Suspicious Circumstances

4th June 2002 (Ron is 22, Hermione is 22)

HERMIONE: Ron comes home from work with an intense look on his face. He doesn't even see me smiling at him from the kitchen and tosses his jacket onto the back of one of the chairs and throws himself down into his armchair in front of the fireplace. He has a crinkle in his eyebrows and is biting at the hard skin around his fingers in that way he does when he's trying to work something out.

"Ron?" I call over to him, causing him to blink once and look round the room for me.

He really is troubled by something. He didn't even jump when I spoke.

"Oh hi, sorry I didn't think you were back yet," he mumbled while maintaining his frown and sitting back in the armchair and laying his head right back to stare at the ceiling, which only seems to intensify his look of concentration.

"Did you bring the job home with you today or should I be worried about something?" I asked as I moved across the room to stand behind him and rest my hands upon his shoulders.

My word he was tense. I began to try and work away some of the stress he seemed to be under. I'd been reading books on massage and aromatherapy recently to try and help Ron wind down and stay in the present more often. I think it's been working but I can't do anything for him when he's at work and that's where he's been getting hit with a magical seizure nearly every day for the past two weeks now.

"Sorry," he said before hunching his shoulders under my grip and then loosening them as he closed his eyes, "you're getting good at this y'know?"

I leaned over him and planted a soft kiss on his lips and watched as his eyes opened again and he let a weighty sigh leave his body.

"You know what it's like when you know you've seen something out of place but you don't know...what you've seen or where you've seen it?" he was trying to explain his problem to me without breaking his code of secrecy as far as work was concerned.

I frowned down at him and his face contorted with the frustration of not being able to articulate exactly what he needed to say.

"I don't even know if I've seen it," he rubbed his face roughly, "I'm imagining things."

"Do that a lot in your line of work do you?" I smiled with an arched eyebrow.

He looked up at me again and smiled back before shaking his head.

"I think there's something going on. There too many mistakes being made that can't be traced back to their origins and I'm getting these weird...never mind," he shook his head and put a bigger smile on his face.

Ah the fake smile, how I hate the fake smile. He got up from the armchair and shook out his arms as if he'd just been carrying a heavy load for quite some time and leaned forward to kiss me properly. As he pulled back he glanced over to the kitchen.

"So shall I make a start on dinner or are you doing something already?" he asked as I stepped in a little closer to him and directed his focus back down to me again.

"You're getting a weird what?" I said with a non-confrontational smile, "do I need to worry and pester you to go and see Healer Wanless again?"

He smiled a real smile this time, that's the smile I like, and curled his arms around my waist.

"It's not the epilepsy, don't worry, it's like..." he thought hard about how to explain without compromising security, I really dislike his job when it gets to him like this, "You know how you've read everything?"

I shoved him in the chest and put my hands on my hips.

"I have not read everything!"

"Well most things worth reading then," he shrugged with a chuckle and I moved back into his embrace and nodded, "That's a lot of information. You would have taken in lots and lots of stuff from thousands and thousands of books right?"

"Right," I nodded, knowing that this couldn't be about books.

"Let's say you see something, like in the street or the countryside, you see...a weird looking plant and you just think to yourself 'huh, that shouldn't be there' and go on your way."

I'm pretty sure this isn't about plants either but I nod my head and keep trying to follow his laboured explanation as best I can.

"So then you get home and you make dinner we chat for three hours or so about who is and isn't invited to the bloody wedding!"

I cast a theatrical glare up at him but is on a roll and doesn't notice me.

"And then we go to bed and at five o'clock in the morning you wake up, sit bolt upright in bed and say to yourself, wait a minute that plant's illegal or that plant doesn't grow in this country or...something. Your knowledge catches you up and screams at you to pay attention because you knew when you saw it that something was up with it."

"Ok Ron yes, delayed recognition of something," I nodded as I lifted my hand up to his face to try and calm his mounting exasperation, "so you're having your five o'clock in the morning moment now are you?"

He shook his head, and my hand away, before stepping back and out of my arms and running both his hands through his hair.

"No, that's the problem, I've been waiting for it to hit me all week but it still won't come. I've seen something, there's something at work that isn't right, and I can't put my finger on it. It's been driving me mad all day."

