Countless paper airplanes battered the oak door of the Minister's Office with loud bangs.
The departmental memos bearing purple urgent stamps frantically tried to squeeze inside and sting the man sitting in the high-backed mahogany chair.
Cornelius Fudge felt as though he were suffocating.
"Still no reply?!"
Fudge spun around, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the clock on the mantelpiece, his voice as hoarse as though he had swallowed sand.
"My owl only left ten minutes ago, Minister."
Dolores Umbridge stood beside him.
Holding a cup of tea with far too much syrup in it, she soothed the cornered beast in her sickly-sweet voice.
"Even the fastest long-eared owl probably hasn't left London yet. Hogwarts is in the Scottish Highlands. That takes time..."
"Time! Time is the very thing I'm running out of!"
Fudge tugged irritably at his tie. The expensive silk tie was now like a noose, strangling him until he could hardly breathe.
"That bastard Scrimgeour is already holding a press conference downstairs! What's he saying? He's saying no comment?!
Merlin's beard, saying no comment at a time like this is practically telling everyone, yes, we're finished, run for your lives!"
He clutched his thinning hair in anguish and paced around the office, his leather shoes making dull thuds against the carpet.
"If Douglas won't help... if he's just like those damned pure-blood families and only wants to laugh at me..."
Tap, tap, tap.
A clear, forceful tapping suddenly came from outside the window.
Fudge's body went rigid.
As though he had seen a ghost, he slowly turned his head.
An enormous bird of prey with stark iron-gray feathers was gripping the window frame.
It was a peregrine falcon.
Its gaze was sharp and cold, and a black-and-gold metal cylinder was strapped to its ankle.
Engraved on it