"Agrippa's ghost," Adrian spat out as his foot slammed into the door in front of him. The darkness had taken St. Mungo's suddenly: it was protocol, but the kind he'd never really expected to experience: the hospital, lights extinguished by diluted Peruvian Instant Darkness powder, was harder for intruders to navigate, giving Healers, who were familiar with its halls, an advantage.

"Pye?" He called out, hoping the Senior Healer was near.

"No," someone behind him replied. Adrian spun to see the voice's owner, but all he could make out was a vague figure. "Healer Tonks," the voice came again, a hand reaching out to shake Adrian's.

"Trainee Pucey," he replied, lowering his voice to match the volume of Healer Tonks'. "What's happening?"

Healer Tonks paused for a long moment, something which concerned Adrian far more than the sudden blackout. Healers were trained to be relatively unshakeable, able to respond in any situation, yet here she was, struggling to find words to tell him what was going on—or, he realized, how much she could tell him.

"What needs to be done?" He asked, changing tack. "We only have the three residents in this ward, currently—Gilderoy Lockhart was just transferred out a last week, so it's Agnes Witherpool, a resident brought in after a failed animagus transformation, and Frank and Alice Longbottom, residents suffering memory loss and lacking conscious awareness of their surroundings as a result of exposure to the Cruciatus Curse. Do any of them need to be transferred?" He rattled this list off easily, having memorized the information in order to be able to do so—St. Mungo's emergency protocol was for the Healers to, in the case of emergency, be able to describe the care needed by the residents of their wards to other Healers, so that they could continue to receive care even without access to patient files.

"This is Janus Thickey, then?" Healer Tonks asked, her voice, though still low, now sharper. Adrian's eyes, somewhat adjusted to the darkness, met those of Healer Tonks, which looked intently into his own.

"It is," he confirmed, then repeated his question. "Do any of my patients need to be transferred?"

"I think," Healer Tonks said, "That they do, yes. But the…administration may not approve."

Adrian's interest was captured by this: Mungo's had a board, but he'd learned in his brief time at the hospital that they were rarely directly involved; more often, the direct approval or disapproval for the Healers' actions came from the meddling hands of the Ministry of Magic.

"What's happened?" He asked again, desperate now, thinking of Andrew, Nerissa, and all the others he knew who worked at the Ministry, and whose actions had not…made them friends, to put it simply.

"I don't know everything," Healer Tonks admitted, "but a…friend in the Ministry sent me a warning about what happened there." She paused, then, seeing Adrian watching her, waiting, went on, voice small. "The Minister is dead, and the Death Eaters are in control of the Ministry."

Adrian's head spun with the news, and with its implications, his worry only increasing: everyone who had fought in the Forest—Andrew, Rissa, Diggory, Edgecombe, and the rest—were at risk if Death Eaters were in charge. He was at risk, here at St. Mungo's, because even if the hospital wasn't officially under ministry control, it was certainly under their influence. The question he managed to let out was not about any of this, however, but rather:

"Who needs to be transferred?" Healer Tonks, who had been watching him, looked surprised—the effects of the powder must be wearing off for him to see that, Adrian realized subconsciously.

"If there are Death Eaters in control of the Ministry," Healer Tonks started, looking grim, "then I'm sure Bellatrix Lestrange is able to get in here." A chill ran down Adrian's spine, not only at the idea of Bellatrix Lestrange, but at the fear that danced around the hard look in Healer Tonks' eyes, and at the careful way she said the other woman's name. "That's Bellatrix's handiwork on Frank and Alice Longbottom. And she's never been one to leave a job half-done." With Healer Tonks' words, Adrian's eyes drifted toward the curtains which enclosed Frank and Alice Longbottom's beds, and then he set to recalling every emergency protocol he'd learned—not to use them (they were far too predictable), but instead to know what to avoid.

"I do have a plan," Healer Tonks said, before he got too far, and he sent her a questioning look.

"It's simple, really—it will work," she promised. "It's only a question of how much of the law you're willing to break."

"The law being controlled by the Death Eaters?" Adrian asked her, raising a brow. "I'm more than happy to break as many laws as necessary."

"It's just the one, for now," Healer Tonks told him. "The tricky part will be keeping them hidden once we have them out. This way," she said, and walked through the curtain wall, Adrian on her heels.

"Hello Frank, Alice," she said, and Adrian heard the same tone in her voice that Augusta Longbottom had when she visited: a bit fractured, beneath the cheeriness. It was the voice of someone who had known the Longbottoms before they had been stripped of their senses of self. He looked at her curiously, but she remained focused on the couple, who had risen from their beds.

