse on it. The other four rapidly backpedaled, and shouting sent a barrage of curses into the humanoid figure pummeling and savaging the screaming Auror below it.
It widened its maw lined with sharp teeth before biting into the Auror’s neck. With a single to the jerk to the side the person's throat was torn open in a gory mess, his body twitching once before going still. The monster dug around inside the chest cavity for a moment before biting down on something invisible in the dead man's chest. The deep wounds and injuries from the curses of the other Aurors rapidly began to heal as if to match the regeneration of a werewolf for a few seconds before its deep wounds were barely small scratches. The new spells hitting it from the remaining sweating Aurors kept tearing chunks out of it, the regeneration appearing to stop.
The papers in Bertha’s hands fell from her grip as the creature stood to its feet, using its arms to instinctively block the curses coming at it. Its arms and face were covered in blood. One arm was covered in gray magically resistant skin and had massive proportions, reaching nearly the ground if it had let it hang at its side. Its mouth was a single slit at the bottom of its head that opened to those sharp toothed jaws. The rest of its skin was mottled, patches of grayish skin and black veins with pink skin and red veins. It had a surprisingly human eye on one side blazing with madness while the other was a flat expanse of gray skin. Its nose was a small bump on its face, more like one would see on a muggle store mannequin than what you would see on a human.
It opened its mouth an released an inhuman roar again as it charged towards the Aurors closest to Bertha, limping as the weight of its larger arm dragged it to the side. Bertha screamed and turned around and fled at high speed. A second later the other frozen watchers around the office came to their senses and began to flee as well.
— — —
“Fuck, he got Teddy too,” Ron said, staring down at the dead creature. Its dead eye was still disturbingly human despite all its madness and other grotesque features. The three of them stood there and looked at the two bodies spilling their blood onto the floor of the ministry. Ron had never liked John, he was always too hotheaded. But not even he deserved having his chest torn open like that… He glanced at Teddy’s body. He had liked Teddy, he was always a good drinking buddy after a long shift. At least they had managed to finally kill the thing before it dug into his chest and healed again.
“What the fuck was that thing?” Jack asked, “How did it manage to get in here?”
“I don’t know,” Ron said, “I’ve only seen something like it once before. Back when I was at Hogwarts…”
He was interrupted by the echoes of screams down the corridors. All the other workers had long since fled, but all three of them heard the inhuman roars echoing through the corridors. Ron shared a look with the other two and then pointed his wand at Teddy’s body. He transfigured the three bodies into marbles with some focus and then put them in his pocket.
“Ron, what are you doing?” Jack demanded, “Leave their bodies be!”
“Shut it, Jack!” Ron shouted, “You saw the monster. The creature needs something in their chests to heal. Stomach or lung maybe. We can’t leave any bodies behind for them to use. There’s more out there. You hear that down there?”
Ron pointed down the hallway where the roars and high pitched screeches of the creatures sounded.
“I’m not running towards that,” Jack said fearfully. Ron turned to the other man and he shook his head as well looking like he was about to soil himself. Ron groaned in frustration.
“Fine, We’ll go to the stairs. See if we can find someone in charge.”
They moved out, and after a few minutes, reached a group of five more Aurors guarding the opposite hallway. There was a massive crowd panicking and gathered around the apparition platforms. Ron frowned, why weren’t were they leaving? He did see that another cluster was rushing into the door into the stairwell, but the doors were too small for them all to leave at once. The main way to evacuate in a fire or emergency was supposed to be the apparition platforms, with the stairs only as a backup.
An Auror from the other group that Ron vaguely recognized ran up to them. “Apparition isn’t working, there’s some kind of block on the platforms! Guard that hallway, we’ve had to take out two of those creatures trying to attack us and the crowd here already.”
“Are you transfiguring the bodies?” Ron asked, “We’ve seen them heal their wounds almost instantly from eating something in a person’s chest.”
“Person?” the man said aghast, “Does that mean…”
“We were a squad of five,” Ron said grimly and the man only silently nodded.
“I’ll tell the others, thanks for the info,” the Auror said before running over to the other entrance.
As Ron nervously guarded their corridor with the other two in the squad, he tried to remember his research long ago on the creature he had seen just outside the Chamber of Secrets. Something that eerily matched the fully transformed description of whatever these strange hybrids were.
He had managed to get his dad to tell him the accounts of the criminal wizards that had fought the creature. Something tickled in the back of his mind. Something useful… Right on the tip of his tongue. They used certain kinds of… He was being an idiot! It had been light spells, something like that was a dark creature. Of course it was weak to light spells. Ron felt a little shame at forgetting that fact as he had blasted the thing with standard curses rather than something that would have actually hurt it enough.
He turned to the others to tell them, only to see another one of the creatures round the corner, its body splattered with black and red blood. It seems the creatures were just as unfriendly with each other than they were with them. This one had the entire top of its head appearing human as well as two human eyes on its face, only the lower mouth and jaws and one oversized hand gray and inhuman on its right side.
