Author's Note: And the story picks up!

Disclaimer: Do I really need to say it?

"MUM! DAD! JOEY! Joey? JOEY!" Audrey shouted. She'd been sitting the living room of a falling-apart cottage when four figures had appeared in the distance. She'd run toward them once she realized who they were, but immediately saw that something was terribly wrong. Her brother had collapsed the moment that Audrey heard the pop while the other three tried to support him. "What happened?" she gasped as soon as she saw them. Blood poured out of her brother's head and he seemed to have fainted.

"Splinched," the red-haired man who'd helped her earlier said, wide-eyed. "Let's get him inside." He muttered something and Audrey's brother (as though on a stretcher) floated toward the cottage.

XXX

"Will he be alright?" Audrey asked worried.

"Yes," the red-haired man answered. "He didn't lose too much blood and I got to him right away…I shudder to think of what would have happened if we'd waited any longer…" He fell silent.

Audrey stared at the wooden floor for a moment then asked, "Who are you?"

"Percy Weasley," he answered promptly. "It's Audrey, isn't it?

"Ye…..How'd you know that?" she asked suspiciously.

"You were in my year at Hogwarts, weren't you?" he asked pleasantly.

Her eyes narrowed again then she began to remember. "You're that really annoying Head Boy? That was you?" If he hadn't told her, she never would have guessed that it was him. For one, he seemed to have aged much more than the four years since she last saw him, though she supposed that the war did that to everyone. He also seemed much sadder and less stiff. He still seemed to have that serious demeanor, but now it was less about rule-breaking and now because of what he'd seen and been through. Finally, he was much better-looking than the Percy Weasley she remembered. There was no chance in her ever saying this out loud, but it was exactly what she was thinking.

He grinned slightly. "I suppose so. Was I really that bad?"

"Oh, yeah!" she said and for a moment, just a moment, it was like there was no war. She had just run into an old classmate and they were beginning to catch up. Then she remembered that he'd just saved her entire family from most likely being killed by the Death Eaters and that they were all still in danger. "Thanks for helping us," she said.

"What choice did I have?" he asked calmly.

Audrey surveyed him for a moment, but didn't say anything.

XXX

Percy and Audrey walked back into the room just as Joey's eyes were opening slightly. Audrey rushed over to him, but Percy just stood in the doorway, unsure of what to do.

"Wh-what happened?" Joey asked.

"You Splinched," Audrey said quietly. "It's when you get injured when Apparating," she added that the confused look on his face.

"Oh." He groaned. "What are we doing here?"

"This is where Percy told me to go," she shrugged and turned back to him. "Where are we, anyway?"

"My great-great-uncle Ignatius lived here. He died about two years ago and he left me this property," he said. "I've been fixing up this cottage. It was the first place of which I thought." Audrey almost laughed. Apparently, Percy still was a stickler for grammar.

"So, now what?" Audrey asked. "Shouldn't you be at work anyway?"

He shook his head. "No, I just got off work. I got your parents and family just after my shift ended."

Audrey nodded while her parents continued to look frightened. "What's going on?" her mother finally managed.

"Someone broke into the Ministry of Magic," Percy explained before Audrey could even open her mouth. "I don't know who or how they managed, but they helped around fifty muggle-borns escape."

Audrey nodded and continued, "It was completely chaotic! People kept Apparating to help out or Disapparating to escape. Only about half of the Muggle-borns there had wands so the ones who didn't were trying to find someone who did so that they could get out. I couldn't find you so I couldn't leave. Percy told me to come here and that he'd meet me here."

Percy nodded. "I'm sorry about the way I treated you earlier, but if I didn't, it would have looked suspicious." He politely held out a hand, but Mr. and Mrs. Simons continued to looked at him as though he would suddenly grow fangs. Finally, Mr. Simons reached out and shook Percy's hand. He dropped it very soon afterward.

Percy nodded at him and turned to Audrey. "To answer your earlier question, I have no idea what you're going to do next. You need to go into hiding. I suggest that you go abroad. Do you have any friends or family outside Brittan?"

