Title: Goodbye, Nostalgia

Author: zazial

Time Period: DH

Pairings: Percy/Audrey, many others.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and everything connected with him. She's kind enough to let us play with her creations the way we do.

Chapter 10

Practice was particularly grueling this day. It was a fairly bright Friday as compared to the dreary Thursday they had the day before. Oliver was playing with intense focus, even more than his usual, feeling somehow the need to prove himself again after the entire mess with the charges and trial. He had not seen Audrey since, but Dorian had told him that this was normal: the lawyers did not usually mix with the players too much unless they were needed.

Dorian was distracted today anyway, making absolutely horrible throws and missing easy goals. The chaser was being yelled at but Oliver knew that off days simply happened, terrible though they were. Landing on the pitch and making his way to the locker rooms for the final team talk, Oliver was trying his best to continue his life and career the best he could. He was not happy with how Audrey had won that trial and cleared his name officially, but he had to accept that this was the best he was going to get. He was taken off reserve just a few months ago after Puddlemere's previous Keeper retired to start a family and there was no room for mistakes or controversy. He was grateful that his parents were vacationing in the Caribbean. After years of supporting their son, they deserved a much needed holiday, and so he scrapped together his savings to buy them the tickets for their cruise.

"What a day huh?" It was Joscelind again. Oliver smiled, she was an excellent team captain and he knew that she was checking up on him.

"Yeah but I think we made some good time today, a bit worried about Dorian though."

Joscelind's face showed concern and she opened her mouth to respond when the loud voice of Philbert Deverill, United's manager was heard yelling out in the locker room. Looking at each other briefly, both ran back out to see what the fuss was about.

"There's been a coup in the Ministry!" The gathered Quidditch players all blanched in shock as their manager delivered the news.

"What?!" Oliver demanded.

"It's true. They say that Rufus Scrimgeour has retired but he'll likely be dead before tonight is out. Pius Thicknesse is the new Minister and this affects us because," Deverill held out an official looking piece of parchment "Quidditch and all other sport and activities have been cancelled indefinitely."

It seemed to Oliver that the world had imploded. He was not seeing, feeling nor really breathing. They had cancelled Quidditch. They had actually done it those fools. But wait, a coup? Scrimgeour dead? He snapped out of it just in time to hear Joscelind demand more information from their manager.

Deverill was speaking in hushed tones now "It's too recent to know, but the rumours say that Pius Thicknesse is with the Death Eaters. No one knows what is going to happen now. I need all of you to return to your homes and stay safe. When this is over and we can finally resume play."

The other Quidditch players quickly dispersed, racing home to check on friends and family, but Dorian, Oliver and Joscelind, the team's only single players stayed to milk more information out of Deverill, but he had told all he knew.

"Go home and protect yourself Joscelind, I need you alive when we're allowed to resume play. If it's true and You-Know-Who is really in charge now, it's going to be tough on muggle-borns." Deverill turned to leave, apparently concerned enough to give a warning to the team's most famous and best player but not brave enough to offer any help in protection. Joscelind was Puddlemere's only muggle-born player.

Her face adopted a look of fury. Dorian sought to calm her "Jos, you can't go home, you live there alone and it's not safe. You're too much of a celebrity, there's no way no one has missed the fact that you're muggle-born."

"No! Look, this is all fear off speculation! We don't know what's really happening. We're assuming off rumours that Thicknesse is acting with the Death Eaters, that this will lead to some kind of…muggle genocide. There are no facts!"

Oliver decided to take action "And there will be no facts until we go somewhere and listen to the radio or something, we can't just deny it. Look Joscelind, humor us, spend the next few nights at my place, Dorian, you too. We should stick together and it's getting late."

To his surprise, both senior players nodded in agreement with him. Oliver looked at the two of them in their simple after-practice robes and their sports duffel bags. They were so unprepared.

The three of them apparated to Oliver's flat. Immediately afterwards Oliver ran to his radio and turned in on.

"…there is nothing to fear, my magical brethren…" It was Pius Thicknesse's voice

"Under my leadership we will continue to thrive and come into our destinies, free to use and live with our magic as we wish. We will no longer need to hide from the muggles nor fear their wrath, we will be free."

"My God," Joscelind swore "It's true then."

"In order to squash these absolutely baseless and ridiculous rumours regarding the Dark Lord and his followers, the name 'Voldemort' is from now on tabooed. Any who have the audacity to speak his name will face serious consequences. My magical brothers and sisters, I look forward to…"

"Oliver turn that damn thing off! We've heard enough!" Dorian yelled. Oliver quickly followed the Chaser's orders. Joscelind sank down onto Oliver's sofa, staring wide eyed at the radio, still trying to digest what she had just heard.

"Oliver!" Dorian called. Oliver turned to face what Dorian was indicating, a thin silvery whisp flew into his flat from under his door and formed into a patronus of a hawk which settled on the arm of the sofa. It spoke "Oliver," with Percy's voice "I need your help, you know my address, please apparate here, I have something urgent to discuss with you." The hawk faded.

Joscelind stared mutely at the space the patronus had occupied before it disappeared "Who was that?" she asked.

"Percy. You both saw him at the trial." Oliver answered.

"The one Audrey was making a fuss about." Dorian angrily added. "Listen Oliver, it could be a trap, he's with the Ministry isn't he? If he's on the good side why is he still alive and well in his flat?"

"Maybe he's not well," Oliver argued "Maybe that's why he's asking for help."

"We can't be sure." Joscelind argued, "Oliver, send your patronus back, ask him to apparate here. At least that way we won't have to split up and if he's planning any tricks he'll have to face the three of us."

Oliver nodded and immediately followed her orders, thankful that he at least had a competent Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor in the form of Professor Lupin his final year. It was the only reason why he could complete such an advanced spell.

