The dinner started normally enough. Sirius and Remus had come back to Grimmauld Place the day after the full moon looking tired, but otherwise no worse for the wear than when they'd left, thanks to the Wolfsbane potion Andromeda had brewed for them (and which Adrian had secured a promise to be allowed to observe the preparation of for the next month), and it wasn't until dinner that all the current residents of the house were sitting together.

Kreacher, who seemed to be in a much better mood since whatever had happened in the study the past week, had brought out an old recipe book from somewhere in the recesses of the house, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione had prepared dinner for everyone—motivated, Adrian guessed, by the need to somehow kill the time. Sirius and Remus had their work with the Order, Adrian had the Longbottoms, and the twins and Lee, who had shown up a few days before, were shipping out products they'd brought from the store and working on a radio program. Adrian knew that the others had something they were working on, and that it was likely connected to whatever had put Kreacher in something next door to a good mood all of a sudden, but it didn't seem to take up their time in the same way.

Just as they'd sat down—Adrian a touch warily, unsure if he trusted any of them to cook, nevermind the twins reassuring him that Ron was quite good, having learned from their Mum—a bright light entered through the wall, stopping in front of Remus, solidifying into the form of a Weasel—a bit on the nose, Adrian thought, assuming he was right that it belonged to one of the Weasleys. Before he could ask who'd cast it—not to mention why—it began to speak.

Adrian couldn't quite place the voice, but it's message was enough for him to gather that it belonged to Mr. Weasley, sharing the news that Ginny had just gotten an owl from Colin Creevey telling her that Death Eaters had come to take him and his brother into the ministry for questioning, and that they'd only escaped by the lucky accident of being at a neighbor's house and seeing the Death Eaters enter theirs as they headed home.

"We assume this wasn't an isolated case, and that other Muggleborn students have been targeted, but we're rather tied up—Ginny getting the owl was risky enough, who knows who might've read its letter. But if there's anything the Order can do, I believe we should."

Adrian pictured Colin Creevey, eager and hanging onto each word spoken at the DA meetings, and intensely determined to get everything right. And Dennis, who was so small and had been so blissfully unaware of the tensions at Hogwarts and in the world as a whole, and whom everyone had wanted to shield from those horrors. Adrian tried, very hard, not to picture them on the run, sleeping somewhere out of sight and scrounging for resources.

It was deathly silent in the room after Mr. Weasley's words ended, the only sound that of the clock over the mantle.

"This is bad." Lee broke the silence, and everyone stared at him for a moment before Remus huffed a disbelieving laugh.

"It's a fucking nightmare," he said, and now they all turned to him, Harry, Ron, and Hermione with matching looks of surprise.

"You're going to help them, aren't you?" Adrian asked, surprised by how much he needed the answer to be yes, of course. "You have to help them." He didn't think he could take it, he realized, if the side he'd chosen, the ones who were supposed to be good, turned out to be just as willing to discard people for the greater good of advancing their cause as the other side had been. To know that there had really been no choice at all, no right direction to take, would be hell.

"We aren't prepared for an invasion of the ministry," Sirius admitted, sounding as though it was costing him to say it out loud. "We never had to do this, last time. The fighting…we're used to that. But even when the ministry hasn't worked with us, they haven't been working with the other side either. This is uncharted, and we can't afford to go in blind."

"The Guard might be able to help," George offered. "They got Gil out, back when everything first went down, and I bet they'd be able to work out a way to get in and out again."

"What's the Guard?" Harry asked, and Adrian was grateful he didn't have to.

"Just a group of us who've been around, keeping an eye on things in London."

Adrian reminded himself very firmly that he hadn't been around, and that it had been his choice not to be around.

They didn't ask you once you were, though, did they?

Trying to point out to himself that "they" might not be anyone he knew was fruitless. Andrew, at least, would be tied up in this, and likely Jack, too. And they hadn't spoken to him about it, hadn't mentioned it in any of their letters. They'd kept it secret, and the only reason he could think that they would have done so was that they didn't trust him.

And can you blame them?

He thought back to the fights he'd had with Andrew in their final year at school, of Andrew's fear that he'd do something rash—of how often he'd given into that inclination to do something rash—and found that no, he couldn't.

That didn't make it hurt any less.

/

"They're being held in the cells at the ministry, at least," Andrew pointed out, and Jack glared at him like he was the one who'd put them there. "I'm just saying that I don't think we'd stand a chance if it was Azkaban."

"That's probably where they're headed."

"Which is why we need to get them out first. We're lucky they're setting up trials at all, even if they are going to be absolute shams."

"It gives them legitimacy—"

"Internationally. Yeah, Corrie's said. I don't care why, honestly, as long as it's working in our favor."

"Might cause issues in the future—" Jack shrugged, looking exhausted "—but you're right: it is working for us right now."