“Look away everyone!” Ron shouted before casting silently. A skill that had saved his ass many times over the years when he got in trouble with a suspect. ‘Bombarda Lumina,’ he thought and sent the curse down the corridor. He looked down as the spell impacted the creature and exploded in a brilliant flash of white. There were some cries of pain from the rapidly dwindling crowd behind him that was still quickly running into the stairwell.
Ron blinked to restore his vision and saw the creature on its back on the ground, the entire front of its body burned. Its form was unmoving.
“Diffindo!” Jack shouted and landed the severing curse on its neck with precision as it lay there motionless. It was dead. They quickly transfigured the body into another marble and placed it out of the way.
They dispatched three more creatures one by one as the last of the people went into the stairwell behind them. The full squad of five on the other side took out two that came their way, dealing with them much quicker after Ron shared his knowledge with them. The thundering footsteps from the stairwell slowly grew silent as the people reached the bottom and presumably rushed into the main lobby of the Ministry to escape via the floo network.
The eight Aurors all slowly backed up until they were inside the stairwell and quickly made their way downstairs. They emerged near the bottom to see a massive panicked crowd still fighting for access to the fireplaces to leave the Ministry. There was a blast of spells to Ron’s right and he turned his head to see groups of Aurors fighting off three of the creatures with some difficulty.
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Amelia Bones suddenly ran by, “Guard that stairwell, you lot! Stop any from coming down here!”
“Wait, Madame!” Ron shouted and she slowed and gave him an incredulous look.
“They’re dark creatures, so light spells. And they eat something in the chest cavity to regenerate their wounds. That’s what we’ve learned.”
Her eyes widened slightly, but she only nodded tersely and continued running towards the fifteen Aurors that had managed to kill two of the creatures but were still struggling to stop the last one from leaping forward into their ranks. That one appeared almost completely covered in the gray skin and most of the spells barely injured it at all. Only the human parts were accumulating large amounts of damage and seemed to be the main reason it was slowly weakening.
The group finally managed to take it down after Amelia Bones ran by and launched a powerful light spell at the creature, scalding its skin and finally immobilizing it for long enough that the rest of the Aurors could lay down fire and finally kill it.
All the Aurors began celebrating as the final blow was struck. Amelia Bones quickly cut that off and had everyone begin securing the five stairwells scattered throughout the sprawling floors of the Ministry building. None of them knew anything but the most basic wards, but they all cast the best they could on their assigned doors. Just when Ron thought that things were almost over, the building shook in a wave of inhuman roars that could be heard from the floors above them. Ron’s blood ran cold. Just how many of the bloody things were there!
— — —
“BOMBARDA LUMINA!” Ron shouted as another gray arm pushed straight through the wards on the staircase his group was guarding. The physical door was in tatters, the groups of monsters battering it down into splinters in under three minutes despite its sturdiness. Ron’s spell launched into the gap behind the door and landed into the gathered crowd of monsters fighting violently in the stairwell.
In a bright explosion, Ron's spell scorched the monsters on the other side of the door and sent them falling to the ground. Their only saving grace from the over thirty monsters standing practically on top of each other in the base of the stairwell, was the fact that they were nearly as hostile to each other as they were to the Aurors on the other side of the door. The rest of the group of Aurors quickly reestablished the wards on the door and summoned some makeshift wood and stone to pile up in the gap. The magic resisting property of the creatures grey skin extended to transfigured or summoned objects as well, so a single casual blow from them usually caused them to dissolve and vanish again. But between the bulk of the summoned objects and the wards being replaced even now, it slowed them down at least.
Despite fighting each other fiercely, not as many creatures died as one would expect. When one was killed by the Aurors their body was quickly dragged back by the rest and quickly consumed, causing one of the heavily injured creatures to heal back to full health again.
Ron lowered his wand and started panting heavily. He had to save himself for when the others couldn’t handle it. He was the only one that knew the Bombarda Lumina spell so he was the only one that could seriously damage the monsters as a group. But it was an energy intensive spell, so Ron was barely holding on to cast it each time with the dregs of his magic. He remembered casting magic until exhaustion with Harry Potter in school by the lake occasionally. Even on his hardest days he had never felt this exhausted and it was only through sheer force of will that he still remained standing.
The battle continued as Ron tried to recover in preparation for when he would be needed again.
“Bo-Bombarda Lumina!” Ron panted and sent another spell into the stairwell. There were only fifteen or so creatures in their section left from what he could see, but they were all the toughest ones with the most gray skin and inhuman features. His vision wavered as he cast the spell and he struggled to stand.
“Renervate!”
Ron jolted straight as someone cast the spell at him to wake him up from the exhausted haze he had entered. It was chaos and shouting all around him. One of the creatures had broken the blockade through the door and was tearing open Jack's chest, ignoring the spells hitting its heavily injured back. It ate something inside Jack and healed itself to brand new over the course of a few seconds.
