November 1st, 1997

"I don't know where to begin."

The paper of my journal on the desk in front of me was blank, my inkwell was full and my mind swam with images and horrors of the things I had done in the last week. This was no longer spy work, this was active investigation of the atrocities committed behind the scenes of a felled government. I had been privy to matters beyond myself and would have to deal with the consequences and memory of it for the rest of my life.

It had been simple enough to go to the Ministry on a Saturday, I had merely claimed that there were important things I needed to handle in a filing room and I spent the day getting ahead of silly paperwork and letting myself be forgotten over the course of the day as several emergency trials were taking place throughout the day until the afternoon maintenance team came in.

That was the core of my plan.

I had managed to obliviate a maintenance department worker, rewriting her memories and leaving her to sleep in a closet for two days. I would return early Monday morning to instil her with memories from her shift of my own creation.

It was not ethical, but she would survive the experience.

The foulness of the potion I had created in the graveyard tasted of earth, gritty from the dirt and had the metallic taste of blood.

My flesh burned as the potion moved through my body, warping and twisting every part of me. Each hair was pulled out and reformed, my face melted away to instantly reform to something different and strange that was not my own. My skin was stretched, my flesh ripped asunder and burned away as it reformed to a new house and I was grateful for my own foresight in putting a powerful silencing charm on the closet door to muffle my screams.

I came back to myself on the floor of the closet, a smelly pair of socks next to my face that I knew did not belong to me or any sensible sort of person. My robes were the dull, grey drab of Magical Maintenance while my mind held the image of a woman who worked evenings to help clean the Ministry with magic in places House Elves were forbidden to visit within the facility.

My hands burned when they touched the floor to push myself upright. New flesh exposed to the world was apparently delicate.

I puked on the floor. Vanishing it quickly with a flick of my wand as I caught my breath.

Crucio was worse than this, but not by much.

I stepped out of the closet, ignoring the pain and the rippling of my flesh beneath my skin.

This was old magic. Not forbidden. Just willingly forgotten by most as trade with the British became more regular, regulated with the colonial settlers, who were reluctant to experiment with unfamiliar ingredients and strange land with unfamiliar customs with its own unnatural magics. There were reasons that American wix generally held onto their British magical practices, adapting them to the New World over time to cut down on the reliance of trade with a nation that still saw us as citizens, even when we knew ourselves to be otherwise. Waiting on orders of boomslang skin was easier and safer than everything I had done to achieve this.

The world beyond the closet was an empty corridor on the second level of the Ministry of Magic. The walk through the Atrium and into the Secretarial entrance of the Department of Mysteries would be a test of the magic I had been crafting for the past several days.

This potion would allow me to be seen by others as someone they expected to be there. I would have to use my legilimency to be sure of who I was supposed to be if I was dragged into a conversation, but at this time of day, I was informed it was usually janitorial staff wandering the halls.

This was a dangerous, stupid plan.

But I was out of options.

I hated being out of choices, the loss of control made me itch.

If I looked closely at my hands, I was sure I could see my flesh moving in ripples that reminded me of a whirlpool.

Nope. I did not need to look at that too closely. Gross.

I passed three people I recognized on my way to the Atrium and was greeted with more smiles and grunts of acknowledgement than I received as Audrey Graves these days alongside a name I barely recognized.

Hm… Maybe cleaning staff was interchangeable in the eyes of office workers?

It might be best not to dwell on that too deeply.

There was no effort in disappearing from sight as I passed through the mostly empty Atrium like a ghost, there was no noise except the sound from the horrible fountain which I had grown used to ignoring over the passing months. All horrified faces and pained expressions that I struggled to ignore and put from my mind.

Closing the door behind me left me encased in darkness, a pitch blackness that reminded me of the Grim's fur and caused chilled shivers to move up my back.

The effects of the potion made my body ache and my stomach spin and twist as bile continuously rose and fell in my throat. Flames moved up my body with each step I took to the secretarial office of the Department of Mysteries and I wondered how I could bear it through the evening. I had an hour, maybe a little longer. The exact times were unclear, but it also stated that as long as I could hold the image of someone in my mind, I would appear as that person to others.

