Harry Potter 1. Chapter 1: She'll be all right

Compared to their usual camps, this was heaven.

True, there were only two walls left of the old building, but they gave a surprisingly good protection against the ever-howling wind, and at least some sense of security, which was even more important to Jonathan. During the five weeks they've spent on the run, he could get used to the cold and the rain, even to the noises that filled the forest in the night, but never having anything solid behind his back was driving him crazy.

He wondered if they could risk spending not one, but two nights at the same place, just this once.

Burying his chin deeper into his scarf, he glanced sideways to Finn, but of course he was already out, nothing but the top of his curly hair visible above the hem of his coat. They were both tired to the bone, but Jonathan was still surprised to see how his friend could put down his head and fall asleep, just like that. Maybe it was yet another useful trick of the Aurors, to be able to rest whenever you had five minutes for it and wake as if your eyes have never been closed.

Not that he had anything to say against those tricks. The last time he went anywhere near a defensive spell was back in their seventh year with Gilderoy Lockhart, so it was only Finn's training that was keeping them alive, even if he tried to deny it to be a good friend.

"One day I'll be more than happy to have a Healer at hand," he would say. "But I hope it won't be any time soon."

To keep himself from falling completely into this awful mood, Jonathan cast another Illuminating Spell on his glasses and flipped the book sitting in his lap open with a deep sigh. When he bought it during the last time they dared to set foot in a service station. he thought it would be about treasure hunters in early modern Egypt, and only learned after a hundred pages that the protagonist, Miss Victoria de Vere was after completely different adventures along the Nile. But still, it was a book, and the time wasn't right for being picky. It wasn't that badly written, anyway.

He had not, however, read more than a few paragraphs, when he felt his wand shake in alarm as their protective enchantments were broken. He gave Finn a nudge on the shoulder, before leaping to his feet.

"Stop there!" he yelled, as he heard someone moving behind the bushes.

"I mean you no harm!" replied a woman. "Please, I'm just looking for my friends," she added in a scared voice.

"Come out slowly," cried Finn.

"And no tricks," added Jonathan, conjuring a small light to get a good look at the witch emerging from the bushes. She held her wand up in the air, gripping it by the tip, but she kept her other hand down, clutching her side.

"I want you to drop your wand on the ground, and tell us what you are doing here," he said in his best voice of authority. It was easy to see that she hesitated for a moment, but finally she let her hand down and dropped her wand too, putting a foot on it cautiously.

"Don't worry," said Finn, giving her a half-smile. "We don't want to hurt you either. You already said you were looking for your friends, so go on."

"We were attacked two days ago, and I got separated from them," she said, keeping a foot on her wand, but letting some of the tension in her shoulders go.

"Attacked by who?" asked Jonathan, lowering his wand a bit to stop blinding her with its light.

"Snatchers," she said, almost hissing, and Jonathan could not suppress tightening his jaw. "They must have tracked us, we had already settled down for the night when they came. They took one of us, but I saw two of the guys running away, and this is the road we would have taken, so I thought you were them. But you are not," she finished with a sad shrug.

"Are you hurt?" frowned Jonathan, as she kept her hand on her side still.

"I'll live," she shook her head with a painful smile.

"I can have a look at it," he offered, taking a step closer to her. "I'm a Healer."

"No thanks," she let her hand down, giving him another reassuring smile. "I'm fine."

"Do you think they could have followed you?" asked Finn, scanning the forest behind her.

"No. Not really," she said, shaking her head. "I spent last night hiding in a tree, and nothing happened."

"All right then," said Finn, giving Jonathan a glance. "I'll go and check the enchantments," he adjusted his coat, stepping closer to the witch. "Finn," he smiled, extending a hand.

"Tamora," said she, taking it and returning the smile, before bending down to scoop up her wand as he walked past.

"And I'm Jonathan," he said, motioning towards the walls. "Sorry for the unfriendly welcome."

"No problem," said Tamora, following him to sit down. "I guess it was a bit stupid of me, marching in without taking a proper look at you."

"Yeah, a bit," nodded Jonathan, knitting his brows slightly as they sat down next to each other. "Were you by any chance a Ravenclaw?" he asked.

"Yes," said Tamora with a politely confused smile. "Do we know each other?"

