'Got you rattled, didn't he Potter?' Dawlish said before Harry could react. Harry sent him a filthy look and told him to fuck off – Dawlish did so, skulking away with a thunderous expression when Kingsley looked pointedly in the opposite direction.

'This was a mistake.' Kingsley's arms were crossed and he was leaning against the wall directly opposite the door. Harry sighed.

'We've got to search for this other Dumbledore,' said Harry, desperately trying to move the conversation onwards. Kingsley didn't look keen on helping him at all.

Percy's worried ginger head appeared from behind Kingsley's shoulder. 'How did he have that information Harry?'

'I don't know,' Harry replied, 'but he's got accomplices running around, apparently. We don't need someone outside this department coming across Albus Dumbledore, for God's sake.'

Kingsley eyed Harry before speaking. Harry felt quite distinctly that the conversation Kingsley clearly wanted to have with him was merely shelved for the time being rather than binned completely. He was not looking forward to it.

'The Ministry is empty, it's getting close to Midnight.' He said. 'We're lucky. I'll alert the watch wizards. Harry – sort your lot out.'

As Kingsley strode away, Harry was thankful he wasn't at all like Fudge had been. Then, Harry doubted he would be in his job at all if Fudge was still strutting around as Minister.

'Are you all right?' Percy asked Harry quietly. He looked tired and stressed without his glasses on. He was cleaning them on the sleeve of his robe neurotically as he looked at Harry.

Harry shrugged and looked away. He wasn't all right, really – he had spoken to a horrifying representation of his dead godfather. He had been faced with all the parts of Sirius that he had forgotten over time; his tiredness and his voice and the anger that always tightened the corners of his eyes. Harry felt guilty at forgetting these things, insulting Sirius' memory in some way… even if this man wasn't really him. If this was meant to get to Harry, then it was working. He hadn't felt this itchy under the skin since the first days of patrolling Azkaban, with all the Death Eaters shouting vile threats against Ginny and, eventually, their children too.

'We'd best get back to the others,' Harry said, avoiding Percy's eyes. 'You should go back home, really.'

Percy blinked at him. He tried again. 'You're not qualified, Perce… we don't know what's going on and they're probably dangerous. You're a politician, not an Auror.'

A moment of stillness. Percy's face was immovable. Somehow, Harry thought he had gone too far.

'I take my orders from the Minister himself,' Percy said eventually, some of his youthful pompousness leaking through the words, 'not from you Harry, I'm afraid – Head Auror or not.'

He turned on his heel and started off in Kingsley's footsteps.

Harry emerged sheepishly behind Percy. Harry could see that the emotions he'd been feeling had already drained from his face.

Harry's department were loitering in various states of disarray – Roberta Burbage's eyepatch was off kilter as she was talking to the Fogs siblings, and Thomas Cresswell's robe-hem was tucked into a dirty sock that extended out from his cubicle. The only two with bright eyes were Dawlish and Jean Fawley. Jean, in a transparent effort to escape Dawlish's unseasonably bad waspishness, was closely monitoring a cluster of teas and coffees as they brewed. Harry caught the tail end of her conversation with Thomas; she was complaining about the night shift.

The rest, still bleary and sitting in silence, turned to Harry the moment he walked in. 'The Minister's just gone to talk to Albert and the others,' Morgan Vance said helpfully to Harry, a large knot of hair resting behind her ear. Harry nodded, guessing she was referring to the watch wizards. Morgan had an uncanny ability with faces and names which didn't alarm as many as it would if she did not have the same temperament as Pigwidgeon.

'We have reason to believe there's another imposter in the Ministry.' He said to the room at large. Thomas sat up quickly (Harry thought he might have been dozing off) and Proudfoot, who refused to allow his first name to be spoken aloud, sighed heavily.

'So he is an imposter,' she said evenly, staring at Harry.

'What else could he be?'

'Well… practically everyone in the department is here,' Roan Williamson said as Calder Savage nodded next to him. 'We just thought…'

'Doesn't matter,' Savage said at the same time. He shared an uneasy look with Williamson.

'Just because we haven't found out the how yet means nothing,' Harry said firmly as Percy's gaze bored into him. 'It's been a matter of hours… Amber, Laurence, anything?'