I pushed him back down into his armchair and sat on his lap.

"Maybe you should stop trying so hard and then it'll come to you. It's called a five o'clock in the morning moment because it comes to you as soon as you stop looking for it."

I lean forward and kiss him on the lips and he smiles, resigning himself to another day of frustration over this problem.

"Now please don't stress yourself out Ron," I say as I get up off his lap and move toward the kitchen again, "I've cooked for once and I'd hate for you to miss it."

My heart lifted as I heard him laughing while I leaned over the stew I had been paying such close attention to and swore under my breath as I saw it had caught at the bottom of the pot.

Luck never did favour me in the kitchen.

5th June 2002 (Ron is 22)

RON: I can't concentrate on anything. Not even making myself look busy whenever Carol, my secretary, comes in to hand me more paperwork to topple the swaying mountain that already fills my in-tray. I'm not even bothered when Parker comes in and looks down his nose at my in-activity.

"Agent Weasley, I just thought I'd hand in my cousin's application for the Auror academy next year before I go off on my death defying mission with the squad.It's good to see you're keeping on top of things and watching our backs as ever."

He knows what my job is now, the whole squad do ever since I did one of my disappearing acts right in front of Eldridge, and this seems to have just made Parker even more cautious around me than usual. I take the application and slap it on the top of the pile before putting both feet up on my desk and sitting back in my chair defiantly. Parker huffs and walks out.

I lean all the way back and try to clear my head. Hermione's right, I'll never have my five o'clock moment if I try to force it. So instead I swivel my chair from side to side and try and balance my pencil between my top lip and my nose. I hear Langley's voice grumbling from down the corridor outside and let out a groan.

"Don't tell me that prick Parker's reported me again," as I speak the words the pencil falls and I catch it and spin my chair to face away from the door.

I lean right back again and see a pencil sized hole in the ceiling just above my desk and wonder if it would be possible for me to throw my pencil up and right through it like a dart. I take aim and fire. I miss. The pencil bounces back off the ceiling and I catch it, lead pointing into my palm and causing me to swear just as Langley makes his presence known to me.

"Well at least you've solved one mystery," he said gruffly as I spun my chair around to face him, "now I know how I got that bloody hole in my ceiling. Do remind my secretary to give you a raise Weasley, this has to be your most productive week yet."

I was about to roll my eyes and begin to defend my attention displacement activities to Langley when an alarm bell went off in my head.

It was five o'clock in the morning.

I looked back up at my ceiling. It had been the ceiling. I had come back from a trip last week and regained my focus right on that hole in the ceiling and thought 'huh' to myself and then nothing more of it. Later that same day I had seen another hole like that in the ceiling above Eldridges desk and never thought to make the connection. It's been brewing all this time. A tiny hole in the ceiling is bit of an oddity but two in similar spots over somebody in the department's desk was something to pay attention to. Now I found out that Langley had one too. This was it; this was what had been driving me insane over the past week.

"Weasley, are you even listening to a word I'm saying?" Langley huffed as he attempted to squeeze himself through my door, in order to waggle his fat finger into my face I presumed, and I jumped out of my chair and ran toward him.

He backed back out of the doorway and I bundled him aside to run out of my reception area and out into the corridor. I looked up and down at all the various doors of people in high positions within the department. I ran the length of the hall to check out what Langley had told me and there it was, right above is desk, a tiny hole the width of a pencil. I ran back out of Langley's office and across the corridor to Eldridge's and took another look at the tiny hole that had set the clock in my head ticking to put this thing together.

"That's three," I whispered to myself before running out and into the briefing room.

Langley was waddling down the corridor from my office, calling out to me and demanding to know what on earth was going on. I flung the door to the Auror briefing room wide open, causing the entire Auror squad and Eldridge himself to turn and point their wands at me, but I just ran through the group and scanned the ceiling to see if the room with the highest level of security had been breeched as well. Harry was reaching out to me to get my attention and find out what I was so panicked about when I saw it.

A small hole right in the centre of the room, in prime position to read everything that might be put on the board the Aurors were assembled around. Maps, plans and top-secret information would be on clear display to anybody who cared to find out about them. I couldn't believe that somebody had been able to get away with this right underneath everybody's noses. There was no way this could have been an outsider. This had to have been somebody within the department spying on everybody else for whatever reason or other.