"I think I know you," said Jonathan. "My big sister was in Ravenclaw too, the same year as you, I think. Evelyn Miller. But you used to be blonde back then, right?"

"Yes, I... Yes, " said Tamora, but after that she went a bit speechless, clearly surprised by the fact that he recognised her with the jet black bob all Ravenclaw girls had to try at least once in their lives.

"Everything all right?" asked Jonathan, as Finn rejoined them by the wall.

"Perfectly," he said, sitting down beside them and stretching his legs.

"Guess what," smiled Jonathan. "Tamora here knows Evelyn. Small world!"

"Yes, small world," she nodded. "So Evelyn! How is she?"

There was a mere second of silence before Jonathan gave her a sad smile. "I don't know," he said. "You see, she and Mum, they left when V–"

"Don't!" cried Tamora, almost hitting him in the face as she covered his mouth. "Don't say the Name! It's been Tabooed by the Ministry."

"Really? When?" asked Finn, frowning slightly.

"You think that's how he...?" whispered Jonathan, a bit shaken by the fact that he had almost got them into grave danger.

"Probably," nodded Finn, keeping his eyes and ears on the forest around them.

"How he what?" asked Tamora, slowly pulling her legs back up against her chest.

"We've been attacked too," said Finn, with eyebrows still knit. "About three weeks back. And we never learned how he could have found us, we were covering our tracks with great care."

"He?" echoed Tamora.

"You should have seen him," replied Jonathan, his face lighting up with pride. "He was all alone, but this huge monster of a man, with beard and hair everywhere, and this belt with broken wands hanging from it, like some Indian showing off his scalps."

"Nice," said Tamora with a wry smile.

"Have you heard that they pay extra for our wands?" asked Jonathan. "So this sick bastard was not in it for the money at all! Or why would he keep the wands and not give it to the Ministry as well?"

"I think she gets the idea," smiled Finn.

"But the best part is," said Jonathan, opening his bag, "My shiny new spare wand! I think it's mahogany, or ebony, or something like that, but I'm quite sure its core is dragon heartstring," he beamed, presenting the wand as if it was Excalibur itself.

It could have been an act, but Tamora stared at it for a moment too long, as any thrilled audience would. "May I?" she asked, giving him a smile.

"Of course," nodded Jonathan, handing over the wand.

"Yes, I think you're right, it does feel like dragon heartstring," she said, rolling it between her fingers, before looking up at Jonathan, biting her lip. "I know it's an awful lot to ask, but I was wondering if there was any way for me to–" she started, choosing her words carefully.

"Have it?" frowned Jonathan with surprise.

"No, of course not!" said Tamora quickly. "But if it's all right with you, I'd like to use it, because mine's been hit by a curse, and I'd like to see if I could mend it somehow."

"You know how to mend a wand?" asked Finn with a frown.

"I think the core got a bit loose inside, so I'd try to fix that," she nodded.

"You shouldn't toy with it like that," said Jonathan firmly, shoving the wand into her hand. "Here, give it a try, and if it works for you, you can have it."

"No way!" gasped Tamora. "No, I can't –"

"Yes, you can, and you will," nodded Jonathan. "Take it."

"Thank you," she said, taking Jonathan's hand in hers, and he was sure he saw tears forming in her eyes. "Thank you!"

"I'm not using it anyway," he said, waving his hand generously.

"Here, try heating these," said Finn, taking a couple of tin cups out of his bag and pouring some water in them. Tamora waved the Snatcher's wand in the air experimentally before touching it to the side of one cup to duplicate it, then making the water bubble in all three.

"I think it likes you," nodded Jonathan, dropping a bag of tea in each of them.

"Mine's dragon heartstring too," smiled Tamora, caressing the new wand, before stretching out a leg to hide the old one in her boot.

"On your luck of meeting us then," said Finn, raising his cup, but Tamora held up her hand before he could take more than a sip of it.

"Just a second," she said, rummaging in her pockets, then presenting a paper sachet, like the ones they give in cafés, containing a single serving of sugar and pouring a third of it of each of their cups.

"Sweet carbohydrates," sighed Jonathan, bringing the cup to his lips with a smile. "It's Muggle for happiness," he added, when Tamora gave him a puzzled look.