I borrowed the appearance of a woman named Birdie Banks, a half-blood who worked in this department who I believed to be in her mid-thirties. She was plain faced, average height, though a little bit stout, but had beautiful brown eyes. She was fairly new to the department, but trusted, because she knew how to speak the prominent political line and say the right things. No family. No real connections. Her whole life was now this new movement that would turn on her for being a half-blood when they were done wetting their appetites on the Muggle-borns, but Birdie Banks was too stupid and too indoctrinated with the idea of having someone to hate in order to see that was the obvious end for her as a toady.

My head seemed to vibrate as I held the image of Birdie in my mind as I moved quickly through the secretarial office, it was strangely spooky with no employees and a still, enveloping, silence in the aftermath. Leaving the office to the main corridor of the Department of Mysteries was merely a matter of crossing the carpeted floor and ignoring the little strange luminescent jars that rested on the shelves and atop file cabinets, all different colors in a kind of secure filing system. One could only imagine what horrors were kept in these drawers.

According to our intelligence, I was looking for a research room in the back that was set aside for Rockwood's personally directed projects. The Unspeakables of the Department of Mysteries, who had not been fired or quit after the coup, had welcomed Rookwood back like a conquering hero. Many perhaps under duress and threat, but one could never know for certain. A cold fact that had been proven over previous years.

I knew something of the enigmatic ways of Magical Researchers, they were shady and territorial, unwilling and in some cases unable to discuss their work. My cousin Audrina Graves worked with several Researchers at various points and I had suspected she was a bit more involved with them than she let on regarding her work with magical gravesites. Her descriptions of them in passing were not particularly flattering, regarding them as overly intellectual and close-lipped on matters related to the variations of spellcraft related to gravesites. They generally wanted to, in Audrina's words, gatekeep the knowledge that the archaeologists needed. In short, she did not find them helpful.

It was quiet in the Department of Mysteries, at least the part of it I was in as I recalled the map that had been provided to me where particular locations of interest to a nosy person could be located.

My knees trembled uncontrollably as I moved past displays of magic I did not understand. A small caterpillar in a jar constantly moving between being an egg, caterpillar, cocoon and finally a butterfly before dying and beginning again.

I opened a door to reveal a room full of planets that modeled the solar system where I was by turn cold or warm depending on how close I was to the sun. There were a series of small stars that I could not place, be it my own incompetence or disinterest in the subject matter. Neither the cold or the heat of this small solar structure relieved the aching pain in my bones.

I managed to exit the room with considerable effort, tripping into Mars and being hit in the head by one of the smaller moons that surrounded Jupiter as I focused on the stumpy legs of Birdie Banks. I managed to find a door, it swung open to reveal a stone corridor once more and I could hardly remember where exactly I was supposed to be or where it was.

Rookwood had an office somewhere in this department. He was social. He would want to be close to his direct staff. Easier to watch them. If he was not performing research himself, he would have underlings or assistants doing what was needed.

There was an oak door nearby, thick, tall and imposing.

It had a plaque on it labelled 'Personnel Offices'.

That had potential.

Holding the image of Birdie in my mind, I entered the room doing my best to look official as I made eye contact with one of the workers in the Maintenance uniform on the other side of the door.

"Where ya been, Birdie?" He was a tall imposing man, all shoulders and an unusually large moustache that quivered with each word he spoke.

"Got turned abou' at Uranus."

There were chuckles from the two other workers in the room.

"Smartarse." The imposing man said with a roll of his eyes. "Ya get ta finish in'ere, freasher."

"Aye, boss."

I tried not to think about the closet I had shoved Birdie Banks into this afternoon, obliviated and confuddled for good measure before I put the sleeping spells upon her.

