a/n: Really, really not much to say. Except I appreciate reviews. Enjoy..!
When Elleyne next woke, she was extremely tired. It couldn't possibly be…
Staring over at the clock, she blinked twice. 2:00? In the morning? She sighed in disgust. This clock was supposed to work!
Getting up wearily, Elleyne walked over to her alarm clock before stopping and staring at it. It was supposed to wake her up at the time that would be best for her. Many a time had the clock saved her from sleeping in and being late for work, and many a time she had thought of replacing it with a Muggle clock for the sheer annoyance of not being able to fool the thing. 2 a.m.! There was just no sense in it.
Elleyne pawed her eyes blearily, and stumbled back to bed, trying to put a few more hours of sleep into her night.
The time that would be best for her, the wizard selling the clock to her must've been taking the mickey…Time that would be best for her…
Elleyne sat upright so quickly it made her head dizzy for a spell, and she had to lay down again for a second. Lying wide awake now in bed, she felt scared out of her mind by what had just entered it.
"No," she muttered to herself, "No, no. You're crazy. Elleyne, you're a deranged lunatic. No, no you're not. You just need to calm down, gain perspective. Take that back, you're talking to yourself. Trademark lunatic."
Elleyne sat there on her four poster bed trembling until her breathing became calm once more, her composure completely regained. Getting up, she got dressed quickly.
No time to lose, no time to lose.
Apparating to a Muggle shopping complex, Elleyne crossed the street to a dusty old shop called Purge and Dowse Ltd's. It was still very dark and there was no one in the immediate area…no one to see her vanish through the glass of the display window.
St. Mungo's was quiet, a drastic change from the usual flow of the daytime. Doris, the witch who normally took the night shift at the Inquiries counter, was hunched over a cheap romance novel, reading in the dim light from her wand. She didn't appear to have noticed Elleyne's arrival, engrossed as she was in her book.
Elleyne only took a moment to be surprised at the complete lack of people aside from Doris. Even though it was 2:30 in the morning, it seemed there were always at least five people in the room, whether they were Healers or waiting patients. Again the words best time for you echoed in her head as she quietly crossed the room and started up to the fourth level.
On the landing of the second floor, she almost ran into some sort of trainee Healer, who ignored her as he brushed past. She passed a couple of other people, none of whom she knew well enough to worry about them knowing this wasn't her shift.
Finally reaching the familiar door marked Spell Damage, opened it and walked down the corridor, her pace quickening until she reached the door of the closed ward, by which she stopped and leaned against the wall. The impact of what she was about to do had just hit her again.
Oh gods, what am I doing? I'm about to steal a patient from the hospital I work at, if I get caught I'll be fired at best.
Elleyne straightened up, remembering that she was already in danger of being fired if anyone found out about what she had done already. She had not only taken Gilderoy's hospital records out of the building and shared them with someone unapproved, but she had given him his mail and other illegal information. Everything she was doing was illegal, what did it matter now?
Not allowing herself to think any longer, Elleyne acted quickly, pushing the door to the ward open and coming down through the first row of beds slowly. Healer Loell, who was finished in the process of giving the wizard in Bode's old bed (he had been devoured by a trick plant a month earlier, making the news) some sort of potion, turned and smiled at Elleyne, looking puzzled.
"Hello, Ad," Elleyne said pleasantly, letting her eyes roam over to Gilderoy's bed before she looked at Adalone.
"Elleyne!" her colleague exclaimed in a hushed voice. "What're you doing here now?"
"I'm coming in early. Couldn't sleep for the life of me. Don't you get in over your head working this shift alone?"
Ad laughed. "Not really. I mean, sometimes, but it's not bad. It's really a one-man job at night. One-woman, that is."
"If you like," said Elleyne, thinking fast, "I could take the rest of your shift for you."
"Oh, I couldn't do that."
"How much longer are you on? Three hours? I've just had a couple of days off, see, and crazy as it is, I sort of miss this. You look about to drop dead."
Ad snorted, but nodded all the same. "You serious?"
Elleyne nodded.
Ad got a bit more excited looking. "Alright. You've worked here longer than me, so I don't need to tell you anything. Just…I don't want you to regret it."
"Like I said, I've sort of missed it," Elleyne shrugged.
Ad smiled, turned to go, and turned back again, coming in close to Elleyne.
"I know what you mean, by the way," she told her, like she was confiding a big secret to a close friend. "You know, it's supposed to be professional and all, but sometimes you can't help having favorites in a place like this, where they stay so long. Other places, they're in and out, and you can't really get attached, but here…well, you know." She grinned sheepishly at Elleyne, as if expecting the younger woman to get critical of her.