"Oh, I was rubbish at Muggle Studies," she chuckled apologetically. "It was way-way beyond me."

"So you're not here because of your Blood Status," nodded Finn, taking a sip from his tea.

"No," said Tamora, shaking her head with a smile.

"Then let me guess," frowned Jonathan, turning towards her to get a better look. "You said you were with friends, so at least one of you must be in trouble."

"Order of the Phoenix," stated Finn, without a hint of doubt in his voice.

"Order of the... No," laughed Tamora. "What on earth makes you think that?"

"You're not an Auror, but you have experience," smiled Finn. "You've been attacked by Snatchers, but got away," he said, and started counting his arguments on his fingers. "You held up your wand, but you gripped it tight, so that we couldn't Disarm you. And when I asked you to drop it, you put a foot on it too. You know about the Taboo on the Dark Lord's name. And you're heading north, when everyone in their right mind is trying to get to the south," he finished, holding up all five fingers in an almost smug way.

"Good reasoning," grinned Tamora, bowing her head slightly. "But you're wrong. I'm no more Order of the Phoenix than you are, boys, sorry."

"Then why are you running?" asked Jonathan. "Come on, we could use a good story."

"I'm here because of a man," said Tamora, scratching her wrist just above her watch. "My man," she added, rolling her eyes with a defeated smile as Jonathan put his chin in his palm, getting ready for a nice, long tale. "He's the one in trouble, and he's the one who has to get to Helmsdale."

"Helmsdale?" gasped Jonathan, before looking at Finn with a laugh.

"What? Are you heading that way too?" asked Tamora.

"Yes," nodded Finn. "We're looking for my father; we heard that he is at the safe house there. So you're welcome to join us," he smiled. "We could be there by the end of the week."

"Thanks," said Tamora, cradling her cup in her hands. "But the end of the week? I thought we were much further down south."

"Guys!" whispered Jonathan, grabbing Tamora's arm as, for the second time that night, someone breached their protective enchantments. Not that they needed any warning, as one by one six or seven wands lit up with an eerie blue light around them.

"Please, don't run," cried a Snatcher, clearly the one in charge, stepping closer to them with an unpleasantly smug grin on his face. "You'll only 'urt yourselves."

He was probably right about that but, without a moment of hesitation, Finn whispered "Eyes!" to Jonathan, before turning to Tamora to cover hers as best as he could with one hand and conjuring a painfully bright light around their camp, blinding the Snatchers to give themselves a chance. The light didn't even really begin to fade when the first curses started to fly their way, but Finn let go of Tamora and Stunned the Snatcher standing the closest to them, while Jonathan took care of a second one.

"Go," cried Finn, as he turned towards the next Snatcher; a huge man with wolfish features and almost as much hair as the one whose wand Jonathan took, but when he missed he decided to run too.

It was too late to think about how much easier it could have been to go in the other direction, so Jonathan pressed his lips together and started scurrying from one tree to the next downhill, concentrating very hard not to fall. He could hear Tamora do the same not far from him, and Finn too, somewhat behind them, but still well ahead of the Snatchers.

They had almost reached the bottom when a Blasting Curse hit the tree between him and Tamora. He could steady himself, but Tamora tripped with a yelp and rolled on towards the valley until she crushed into a trunk. Yet, before Jonathan could get to her, she was back on her feet, screaming a first, a second then a third curse uphill.

"Oi!" cried the leader, taking shelter behind a Shield Charm. "Stop that, love, or you'll be very sorry for it later!"

As Jonathan grabbed her arm to lead her on, Tamora wiped some blood from the nasty cut above her eyebrow irritably and started backing off, but Finn took the chance and sent a few more curses towards the Snatchers. He couldn't hit any of them, as they were already in defence against Tamora's attack, but he managed to buy some time for the others to finally reach the valley and cover him while he descended after them.

None of them saw the wolfish Snatcher coming. At some point he must have left his company to take a different way down the hill, for he attacked from the side just as Finn left the last of the trees. He didn't even care to use magic, just tackled Finn to the ground, holding him down firmly with fingers that seemed to end in claws.

"Go! Just go!" shouted Finn, trying to free himself from the Snatcher's grip without any success, while both Jonathan and Tamora stood there, frozen.