"We're going to take a field trip to my house, to see Ted—" her voice dipped a bit here "—and Dora. You remember my Dora? She's gotten so much bigger. Just grab onto this blanket, here—that's it. Make sure Frank is holding on," she added to Adrian, who stepped forward to do so, "and help him release when it's time. Portus."

Adrian reached for the blanket, reflecting for a minute that this was just the sort of thing that a Gryffindor would do—go against the establishment to save people. But he also knew that, in spite of his feelings of obligation toward the Longbottoms as a Healer, this was for himself: he wasn't popular with the members of that establishment himself, and going with Healer Tonks seemed the best way to ingratiate himself with the other side. For a Gryffindor, this would be an act of bravery, or even nobility. For him, it was self-preservation, pure and simple.

Still, he thought, there were worse ways to preserve yourself than by helping others. As the familiar tug of Portkey usage hit him, Adrian spared a final moment to hope that Anthony Pye had not been too very far from the ward, because Agnes Witherpool was very insistent about regular meals, and he didn't think he'd be back to give them to her for a while.

/

Andrew made it five minutes in the ministry before nearly running into a Death Eater—Rabastan Lestrange, he realized as he ducked into a doorway, which meant that there had, in fact, been a breakout from Azkaban. With somewhat more care—being disillusioned had, he realized, made him somewhat overconfident at first—Andrew slipped back into the hall and continued in the direction of the Muggle Liaison Office. He considered changing form, but wasn't sure the disillusionment would hold if he did, and anyhow, he wanted to be able to cast a spell whenever he needed. Checking to be sure no one was around to see, he pushed open the door separating the MLO and stepped in.

It would have been less disconcerting had everything been in chaos, had shown signs of disarray. Instead, it looked as though everyone had simply disappeared in the middle of what they'd been doing. Quills rested on the middle of parchments, the sound of a radio which must have been at someone's desk drifted around the room. Half finished sandwiches and mugs of tea or coffee were littered on tables across the room.

There were no signs of a struggle. Everyone was just…gone.

Andrew took a steadying breath, scanning the room for any indication of where its occupants may have been taken and finding nothing.

Likely, he reasoned, they'd been escorted out as a group, to be interrogated or…dealt with. Either way, though, there wouldn't have been time to spend on them now; taking the ministry surely required many more important steps. Which meant, he figured, that they were being kept somewhere for now. Andrew ran through the likely locations: the cells were too far away, and likely too dramatic an opening if they were planning to pass this transition of power off as legitimate to the governments of other countries, which Corrie had told them she guessed they would.

No…far more likely, they'd been taken to the DMLE and secured in one or more of the conference or training rooms, which were easy to monitor and large enough to hold the entire department.

Taking one last look at the room, he headed down toward his own department. The closer he got, the more difficult it was to avoid people. The Death Eaters seemed to have chosen the DMLE as their headquarters—unsurprisingly—and were milling all around the hallways, interspersed with ministry workers who hadn't managed to get out, or who had for some reason been instructed to stay.

"You'll get your new assignment Monday, Diggory. For now, Jugson will be happy to escort you out. There's nothing here for you to worry about."

Andrew had heard Corbin Yaxley's voice enough times to be able to recognize it with ease, and while he wasn't glad to hear it, he was glad to hear what it was saying, assuming that he was speaking to Cedric and not his father. Edging forward, he was able to see enough of the office which had just that morning belonged to Pius Thicknesse to confirm this—and, upon a closer look, spot a black eye blooming on Cedric's face. He stuck around long enough to hear Cedric argue, be promptly shut down, and agree to leave, his voice ringing with defeat, and then pressed on. The conference rooms were likely not holding potential dissenters if the department was serving as a base, which meant they were a lower priority, and so Andrew headed to the training rooms, smiling in satisfaction when he saw guards at their doors—a short-lived satisfaction, his smile quickly fading to a grimace as he ran through potential methods of breaking into and out of the room without arousing suspicion. He made his way over to a desk which hadn't yet been put to some use and ducked behind it, out of sight of the milling Death Eaters. After a quick thought for how stupid a risk it was, he let himself slide into his animagus form, not relaxing until he saw that the disillusionment had carried over, and then only partially.

He made his way onto the desk and over to the top of a set of filing cabinets in view of the guarded door, settling in to watch for patterns and weaknesses, hoping that what they were guarding was what he was looking for.

