A few "This is NOT mine!" disclaimers:

I borrowed the "Caseload Triage" idea from Keryl Raist's "Shards", a saga-length NCIS fanfiction (incredibly epic, lots of personal and professional growth in all the characters, and plenty of sex, if you're interested).

I also borrowed the names of DMLE office leadership from some of my favorite superheroes. Most of them are likely to be throwaway characters with little to no dialogue, but either way, this is not a crossover story.

10 days after the battle

Percy accepted the position with the DMLE, of course. The Wizengamot meeting where they were outright fired, albeit with diplomacy, was challenging for Alicia and him to sit through, that was for sure.

Alicia also accepted Kingsley's job offer, and would be staying with the executive office as the Wizengamot chambers coordinator: scheduling court sessions and overseeing court scribes and the like. Alicia was devastated. In her own words "I'm being demoted from badass glorified secretary to an actual, boring secretary."

Percy and Alicia met up for drinks after being fired and fumed and ranted together about how unfair it was that they'd lost their jobs after saving the world. They'd both gotten more than a little drunk, probably more drunk than Percy had ever been in his life. It was cathartic, for sure.

The hangover the next morning wasn't worth it. And no matter how hurt and angry they were, they both needed jobs, and continuing to work at the ministry was...better than nothing.

Percy went into the executive office late on Sunday night to clear out his desk and hand over his keys. He slept fitfully, but arrived into his new office in the DMLE on Monday morning promptly at eight o'clock. Tonks arrived at 8:15, looking a little worse for wear.

"Hi, Percy. Give me a few minutes to get settled, and then let's talk a bit before the all-staff meeting at 9am,"

"Sure, take your time," Percy was in the midst of organizing his top desk drawer with exactly the combination of self-inking blue, black, and red quills and muggle highlighters, permanent, and dry erase markers that he preferred for work. He'd already set up his whiteboard on the wall to his left. His office was large enough to have a good sized desk as well as a small conference table and chairs, and though they were underground, his window was charmed to mirror the weather of the day. All he wanted to do was continue to fuss and organize and sort and get everything exactly to his liking, but obviously, rebuilding the country was more important.

Tonks appeared 15 minutes later, levitating a box full of papers and two mugs in front of her. She offered Percy a hot mug of tea. He took it, and they sat opposite each other at his conference table.

"This isn't going to be as thorough or coherent as I wish it could be. Teddy's not even 3 weeks old, I'm still breastfeeding and bleeding and under any other circumstances, I'd be on maternity leave until September."

Well. That was more information that Percy thought he needed to know about postpartum. Tonks was unfazed, taking a long drag from her very large mug of black coffee.

"Anyways," She continued, "I know that you and your crew sometimes call me Dora. That's fine here, but the entire office calls me Tonks,"

"I can do Tonks,"

"Good. I've got a few things to hand over to you," Tonks offered a large muggle 3-ring binder to Percy. "Here is all of the information we have so far on the Death Eaters in our custody. There are 4 copies of this information. This one is yours, so keep it locked up. It's self-updating, can't be duplicated or copied in any way, and all of the copies have been spelled so they can't be removed from the office."

"Okay,"

She offered him another binder, "This is the HR binder for all of our current employees. Aurors, support staff, then magical contractors and consultants, and the last tab is all retired aurors who are still alive. This has only 3 copies; again, keep yours locked up. The pages with blue corners are payroll histories and employment contracts," She gestured, "The blue-corner pages are legally required to be copied on request and given to any employee who asks for their own information. You'll just have to verify with their wand, name, and birthdate,"

"Okay,"

"Last one," She offered him another binder, smaller than the first two. "We have established contracts with professionals in the muggle world for things like forensics, press, interpreters, legal, etc. In order to bring in a contractor, a senior auror working a current case must bring you a perfectly filled out version of this form," She flipped to a page in the binder, "That form will be filed with you, along with any and all communications documented with that muggle contractor. There is an inservice for junior and senior aurors on this procedure coming up in three weeks and I'd like you to attend."