"Shit!" I hissed as I ran out of the briefing room, bundling Langley aside again and ignoring Eldridges' bellowing rage at a 'filing clerk' just barging into a highly confidential Auror briefing.

As I opened every door along the corridor, ignoring the protestations of secretaries and officials inside their offices, to see that every single room in the department had been compromised I could hear Eldridge demanding an explanation for my behaviour from Langley.

"Would you mind telling me what your agent thinks he's doing barging into a final briefing with my squad, glaring at my ceiling, swearing and then running out to repeat the performance throughout the rest of the department Frank?"

"Well he's just..." Langley didn't want to admit that he hadn't a clue what was going on and Eldridge didn't appreciate the hesitation any more than he did the breach in security.

"Oh I'll just carry on with my secret mission now shall I Langley? What with it being common knowledge now we wouldn't want to let the Death Eaters down by not showing up to be massacred would we?" Eldridge roared.

I ran back and grabbed Langley by the elbow, dragging him away from the fuming Eldridge.

"They already knew anyway," I panted to Eldridge as I pushed Langley further away to look him in the eye and ask him, "What's upstairs sir?"

Langley looked up at the ceiling, his eight chins straightening out into one bulbous neck before folding back again as he looked back at me.

"Nothing," his jowls shook along with his head, "just the roof."

I was almost shaking with excitement now.

"And how do I get up there?" I asked him.

"Agent Weasley I don't understand what you're talking about, there's nothing up there, the ministry keeps all loft space clear."

"How do I get up there sir?" I said firmly and with a squeeze of Langley's arms to emphasise the urgency of this situation.

"Agent Weasley?" Eldridge was over my shoulder, looking suspiciously up at the ceiling himself now, "Are you saying you suspect a department wide breach?"

I released Langley and turned to face Eldridge.

"There is a tiny hole in everybody's office right above their desk so everything we read or write can be read over our shoulders. There's one in you're briefing room sir," I pointed to the room crowded with Aurors, whispering and listening carefully, "in a perfect position to read everything you've got written on that board there and they can hear you too. They can listen to us all and they're probably listening to me realise this right now. I've got to get into the loft sir!"

Eldridge blinked once and spoke to me clearly and quickly with no emotion in his voice at all.

"End of the corridor, turn right, painting of black wolf, jump right through it and there's a ladder. How many Aurors do you need, they're yours?"

Harry, Cavendish, Davis and Parker all stepped up immediately but I held up my hand as I started running down to the end of the corridor, stopping them all but Harry in their tracks.

"I've got this, just watch the exit for me to catch 'em if they come down," I said before reaching the right turning and pointing a finger at Harry as he followed me, "this is my job Harry. You stay down here with them and do as your told."

Harry didn't stop running after me.

"If you do not follow orders I will put you on probation Potter!" I yelled.

Harry stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me as if he would like nothing more than to plunge me, head first, into a bucket of bile. He was going to make me pay for that but at least it stopped him.

I had jumped through the painting and clattered into the ladder that was leaning against the bare brick wall and up to a small wooden hatch in the ceiling. I hurried up and flung the hatch open, lighting my wand and pointing it around the darkened loft to see if an attack was coming or not.

I seemed to be alone but knew by far too much experience that appearing to be alone usually meant you weren't. I did a quick sweep all the way around me. Langley was right, there was absolutely nothing up here and nowhere to hide. I climbed up onto the floor of the loft and began to walk with caution back in the direction I had come from downstairs.

Then I could see it. Pinpricks of light cutting through the darkness from the loft floor, one for every hole in every ceiling, and I could see the dust swirling in the thin shards of bright light. They were like bars of sunlight forming a cage in the middle of the nothingness. I couldn't see if there was anything on the other side of it so I tried to give myself the same advantage anybody skulking in the shadows may have over me and my lit wand tip.

"Nox!" I whispered.

All I really seemed to achieve as far as visibility was concerned was to make the spears of daylight appear even brighter than before. I thought I could hear somebody breathing on the far side of the loft and edged as quietly as I could over to the side of the loft so I could squeeze past the beams of light without being seen. I had to duck as the roof came in and a sharp angle and it wasn't easy to keep my balance but I was getting somewhere when I heard a magically distorted voice call out.

