Fortinbras jabbed her wand into the nearest woolly posterior causing the sheep to struggle, bleating, out of the way. 'Finite Incantatum!' she bellowed: the creature bounded forward as if stung to become wedged amongst other sheep. It gave Fortinbras a filthy look over its shoulder.
'It's no good, they're real sheep,' yelled Gates, over the din. He'd taken refuge on top of his desk and what could be seen of him, above the partition, looked distinctly the worse for wear and tear.
Fortinbras tried again. 'Stupefy!'
'SOMEONE'S done some very clever spell work or they're too stupid to STUPEFY.'
A few stinging hexes parted the heaving tide of thigh-high, off-white wool. 'Oops!' Fortinbras caught Tonks before she could fall.
'Bit slippery underfoot,' Tonks apologised.
'That would be the sheep shit. Looks at though someone doesn't think much of Ministry personnel,' mused Fortinbras. Further hexes allowed the women to reach the older Auror's desk and scramble on top. It had been extremely slippery underfoot and it was with relief that Tonks gazed out from this vantage point to discover that, over by the lifts, the beginnings of order were being restored. 'INCARCEROUS! Silencio!'
'Do a lot of that where you come from, Mad Eye?' jeered a voice.
'Watch it, sonny,' barked Moody. 'Incarcerous! Incarcerous!'
'Only asking, Alastor!'
Incarcerous!'
'Oi! Is that reasonable, I ask you? Is that nice? Oof!' A curly-horned head collided with the rope wrapped Auror. 'Alastor! Take it off, you git!' Comically slowly and still bleating, he toppled to be lost under the seething sea of sheep.
'Where did they come from?' asked Tonks as others began to follow Moody's lead in dealing with the unruly flock, quick to realise that this had, at least, the advantage of any retaliation happening at ground level. Sheep, they were discovering, would bite anything they could reach.
'Apparently,' began a voice from behind a partition; Tonks peered over to find Styles curled up comfortably on top of a desk, 'some wicked person transfigured them into teacups and put them on the tea trolley and they reverted when they got wet.'
'Just unfortunate about the werewolves,' put in Gates. 'Sheep don't like werewolves. Tend to crap themselves and run about. See that clean patch in Umbridge's doorway?' Tonks looked. There was a definite area of blue, rather than muddy brown, suggestive of something person-in-robes-shaped having been peeled off it. 'Poor woman got badly trampled when she opened the door; Dawlish had to take her to Saint Mungo's.
This isn't funny thought Tonks. 'Nothing to do with you?' she suggested, coldly.
'Course not,' replied Styles. 'And stop panicking: Potter's already sneaked Remus and his little friend out under an invisibility cloak. Here you go, they left you a note.'
Tonks took the crumpled paper and slid down the partition onto her bottom. Dora, Thanks for lending us the cottage. If I hadn't actually tried it I'd always have wondered if it might have worked out, I mean living amongst . . . Something was scribbled out. So sorry, love. Be happy. Remus. The familiar, rounded lettering began to blur and Tonks tried not to sniff.
'Bugger,' announced Fortinbras, dropping onto her knees on the desk beside her. 'Here,' she said. Tonks accepted the tissues and then, reluctantly, the keys to the cottage. 'Probably best if they stay out of the way for a while,' she said gently.
'But they wouldn't have done that.' Tonks blew her nose. 'Well Remus wouldn't.'
'I know.' Fortinbras became all business. 'McLaggan's just arrived and gone into Umbridge's office. You need to go and file those Animagus papers.' She scrambled down, slipped her arm around her younger colleague's shoulders and slid her gently off the desk.
From the cubicle, Tonks could see not only her own desk but also the sheep that were under it balefully chewing documents. 'The Registration papers: what colour were they?' she asked.
'Pink,' replied Fortinbras, turning. 'Damn. You'll need to get some more from the Dormouse. Better not call him that. Mr. Thomas of Animagus Registration. It's afternoon so it's probably on the fifth floor. Right at the far end of the corridor.'
'And where is it, probably, in the morning?'