Audrey shook her head. "No, but how would we get there anyway? Side-along Apparation would work great except that my parents and Joey are muggles! I'm surprised that nothing worse happened when you brought them here."

"You could always use Muggle transportation. You could use those…..what are they called? They fly and people ride in them….My dad spends his spare time trying to figure out how they work…"

"Airplanes?" Audrey supplied for him, amused that he had such trouble with the name.

"That's it! You could always use an airplane," he said rather lamely and once again, Audrey felt the urge to laugh.

"We don't have any money," Audrey pointed out. "They 'summoned' us before we had a chance to grab anything, not that we thought it would have helped," she added bitterly.

Percy thought for a moment, then finally asked, "Do you want to stay here?"

There was a moment of silence only broken by Joey's occasional groans of pain. Finally, Audrey said, "We couldn't do that! I mean, do you know what kind of trouble that would put you in?"

"Yes, but I also know that you'd be in worse trouble if you didn't stay here," he replied. "Look, you're the only one who can Apparate and Joey's injured. This was my great-great-uncle's house and that would be a good cover for why I'm here so often. No, look," he said at the defiant look on her face, "This was my great-great-uncle's place. I was looking through some papers about our family earlier today and according to them, my uncle isn't dead yet. I'm guessing that someone didn't turn in their report or something, but as far as the Ministry's concerned, he's still alive. He wanted to be cremated, so there's no grave to prove otherwise. You could pretend to be him," Percy addressed Mr. Simons when he said this. "He had lots of friends. You two could be some friends of his that came to live with him when he couldn't take care of himself," he said to Audrey and Mrs. Simons.

"What about me?" Joey asked. He tried to sit up, but lay back down immediately and Audrey looked at him worried.

"You're Hogwarts age," Percy said. "I don't know. If the Ministry came to see if my story was true, you're the only problem we would have."

"If we're going to make my father look like an old man, why can't we make Joey look a few years older? He could pull off being an adult height-wise," Audrey suggested.

"When my uncle died, he was so old that he couldn't do magic anymore. That happens often. That could be our excuse for your parents, but we couldn't do the same for Joey," Percy pointed out.

"Do we get to say anything about this?" Mrs. Simons asked weakly. It was then that Audrey and Percy remembered that they were in the room. "It's very nice of you to offer to hide us, Mr…?"

"Weasley," Percy answered, "but, please, call me Percy."

"Yes, well, it's kind of you to offer to hide us, Mr. Weasley," she said disregarding what he said about using his given name, "but we couldn't do that. We can't put you in danger like this. You don't need to worry about a family when….." Percy cut her off.

"And I can't let you go without knowing that you'll be safe. I know that I'll be in danger if I let you hide here, but I know that you'll be in ever worse danger if I don't hide you here," he said this as though it settled the matter.

"How do we even know that we can trust you?" Mr. Simons asked, suspiciously. "How do we know that this isn't a trap?"

"Do you have any information that would hurt or help the Ministry?" Percy asked.

"No."

"Have you done anything that would threaten the Ministry other than existing?"

"No."

"Can you think of any reason why they would single you out from all the other muggle-born families who escaped today?"

"No!" Mr. Simons snapped, impatiently.

"Then why would this be a trap?" Percy asked patiently.

Mr. Simons continued to look at him suspiciously, then finally said, "You'd make a good politician, son."

Percy tried not to smile when he said, "Good, then we're going to need to work on disguises…"

"We can't stay here!" Mrs. Simons protested then Joey spoke up.

"May I please say something!" he shouted.

"No, you're fourteen," Audrey said and she turned away to speak with Percy again, but Joey ignored her.

"What I was about to say was," he shot Audrey a glare, "that I just don't want to do that….Apparating thing again. Audrey said that it could have been much worse since I'm not a wizard."

The four adults in the room shared glance then finally Percy said, "Should we work on disguises now?"