"Sure, l'll get it into my calendar,"

"Important to note," Tonks continued, "Aurors are not allowed to bring in their own muggle contractors; there is a strict vetting process. Junior aurors are not allowed submit muggle contractor request forms, and bringing in a contractor for a cold case requires a separate form submitted directly to me,"

"Why is that? Why so strict?"

"Any of our case records where we've brought in a muggle contractor are subject to review by the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts or the Muggle Liaison office," Tonks replied, "Kingsley ran a tight ship when he was here and I have no intention of letting that fall to the wayside. Muggle policemen on those ridiculous TV shows always ignore the rules in favor of their 'gut'. I have no intention of letting anyone's 'gut' make decisions around here...unless their gut is also willing to fill out all the necessary paperwork to go along with it." She took another long gulp of coffee.

"Alright," Percy allowed all of the information to sink in for a moment. Tonks closed her eyes briefly.

"We have a weekly staff meeting on Mondays at 9am, so you'll meet most of the support staff and a good chunk of the Aurors today. I think this first couple of weeks will be our adjustment period. The aurors and support staff have been working like crazy for the last week. One of your big responsibilities here right away will be to go through these messages,"

She offered him a thick manilla envelope, "There's a large number of magical governing bodies that have offered us law enforcement and military support, along with supplies and healers and everything else. The department of International Magical Cooperation is handling international aid. But getting support for the DMLE is different. Technically, there's a bylaw somewhere that says independent security contractors need to pass a Ministry background check or equivalent. Before we can let anyone in, we need their name, background check, employment documentation from their home country, legal address, physical description, wand description. Jesus, we probably need to know their favorite flavor of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean." Tonks ran a hand through her hair, which she was keeping short, dark purple, and purposefully tousled these days.

"So I'll be working my way through those contracts and documentation to get foreign aid in as quickly as possible?"

"Yes. Fleur did a little bit of it for me last week, so we've finally got French aurors guarding the death eater prisoners at Azkaban so my team can focus on working those cases. But that was just a scratch. America has offered their magical coast guard reserves, Canada's offered their mounties, Russia has offered members of their magical black ops team for...something…and we do need the help. It's just so much red tape,"

"Got it. I'll get going on that today.

"If you can handle most of that, it leaves me to figure out recruiting new classes of Auror trainees. We're dropping a few of the NEWT requirements, but that means we'll need to add in extra training time and coursework to make sure that everyone is up to speed. Which means designing curriculum, and finding teachers…"

"That could be something you could contract out internationally. I think the Canadians have a pretty similar Auror training regiment as ours, I bet you could hire instructors, or at least hire people to design the curriculum and incorporate international and domestic aurors to teach,"

"That's a good idea," Tonks made a note on a spare bit of parchment, "Anyways. Right now, our office's responsibilities have a triage system that my senior Auror leadership developed. They'll be presenting it to the department this morning," Tonks stood and walked to Percy's whiteboard. She commandeered his markers to write it out on the lefthand side.

Caseload Triage

Death-Eater Crimes (any and all)

Terrorism Threat

Kidnapping

Murder

Assault

Burglary, Property Damage, and Fraud

Serial Muggle Baiting or Violent Crime against Muggles

Other crimes against Muggles

Everything else

"Basically, my goal is to finish moving on all of the Death Eater-related terror, murder, and fraud cases and crimes by the end of next week. My aurors are collecting witness statements, forensic evidence, interrogations, etc. It helps that we've got all known living associates in custody, but once we start charging everyone with specific crimes and offering plea deals, I'm assuming more names will pop up, which means more people to find and arrest,"

"Okay, and everything else on that list?"

"Oh, I borrowed that from my dad's friend's cousin who works in muggle law enforcement. Basically, a mass terror threat, where a bunch of people are at risk of dying, trumps everything else. But a kidnapping, where one person is missing but probably alive, is a more urgent case than investigating the murder of one person who is already dead. More resources and more urgency for cases at the top of the list, things lower on the list are lower priority when we've got a lot going on. Make sense?"

"Sure,"

"Not to say that everything won't get investigated eventually," Tonks added, "I might loop in some of my retired aurors to work the more calm cases, if we get really behind. But, I'll deal with underage Apparition violations shortly after hell freezes over, or when everything else on the docket is clear, "

"Excellent," More aurors and other staff on the day shift were coming in now and settling into their morning.

