Disclaimer: Harry Potter world belongs to J.K. Rowling, not me.

Rated T for language

A/N: As always, thanks for the reviews!

Chapter 14

Percy would have sworn that the weather outside the pseudo-windows was getter darker and more miserable with every passing second as he walked briskly down a corridor in the Magical Transportation Department. Every torch he passed flickered ominously as if acknowledging his presence, and the underground depth they were at coupled with what must be faulty heating made Percy shiver.

The trip to Thomas Sedge's office was a welcome break from what he had dedicated his morning to after Penelope had left. Horrified at the idea of Penny and muggle-borns like her leaving the magical world, he'd written what felt like dozens of letters, one to every Ministry office telling them to immediately start require proof of relationship before passing out any information. He wasn't looking forward to the letters that would inevitably flood his office in response—clerks wanting to know what exactly constituted 'proof of relationship', and angry people demanding to know why they were being denied information about their loved ones.

One problem at a time, Percy told himself sternly. He'd done all he could for the muggle-borns at the moment—now it was time to conclude and turn in his report on the breakout, and to do that he needed to talk to Sedge.

At the end of the corridor, Percy reached a doorway over which a peeling sticker reading FLOO NETWORK was hanging. He couldn't hear any noise coming from the other side of the door except for a soft, continuous whirring noise. With some trepidation, Percy pushed the door open and stepped inside.

At first, the office appeared to be completely empty. But after blinking and refocusing his attention, Percy realized it was actually quite full. In every cubicle—and there were quite of few of them—an employee sat, watching a small screen in front of them with varying levels of attention that ranged from completely rapt to totally bored. Percy approached the nearest cubicle, peering with fascination at one of the screens. It had a many bright silver lines snaking over a black background, each beginning and ending in a pulsating dot which was colored green, purple or red. It took Percy a few seconds to realize that he was looking at some sort of visual representation of the Floo Network. As he glanced around at the other cubicles, he saw that each employee was monitoring a different section of the Floo Network. Every time a person used a certain fireplace, one of the colored dots lit up and dinged as the path the person was taking burned bright white.

"Excuse me," Percy said loudly, causing all the less devoted employees to stare at him while others kept their gazes firmly locked on their screens. "I'm here on urgent business; can someone direct me to Thomas Sedge?"

"Oh, Weasley!" A blond head popped up from a cubicle in the back, soon to be joined by a hand beckoning him forward. "Come back here and we can talk."

"All right, then," Percy replied and navigated his way around the haphazard maze of cubicles. After being turned around repeatedly in the loops and twists the rows of cubicles formed, Percy was ready to have whoever had designed this layout jinxed. It took him nearly three minutes and some extremely curt advice from annoyed cubicle occupants to reach Sedge.

"Took you long enough," Sedge laughed good-naturedly, ushering Percy into his cubicle. "Come on, come on."

Percy edged uncomfortably into the cubicle, which was far too small for two people to be in it. Sedge didn't even seem to notice how cramped they were, just happily hopped onto his desk and offered Percy with chair. "Uh…thank you for agreeing to talk to me," Percy said awkwardly. "I appreciate that you must be busy."

"What?" Sedge grinned. "Nah, it's boring here. We spend all day monitoring our section of the Floo, looking for unlawful travel." He pointed at the screen behind him. "See? Each dot represents a connected fireplace. Purple for public terminals, green for normal residential fires, and red for restricted ones. Those are the ones we need to watch—you know, fires in old Death Eater hangouts, abandoned houses of convicted criminals, places they like. The Aurors leave it to us to watch them, so if we see any activity we call them to catch whoever is using those fires." Percy nodded. "But it's boring," Sedge continued. "There's never any activity on the red ones."

"Well, either way, I appreciate your time," Percy responded. He pulled out some parchment and a quill. "Do you mind if I take notes?"

Sedge's eyes widened comically. "Is this really that important?"

"No, not really," Percy said hurriedly. The breakout still had to remain secret—he couldn't hint on it to anyone, even a peon like Sedge. "I just wanted to know a little bit about the secure Floo."

Sedge's eyes lit up. "Oh, of course," he said cheerfully. "That's my specialty." He waved his wand over the black screen on this desk and the path and dots changed. The silvers lines became bright blue, as were all the dots. "This is the secure Floo Network. It's all in extended branches of the Ministry and in Hogwarts. Secure Floos are used in areas that need high security, but also need to be passed through by authorized officials."

"Yes, yes, I know that," Percy cut him off. "Because a secure Floo can only be used by the people it was verified with when it was connected with the network."

Sedge cocked his head, looking confused. "You seem to get the idea," he said. "Why do you need to talk to me?"

Percy took a deep breath. "I was wondering if it was possible for an unauthorized person to travel through a secure Floo if they climbed into it when the fire an authorized person started was still burning?"

Sedge blinked in shock, as if the idea had never occurred to him. "Well…blimey, I guess so. But to do it without the authorized person helping you, you'd have to be really, really fast about gettin' in there."

Percy nodded, brow furrowing in thought. "I suppose so," he replied slowly. "And I think I'm right in saying it would be very difficult to cram eight people in one fireplace?" Of course, Death Eaters escaping captivity had to be desperate…

Sedge looked utterly bemused. "Yeah, I'd say so." He shook his head a little bit. "What…what was this about again?"

"Nothing important," Percy said briskly. He decided he'd heard enough. He stood up, dusting nonexistent dirt from his pants. "I'd appreciate if you kept this conversation between us," he told Sedge, in his best stern politician voice. The one that told people they wouldn't do well arguing with him.

"Yeah…no problem." Sedge said, blinking in befuddlement. Percy nodded crisply and exited the cubicle, steeling himself for the arduous task of finding his way out of the Floo Network office and back to his own. "Hold on a second!"