"Depulso!" and I felt myself being thrust through the slate of the roof and out into the open air where I started to fall.

I grabbed at the splintered wooden eaves to my left and right and managed to pull myself back inside in time to duck the secondary attack while the hooded figure ran past me to get to the ladder and make his escape.

"Occuldo!" I yelled, closing the hatch and locking the hooded figure in the loft with me, "You don't want to go that way, they're all waiting for you."

I stepped out of the light that was now pouring in through the hole in the roof and back into the shadows. I watched as the hooded figure moved back through the tiny beams of light, causing them to flicker as he passed them with a snigger. I forced my eyes closed before the flickering got to me.

"No," I whispered, "I know what you're trying to do and I'm not going."

I opened one of my eyes a crack and saw that he was no longer amongst the lights. I took several steps away from the spot I had spoken and tried to find him in the darkness. He knew all about me. He knew about the time epilepsy and how to trigger it. He knew what I could do and that I could find him at any time but he didn't seem to care. This was incredibly unnerving.

I heard heavy footsteps to my left and spun around to cast a defensive spell but I was tackled about the waist and the two of us slammed hard onto the floor of the dusty loft. Neither of us could see a thing around us, including each other, and we rolled several times as we both fought for the higher ground in this fight.

"I know you're working from the inside you little maggot," I hissed as I landed a punch just below the ribs and raised my wand to put a body bind on him but he was too fast for me.

"Reluctor!" I was forced one way and my wand the other as the hooded figure threw himself down and jammed his own wand against my throat so hard that I almost gagged, "You and your department are going down Weasley. You've got to pay for what you've done."

I kicked him between the legs and wriggled out from under him.

"Ah so you are a bloke after all," I said as I swung a kick into the crumpled figure's gut, "that's good to know!"

"Adficto!" the wheezing wizard managed to say as I turned to search for my wand.

The spell hit me in the right shoulder and I felt the joint pop. My whole right arm was agony and I couldn't hold it in any position that lessened the pain in my shoulder. I tried to clench my wand hand but it sent tortuous spasms right through me and I realised that I couldn't pick up my wand even if I was lucky enough to find it now.

Hooded figure laughed and got back to his feet, he still looked fairly uncomfortable himself but he was definitely in the better position attack-wise.

"I hate you Weasley," the figure hissed as he advanced upon me slowly, "it's time that the blood you've had all over your hands this past three years be your own...Sectus-"

"Protego!" a furious voice bellowed from the open hatch to the loft.

The spell hit the hooded figure before he could complete the cutting spell and he staggered back into the angled roof before throwing a counter attack back at the familiar figure wearing Auror robes and looking more livid than I had seen him in a long time.

"Absisto! You should have done as you were told Potter," the distorted voice of the ministry mole shouted, "this is between him and me."

Harry had ducked and rolled away from the spell before firing a body bind that missed me by inches and was nowhere near it's intended target. He wasn't too good in the dark even with his glasses on. Something kicked me the back, sending agonising shockwaves through my right arm, before I heard the distorted voice again.

"Watch your back Weasley. Accio portkey!"

Something flew across the room in a blur of light and colour and the hooded figure caught it on his left hand before disappearing completely.

I'd lost him. I gritted my teeth and lay down on my front, kicking out at nothing as the pain of this simple movement sent a whole new kind of torture through my shoulder. I felt as well as heard Harry running across the loft floor to get to me. His steps were so heavy and the vibrations caused by them so strong it felt as if a thousand hot screws were being drilled into the bones of my arm at once.

"Here let me put that back for you," Harry said as he grabbed my injured arm and lifted it.

What was he trying to do kill me? I cried out in agony and pounded my head against the floor just to give me something else to think about but it didn't do any good.

"No get Ben, Harry get Be-"

Harry yanked my arm firmly and there was another pop. I admit it alright? I screamed my head off when he did that. Despite the horrific pain of the shoulder being popped back into it's socket I did feel exceptionally better and managed to sit myself up while Harry squatted before me and looked me hard in the eye.

"Awaiting probation sir."