The three men left the room and I was alone in the personnel office. I could see Rookwood's office door was labelled near the center of the room. He had an office. Everyone else in here was on an open floor plan, which may have been the true evil here in the Department of Mysteries. All of that space and the Unspeakables had an open floor plan in a small office.

I ignored my natural curiosity about these things on the walls, mysterious floating plants that were blooming and dying while glowing with a bioluminescence. A shrunken head was snoring on a desk as I waved my wand to empty trash bins as I made sure the men had left to complete the rest of their tasks.

A door labelled Research Room caught my attention next, it sat near the center of the room past the desks and something told me it would be worth a look. Rookwood might not want to be too far away from personal projects or at least their results of them. That would be worth a look. Perhaps it was just a collection of more secret files?

What I discovered beyond that door was the beyond my realm of comprehension.

The stench of blood and terrible things grabbed hold of my senses and an eerie silence took hold of the immediate world beyond the door.

There was nothing for me here but things that would follow me for the rest of my life. Something that I would never truly be able to explain to another, the way the despair could grab a person by the throat to shake the final shreds of innocence from a soul.

In a way, he seemed for of a doll than a man. He was curled up in the corner, long golden chains keeping him attached to the wall, his clothes were tattered and there was a horribly smelly bucket in a far corner of this small room. He was sallow and waxy of complexion, half-starved and still bleeding from a wound that was inadequately healed by magic, perhaps by design. I was learning a lot by looking at him.

I also learned that he had a stunning left hook.

While I nursed my aching jaw, a flash of something came into his eyes.

"What the hell are you?"

My hands shifted and I could feel my hair retreating back into my skull as my mind learned to ignore the pain and reclaim the image of Birdie before my form completely reverted to myself. I spat the blood out of my mouth and into my hand to wipe it on the inside of my robe sleeve, not wanting to leave any evidence behind tonight.

"Here to help ya 'parently." My mouth could barely form words from the force of the blow. I quickly checked my teeth with my tongue to ensure they were all still in my head. Which they were. "Fuck!"

I pulled out my wand, the man flinched and I quickly began performing every charm I knew to try and break the spell keeping him shackled. He seemed to grasp that I was truly there to help him after a couple of attempts.

"Try Frange Sigillum," The man rasped.

The chains shattered and the man rubbed his limbs in relief as they fell away.

"Thank you."

I learned his name was Lionel Brown and that he was once an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries. It seemed a touch ironic to come into work one day and never get to leave for lunch.

Once Lionel was free, I began to apply healing charms to his wounds. Under the muck and grey of the holding cell, he was a youngish man with mousey hair and perhaps a glint of mischief in his eyes when he was well enough to think beyond survival. Time in captivity had left him worn and aged in a way that I was struggling to place.

"They're experimenting on Muggle-borns." He said as I helped him to his feet. "They want to see how we heal from magical wounds. How the witches bear magical children."

I froze as we reached the door. "What?"

"Yes." Lionel paused. "We were all here together. They're all dead. It's just me... Just me."

"Where... where were they keeping the women?"

Lionel shrugged. "They were here for a time. Then they were sent away. These were women who had partners... of proper magical ancestry. I'm sure they're being held somewhere that depends... fully on their husband's social capital."

I was unsure if that was the better option or the worse one. Morgana's tits!

We entered the office. Lionel let go of me, balancing on a nearby desk as I began to summon papers with the filing charms I had learned in my years at the Ministry. I wanted copies of everything I could grab from Rookwood's little nest. I copied every paper before sending it back to its proper place. Specifically, things that seemed to be categorized as 'Mudblood' and 'Magic' and 'Ancestry'. I would make sure these people had their days in court, be it here under a new government or in the International Court.

"Take everything you need from here..." Lionel rasped, before he bent over from a hacking cough. "Then burn it all down."

"What? There might be things I miss!"

"You want the files on the Muggle-born experiments. That's all you need from here."

"Then people will know someone broke in here!"

"Exactly! They're too comfortable with power, best to remind them they're all alone in what they think of use. Let them begin their research again from nothing!"