"Take one more step and your friend'll pay the price," yelled the leader, as finally they got to their senses and started backing away. "'Ave you ever seen a man bein' mauled by a werewolf?" he added, walking down the rest of the hill with his men. "Ain't pretty, I 'ave to tell you."

"Don't listen to him, just go," cried Finn, still struggling, even though he was no match to the strenght of the werewolf. But he was all the distraction the Snatchers needed. With a loud crack, three of them Apparated behind Jonathan and Tamora, two pulling him down to the floor and one grabbing her by the arms.

"Tie 'em up to that tree. We'll make camp 'ere tonight," ordered the leader, Summoning their wands and pocketing them. "'Im too, Greyback" he nodded towards the werewolf, who hauled Finn up from the ground with an indignant grunt and dragged him to be put with the others.

They took their time with the ropes, leaving no hope of escape for the prisoners, but the ones pulling the knots too tight weren't the worst by far. The werewolf, Greyback, was sitting on a fallen tree, never taking his hungry eyes off them, and a young man with a freshly scorched face stood nearby, watching Tamora with open hostility.

"All right, that's enough. You're not wrappin' 'em for Christmas," said the leader, as he finished his cigarette. The tall one, standing on Jonathan's side, gave the ropes a hard final tug, before stepping back and pulling a small black book from his pocket.

"Let's start with you, Godric," smiled the leader, walking closer to Finn. "What's your name?"

"Godric," answered Finn with a straight face.

The leader gave a sharp bark of a laugh, before slightly bending down with hands on his thighs to Finn. "'Ere's the sad truth," he said with a sigh. "Keepin' your name from us won't do you any good. But see that little book, my good friend, Bart's clingin' to? If you're in it, with a price on your 'ead, we'll make sure you live to see the mornin'."

Jonathan could feel Finn tensing against their ropes, and for a moment he was absolutely sure his friend would kick the Snatcher, tied feet or not. He tried really hard not to think about what would happen to him after that.

But the kick never came. "Finn Holland," he said instead.

There was a heavy silence, while Bart shuffled the pages. "There, Finn Holland," he cried, tapping a finger on it triumphantly. "Half-blood. Auror in training. Wanted for liberating a Mudblood from the custody of the Ministry of Magic," he read on. "Twenty-two galleons and seven sickles, alive."

One of the Snatchers cheered, hearing the sum, and the leader nodded with a grin too. "Congratulations, Finn, you'll definitely live to see the mornin'," he said, patting him on the shoulder, then moving on towards Jonathan and Tamora. "So, which one of you is the Mudblood?" he asked, looking at them curiously.

"It's me," said Jonathan, raising his chin slightly.

"Good," nodded the leader, not taking the effort to get their eyes on level. "Name?"

"Jonathan Miller."

"I've got him," said Bart, finding him right on the next page. "Jonathan Miller. Mudblood. Five galleons and a knut, alive."

"What?" cried one of the Snatchers, hurrying closer to Bart to get a look at his book. "No extra? He's a runaway!"

Jonathan couldn't help fidgeting, as even the leader turned his back on them and went to check it. "What 'ave I told you about true names and prices on your 'ead?" he asked with a frown, returning to them with the list in his hand.

"I'm not lying!" Jonathan tried to back away as much as the ropes and the tree behind him let it.

"And if I ask your lady-friend?" smiled the leader menacingly, moving towards Tamora.

"He is who he says he is," said Tamora in a voice just a little shaky. "Your book must be wrong," she added, as the Snatchers all looked at her.

"I'm sure it must be," said the leader after a moment of thinking, mockingly bowing his head and taking a step towards her. "And you are...?" he asked, and put a knee down on the ground close to her.

It took her a second to get back her air of bravery. "Tamora Malory."

The leader started turning the pages, slowly tracing the line of names on them, and Jonathan could feel Tamora breathing faster as he was getting closer to the last. "Sorry, love. You're not in 'ere," he said, looking up at her with raised eyebrows, as he reached the end of the book.

Only Greyback went on picking his teeth as if nothing happened. Some of the Snatchers started shifting from one leg to the other, one or two smiled, and the one with the scorched face tightened his grip on his wand.

