Chapter 9

She clutched the short piece of parchment in her hand as she marched through the house. The owl had just arrived and had quickly left after she had screamed in anger at the news it had brought.

She made her way down the main staircase and turned left. Her boots thudded heavily on the hard wood flooring in the reception room – or the small lounge as she had always known it as.

She exited the room through a small, heavy door and took the very worn, concrete stairs down to the kitchens. A lone elf scuttled around the large room, preparing that morning's breakfast.

'M…Miss Siona! I wasn't expecting…is everything okay, Miss?'

'Carry on, Pickles, my venture down here has nothing to do with you!'

She raised her wand when she reached the other end of the kitchen and it banged open, cutting through Pickles' 'Yes, Miss. Of course, Miss.' Down more steps she went, the lanterns lighting as she approached them and extinguishing behind her. She could see the bottom of the steps, striped from the large cell door at the bottom. She put her wand tip in the single hole on the large lock and said 'in the name of honour and justice'.

The heavy door swung away from her and she strode forwards as soon as she could fit through the gap.

There were two of the men she had hired for doing her dirty work sitting on either side of the battered and candle-burned table. There were two goblets and a tankard of something smoking in the middle of the table. One of the men had propped his feet on the edge and was leaning back in his chair. His hair was shaved very close to his head, Siona wondered why he bothered keeping the couple of millimetres of hair there, being blond you could barely see it.

As the heavy iron door slammed behind her, both men jumped in their seats. The blond with his feet up quickly replaced his feet on the floor and brushed the mud off the table that had fallen off his boots. The other man who, like his fellow colleague had short hair, but still had some length to it, merely looked up at Siona and then went back to reading the paper.

She walked up to the table and slammed her hand on the table top, the piece of parchment underneath her slightly shaking fingers. She withdrew her hand and looked from one man to the other. She was glad to see that she had grabbed their attention with her action.

'Read it,' she snarled through gritted teeth.

After a few seconds of them just glancing between her and the parchment the darker haired man reached forwards and took the parchment off the table.

Siona stared through the bars that stood six feet from the far wall and kept her eyes on one spot of blood on the stone waiting for a reaction from one or both of the men.

She heard a hiss of disappointment, or fear, she wasn't sure which and then through her peripheral vision she saw him push the parchment across the table and the blond man take it and read it.

When he, too, had sighed and replaced the parchment on the table she gave them a few seconds to start talking. They didn't.

'Explain how our test subject was discovered by IMuggles/I and then how the case was passed on to the IAuror Department/I. Quickly.'

She heard them shuffle in their seats, neither of them giving up the information she wanted.

'IQuicker!/I' she whispered, her voice barely audible.

'Erm. Well… there were… complications, when we were… disposing of the body…'

'What type of complications?'

'We were… disturbed… while trying to get rid of the tattoo on his chest, but-'

'Where were you when you were doing this?' Siona Snapped, still staring at the wall in front of her.

'B'hindpub.'

She looked down at the blond who had just spoken.

'I'm sorry, what?'

'We were behind the pub in Knockturn Alley.'

He had chanced a small glimpse at Siona and instantly looked down back down at the table.

'You were behind the pub in Knockturn Alley dealing with the dead body we had used to experiment on. Which, should it be found, could – if the Auror department decide to look too closely into this case – incriminate us all and more importantly, scupper the plans I have been working for a year to put into motion.'

Neither of the men moved or dared to look at her.

'That is correct, yes?' she said, her voice as quiet as it could be before becoming a whisper.

The blond nodded.

'I see.' She closed her eyes and took a step back from the table. Still with her eyes closed she took a deep breath and removed her wand from her robes. She opened her eyes and was pleased to see that the two men were looking terrified.

'Needless to say I am Idispleased/I with the situation and you shall be punished for your lack of commitment to my cause. IImperio!/I

The brown haired man looked momentarily relieved that he hadn't been the one who had been cursed, but his relief soon died.

'Kill him.' The demand was short and direct and the blond wizard stood immediately. 'And if you can manage to kill yourself in the process, it'll leave me with less dirty work to do.'