"Assuming we can get in."

"Assuming that, yeah." Jack's face didn't exactly offer Andrew any encouragement that he was making progress on that front, but he pulled one of the parchments he'd been writing on out from under the others and pushed it toward Andrew.

"Getting in is going to be the hardest part—breaking the cells isn't too much of an issue as long as you're outside of them, and I doubt they've picked up many people yet, it'll just be a matter of speed. But they've set up security, the twins got me the details for it—that's what you've got." It was a rather comprehensive list of identification stops and checks, and Andrew felt his heart sinking. "I hate to give them credit for something, but the Ministry should've had some of this in place before, really. They've even got scanning spells in place, to register any people trying to fly over security with a broom or something."

"What about owls?" Andrew asked, the beginnings of an idea forming.

"They're only set to recognize humans, as far as I can tell," Jack answered, "But I don't see how an owl—"

"You have an exit plan, though?" Jack's expression had shifted to bemused, but he nodded anyway.

"That's the easy part. We can use the Floo network—there's loads of empty places on Diagon right now, and Kim can hook one of their fireplaces up once whoever's in the ministry gives her the signal. They use the office nearest to the cells, come through, Kim breaks the connection so they can't follow."

"Giving her the signal how?"

"Mirrors."

"And once we're through?"

"It'll be just like it was when you got Gil—we'll have a few minutes before they show up, which gives us plenty of time to side-along everyone we get to Rissa's."

"And if it goes wrong?"

"It won't." Andrew's face must've shown his disbelief, because Jack gave in a bit. "If it goes wrong, we help as many of them get out as we can while we stand and fight. But none of that will matter if we can't get in." It was a loaded statement, questioning him.

"I'll go in," Andrew said, unable to keep a grin off his face. "I'll fly over their heads."

"Andrew, I said—"

Andrew's only regret was that his transformation made him miss the initial look on Jack's face as he watched his friend turn into a merlin. Once he was himself again, he made a show of smoothing his clothes before looking over to his friend.

"It's not quite an owl, but I think it'll work anyway."

"You…when…you arsehole!" Jack swatted at Andrew's arm, but his eyes betrayed no real anger. "I can't believe you didn't tell me—I can't believe I didn't notice."

"But now that you know…?"

"It probably won't work more than once," Jack said, "but I think that it will work once, and for now, that's what we need."

/

The Greengrass family vaults weren't quite as deep as some—it wasn't on the same level as those belonging to the Blacks or the Malfoys, certainly, but they were still well beyond the levels which were frequently trafficked, and therefore comfortably away from the prying eyes of anyone but the goblins, who really didn't care what their clients were doing anyway. Daphne knew all of these things, and, along with the fact that no one saw anything suspicious about a girl collecting pocket money before school, they had been key in her selection of Gringotts as a meeting place. They'd ridden separately, in order to fully avoid suspicion, which had needed no more than a subtle word from Daphne.

"Couldn't you have just written?" Daphne did her best not to give Neville a scathing look, but his follow-up justification that she had, after all, written to arrange the meeting, made her think she hadn't done a very good job

"Bad enough if someone saw that, I don't need anyone to be able to read a whole conversation. We're all being watched, you know. Me less than others, but they're still suspicious." Neville nodded, none of this seeming to strike him as surprising.

"Of course. Do you have updates on something, then?" Daphne felt a bit like a soldier giving a report to a commanding officer, and the feeling threw her for a moment.

You signed up to be in the DA—Dumbledore's Army. Well, you're in it.

"No one's saying anything important around me, but I've heard a few things. Draco and Pansy are the heads—no surprises there, with Snape as Headmaster. It sounds like, for now at least, McGonagall is still Deputy—my mum reckons that even Snape doesn't want to work too closely with the Carrows—but that it's mostly just a title, because the Carrows are going to be in charge of discipline."

"But she's still there," Neville insisted. "That's good." Daphne just shook her head.

"She won't be able to do anything big, though, not without risking losing her place and having another Death Eater take it. That'll be up to us."

"I talked to Ginny the other day. She mentioned that she'd gotten a message from Blaise," Neville said, and Daphne nodded.

"Yeah, the two of us spoke…we're with you, and we can feel out the others who are in with us. But I really wanted to talk to you because I've been thinking, and I have a plan—or, the start of one. We need to be able to know what's going on with the other side if we want to do things really effectively. And like I said, I'm being watched less than everyone else. If I was to start talking to Pansy and Draco again…"

"They'd think you just came back to your senses. That you were choosing their side," Neville finished, and she nodded.

"It's not a lot," she admitted. "But it's something, and as it is, we have a whole lot of nothing."

Neville nodded thoughtfully, and then grinned at her.

"So—Daphne Greengrass, spy?"

"A bit of an exaggeration, maybe. But—yeah, I guess so."