"Check again," whispered Tamora, panic slowly seeping into her voice.

"I can check again and again until dawn breaks, but you're not in 'ere," smiled the leader, snapping the book closed and putting it into his pocket.

"Then you should check it with your bosses," snapped Finn, trying to lean forward to make eye-contact. "Your list could be missing more than one update."

"Look who's got 'er own knight in shining armour!" laughed the leader, and some of his men snickered too, before he turned back to Tamora. "But Godric's right. On the list or not, you could still be precious," he smiled, licking a thumb and wiping away some dried blood from her face with it.

She didn't move her head, and didn't even flinch, but as the leader stood up and turned his back on them, Jonathan could feel her shudder with a sigh; could feel an angry lump forming in his throat. They should have made sure that at least she got away.

"Is that all?" gasped the Snatcher with the scorch, stepping closer to the leader as if he was ready to fight him.

"Yes," he nodded. "You 'ave a problem with that?" he asked not even gripping his wand any tighter.

At least two of the company risked an expectant glance towards their rebelling friend, and Bart scratched his face too, looking at Tamora, who pulled her knees up to her chest with fear still glistening in her eyes.

"No," said the young man, taking a step back and dropping his gaze.

"Good. Let's settle for the night then," smiled the leader, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Bart, you take the first watch," he jerked his head towards the prisoners before walking on.

One by one all the Snatchers left to make camp, until only Bart stayed with them. Before taking a seat, he walked up to them and gave the ropes a final check.

"Let me go," breathed Tamora, as he got close enough.

"I can't," he said, shaking his head. "Stay put. He can't wait for you to try something funny."

It must have been a trick of the shadows, as one of the Snatchers started the fire at the middle of the clearing, but for a moment Jonathan could have sworn he saw some compassion crossing his face, before he turned his back on them to walk and take the seat on the fallen tree.

For an hour or so, nothing happened. They tried to loosen their ropes, but it was impossible to do anything about them without Bart noticing, so they gave up on it.

"They will have to move us," whispered Finn, as there was an ungodly roar of laughter coming from the camp and Bart turned to see what it was all about. "We'll try something then."

It wasn't much, but coming up with a perfect plan sounded like a good enough distraction from the Snatchers and especially their fire. It's been too long since the last time Jonathan has felt comfortably warm, so he closed his eyes, shut out the smell of wood smoke and cooking food, and started to think. His hands were bound in front of him, giving him a chance to get a wand. If he acted as soon as the Snatchers loosened the rope tying him to the tree, and could get one from them–

It was Finn's deep intake of breath that woke him from his thoughts, and it took him a few seconds to realise why he could feel Tamora tense beside him.

Finishing their supper, the Snatchers started to abandon their fire, some setting up tents and some spreading out sleeping bags, but one of them walked away from the group, heading towards the prisoners. Even with the fire behind his back, it was easy to guess who it was.

As soon as he saw him coming, Bart got up from his seat too, tentatively stepping between him and the prisoners.

"Relax, he knows," said Scarface, stopping by him. "He sent me to take it from here."

Jonathan had to stretch his neck to get a glimpse of the leader busying himself with his tent, holding it upright with his wand while driving its pegs into the ground with the heel of his boot.

"Take my word for it, or run and ask him, I don't care," sighed Scarface, as Bart turned and looked at the prisoners, then back at the camp, clearly not trusting him any more than they did.

Watching Bart give them a final look and strut away was bad enough, but then he reached the camp and the leader. They couldn't hear a word from it, but the conversation was dishearteningly short, and ended in Bart leaving the leader and his half-made tent behind with a frown and sitting by the fire to have his supper.

"See?" yelled Scarface, lifting his arms, before walking to the fallen tree and sitting on it, taking his wand from his pocket. He must have seen what Jonathan could feel, that Tamora went rigid with fear, but he gave no sign of enjoying it. And yet they all felt it, as he just sat there, keeping his cold basilisk eyes on them.

Just as Jonathan started to feel like he could no longer sit and wait for something terrible to happen, Tamora drew a deeper breath beside him. He tried to be very stealthy about it, but as soon as he started looking for the source of her excitement Scarface lifted his head too, first studying them with squinting eyes, then turning towards the camp on alert to see who's coming.