I looked back towards the room. I pointed my wand down into the room. There were no papers, nothing of value, only the echoing, past screams of a tortured man.

"Incendio!"

As the fire roared in the room beyond, I slammed the door closed and began to summon everything. I cared little for subtly anymore.

I was firing spells at fish in a barrel, but something had to give and...

"It's time for you to go."

Lionel laughed, a quiet, bitter noise. "Where can I go? Nowhere is safe!"

"I can get you to safety Lionel, you can heal from this and start your life again. You can know peace."

Lionel shook his head. "No. I will know peace when these people are dead... by my hand." His rage seemed to embolden him to step away from the desk and stand on his own power.

A chill went up my back as I looked at him. The ferocity in his eyes, the need for something I was not sure I understood in this moment. All a coherent sort of calm in the finality of the decision that I did not understand yet.

"I don't know who you are, and I do not care." When he was not injured, I could fully appreciate how tall and broad of shoulder he was and I felt more than a bit frightened by him and the look in his eyes. "But if you cross wands with me, I will kill you."

"Lionel!"

But he was gone. He had half staggered, half ran out of the room faster than I believed he could ever manage in his condition, even after I had healed him with magic.

I shoved the last of the papers in my bag, including a collection of rosters with the Department of Mysteries seal on them and took a deep breath.

'Incendio!'

I rushed from the room now burning offices, Birdie's short legs carrying me carrying me away from the flames as I put out small sparks on the hem of my robes with an Aquamenti charm in case my wand was checked.

I had lost track of Lionel; he knew the department better than I did and I had to assume he was in the wind as I quickly crafted a story for the arriving maintenance team about being ambushed by a man from the side room. Placing the fire squarely on the shoulders of a man who bore no resemblance to Lionel at all- I claimed he ambushed me and I did not get a good look at him after he had hit me, I had managed to keep my wand on me despite his efforts.

I was released and hour later, the papers were destroyed. I was interviewed about my encounter and my account was dismissed entirely due to security finding one of their fellows' unconscious, wandless and missing several articles of clothing by the entrance to the Department of Mysteries.

Lionel had clearly escaped to fulfil whatever mission he felt called him.

I wished him the best of luck.

With the final flourish of my quill, I leaned back in Percy's chair and watched the clock on the shelf of his office tick closer to midnight. I needed to go check the cleaning charms in the living room, I had left a pair of sponges charmed and alone in the kitchen to wash the dishes and dust various cabinets. There were also clothes drying in the living room, I could iron them tomorrow evening, I did not trust that my ironing skills would not lead to holds in our work robes.

I stretched my arms over my head as I stood up, wincing at the cracking in my shoulders from being hunched over the desk for so long. Heaving a tired sigh, I ambled out of the office, listening to the slight clinks and clatters of my cleaning spells in the kitchen. Waving my wand at the kitchen entrance put an end to the slight noise as I turned my attention to the finance books on the coffee table.

Percy was out tonight. Tavish and Albert were tracking a Snatcher group while sending Percy and Oliver to look into a potential hideaway of Muggle-borns with Barry.

And I'm sitting in the flat.

Doing laundry.

Washing dishes.

Waiting up.

The worst part of all of this is the waiting, wondering and worrying. Trying to get anything done without thinking of the worst possibilities that perpetually plague my thoughts under these conditions.

We should have just fled to America, but Percy is not the coward I am and, honestly, I would like him far less if he were.

The dishes clinked together as I moved them into the cupboard with a few flicks of my wand, putting the wet sponges in the sink and sending the feather duster to its designated cabinet. Nothing was broken or chipped this time, so I would call the venture a success. The annoyance of repair would elude me tonight.

Our separate lives hurt me. It hurts Percy too, I know, but I feel guilty that we can't entirely share the burdens of our lives because of the danger we are in individually and for who our families are.

Arthur Weasley has been... notably outspoken in private at the Ministry, but word has gotten out. He can't be touched because of his blood-status, but still it has put Percy in more danger than he needs to be in. Casting more suspicion upon him and frankly if Arthur cannot play politics, he needs to get out of the Ministry before he says the wrong thing to the wrong person.