As Oliver's bullmastiff patronus ran off, he turned to look at his teammates. They had become closer in the past week just because of the mess with the hooligans, and now it appeared they would be stuck together for much longer just for being singles. Dorian still looked angry, and Joscelind looked extremely irritated at Dorian.

"Dorian honestly, it was funny before but if you're going to let your crush on Audrey Beridore affect your thinking now I'm going to hex you so bad you'll never fly again!"

"That's not it Jos."

"What?!" Oliver exclaimed, completely missing the 'pop' that sounded behind him "Dorian fancies Audrey Beridore?!" Then he noticed that both Joscelind and Dorian were standing, wands out facing someone behind him.

Oliver turned, seeing Percy standing with his hands up, wand in his robes and looking extremely worse for wear. His face and neck were covered in bruises, it appeared he was in quite the fight.

"Okay, um, Joscelind, Dorian, it's Percy, you can put your wands down."

"He could be someone else." Joscelind responded.

"Or acting under the Imperius." Added Dorian. Percy spared a dry glance at him.

"Oh for Merlin's sake fine!" Oliver exclaimed, turning to Percy he asked "After winning the Quidditch Cup I returned to our dorm with…?"

Percy smirked "You managed, between winning and the start of the party in some way I still do not know, to smuggle three bottles of firewhiskey into our room and the two of us being the only male Gryffindor seventh years available to celebrate got thoroughly smashed. You managed to get out into the common room to join the rest of the party, and I had to vomit. And no, I didn't bother stopping that party."

"Right. Well Percy, good to see you, I see you got my message to come here. These are my teammates Joscelind Wadcock and Dorian Nox, I believe you met saw them on Wednesday. We're holing up here until things…calm down a bit, especially seeing as how we're all temporarily out of a job now that Quidditch has been cancelled."

"That really all you can think of right now Oliver? Still Quidditch? This is beyond Quidditch Oliver!" Percy moved closer to the three, Joscelind had put her wand away but Dorian was still tense. The redhead spoke softer "It was wiser of you actually to suggest I meet you here. The Apparation office can't track where we go, and patronus communication is one of the most dependable and secure means left. They will be checking owl post now and monitoring all the Floo-networks. Besides, I'm sure I'm being watched, I left the lights out in my flat from the moment I arrived home after work, they likely think I've collapsed. They were right."

"Percy." Oliver put a hand on his former roomate's shoulder and sat him down on the sofa next to Joscelind. "What happened today? We've only heard rumours." Percy looked at his teammates "You can trust everyone here Percy."

Percy looked at the three of them, grit his teeth in determination and spoke in a soft voice. Leaving out the reason why he was in the Hall of Records in the first place, he told them everything: that Death Eaters and therefore the Dark Lord had indeed taken over the Ministry. He had realized after returning home that Thicknesse was most likely under the Imperius curse, being controlled by one of the other Death Eaters who he had seen. Percy also explained to them the nature of the Hall of Records, the murder of Thomas Yeats, the muggleborn Ravenclaw, as an example, and of how Thicknesse was going to collect the names of all the muggle borns Britain and Ireland. Percy finished this last with a look at Joscelind.

That left them all in silence.

"So…why come to me?" Oliver asked.

"Because I need help Oliver, I can't go to my family or they'll kill someone else, I can't trust anyone at the Ministry because I don't know who's on what side, they're going to be watching me very closely, and I definitely need someone I can trust to help me hide the muggle-borns."

Oliver's eyes grew large at the enormity of the task, but he nodded, knowing somehow it had to be done.

"I also need your help to find Audrey Beridore."

"Audrey's a half-blood, don't tell me the Ministry's also going to kill half-bloods as well." Dorian sneered.

"Audrey's father was a muggle and her mother was a witch yes, but a muggle-born one. That's really pushing the line." Joscelind added.

"This isn't about her blood status." Percy sighed. "Look, it's about the fact that as of right now, she's a non-citizen and in fact a non-entity in the Isles. Once that's discovered, that could cause some problems."

"What?!" Dorian fell back trying to figure out how what he heard was possible. "The Hall of Records, was her record destroyed during the battle?"

"I need to discuss that with Ms. Beridore alone." Percy responded with a shadow of his pompous tone, "You do understand that the business of her record is for her only. I happen to know it just because I was at the place at the time."

The two men glared at each other for a time until Joscelind finally stood and whacked them both in the back of the heads, "Enough boys! I don't want to even smell testosterone until this mess is over and we have the time to fight over these things!"

"I can find Audrey." Oliver declared, breaking the tension. "But I think that it'd be a bad idea for us to split up too much. Percy, I think you should come with me, we can side-along apparate, that way you can…say what you need to say as quickly as possible. Dorian and Joscelind, hold the fort here. Joscelind, no one should know you're here. Be careful around the windows." Dorian looked like he was about to object but Oliver gave him a look that silenced him. "Stay with Joscelind Dorian, you're better at most spells than me you bloody Ravenclaw. You're better able to conceal her."

"Oliver," it was Percy again, "This isn't just about talking to her, she has to go into hiding. We need to identify safehouses to hide the muggle-borns."

"Safehouses…" Joscelind stared at the floor, looking very sick. Dorian sat next to her on the sofa and put a reassuring arm around her shoulders. He remembered the safehouses and fear from childhood too.

"Anyway, you're right Oliver, we need to stop wasting time here, we need to find Audrey. Maybe we can get her to come here and with an extra head we can plan from there." Percy and Oliver stood.

"She lives in a muggle area Percy, so we'll have to be careful who sees us."

Percy nodded. Oliver told him the location and they both disappeared with a pop.