"Any questions right now?"

"Just one, for now. Can you walk me through...who everyone is, in our department? Chain of command?"

"Yeah, sure. We used to have a more formal "who reports to who" thing going on, but its all a bit jumbled right now. I wrote it out for you," Tonks passed him a piece of parchment.

Chain of command:

Civilian consultants, informants, and contractors.

As needed, civilians will report to senior aurors and senior team leads

Auror Trainees (8) report to Trainee Program Supervisors: Murdock & Nelson.

Trainee Program Supervisors report to Assistant Director.

Support Staff and Analysts (13) report to Support Staff Supervisors: Smoak & Ramon.

Support Staff Supervisors report to Assistant Director

Junior Level Aurors (38) report to Junior Team Leads: Wayne, Greyson, Kent, & Lane

Junior Team Leads report to Senior Team Leads

Senior Level Aurors (23) report to Senior Team Leads: Stark, Rogers, & Banner

Senior Team Leads report to Special Ops Co-Chief or Director

Hitwizards and Special Ops Teams (12) report to Co-Chief of Special Ops: Queen & Allen

Chief of Special Ops report to Assistant Director, Director or Minister

DMLE Assistant Director (Weasley) reports to Director or Minister

DMLE Director (Tonks) reports to Minister (Shacklebolt)

"So eventually, the trainee program will be under my purview?" Percy asked.

"Yes, the only reason it's under mine right now is because there's so much going on. Something else I want you to start thinking about is hiring support staff. Start thinking about who we should bring in. Support staff aren't on as high of a pay grade as aurors, so the sooner we can get senior aurors away from combing through bank records and back into the field, the better,"

"What do you mean?"

"With all of the upset and the "budget cuts" in the last couple of years," Tonks' disdain was evident, "We've been working at about 60% capacity. Bill has been telling about all of the plans they have for financial improvements. Once I have the money, I have a lot of hires to make, starting with support staff. Aurors are trained specifically to be in the field; it takes 4 years of training, plus a certification exam, to become a junior auror, and another 3 years of field experience, 200 hours of trainings and inservices, and a practical exam to become a senior auror,"

"Oh."

"So I'm sure you can see why I'd rather not have a senior auror sitting at a desk doing basic research when I could have an analyst doing the same thing for half as much per hour,"

Percy nodded, scanning Tonks' list. He didn't recognize any of the names that she'd listed as team leads, but figured he would meet those people and everyone else eventually.

"If you have any questions about that, we can chat later? We've got a 2pm meeting scheduled with the Department of Magical Transportation about Floo Network and Knight Bus security, and I don't have anything scheduled after that,"

"Yes, let's talk later. I'm sure I'll have more questions for you, once I can think of them," Tonks smiled at Percy and gulped down the last of her coffee as she left his office.

Percy swung by St. Mungo's after dinner that evening, to see Hermione and Fred. Hermione was doing a session with the respiratory therapist, so Percy ducked into Fred's room. George was conspicuously absent, but Ron and Ginny were there.

Ginny was holding a small, muggle tennis ball. Percy watched for a moment as she tossed it carefully to Fred, who was working on catching it with his left hand. Then, after Fred caught the ball (or after he missed it and either Ron or Ginny returned it to his hand), Fred would toss the ball to Ron, who would toss it to Ginny.

"Hey, Percy," Ginny greeted, smiling, "Pull up a chair, will you? I'm going to go grab us some snacks," Percy grabbed a chair and joined their small circle as Ginny hopped up and left the room.

"We're just playing a little bit of catch here, the physical therapist said it would be good for Fred,"

"Like. Quit-itch. Quidditch," Fred agreed, stumbling over the word.

"Yeah, just like Quidditch," Ron agreed. Fred tossed the ball over to Ron, whose long arms reached and grabbed it even though it was a wide throw. Ron pitched it gently to Percy, who tossed it to Fred. Fred missed it, but it landed it in his lap instead of rolling away. After a moment, Fred slid his hand toward it, grabbed it, and then tossed it again.

They played for a few more moments, before Ginny returned with snacks.