Siona turned on her heal, smirking at her last comment and let the shouts, screams and thuds wash over her as she climbed the stairs to the kitchen.

Her thoughts ran to her new predicament: she needed to replace those she had just left. This time however, she would take longer finding them, incidents like the one Jonathan had told her about couldn't happen again.

There was too much at stake.

…oooOOOooo…

Hermione stared at the very large pile of paperwork on her desk and sighed. It wasn't as if she was behind with it at all, it was just that most of the pile were her notes and she needed to find space for them. Initially she put all her notes in with the case notes of the relevant case file, but then she ran out of room very quickly in her filing cabinet and was politely told that the Ministry wouldn't get her another cabinet and that maybe she was hoarding irrelevant material and should go through all the case notes she had and sort them out.

She had nodded and realised that she probably was hoarding unnecessary material, but thought that just because it wasn't needed in the legal side of things, she may at one point in the future want to reference her musings and workings.

She had bought herself a simple plastic box and had bundled her notes into 'similar case' piles and shrunk them down so they fit in the palm of her hand. Eight months worth of notes were neatly stacked in the box with room for the same amount again. Perfect.

Except when she went to retrieve them a month later, enlarged them and realised – to her horror – that the ink had disintegrated and had become illegible. She was reminded of when her dad tried to print an image he had found off the internet at A4 size and wondered why it had come out all fuzzy. It was like all her writing had been reduced to 72 dots per inch.

Needless to say all her notes were ruined and the only comfort she had was that they weren't Inecessary/I to her cases and that she had probably made a very thorough mental note of anything major that should help her in the future. But it was only a small comfort and she had to try very hard to not burst into tears in her office. She knew it was ridiculously irrational, but that didn't stop her being upset by the whole experience.

So she had bought herself a very sturdy, very Muggle, very fire, water, acid, punch and any other type of 'proof' it could be, filing cabinet, which she then put a disillusionment charm on, to stop people questioning why she had an extra-to-the-Ministry-Office-Standard furniture in her little office. Probably unnecessary, but she didn't want to be seen as a hoarder who thought her words on parchment more important than anything.

The problem, of course, that she was faced with as she slumped in her very comfy office chair was that she had to file it all. This was one of the many reasons why she had interviewed for an assistant. Officially her new assistant was to help her organise her case files, make her appointments for her and juggle her professional diary, accompany her to court, answer her mail (owl, memos and interdepartmental), make sure she wasn't disturbed when she was busy and generally act as a buffer for the things that she didn't have time to deal with. She was worried that she would become dependent on having someone working for her as she had seen some of her colleagues become incredibly lazy once they had an assistant working for them, making them do every little tiny thing that would only take them thirty seconds to complete, but there was one reason why she looking forward to having an assistant: her precious notes would have someone to look after them and file them away properly when she was finished with them.

Once she had taught them her rather bizarre but familiar-to-her filing system.

Jasper was going to have an interesting first day.

…oooOOOooo…

'Oh holy…! Ah fuck! Shitting bastard wanker! Ow!'

'Um, you okay there, Jack?'

Jasper couldn't help be a little proud and amused that he had just floored his big brother with one punch to the chest. He hadn't even hit him that hard but Jack had hit the ground like a lead balloon and was now on his hands and knees rubbing his chest.

'Abso…lutely…fine… Why do you ask?' Jack looked up at him and smiled in a forced way that looked like a grimace. Jasper laughed out loud and held his hand out to his brother. Jack took it and winced as he stood. He brushed the dust off his black uniform and tightened the knot on his purple, silk belt. He rubbed his chest once more and took a deep breath before sliding his right foot backwards, lowering his chin slightly and bringing his hands up into the guard position.

'You sure you're okay? You hit the floor pretty hard there.'

'I'd be convinced of your concern if you weren't grinning like a loon!' Jack retorted, managing a genuine smile.

'I'm concerned, I am! I'm just rather pleased with that punch, that's all.'

Jack shrugged. 'Fair enough. I would be, too. But really, I'm fine. Shall we start again?'

They fought for another three minutes, kicking, punching, evading, striking and grappling.