The brother and sister shook their heads in unison. Harry often thought it odd they weren't born twins. 'We've checked for all the usual, but no luck,' said Laurence.

In the brief lull after he spoke, Winnie and Rupert walked in, laughing at the jaunty angle Rupert's collar was sitting at. They stopped still when they read the room, staring at Harry who was becoming uncharacteristically frustrated.

'Warren! Fisher!' Harry barked, 'We need you back out – there, wherever you've been. You can keep watch in the Atrium.'

Neither argued, yet both looked put out about being put on guard duty with the grumpy wizard who had weighed Harry's wand. Harry felt immediately sorry for his own unfairness.

He continued, calmer; 'Dawlish and Fawley, stay here – you're on the night shift anyway… Amber, Laurence, check the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, who knows what they keep up there, an antidote might come in handy…

'Proudfoot, best see if they're going to try and make a break for it, try Transport with Williamson … it's unlikely but if they manage to get their hands on a portkey, well… and there's a few lines of communication to other countries on Level Five, so Cresswell and Vance, you check there…'

Harry wanted to look in the Department of Mysteries himself, but he thought it would be tempting fate to wander around down there. It was also looking like Percy was going to be his back-up in this – no matter what he said, Harry wasn't sure how years of paperwork would help a wizard hone his duelling reflexes.

'Burbage and Savage, you head to the Department of Mysteries,' Harry announced. 'Remember to keep an eye out around the courtrooms, it's a maze down there. And I don't think I need to tell you to keep any body parts you're especially attached to away from their weird experiments. Don't go in too deep.

'We – Percy and I – will be covering Level One and Two… imposter number two might try and break his pal out, and it's Percy's workplace after all…'

As always, Harry's speech petered out without fanfare. Expectant faces changed to nods and shrugs and reluctant shuffling. Wands were drawn begrudgingly.

'Stay alert!' Harry shouted over the clanking noise as they paired up and left, one of the lifts already rattling away. Harry heard distantly a frantic Winnie and Rupert pleading with Laurence Fogs to let them know what on earth was going on.

Eventually Harry and Percy made their way to the lifts; eerie in the new-born silence where everything echoed twofold. Their departure left a dismayed Jean staring at her new mug collection and a simmering Dawlish with his arms crossed watching them walk away.

The light of Percy's desk lamp shone from the end of the corridor, near Kingsley's office. Neither made a motion towards it; they turned away from the Minister's office and began walking slowly towards the sea of desks that appeared grey in the dull lights.

'Can we switch the light on?' Percy asked lowly, his wand light flickering for a fraction of a second.

'No, Percy,' Harry sighed.

They moved slowly around the outside of the room, not because of suspicion but in respect of the quietness of night-time. Percy's hair seemed to be the only colour in the landscape (speckles of grey aside) and even that was washed out to look sickly.

They had just reached a mountainous filing cabinet when Percy stood up straighter and shuffled a little. 'Are you going to tell me how you think he knew those things, Harry?'

'How could I know that? You know just as much as I do. Why do you mind so much? That's the second time you've asked me.'

'I just think it's odd. You do too – I can tell. It's not as if how he escaped Azkaban is common knowledge, is it? Let alone escaping that second time. Even I didn't know. You three are hardly big talkers.'

'I can't really be discussing this with you,' Harry said through gritted teeth. He wasn't exactly lying, but he certainly would be if he claimed he didn't divulge all sorts of information that was technically sensitive to Ginny, or Ron and Hermione… and sometimes George or Teddy…

Harry was beginning to remember why he usually aimed to be at the other end of the table from Percy at Christmas. If it wasn't legislation that even Hermione found dry in the face of turkey and Christmas crackers, his conversation was a strange mix of pomposity and eagerness. Harry desperately wished Ron or Neville were still Aurors so they could be here rather than Percy, and then felt immediately guilty for thinking about how much he liked to avoid his brother-in-law – and how adept he usually was at it too – and vowed to be more patient. Even in the face of annoyance that he had to watch Percy's back should anything actually happen. Even if that didn't look likely.

Percy was unperturbed. 'Well we must talk about something while we're here. Do you know where Kingsley is?'

Why couldn't they just talk about the kids? Harry pleaded privately. Then – 'no idea. Perhaps tracking down the watch wizards, I've heard they tend to wander about a bit on the night shift to wake themselves up.'