I would pick Percy's safety over Arthur's in a heartbeat.

It was cold, and would hurt Percy, but I had already made that choice if it was in my power to do so and the risk became so great that it became an inevitability.

Aimlessly, I moved back to the living room where I had laid out our budget book on the coffee table to double check our arithmetic with regards to finances. Even if we never could flee the country, I had convinced Percy with very little effort to plan for a future where we had to go on the run. Neither of us liked financial surprises, and it would be a pool of money we could reach into for financial support Lucinda's work at Thornell in an emergency. Paying off people at the border for evacuation or just buying food if supplies ran low.

I slumped down to the floor; my back pressed against the couch and had my usual realization that we were both very in over our heads. I was too tired, too sore, to truly focus on reworking the budget, but I would not sleep until Percy came home. I was committed to staying up and waiting for him.

It took me three hours to write everything that had occurred in the Department of Mysteries and I needed a break before I went back to look it over again to make sure I had not missed anything. The only thing powering me forward right now was a roll of bread and spite. I had decided both were among the greatest forms of magic available to wix.

Well, if a witch could barely cook, one could suppose they were.

I heaved a sigh and pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes to starve off a stress headache and a level of exhaustion I was growing used to in these strange times. My hands slid down to

In the moments where my body went lax and my eyes closed for a few moments too long, the grey fog between waking and dreaming took hold of me like a warm blanket or as if I was a cat in the windowsill, basking in warm sunlight. It welcomed me to something restful and calm, nudging me towards sleep and rest even if I knew I had to stay awake. I was just so comfortable...

Until I saw the Grim.

This was a stately sort of dog, but it was not the one from the Ainsley Kirk. This one had red eyes. It looked like the one I had seen in the Graves Family graveyard depicted in art painted on the upper echelons of the family columbarium where we kept the cremated remains of various family members. Red pupilless eyes glimmering watchfully from a bush like burning embers, viewing its entire world of earth, stone and acres of green grass with jutting stones.

The Grim stretched and yawned as it stepped out of the bushes, almost friendly in its approach.

It was not a memory of the mind. I would not remember this encounter come the rising of the sun, but this felt different. As if something would remain in my mind or etched on my soul when I awoke.

"Dog!"

The Grim turned away with a wag of its tail and I followed it into the rolling gray fog.

There was no sound. It was as if I was walking through a thick, lentil soup.

The ghost dog weaved through the headstones and around trees. Weaving through the crowded war graves and disappearing through the shadows only to reappear further from me from the shadows of trees.

"Wait!"

The red-eyed Grim disappeared and left me alone in the thick, quickly fading fog. I took a step forward and yelped as I stumbled over a wooden shape, the familiar clunk of hollow wood telling me where exactly I was in the graveyard.

The fog rolled away to a faint mist that allowed me to see more clearly and I winced as it was all finally confirmed. The wooden house and the tall gravestone that sat behind it, the name carved at the top to clearly state whose grave this was.

Rebekah Graves

December 13th, 1800 – July 31st, 1955

Beloved Wife, Mother, Matriarch

May your shadow never shorten.

I froze, staring at the small house that encased her grave. The house was carefully put together, solid with a small door emblazoned with her name. This was the traditional burial she had requested by her family. She left them strict instructions and ordered them burned afterwards, for her children were not tribal members entitled to these traditions they would never keep. She wanted this one last connection to something she had lost long ago, even one based on vague childhood memories or pieced together from other displaced members of her community.

Rebekah had been very long lived, she died when my father was about ten, the summer before he left for school.

The memory I had as a girl of attending the funeral of a cousin who was killed in action as an Auror featured an intense fear of the tiny house over Rebekah's grave. I was scared of it, as I should have been, but I was also so enchanted by the sight of it. The otherworldliness of it was strangely enticing and comfortable, the strangeness of it and how displaced the idea was within the wider graveyard. Staring at Rebekah's grave allowed me to admire the craft work on the house that stood over her it. It was worn and scratched in places, the paint had chipped away at the corners, but it was strongly built and likely to stand for several more decades.