/

"We'll need something different in the long-term, I'm sure, but for now…" Healer Tonks trailed off with a shrug.

"They're comfortable, and that's what matters most. Their care can be done pretty much anywhere, as long as there's a healer," Adrian agreed.

"Make sure they're settled," Healer Tonks directed him. "I'll make tea. And then we can…compare notes on what's happened, and on what we plan to do about it."

Adrian got the Longbottoms into the beds Healer Tonks had set up in one of the bedrooms, having brought an extra in from somewhere else in the house. He wished that he'd thought to bring some of their things from the ward to make it more of a personal setup, but in the chaos of everything there hadn't been time.

"I'll be back to check in," he told them once everything was set up, and headed into the kitchen, where Healer Tonks handed him a cup of tea.

"Feel free to add anything," she told him, gesturing to the milk and sugar on the counter to her left.

"I'm good," he said, and she began putting things away. Adrian was bursting with questions, but thought it would be better to let her start, as she'd been the one initiating everything. He didn't want to ask something she didn't want to answer and accidentally cut off conversation entirely by doing so. As he waited, he got a good look at Healer Tonks. She stood tall, not only in terms of height, but also in her posture, her back straight and chin raised. Her movements were graceful in their precision, her dark hair pinned up and out of her face—practical, when working as a healer. And her face…it reminded Adrian of someone he'd seen before, but he couldn't put a finger on who it was.

"This way," she said, taking her own cup and heading into a sitting room near their temporary ward. Lighting the fireplace with a flick of her wand and settling into a chair next to it, Healer Tonks gestured to another armchair and told Adrian to sit, studying him just as he'd been doing with her.

"I think," she said lightly, "doing something illegal together means we can do away with titles. Call me Andromeda."

"Adrian."

"Thank you for your help today, Adrian. Before anything else, you should know that this house has recently received a number of protections which make it a safe temporary hiding place, though not so many that it can hold out forever against anyone particularly determined."

"And…do you know of anyone who's particularly determined?" Adrian asked, trying to sound casual.

"My daughter is part of a group who has been…loud in their opposition of the Death Eaters, and I'm sure there are a few who would love to get their hands on Frank and Alice, neither of which are points I would imagine are working in our favor. And—" Andromeda paused, a tight smile on her face "—unless something has changed, I imagine Bellatrix is quite eager for a family reunion—she's never forgiven me for bringing a Muggleborn into the family line." It was all said delicately, as though in an attempt to soften the blow (though there wasn't, really, a way to soften the blow of saying one was related to Bellatrix Lestrange).

"She's your…"

"Sister."

"Oh. Right." Adrian tried to think of what to say to that, but decided it would be best to move on. "Not that they know I'm here, but…the Death Eaters probably aren't overly fond of me, either, considering that I helped get some of them arrested a few years back." Andromeda raised a brow, and then understanding flashed in her eyes.

"You were in the forest at Hogwarts, then?" she asked, and Adrian nodded, thrown off. The battle had never been exactly common knowledge in the way the same night's fight at the Department of Mysteries had been.

"My daughter was there," Andromeda explained, apparently seeing his confusion. "Nymphadora is an auror, and came along with Kingsley Shacklebolt and some other members of their Order."

Adrian didn't quite know what that meant, and stored it away to ask later. He did vaguely remember the reinforcements the twins had brought, one of them being a young woman with—

"Pink hair?" he asked, and Andromeda smiled a bit and nodded.

"Very likely," she said.

The knowledge that the Death Eaters were after both of them, though it really should have been more concerning, seemed to have let them both relax. They were on equal ground and, though they still knew nearly nothing about one another, confident that they were at the very least on the same side of things.

"Do you know what's happened?" he asked, sure now that she wouldn't shut him down entirely.

"I know some things," Andromeda said. "As I told you before, Rufus Scrimgeour is dead, and the Ministry has fallen under Death Eater control. My daughter contacted me to let me know, to tell me that she was going underground, and to recommend that I did the same. My husband, Ted, went with her to speak to her friends about what we're going to do while I went into St. Mungo's to retrieve Frank and Alice, so he'll hopefully be able to explain more when he comes home."

"Who are her friends?" Adrian asked, and Andromeda considered him before answering with a question of her own.

"Tell me—have you heard of the Order of the Phoenix?"

/

It was nearly midnight by the time someone new walked to the door of the training room. Andrew had decided to enter whenever someone did, trusting that he would be able to overpower them if necessary, and that he would be able to leave when they exited if it was the wrong room, and would be stuck figuring out a plan to get out with Gil once he'd evaluated the situation if not. He flew to the other side of the room, diving through the open door as the man—Selwyn, he thought—entered.