"I grabbed some pudding cups," Ginny said, handing out spoons, "Percy, I wasn't sure which was your favorite,"

"Anything but butterscotch,"

"No one likes butterscotch," Ginny scoffed. Ron and Fred nodded in agreement. Ginny kept a vanilla pudding cup for herself, passed another vanilla to Percy, opened a chocolate one for Fred, and tossed the final flavor, banana, to Ron. The four siblings snacked quietly together for a few moments. Fred concentrated hard, bringing the spoon first to the cup, then scooping, then bringing the spoon to his mouth. His hands shook, and he gripped the spoon in his fist rather than holding it like a utensil.

"It. Moves." Fred glared. Indeed, the plastic snack cup slid on his hospital bedside table when Fred tried to aim his spoon into it and missed.

"Here, I can stick it down for you," Percy said, aiming a small sticking charm at the bottom of the cup and securing it to the tray. Fred nodded, smiling lopsidedly, and continuing to eat.

"Hey gang! How's it going in here?" George appeared in the doorway.

"George, you were supposed to be at home resting tonight," Ron scolded. George brushed him off, sliding into the chair beside Fred's bed.

"I did rest, took a nap earlier today, and mum brought me dinner," The circles under George's eyes betrayed him, but Percy noticed that it did look like George had showered and put on clean clothing before coming here, so that was a start.

"We played a bit of catch earlier, now we're having a snack,"

"Great," George glanced at Percy, "Hermione's done with her therapy session, I just popped my head in,"

"Oh, good. I'll stop back and see her in a bit,"

"I told her you'd be along, so she'd best ready her lip balm," George wiggled his eyebrows. Percy searched George's eyes for malice, but like the other night, there was only friendly, good-natured teasing.

"Wife?" Fred asked, confused. Percy blushed.

"No, not his wife, Freddie," George said, "But Percy's got himself a girlfriend," Fred grinned.

"Best. Weasley. Handsome." Fred said. They all looked at him for a moment. Fred's wheels were turning, Percy could tell he was trying to add more words, but he didn't say anything else, just grimaced.

"I saw Hermione when I first got here, she said she finally sent off a letter to the Australian ministry about her parents," Ron said, finally.

"Why don't I see if she wants to come in here and join us?" Percy offered, standing.

"Sure, yeah," They agreed. Percy crossed the hall and knocked on Hermione's door.

She was sitting up, reading a book. For the first time in several days, she was wearing a muggle t-shirt and joggers rather than a gown. The oxygen cannula was gone, too.

"Hey," He leaned over to kiss her, and she accepted, "We're just chatting over in Fred's room, if you want to come?"

"Sure, for a little while," Percy rolled over the wheelchair from the corner and helped Hermione into it. She was very weak, still, though he was pleased to see that after over a week in the hospital, she was starting to look less grey and more pink. Her eyes were brighter, as well.

"Can you grab that?" She gestured to a grey tank with tubing, "The respiratory therapist said that I can leave the oxygen off for an hour, but if I get light-headed I need to put it back straight away," There was, conveniently, a shelf on the back of the wheelchair that fit the oxygen tank perfectly. Percy tossed Hermione's favorite afghan over her lap and rolled her out of the room.

The others greeted her warmly, giving her gentle hugs.

"Hey. Granger." Fred greeted.

"It's Hermione, Fred," Ginny corrected.

"Hermione is terrible to pronounce even when you don't have a brain injury," Hermione rolled her eyes, "Granger is fine, Fred, it's what you used to call me in school anyways," Percy rolled Hermione to the side of Fred's bed, next to Percy's chair. Fred slid his good arm over to her and gave her hand a brief squeeze in greeting. Percy took Hermione's other hand in his own.

"Where's Harry tonight?" Hermione asked, suddenly.

"He wasn't feeling up to coming tonight," Ron supplied, "It was a long day of cleanup. We, uh, we found another body under some rubble. Harry found it, actually. It was tough, we had to call Marklin's and the aurors because it looked like the body had been cursed,"

"Do you know who it was?" Ginny asked, after a long moment.