Percy turned to see Sedge leaning dangerously far back in his chair, hanging out of his cubicle. "Do you…do you want me to get you the records of secure Floo use?" he asked, almost hopefully, as if he desperately wanted something to do.

"You keep records?" Percy questioned, surprised.

"Well, yes, but we only save them for about a couple of months," Sedge replied happily. "It'll take me a while to recover them," he continued, eyes lighting up with glee at the idea. "But I'll owl you as soon as I do."

"That would be brilliant," Percy said, and then swept out through the maze of cubicles as Sedge called after him, "Cheers, mate!"

Percy decided to cross through the Atrium on the way back to his office, to check the press levels and gauge what had been uncovered about the Diagon Alley attack. As the lift doors clanged open, he was relieved to see that only one wizard, sitting on the uneven, chipped floor where the Magic is Might statue had been taken down and furiously scribbling in a notebook, remained. As Percy watched, the wizard flipped the notebook shut and hurried into a nearby Floo, green flames erupting around him as he disappeared.

Percy's relief evaporated immediately and was replaced by pure shock and cold feeling in his stomach. He froze in his tracks.

Audrey was walking through the Atrium, walking toward him.

For a second, Percy was convinced she was coming right at him, coming to talk to him, coming to apologize. But then he realized how wrong he was; Audrey's eyes were glued on the piece of parchment she was holding in front of her as she walked.

Audrey suddenly looked up from her parchment, and her hazel eyes locked on Percy. Her eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened in shock…and then darkened. A cold stony expression settled over her face. It was a countenance Percy knew all too well—he had seen it on his father the last few years every time they passed each other in the Ministry corridors.

"I…I didn't come to talk to you," Audrey said, faltering after the first word and having to start again. Her were eyes dark and furious and terrifying. But she stopped walking and stood in front of him.

"Then why did you?" Percy asked, and immediately cursed his own tone. His voice was painfully cold, he would say emotionless if it wasn't for the hard edge of anger. He sounded like a complete bastard, but knowing that didn't quench the angry flame burning in his heart.

Audrey's face darkened further, and fury flashed over her features. "I'm here to actually do some good," she snapped at him. "Something you wouldn't understand, I suppose."

Percy felt an inexplicable stab of pain through his chest at those words. He opened his mouth to retaliate, but Audrey cut him off.

"I'm petitioning the Ministry offices to restrict the information they give out," Audrey continued, eyes glistening darkly with spite. "Which I'm guessing you don't want done, because it shows that the Ministry didn't do something absolutely perfectly."

With that, Audrey pushed roughly past him and entered one of the lifts, refusing to look at him as the doors shut. Percy stared in confusion after her, a hand slowly moving up to rub his shoulder. He had done exactly what she'd been talking about—in fact, he ordered it to be done, even though it would be overstating his position to claim he had authority to do so.

Fury flared in Percy's heart—Audrey was just showing yet again he had no idea what she was talking about. Percy was about to go after her, to throw this fact in her face, when someone called out to him.

"Weasley!"

Percy recognized Diocletian's crisp, loud voice and forced himself to tear his eyes away from the lift doors Audrey had vanished behind. "Y-yes, sir?" he stammered, automatically straightening his collar and brushing off his pants.

Diocletian opened his mouth to talk but then, eyeing Percy's clothes as he fussed with them, broke off. A strange look that Percy couldn't categorize passed over the man's face. "Do you…have trouble procuring wizard's robes, Mr. Weasley? Perhaps I can give you the name of a good shop?"

Percy felt an uncomfortable chill run over his skin at what that question insinuated. "I find muggle clothes to be extremely practical, sir," he said, after several seconds of struggling to find his voice. He was still speaking abnormally quiet. "I wear them when I don't have any official functions to attend to." Percy was finding it difficult to look Diocletian in his piercing eyes, but did so anyway, trying not to flinch.

Nearly a minute passed in excruciatingly painful silence. Finally Diocletian gave a little nod and continued as if nothing had happened. "Did you finish your report, Weasley?"

"Yes sir," Percy replied quickly. "Shall I owl it to you, or—"

"I'll send someone to get it from your office," Diocletian interrupted, waving his hand dismissively. "I was interested in your suggestions in how to rectify the situation."

Percy blinked in shock—it was truly rare that a superior of his actually asked his opinion. He stood up a little straighter and tried to shove Diocletian's last comment out of his mind. "Well, I would suggest getting a squad of Aurors to monitor the cells full time, of course. And to have a full staff of Magical Maintenance to keep the area secure. And," Percy hesitated. Diocletian raised his eyebrows expectantly. "And to put Healers on staff, as well. To counteract spell damage caused by the stunning spells."

Diocletian tilted his chin upward, as if thinking. "I'll take it under consideration. And your estimation on the competency of the Magical Law Enforcement workers in the holding cells? Are they personally to blame for the incident?"

"Well…" Percy had been mulling this over all morning. He could easily end several people's carry by saying that they were indeed liable, which seemed to be what Diocletian wanted to hear. "I don't believe so. I dug around a little, and I found that they put in several requests to the Auror Office for more security. I guess they never reached the people responsible for delegating manpower."

A flicker of something flashed over Diocletian's face. Percy swallowed uneasily. "I think we need to negotiate the use of Nurmengard and transfer the prisoners there as soon as possible." He look at the Senior Undersecretary expectantly, waiting for an answer.

"I'll send for the report," Diocletian replied shortly, and then swept out of the Atrium in a flurry of expensive dark red and black robes.

Percy tugged on the collar of his muggle shirt nervously. With one last look to where Audrey had disappeared, he returned to his office.