There were, he saw, people in the room, seeming to have been gathered from various departments. After a moment he'd recognized Gilan as one of them. Ducking into the changing room to be safe, he transformed back into himself, removing and recasting his disillusionment, which was feeling rather frayed.

Selwyn was speaking when he entered, saying something about checks being performed to align with the new order of things—Andrew didn't hear all of it, but could assume that it had something to do with blood purity.

He wouldn't be able to help everyone, he could tell, as much as he'd like to get them out. They were in the middle of the Ministry, in an area which even at midnight was for now both guarded and busy. His mission objective would have to stay simple: get Gilan and get out. And to achieve that, he needed Gilan to be on the edge of the group.

Aiming carefully, Andrew sent a stinging hex at his friend, careful not to put too much venom into it. Gil jumped slightly with the impact of it, looking over to where Andrew was standing, but then turning back because—of course—he didn't see anything. Andrew sent a second hex and got a second glance from Gil, and this time he gingerly moved a chair near him—enough for Gil to see someone was there, but not enough to get the attention of anyone else. Slowly, Gil took a few steps back and to the side, so that he was near the outer back edge of the group. Before he could actually make his way over, which Andrew knew would be noticed, Andrew jumped into action. He shot a spell at the wall in the entryway, and everyone—including Selwyn—turned their attention to the new hole. The action served a dual purpose: first, it let Andrew know that, unlike the inner walls of the training rooms, the walls making up their outer spaces weren't fully reinforced, and second, it let Gil take advantage of the momentary confusion to begin heading toward where Andrew had signaled him from. Grabbing his hand, Andrew promptly disillusioned him and pulled him as far away from the group as he could.

"Come on," he said dragging him toward the changing room he'd used earlier.

"Andrew?" Gil asked, sounding shocked.

"Yeah—where's your wand?" Andrew asked—he could explain why he was there later.

"Probably off broken somewhere by now, they took them off us back in the department," Gil responded, and Andrew was grateful that he didn't ask any further questions.

In the changing room, Andrew headed to the far wall, which he presumed was shared by the adjacent bathroom. He cast a silencing charm and then smashed through the wall like he had the one in the entryway, this time with less sound.

"Go on," he urged, sending Gil through, adding "we'll try to help others later" when he felt his hesitation. Andrew followed him through the wall, repairing it as he did.

"The fires in the atrium aren't blocked, so we should be able to use those to get somewhere neutral and then apparate away," he told Gilan.

"My flat's hooked up, we might as well go there," Gilan said. "That way I can grab a few things—not like I can go back there to stay, now."

"Your place, then." Andrew agreed, and made note of the address Gilan gave.

They listened at the door and, hearing no voices or steps, eased their way out, careful not to let the door slam behind them. Andrew kept his wand poised and ready as they walked through the halls, glad that so many of the Death Eaters had left, or at least settled down somewhere to rest. Once they reached the lift, he kept having to keep himself from holding his breath each time they reached a new floor, until the doors finally opened onto the atrium level. Andrew walked out and heard Gilan follow him, letting out a breath. They headed toward the atrium itself, Adrian carefully making his way around the clerk's desk.

And then he looked up and stopped short. Standing in front of the fires, in deep conversation, were Corbin Yaxley and Denmore Fawley.

"Shit," he whispered, and let Gil grab his arm and pull him off to the side of the room, where they weren't at risk of being run into.

"They're just talking, not waiting," Gilan whispered. "We can wait them out." Andrew nodded—silly, he realized, since he couldn't be seen, but any words felt too loud. At any rate, Gil seemed to take his silence as acceptance. From where they were waiting, Andrew only caught words of their conversation: "education…instate…announce tomorrow." It was a chance to get information, he knew, but he felt suddenly small and afraid. When he closed his eyes, he was brought back to the year before: standing in the Forbidden Forest, his father's wand at his throat.

Finally, the conversation ended, Denmore leaving via the fireplace and Yaxley re-entering the ministry, passing feet away from where they stood.

They gave it a good few minutes before making their way over to the fireplaces.

"We're lucky as hell," he voiced, and Gil snorted softly.

"Yeah—let's not push that," he said, reaching up and grabbing a handful of Floo powder.

"You've got five minutes when we get there," Andrew told him, and Gil shook his head.

"They can find us in four. I'll be ready in two."

"Two it is," Andrew agreed. "Let's get out of here."