Ron saw that with everyone focusing on the creature that had escaped, the eight remaining living monsters started to drift towards the doorway. They were covered in gore, nearly slipping in the solid mass of half consumed monster bodies below them as they moved. Ron saw that one of them broke from the infighting and charged out of the door, another two breaking away to chase it.
The fighters were too focused on putting down the one that had already escaped containment, and not nearly enough of them noticed the three charging forward. Ron’s heart sunk. If they were having this much trouble with just one of them, then how would they handle four at once?
The twenty Aurors around Ron finally managed to get close enough to use their Lumos Maxima spells. Not a particularly damaging spell, but one that almost everyone knew and caused deep burns when its light touched the skin of creatures as dark as these. And most critically the creatures were unable to heal the wounds inflicted by the light spells without significantly more effort. Almost like how Silver worked to stifle werewolf regeneration.
The Aurors managed to kill the first creature in a few seconds under the concentration of spells, but their backs were to the doorway as the second creature went through its open frame, the next only a few steps in front of it. Ron pointed his wand shakily at the doorway and dug deep. Everyone would die if they managed to escape into the group. Without knowing it, his magic leapt in response to his desperation. As he cast the spell that desperation clicked in the infusion points built into the Bombarda Lumina spell. Ron achieved emotion infusion as he channeled every last drop of his magic into the spell.
“BOMBARDA LUMINA!!!!” Ron roared and hit the second monster charging out of the doorway. Ron’s world swayed around him, and suddenly spun and tilted. He was unconscious before he hit the ground, wand falling from his limp fingers.
The other Aurors shielded their eyes as a brilliant of explosion of light like a star lit up in the center of the doorway. When they blinked to recover their vision they saw two charred corpses on the ground. The one that Ron’s spell had directly hit had massive pockmarks from the searing light of the explosion and a huge chunk torn out of its chest. The one that had been in the front was lying on the ground on its face, its entire back similarly seared down to the bone. The third was covered in burns and was on the ground twitching weakly. Still alive, but barely so. The four surviving monsters inside the stairwell were lightly burned by what little searing white light had reached them.
Ron’s limp body was quickly dragged away from the fighting and after another hectic few minutes, all the monsters in their area were defeated at last. Everyone was deeply exhausted, but several went to support the other stairwells that were still fighting, leaving only a few behind to make sure no more of the monsters trickled in.
It was the turn of the tide of the battle, once Ron’s stairwell moved out to support the others. It relieved the pressure on the others, and soon all the rampaging creatures had been defeated after the long battle. In reality it couldn’t have lasted longer than thirty minutes or so since the massive wave of creatures had attacked them. But all of them were spent to the absolute limit and traumatized by the pure carnage they had all just experienced.
— — —
Ron was known as the hero that had saved the lives of the Aurors at his stairwell multiple times over. His contributions to the battle was even greater known than more experienced wizards like Alastor Moody or Kingsley Shacklebolt who had held the line at the stairwells swarmed with even larger numbers of monsters than Ron’s position. Ron received an order of Merlin alongside with these other brave Aurors, the medal pinned to his proud chest directly by the Minister of Magic himself.
There were many losses that day of civilian and Auror alike, and many in the public demanded more information on the mysterious creatures that had attacked the Ministry. No culprit was found, and no declaration of intent or message claiming responsibility came in the coming days. Not even the most violent extremists dared be associated with the carnage that had taken place at the Ministry.
Eventually with the help of one Ronald Weasley, everything was eventually blamed on the unknown highly dangerous creature that he had seen in his second year in school. A creature that the ministry had encountered before and had never found again after ten years of searching. An entire division of the Auror department was reassigned to finding the creature, with Ronald Weasley himself at their head as one of the only ones in the Ministry currently that had seen it first hand.
Harry Potter was informed and given Ministry security of course, given the creature had appeared to him twice when he was with the Dursleys, seeming to have some interest in him for some reason. But after a few weeks of nothing happening, such efforts were abandoned at Harry Potter’s insistence.
The only possible clue as to a motive for the attack was the complete destruction of the stone archway in the department of mysteries. But the Ministry did not disclose this information, instead keeping it secret. The public would never learn of anything held in the department of Mysteries if the Ministry had anything to say about it.
The public was in abject fear for a full year that another wave of monsters might attack again in force. But nothing happened. There were no attacks, no sightings of the elusive originator of the monsters. And eventually people forgot and uneasily moved on with their lives. Maybe more people paid to reinforce their house wards, bought a few objects to help them hide or escape in case of an emergency. But then they returned to normal life, as the events faded into the past.
But while life moved on in the wizarding world, Ron Weasley did not. His hunt for the creature continued, becoming an almost obsession for him. He would not rest until the one responsible for the attack was found, at any cost. He and his taskforce would make sure of it.