A/N: Here we go again. I don't own it, lah dee dah.

Nobody likes you

Everyone left you

They're all out without you

Having fun

Green Day

Rope

Louis Pringle really hated his job, sometimes. Hated its endless paperwork, endless owls, endless people through his door, day and night. He practically lived in this ten by twelve foot windowless, fucking oppressive prison.

Prison- the thought of the word frightened him. he'd received an owl some days ago, informing him that he'd been deemed "eligible" for a retrieval mission into the Ministries most feared and rumoured prisons. Louis picked up the rolled parchment, spread it flat, and re-read it for perhaps the hundredth time. "After reviewing your records, the Ministry is pleased to inform you that you have been selected for a top-secret reconnaissance mission…" A high, hysterical giggle escaped. Of course. He had no family, few friends- no one would notice if He-Who-Is-Not-Spoken himself walked into this office and Avada Kedavra'd him into next week. No one would find his body until it started to smell. So, of course he was perfect for this mission.

Two years ago, Dale Brickwell had stepped through the black curtain. A Ministry journalism team was present to chronicle the event. Prisoners who'd been deposited almost four years earlier were to be retrieved, moved to Azkaban, once and for all proving the Ministry's absolute authority as a perfect prison system. Dale had smiled for the cameras, waved, and stepped into nothing.

The journalism team waited for seventeen hours. And then they were obliviated, and sent home. In a small lockbox in the Department of Mysteries, Dale smiled and waved, blankly, eternally, from a lone photo.

The curtain was put on constant surveillance. It was generally assumed, by those who could remember, that Brickwell had been overwhelmed by the prisoners. They were all the largest and most dangerous men the Aurors had brought in after the Dark Lord's fall. Well, those, and one young girl who'd fallen in with them, somehow.

Alon MacFrig was sent in armed to the teeth.

Zacharia Beet was sent in with a portkey.

Lalli Stone was sent in with an Appareciento.

Daniel Fairchern was sent in with a Locatorie.

Louis Pringle was to be sent in with a rope around his waist and a pat on the back.

The people sent in had been of less and less importance to the M inistry, and the world in general, until they'd come to him. he was certain he was the bottom of the barrel, their last hope. No one could possibly be less important then he.

Well. Louis wasn't the type to object. It would never do any good.

There was a sensation of absolute blackness as he stepped through. Then there was pretty much nothing. He looked around nervously, licked his lips. He tugged on the rope around his waist. And pulled. And pulled. The rope piled up a his feet.

The Ministry guards looked dubiously at one another. it had been two hours, and it was beginning to look as if this, too, had been an exercise in futility. They pulled at the rope. As the coil at their feet grew to impossible size, they began to see the ridiculous impossibility of the situation. A joke was made about using the curtain as an unending source of rope.

And then the curtain was quietly relocated onto a pedestal in the Department of Mysteries, and forgotten by all but the Unspeakables for eight years.

Harry glanced briefly at the curtain….

Sirius grabbed vainly at the air as he fell…

No…