"Yes," Elleyne replied. She stared after Ad for a while after she left, thinking…
"What?" Gilderoy said, looking oddly at Elleyne, as if still caught in a dream. Maybe he was.
"I said," Elleyne repeated somewhat impatiently, "We are going to go to the apartment. Vanessa's apartment. And you're going to need to be very quiet, and very fast. We need to get back here before 6:00, so no one knows we've gone missing. I've sent Ad away, and there aren't many others around here tonight."
Gilderoy gave Elleyne a glittering, boyish grin, which made her heart wobble insanely. Or perhaps that was the sound he made along with it.
"Oh, that's wonderful, there had to be a way didn't there!"
"Ssshh! Since you're the more recognizable of the both of us, you should probably wear this."
Elleyne handed Gilderoy her bright green Healer's robe, and kept to the casual clothes she had remembered to put on under her robes. Once Gilderoy had gotten the robes on over his nightshirt, she beckoned for him to follow her, and opened the door experimentally, checking the corridor for signs of life.
"No one there. Alright, let's go," she hissed.
As they crept along beside one another, Elleyne looked at Gilderoy. He appeared pleased beyond words at the color of his new robes, and excited at the thought of where he was going. If he was scared, it didn't show very obviously.
Gilderoy and Elleyne passed through the Spell Damage door, and Elleyne spared a thought for the rest of the patients in the ward they had left. She had made sure to lock the door behind her, but she felt a stab of guilt for leaving them alone unattended. What if something happened, something like what had happened to Bode?
Forcing herself to only think on the task at hand, Elleyne continued down the stairs, Gilderoy at her side. They only passed one person on the way down, and he looked so tired and lost that Elleyne felt bad for him, and almost stopped to give him directions, when she realized there was an off chance he might recognize Gilderoy Lockhart.
Once at the ground floor, Elleyne thought she had figured out a way to get past Doris, but Doris had apparently gone to the loo for a bit. A cup of steaming tea was sitting at her desk, and a couple of impatient people, one with a fish's fins where his arms should have been were waiting on her return. The man's wife kept giving him withering looks of disgust, and muttering under her breath.
Gilderoy looked around him in mild curiosity as Elleyne pulled him quickly yet discreetly toward the door. Just a little bit, a little bit more…Elleyne thought she heard Doris's irritated voice…
And they were out, and standing on the Muggle street in front of Purge and Dowse Ltd's. A few Muggle shoppers were up at the early hour of 3:30, attempting to get some late Christmas shopping done, perhaps. A few of them gave Gilderoy's bright green robes a wary glance as they passed.
"The apartment is a few streets down," Elleyne told Gilderoy. "Hold my hand, now, and don't let go."
Gilderoy, who was still staring around speechlessly, complied, and they were gone with a loud crack.
Elleyne felt the strange, pulling sensation of apparation, and Gilderoy's hand tightened painfully in hers. With another crack, they found themselves faintly dizzy, and standing in front of a tall, thin apartment house with two levels.
"That's…" Gilderoy breathed, staring at it. He looked at Elleyne questioningly.
"That's it," she confirmed, a thought occurring to her. Walking up the steps to the door, she tried it and found it locked. To be expected. How come she hadn't thought of this earlier? She tried Alohomora, guessing, and guessing correctly, that it wouldn't work here. Well, that was good in part. It meant Vanessa Reid's belongings hadn't been removed from the house yet. But how to get in?
"There's an open window around this side!" Gilderoy said, coming up next to her, and jerking his head to the right, his hair flipping over in that direction.
Elleyne followed him around into the extremely narrow space between Vanessa Reid's apartment and the one next to it. Muggle cars passed them by at regular intervals, making loud and swift noises on the pavement.
Elleyne knelt down next to Gilderoy, the soles of her shoes touching the outer wall of the next apartment, and peered into a small, mouldy basement. The window through which she looked was small, but big enough for a human body, if the angle was right. She was going to climb in first, when she noticed that Gilderoy was already determinedly wriggling into the open space next to her.
"Roy, be careful, okay?" she warned, afraid that the drop might be too far.
Gilderoy winked roguishly. "I'll be fine," he told her, dropping so that he was hanging on to the window sill, and then dropping to the floor, with a loud "uuuph!"
Elleyne peered down into the darkness again.
"Fine, fine, I'm fine!" Gilderoy's voice came up to her.
"Right, I'm coming down," Elleyne said. She dropped onto her stomach and backed into the opening, sliding along on the icy ground. When she came to the windowsill, she missed it entirely, and her heart leaped into her mouth as she fell.