'Mostly the fourth floor. That area of the building's unstable.' Fortinbras propelled her gently through the struggling, rope bound flock. 'So don't put anything down; not if you value it.' Summoning the lift, she turned to Tonks and smiled. 'It's good to have you back.'
&
'Hello?'
There had been no reply to her knocking so Tonks pushed open the door and walked into a shadowy, open space; greenish illumination from an overhead bulb revealing a desk, a single filing cabinet and a large chair occupied by a man, curled up and apparently fast asleep. On the bare, wooden floor, a circle was marked around the furniture in grubby white paint. The walls to the sides were lost in darkness while the room beyond the furniture was screened by heavy, black curtains of some low-grade material that looked to have been frequently and badly mended, extending upwards into obscurity.
'Hello?' Tonks knocked again, this time on the desk. 'Mr. Thomas?'
'I was awake.' Tonks swallowed a smirk, wondering if the small man Fortinbras had called 'the Dormouse' talked in his sleep. Thomas shook himself briskly, blinked through his spectacles and then grinned maniacally. 'Would you like a cup of tea?' he asked.
'Yes, I would.' Tonks hadn't realised how thirsty she was. 'Please.' Thomas grinned again and a wooden stool screeched across the floor from out of the darkness to stop next to the desk. Tonks sat down and watched while Thomas pulled a tray from the top drawer of the filing cabinet. On it were tea things of fine porcelain and a red knitted cosy covering a teapot from which steam was rising.
'Milk? Sugar?' Thomas poured the tea and then frowned at the stool. 'Oh dear, that can't be comfortable,' he apologised. 'I'd get you something else, only I daren't, see. If I were to try for an armchair I don't think I want to know what might happen.' He took a sip of his tea and, cup in hand, promptly fell asleep. Tonks drank her own tea gratefully and relaxed. When she had finished, as Thomas was still asleep, she poured herself another cup. In the gloom, the odd, muffled noised from the rest of the building were restful. She could hear footsteps and a prolonged humming that she thought was probably the lifts and, on the very edge of hearing, voices.
Finally, she put her cup back on the tray. 'Mr. Thomas?'
Again, Thomas shook himself awake. 'Oh. Right. Now, what I can do for you, dear?'
'Animagus registration'
'Really?' He grinned. 'What do you turn into then?'
'A dragon.'
'Oh now you're being silly,' he scowled. 'You can't turn into a magical beast. Fortinbras sent you, didn't she? Bloody wild story about Death Eaters.' He bent to hunt through a bin that had been hidden under his desk and pulled out a rolled-up newspaper. 'There's nothing it that in the "Prophet". Here.'
Tonks unrolled the paper. The front page was filled with a picture of Scrimgour, Fudge and Dolores Umbridge, all looking very smug under big headlines. 'DEATH EATERS DEFEATED IN MINISTRY COUP.'
'See,' Thomas interrupted, 'Now if you've finished your tea, I think you'd best be going.'
'A potion turned me into a chicken and after that I turned myself into a dragon and one of my colleagues is . . . I'm a Metamorphmagus,' explained Tonks.
'You're Nymphadora Tonks?' Thomas stared at her. 'And you're not a nasty puddle of goo on the ground?' The grin returned 'Oh well,' he said, 'if you've done it once, you should be able to do it again.'
'I don't have any of the potion,' protested Tonks.
'You won't need it,' Thomas encouraged her. 'Did Fortinbras mention about this area being unstable? Just step outside the circle and try.' Thomas pressed a button on the side of the desk; a whirring and clunking accompanied the drawing back of the black curtains to reveal an enormous mirror. Thomas eyed Tonks appraisingly. 'Hang on a mo.' Opening the filing cabinet's bottom drawer, he reached in deep and pulled out a bucket. 'Right,' he grinned, setting it at the edge of the painted circle. 'On you go then.'
-
Yes, that is an appalling Welsh accent. Mr. Thomas enjoys taking the piss out of his non-Welsh colleagues.There are not enough Welsh People in Fanfic.
Cardiff is fabulous, even if they do sing at you in packs. Beware of the Brains' Dark. (Beer that does what it says on the label).
(Sheep borrowed From Rabbit and vJinxv but I put them straight back).
Braaaaaaains!