"No. Someone older than Bill, but not by much. Nice looking robes, no dark mark. They weren't very...recognizable anymore. It's been a week, and that part of the castle gets a lot of sun beating down on it, and there was water from a burst pipe," Ron trailed off. "Harry didn't want to come tonight, said he was tired. I don't blame him,"

"That's totally understandable," Hermione said, "How is the clean up going otherwise? Percy said that the architects had arrived yesterday?"

"Oh, yeah," Ron brightened, "They're great, all of them. Two of them are muggleborn and have muggle architecture degrees. They were showing me all the math and measuring and planning and design work that has to get done before anything can be built. They gave me some of their blue paper from other projects they've worked on,"

"Blue prints, you mean?" Hermione asked. Ron nodded.

"I know that the Ministry, the Hogwarts School board, and everyone else is so, so determined to get the school ready to go in the fall," Ginny said, "But honestly, the thought of having to go back to school is right up there in line with 'detention with Umbridge', for me,"

"Are there any jobs that you can get with just your OWLs?" Hermione asked, "You mentioned once that you might want to go into something with sports, right?"

"Yeah. I've been thinking about it. Mum really wants me to go back to school for my NEWTs. She's, em...well," Ginny glanced at George and Fred, "She said that 'no child of mine is going to go off into the world half-cocked.'" They all burst out laughing at that.

"Didja hear that Fred?" George asked, "We're half-cocked, apparently," Fred grinned back, dazedly.

"Will you go back to school, Hermione?"

"I've been trying to decide. Honestly, I think I could pass the NEWT tests that I want to take with just a bit of studying, rather than having to take all the classes over a year. If Hogwarts was willing to offer correspondence courses, or let me take the tests by mail or something, I think I would do that,"

"You, Hermione Granger, don't want to go back to Hogwarts?" Ron looked utterly shocked.

"May pigs fly," Hermione said. All of the Weasleys stared at her. She rolled her eyes, "Muggle expression for when something impossible happens. Not the point,"

"I also don't really want to go back to school and have to wear uniforms and have a curfew and not get to see my family for months and months on end. I know a lot of my classmates really didn't like how few holidays that the Hogwarts academic calendar had," Ginny added.

"My parents didn't like it either. There are some muggle boarding schools my parents considered for me to attend that would have allowed me to go home every weekend," Hermione said, "That's another reason I don't want to go back. When I find my parents, I want to spend time with them,"

"If muggle schools let their students go home on the weekends, there's no reason why Hogwarts shouldn't allow that," Ron said, "Heck, it would probably be less expensive not to have to feed and house as many kids on the weekends. Maybe tuition would go down," Hogwarts tuition was horrendously expensive, one of the many reasons that the Weasley family had grown up so frugally.

"Plus, more kids home on the weekends would mean more kids could come to our shop," George said, "Imagine the revenue increase, Fred," Fred didn't seem to be following the conversation anymore, and only gazed at George with a puzzled expression.

"It's definitely something to think about," Percy jumped in, "I think I'm sitting in on a meeting in a week or so with the school board to talk about security for the upcoming school year. I'll be sure to mention that to them," He privately thought he might write a letter to his contacts on the school board tomorrow and pitch them the idea ahead of time.

"Oh yeah. How was the first day of the new job? Do you like working with Tonks?"

"It was good. Really busy," His siblings listened as Percy detailed some of his first day of work and the projects he was diving into. He was pleased as he watched them watch him, that they seemed to actually be interested in what he had to say.

What a strange change from when they were kids and he was constantly getting interrupted or told to shut up, that's boring, no one cares.

Fred dozed off, though, and Hermione pulled the oxygen cannula from behind her and slipped it under her nose again. She rested her head against Percy's shoulder, and he could tell that she was getting tired.

"I think I'd better head home," Ron said, beating Percy to it, "We've got a big day tomorrow, we're cleaning up the quidditch pitch," Everyone said their good nights. Percy wheeled Hermione back across the hall. Still in her chair, she washed her face and brushed her teeth.

The evening mediwizard came in with her overnight potions. One at a time, Hermione swallowed them down. Two antibiotics, a nutrient potion, something to help decrease lung secretions, and something else Percy couldn't name. They all had the side effect of making Hermione sleepy, so after she was all potioned up and the mediwizard finished taking her evening vitals, Percy gave her a kiss goodnight and slipped out of the room.