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The Great Atrium of the Ministry of Magic was no longer a place of government; it was a cathedral of carnage.
Snape took a step forward, his hand twitching toward his wand to stop the massacre, but he froze. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an Auror frantically casting Episkey and Ferula on the bleeding Umbridge. The healing light hit her chest and simply slid off like water on oil. The jagged, dark-magic wounds of Sectumsempra hissed, refusing to close, as if the air itself were preventing the flesh from knitting.
Snape's pupils contracted. He recognized that spell—it was his own creation—but Hermione's version was saturated with a Level 5 potency that made his original look like a butter knife.
"Step aside!" Snape roared, shoving the Auror. If Umbridge died, the Ministry would declare a state of total war against Hogwarts. He knelt in the pool of blood, his wand moving in a complex, rhythmic dance.
"Vulnera Sanentur..." he crooned, his voice a low, melodic chant.
The first wave of white light hit the wound. It pulsed once and died. Snape's face went pale. He poured more power into it.
"Vulnera Sanentur!"
Sweat began to bead on his forehead. His breathing became ragged. He was fighting a war against Hermione's residual intent. Finally, after a fifth agonizing repetition, the edges of the gruesome gash began to undulate at a snail's pace. New flesh, pink and raw, slowly crawled across the bone. Snape collapsed backward, gasping, too exhausted to even wipe the sweat from his eyes. He looked at Hermione, and for the first time in his life, he felt a genuine, bone-deep horror.
Above them, the Fiendfyre serpent roared.
A dozen Aurors had formed a desperate circle below, their wands raised in a collective Protego Totalum. The shimmering blue dome was already spider-webbing with cracks as the temperature in the Atrium soared to a kiln-like heat.
"Confringo!"
Hermione's voice rang out like a hammer on an anvil. Blasting hexes erupted from her hand, not as single bolts, but as a continuous barrage. The Level 4 offices overlooking the Atrium disintegrated. Marble pillars shattered into gravel. Dust and pulverized parchment filled the air like a dry fog.
"Minister, run!"
Two Aurors grabbed Cornelius Fudge by the elbows, practically lifting him as they fled toward the exit. Fudge was a ghost of a man, his pinstriped suit scorched, his legs shaking so violently he could barely keep his footing.
"Apparate!" Fudge screamed, fumbling for his wand. "Get me out of here! Now!"
He twisted in space, but instead of the familiar squeeze of teleportation, nothing happened. Only a few pathetic sparks sputtered from his wand. The air felt solid, like iron.
"Apparate! APPARATE!" he shrieked.
The other Aurors tried as well. Their wands flickered and died. The space was locked.
"The surrounding area... it's sealed!" an Auror cried out, his voice cracking with terror.
"Impossible!" another roared. "The Anti-Apparition Charm requires a ritual circle and dozens of casters! She's just one girl!"
"Then explain why the walls are moving!"
Fudge looked up and let out a strangled sob. The architecture of the Ministry—the dark wood, the golden statues, the stone walls—was beginning to fold. Reality was being kneaded and reshaped by an invisible, titan-like hand. The corridors twisted into ninety-degree angles that shouldn't exist. The floor rippled like water.
The Mirror Dimension.
Hermione's hands moved in fluid, geometric hand seals. She wasn't just sealing them in; she was putting them in a centrifuge.
The entire Atrium suddenly tilted forty-five degrees. Then ninety. Then the world began to spin.
"AHHHH!"
"Help me!"
The world became a front-loading washing machine of stone and glass. Aurors were thrown against the ceiling, which had become the floor, only to have the gravity shift again, slamming them into the walls. Documents, statues, and wizards were tumbled together in a chaotic, spinning blur.
Fudge hit the wall, bounced off a falling desk, and slammed back into the ground. He felt his ribs crack. His internal organs felt like they were being liquefied.
"Hermione Granger!" Fudge roared with his last ounce of strength as he spun through the air. "Stop this! I... I am the Minister for Magic!"
Hermione's image appeared in the folding mirrors of the room, omnipresent and terrifying.
"Minister?" she chuckled, her voice echoing from a thousand angles. "I don't see a Minister. I see a man who thinks he can threaten a witch because he has a shiny hat."
She snapped her fingers, and the rotation speed tripled.
The screams reached a fever pitch before fading into the sound of retching. Aurors began to faint from the sheer G-force. Those still conscious threw spells wildly—Confringo, Reducto, Diffindo—but the spells simply hit the folded mirrors and reflected back at them or vanished into the non-Euclidean geometry.
Then, with a sudden, jarring jolt, the spinning stopped.
Gravity reasserted itself. The Atrium was a wreck of splintered wood and shattered glass.
"Vomit—"
"Ugh—"
The sound of sickness filled the room. The elite of the Ministry lay sprawled in the wreckage, covered in dust and bile. Fudge slumped against a broken statue of a goblin, his hat gone, his dignity a distant memory.
A young Auror pushed himself up on trembling arms. "What... what kind of magic is this?"
No one answered. The silence was absolute.
A senior Auror, a veteran of the first wizarding war, stared at the warped walls with glazed eyes. "Spatial manipulation... she's reshaping the physical dimension... it's not on the records. None of it is on the records."
"This is a third-year student?" someone whispered, the words sounding like a curse.
Hermione landed softly on the ground, her boots clicking on the marble. She looked down at Fudge, her expression one of mild curiosity, as if she were inspecting a particularly ugly bug she had just caught in a jar.
"Would you like me to... call the press, Minister?" she asked sweetly. "I think the Daily Prophet would love to see how 'stable' the Ministry is today."
Would you like me to describe the aftermath of the Ministry's destruction or move on to the fallout at Hogwarts?