A cold hand suddenly came to rest on my shoulder.

Against my will, I turned around as if I was a puppet controlled by strings.

I saw a face I recognized from the Graves Family Grimoire.

It was Rebekah.

She was spectral, translucent but faded in color, similar to the style of a pastel water color painting. Her brown skin was possessed of deep wrinkles, her silver hair glowed in the thin shroud of moonlight, her almond shaped eyes were dark and glimmered in and enraged disappointment. She balanced carefully on her cane as she peered up into my eyes, not needed to state aloud what had so displeased her.

Rebekah faded from my eyes as suddenly as she had appeared.

Out of the fog came the Grim from the Ainsley Kirk, his yellow eyes half blending into the fog as I suddenly found myself standing at the ruins of the old church in Scotland that resided on the grounds of Thornell. The Grim was looking at me, an implicit, unspoken threat in its eyes.

"I had your permission!"

I did. I had done everything correctly.

But now, perhaps I was paying the price of the power I asked for.

Ice cold hands grabbed my ankles and pulled me down into the earth. It swallowed me whole before I could scream, I could not breath. My mouth tasted of dirt and burned with old magic I barely understood. My bones crumbled into dust under my skin as my struggles ended, leaving me a limp ragdoll to the force that pulled me down into the dark depths of the grave. Eating my screams and quieting them with each failed breath I took.

This was a threat.

A promise.

I had touched old powers once.

I would not be allowed to do so again.

My muffled, suffocated screams echoed through my head as the sudden clicking of the door announced Percy's return.

I lifted my head off the couch cushion, cursing at the aching pain in my neck as I moved it slowly to try and ease the cramp as I rubbed my eyes. Percy was quietly shifting his coat on the hook next to the door, his shoes clunking quietly on the floor before the squeaky floorboard announced his entry to the living room.

"Hi."

Percy looked at me with tired eyes and a slight confusion at my presence. His hair was settling back to red and his freckles were reappearing as the charms he had placed on himself to do this job for Tavish were beginning to wear off.

"Why aren't you in bed?"

"I couldn't sleep." A sleepy smile pulled at my mouth while terrible visions slipped away from my memory as I looked at Percy and his messy hair, looking very much like someone who had some sort of wild adventure tonight. I gestured towards the clean kitchen and tidied living room. "Thought I would do something useful since we've been so busy."

"I can see that." Percy took two steps to stand next to me, reaching down to help me to my feet.

My arms were around his neck in less time than it took to breathe, pulling him close to me, pressing tightly against him as his hands rested on my lower back to hold me just as tightly.

It was easier to whisper the truth into his neck as one of my hands caressed the back of his head and further messing up his hair. "I was worried about you."

Percy squeezed me tighter and pressed his lips to my ear, "I'm sorry for worrying you."

"Please don't apologize," I felt him shiver as my lips pressed against his neck, breathing in the smell of him, all parchment, fresh grass and a slight herbal combination I recognized as ingredients for ink. I recognized all of the familiarity the smell of dirt and sweat from a man who had more than a bit of an adventure. "I know what all of this is for."

Percy sighed, a rush of air moving strands of my hair. "I want to tell you everything, but I understand why there are things we can't tell each other now."

"It's for the best…" I pushed down the images and flashes of the horror I had seen in the Department of Mysteries. Percy would know the details about all of that someday, long before the rest of the world would. In my head were images I would never be able to erase, in my hands and on my tongue were the words I needed to begin to express the horror of the evening.

We lived together, but had to have separate lives while under the same roof for our own protection. Living different parts of conspiracy and a battle against a government that was slowly seeping into every part of civilian life through fear alone.

Percy took my face in his hands, his eyes searching mine as he moved his thumbs slowly over the apples of my cheeks. kissed me, chaste and lingering, too tired to tease, and pulled away from me to look around more closely at all I had accomplished this evening.