'Shouldn't you know where he is, in case? As Head Auror?' Percy said in a weighted tone. 'What if it's someone with Dumbledore's power, or even, well—'

'Merlin's balls, Percy, how could be Dumbledore? And Kingsley can hold his own. He was an Auror. And have you ever tried forcing him to wait before getting in on the action? No chance.'

'I have, as a matter of fact,' Percy said coolly. 'I am a key advisor of his.'

Dully, Harry kicked himself. They walked in silence for a further uncomfortable five minutes. Harry desperately wracked his brains for something to say that was unrelated to anything immediately important.

'My wand changed.'

'What?'

'My wand. It was eleven inches but now it's eleven and a half.'

'Well, surely you've just made a mistake.'

'For twenty-odd years? Come on, Perce.'

Harry and Percy turned to look at each other head-on. 'There's barely any records of that happening. Hardly any at all.'

Alarmed, Harry shone his wand directly into Percy's face where he spluttered as he was blinded. 'It's happened before!' Harry said loudly, 'there's records!'

'They're so old they're barely in English, I'm sure,' Percy hissed hand batting away the wand in question. 'Besides, I wouldn't even know where to start looking for them.'

'What does it mean?' Harry asked quickly, hoping it was merely an odd wizarding quirk that he had never learnt about.

'Well, I don't know,' said Percy, blinking, 'Haven't seen the records, have I?' Harry gritted his teeth against the frustration that bubbled up in his throat. What was it with bookish people, always knowing things but never enough to actually be useful?

Echoing footsteps rolled out from the gloom where Harry and Percy had been before, interrupting Percy's next words. They both raised their wands and turned on their heels, eyes swinging wildly from side to side.

It was Jean, heaving between breaths. 'They said – get you soon as – new ones – not Dumbledore – portkey office—'

'How many?' Harry said.

'Two,'

She raised two fingers to illustrate at the same time Percy exclaimed 'that was quick!'

By the time the three of them made it back to the Auror Headquarters, Jean was on the verge of an asthma attack, Percy's face was redder than Auror robes and Harry was breathing far too heavily with his glasses slipping down his nose to boot. They stumbled into the office where Harry had sent everyone off from before, to find organised chaos.

On the floor covered in ropes was a shouting woman with blonde hair and dark eyes. She looked as if she had only just been bound; Kingsley was standing over her with a grim set to his mouth and his wand pointed at her head.

Another man was backed into a corner facing the wands of Roberta (eyepatch askew), Williamson (collar ripped) and Dawlish (untouched but still looking the most wary). To Harry, he seemed below average height with a large nose and red hair. He looked confused over anything else, which was uncommon in those Aurors usually arrested who always knew they were up to no good.

'We found them in the portkey office!' said Proudfoot who was sitting off to the side, hand to his face and glaring at the man. 'He got a good bloody punch in when we found them too,' his hand came away with spots of blood.

'You can't jump out at someone like that in times like this!' The man shouted back from his corner. The woman on the floor stopped shouting to look around. 'What are you lot coming at me for? Where's my brother?'

Everyone looked around uneasily.

'I'm sure you know why,' Harry said as he approached him, standing only feet away from the man next to Dawlish. The man's eyes searched the room briefly before locking eyes with Harry where his own widened.

'Blimey James, you're looking rough! Why are you here? I thought you were in hiding!'

Harry looked at Kingsley, who looked back at him. All eyes alternated between Harry and the man in the corner as Harry looked around at the woman on the floor. She was staring solely at harry, mouth slightly open.

Above her, Percy had been looming, looking over her face with a crease between his eyebrows. Now, he was pale and looked ill as he stared at her companion.

'Merlin's Beard,' Percy babbled, 'that's – that's –' one hand on his wand, Harry rubbed his forehead in aggravation with the other.

'Oi!' the man shouted into the quiet, 'Why d'you have my watch?'

'My uncle,' Percy finished weakly. Kingsley swore.

AN: I am not particularly happy with this chapter but I have uploaded it because a) I probably never will be, b) this is supposed to be fun, after all, and c) I don't want to keep you waiting.

It just feels a bit too quick and a bit too full of lists. Clunky. And there's too much Percy and not enough Ron and Hermione and Ginny.

Having said that, I do really hope you do find something in it to enjoy though.