'Thirty seconds before warm down! Try to take your partner down!' their instructor shouted from across the gym.

Taking advantage of Jasper's momentary distraction, Jack put his weight on his right foot and spun around to the left, bringing his leg in towards his body and then extending it towards Jasper's hip. At the last second Jasper realised where Jack was aiming for and managed to move a couple of inches to his right so Jack only scuffed his side. Jasper grabbed hold of Jack's knee with his left hand and pulled his leg towards him throwing Jack off balance, Jasper, still holding jack's leg swung his right arm behind him and brought the side of his hand down towards Jack's neck. Knowing this one of his brother's favourite strikes Jack was ready for it and blocked it with his left forearm and swung his arm around so Jaspers hand was trapped between his Chest and his arm. In a second's madness, knowing he was pretty vulnerable in his position, Jack bent his right knee and jumped, managing to hook his right foot behind Jasper's left knee which bent forwards as Jack had hoped. They went crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

'Bloody hell! I didn't expect that to work!'

They untangled their legs and sat up, Jack grinning and Jasper looking rather confused.

'What the hell did you do then?' Jasper exclaimed, put out that his brother had managed to floor him instead of it being the other way around.

'Honestly? I have no idea, let's put it down to a moment of madness induced genius!'

'Oh, well if there was no actual skill involved then that's fine! I don't mind being brought down by a fluke!'

'Fluke my arse! I brought you down last week as well, remember?'

'How can I forget when you remind me every time I see you!'

'LINE UP!' the instructor barked. Jasper and Jack took their places in the line that was forming and stood to attention.

'Standard footwork drills, one minute each, starting now!'

Jasper started jogging on the spot, bringing his knees high and trying to keep his breathing steady. He remembered how unfit he was when he started learning martial arts. Thirty seconds of jogging on the spot had him gasping for breath and barely able to stand. He didn't used to smoke a great deal, mainly socially and when he had been drinking, but after the first lesson when he felt awful after only two hours exercise, he decided to quit there and then.

Their session ended and they all filed out the gym towards the showers. Jasper and Jack walked to their lockers and piled their bags onto the bench behind them. Jasper found his towel and shower gel and set off towards the shower cubicles.

'Oi! Jas! I'm making a quick getaway, I have much work to get finished before tomorrow.'

'Oh! Okay then! Will I see you this weekend? Is Mum demanding our presence on Sunday?'

'I've heard some mumblings about another wonderful everyone-must-be-there-on-pain-of-death dinner, but I'm sure she'll let you know. If not, good luck for Monday. I know you're doing bits tomorrow and Friday but it doesn't really count. And I'll say this so to not embarrass you on Sunday, but I'm proud of you Jas. You sorted yourself out and got things together. You have a very stark example of what things could have been in John, just try not to fuck things up, yeah?'

'Aww, Jack, I'm touched, and I'll try my hardest not to fuck things up, promise.'

Jack smiled. 'Good, I'll see you Sunday if Mum decides to inflict pain on us, if not, I'll see you when I see you!'

Jack pulled his bag onto his back and started walking to the door.

'Yeah, see you soon.'

Jasper turned and walked to the shower cubicle. He threw his towel over the door and set the shower going. He turned it to as cold as was possible and stood for two minutes under the cold water. Not as extreme as an ice bath, but for him, just as effective if his warm down wasn't quite up to scratch, he revelled in his shivers and the tightness in his muscles. Just before his shivers turned violent, he turned the water to warm and quickly showered. He felt along his chin and made a mental note to shave before he arrived at the Ministry tomorrow. He already had three things in his mental list: iron his smartest robes, find a half decent notepad and pen – preferably one with no obscene doodles or messages on, and to find his Wizarding passport.

He quickly dried himself, dressed and made his way out of the leisure centre. He ducked around the back and made his way down the alleyway between the centre and the Indian restaurant behind it. Making sure no one was looking, he turned on the spot and appeared in his living room.

To find his twin brother battered, bruised and bleeding on his couch.

A/N: Please excuse the Graphic Designer her 72dpi reference. Ta ;)