"The flat looks great. Did you cook anything?"

"I left you some pasta in the fridge. Something light."

He kissed me again, as quick as it was, I felt an enticing shiver down my back.

Get a grip, Audrey.

Yes, I know. He looks exhausted.

We're both too tired for that.

Some other night when we need to forget.

You need to finish editing the record and sorting those documents.

I was watching Percy's hands as he moved around the kitchen. There was something inherently graceful in the art of him and I felt like it was something only a lover would truly appreciate in a way. All the varying sloping, winding lines of his person that showed me he was alive.

Exhausted.

Breathing.

And here with me.

He braced his hands on the counter for a moment, one of his hands moving up to pinch the bridge of his nose as a weary sigh escaped him. I wanted to hug him again. Wrap my arms around him and hustle him to bed to actually sleep, but if I did that, I would not be able to leave the warmth and comfort of him, finding him and the bed far too enticing to abandon for a cold office.

Before I was conscious of it, I had crossed the room and wrapped my arms around him from behind, one hand sliding up his chest and the other around his waist as I pressed myself tightly against his back. I felt older than twenty at that moment, I had seen too much, and loved too deeply to be a sweet, clueless girl again. I would not miss it, but I would regret that it did not last a little bit longer. The two of us were going to have to learn how to experience joy again when this was over, the world had made us grow up too quickly, as if our skin was stretched and warped trying to contain our old, tired souls who had rapidly outgrown their casing.

Percy took my hand off of his chest and kissed the palm of my hand tenderly.

"Long day?"

I nodded against his back.

"I have something to finish, but I don't want to leave you."

Percy's breathing deepened; I could feel him thinking with each breath he took.

"Do you need time to think about it?"

"No, I know what I need to say, but I think it's so engraved on my soul I can stop until morning." He squeezed my hand, "But I..."

I wanted to feel alive somehow- even as I struggled to form the word or name of this emotion. I could still taste grave dirt in my mouth from the potion if I lingered in silence for too long and I could feel the spectres of judgment from beyond mortal sight for fulfilling my foolhardy plan. The hand I had wrapped around Percy's waist slipped lower and he tensed in surprise under my hands before laughing quietly.

"You could have just asked."

"This is a bit more fun." I was so happy he could not see how red my face was. I had touched him like this before, but it had ended quickly with me on my back in the bed while he fumbled with my clothes and tried to kiss me at the same time. Absolute mess. Also, hilarious. We lost his glasses during that and had a good laugh when he summoned them from the corner of the room.

He released my other hand, allowing it to join the other at the button of his pants.

"Alright, maybe I'm not that hungry."

I giggled as I popped open the button before deftly sliding my hands away to untuck his shirt and touch the warm skin beneath.

"If we get to bed, we'll both just go to sleep."

"That should be the end goal." My fingers traced his hipbone and moved slowly over the waistband of his underwear.

He shivered under my hands, "Secondary goal you mean."

"Secondary? Well, it's important to have more than one. What's your primary goal?"

"Ladies first."

"Hm? I thought we were having a serious conversation about the structure of our ambitions?"

"I'm particularly serious about my primary goals in particular situations."

He managed to turn around in my arms to grip my face in his hands, a high lively color on his cheeks and the exhaustion mostly cleared from his eyes before he kissed me passionately, pushing me back against the dining table as he nibbled my lower lip. I managed to hop onto the table and slide my arms around his neck and we began to fully surrender to our passions for the moment.

Percy was home. He was safe. And he would not be the only one to have done something important tonight, but the need to feel like humans again overpowered everything else.

The important part was done. The rest could wait until morning.

Oo0Oo0

Author's Note: Ugh, they're cute. Like rabbits. I do intend to write another proper smut scene in the future, but until than you all get some implications and touchy stuff.

So, I decided to tackle the part of Audrey breaking into the Department of Mysteries as something she was writing down for her own records- it became easier for me to write and a bit of a style experiment.