"Cheers," he said, and offered her a hand, which she gladly shook. Her mother, Daphne thought with glee, would have been horrified.

/

Marietta had asked whether the spells in the Ministry would register an animagus as a human, and Andrew was glad to be able to report that the answer was a definite no. It had caused a bit of tension, none of them thrilled with the idea of Andrew risking himself to get into the ministry, but they had all known time was tight, and that this was the best plan they had.

Andrew breathed silent thanks to Minerva McGonagall as he passed safely over security and over to the lifts—it was not lost on him that she was the reason he'd been able to save Gil, and would be the reason he could save these Muggleborns, if he was in fact able to pull this off.

He transformed in the corridor just beyond the cells, making note of the offices along the wall—Yaxley's was the nearest, and it was currently empty. He tested the door, and was unsurprised to find it locked. Glancing around the hall to ensure that it was empty, he traced the runes Jack had taught him the past few nights around the handle with the tip of his wand, following it up with one of the stronger unlocking sequences in arithmancy: 13-7-3, one given to each rune. Reaching for the handle once more, he twisted, and was gratified with the feeling of it giving way under his hand.

Andrew left the door closed to avoid any unwanted notice, creeping down toward the cells. He was relieved to see that Jack had been right: there were only a handful of people in the cells, most of whom he vaguely recognized as Muggleborns who had been in their first few years of Hogwarts during his last. They were all together, which told Andrew both that they'd been disarmed—otherwise, they'd certainly be seen as a threat—and that there were likely plans to bring in more to fill the other cells. It wasn't a surprise, but it wasn't a pleasant thought either.

"Kim Sheringham," he whispered to the mirror, and watched as she showed up.

"Ready?"

"Get us a connection."

He slipped the mirror back into his pocket, and then turned to face the two cell guards.

As his stunners slammed into them, he added the Hit Wizard trainers to his list of people to be grateful to. The Muggleborns had rushed to the front of the cell, some looking at the guards and others approximately at the place Andrew was standing, having seen his spells. He made himself visible again, knowing he'd need to direct them soon.

"Stand back," he warned them, his voice sounding altogether too loud.

In theory, he could have used the normal method of opening the cell; however, there was almost no chance that the Death Eaters hadn't changed something about the process, and he didn't have the time to figure it out. Instead, he reached out to the cell's magical reinforcements, finding the weak spot each of them had, where the warding on the cells bonded with the locking charms, and sent the most powerful bombarda maxima he could muster at that point.

They came down instantly, the cell bars rattling with the force, and as it did, an alarm began blaring. Andrew ignored it, instead focusing on vanishing the bars on the cell—they had guessed that there would be an alarm; it was like Jack had said: the breakout relied, above all, on speed.

"Come on," he said, taking a moment to make sure all of them were with him before setting off at a run toward Yaxley's office, stunning two more Death Eaters as they approached. He tore the office door open and shoved the pot of Floo Powder he'd brought with him into the hands of the first Muggleborn behind him who was old enough that he was sure she'd encountered the Floo network before, no matter her background.

"You're going to Guardsplace," he told her, the name Kim had told him she would be registering the Floo under. "Get them through."

She nodded, shaking a bit, and he vaguely registered her sending the others through, focusing only on counting them. Once he was sure they'd all entered the office, he followed, closing the door behind him and grabbing his own handful of Floo Powder.

The girl who'd been holding it was the last of the Muggleborns through the fireplace, Andrew the only person in the office behind her.

"Guardsplace," he said, tossing the powder into the fire. The office door opened, and Andrew had just enough time to register the rage on Yaxley's face and throw him a lazy, two fingered salute, before stepping into the fire.

It wasn't his most graceful exit from the Floo, but he'd wanted to be sure to clear it enough for Kim to safely cut it off from the network once more, ensuring that they couldn't be followed immediately.

"Move out!" Cedric called, nearly before Andrew had fully gained his bearings, and, after making sure that Kim had finished her work and that all the escapees apart from the one nearest to him were paired up with someone, he grabbed the arm of the youngest Muggleborn boy and envisioned the drawing room of Rissa's house.

"Twelve of them," he told Cedric as soon as he'd made it, feeling dizzy and disoriented from the quick turnarounds, listening to Cedric's muttered count, not relaxing until he hit twenty-five.

"That's everyone," Cedric said, his voice quiet and strained, as though he couldn't quite believe it. "Everyone's accounted for," he repeated, louder this time, and Andrew had regained enough awareness by that point to look around at everyone, soaking in the fact that each of them was there.

He wasn't sure who started it, but it was only a moment later that they were all piled nearly on top of each other, Muggleborn escapees and Guard alike, laughing and crying with relief in equal measure. In the middle of it all, Andrew let himself relax for the first time in days.

Their first real mission was over, and the win had gone to them.