"Everythin' all right up 'ere?" asked the leader as he stopped halfway between the prisoners and the fallen tree.

"Yeah," nodded Scarface, looking up at him. It was hard to tell what angered him more, that he kept him from taking his revenge on Tamora, or the fact that after doing so, he dared to turn his back on him, even when he had a wand in hand he did not.

"You look cold, love," said the leader, kneeling beside Tamora like he did before, touching her face with the back of his hand, and Jonathan could feel his stomach turn when he caught the term "lesser of two evils" running through his mind.

"Leave her alone!" he snarled, louder than he meant to.

The leader looked at him with a chuckle, and turned back to her with raised eyebrows. "Is that what you want? To be left alone?" he asked, taking his hand from her face and putting it on her knee.

She said no, but it was easier to hear the ropes around her as she shook her head with it.

A threat and a curse were both on the tip of Jonathan's tongue, but before he could spit either out, he felt a sharp nudge in his side, coming from Finn's elbow, that made him snap his head towards him. But this of course made both Scarface and the leader notice them too.

"Somethin' you've got to say, Godric?" he asked, turning from Tamora and eyeing them with a puzzled smile.

Finn pressed his lips together hard, looking at him, then at Scarface, and finally at Jonathan and Tamora. "Her decision," he said, clearing his throat "And we've known her for only an hour," he added.

It was the foulest thing Jonathan has ever heard him speak, and for a moment he felt like he could easily tear his ropes with the rage rising in his chest. But then he saw the leader's hand wandering down Tamora's leg and suddenly realised what Finn was playing at.

"Is that so?" mused the leader, and Jonathan had to force himself to tear his gaze away from his hand and look at her face instead. He desperately wanted to say something to her, to tell her to be brave and use the wand hidden in her boot well, but of course he did not dare to speak a word.

"I'm sorry," said Finn, and the way Tamora nodded towards him made Jonathan's heart skip a beat. He could still feel how tense she was, but there was no longer panic in her eyes, and he refused to believe it wasn't because she was thinking along the same lines as Finn.

"There's nothin' to be sorry for," grinned the leader. "I'll make sure she likes it," he said, lifting his hand to caress her face, before he drew his wand to free her from the main rope tying her to the tree and grabbing her arm to help her to her feet.

Even with the plan and their chance of escape in mind, it was hard to watch them walk away, and Jonathan could feel a shiver running through him that had nothing to do with the cold of the night.

"She'll be all right," whispered Finn, not taking his eyes off her either, not even when she and the leader finally reached the camp and disappeared into his tent.

Hearing that, Scarface looked at them with his basilisk eyes and laughed in a way that made their skin crawl. But he didn't know about the wand. And he didn't know her.

oOo

It wasn't a long walk or a tricky terrain, but Tamora felt like the hand on her arm was the only thing that kept her up and going. She only wished they could stop waltzing through the camp and get into the tent before the last of her strength left her, because she feared her knees might give way any second.

She saw it coming and in the back of her mind she even tried to get ready for it, but when the flap of the tent closed behind them and he turned her around to kiss her hard, she crashed into him with a yelp like a rag doll.

"Fuck," she breathed, as he finally let go of her lips. "I thought you'd let him get me!" she whispered in an unnaturally high voice, with eyes still closed. She tried to look for some support, but with her hands still tied before her, she had to settle for the front of his coat and cling to it for dear life.

"You know I would ne'er do that," chuckled Scabior. He was clearly very pleased with himself and his sick game, but when he got no answer from her, he took her face in her hand and lifted it to make her look at him. "But make sure it ends here," he said, caressing her cheek.

She could only nod and grab his coat tighter. He was right, Octavian hated her from day one, but she never thought he'd dare to act on it too, and now that he had, it scared the hell out of her.

"Take care of him, before he turns the Garrets against me as well," he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and she knew it was an order.

"I will," she smiled weakly. "But how about you take care of me first?" she turned to kiss the base of his thumb seductively.

They had so much to discuss, like the prisoners heading towards Helmsdale, the mahogany wand that Henning Turner would surely buy back from them at any price they had the cheek to set, and of course she had to come up with a plan to get rid of Octavian too, but she didn't feel like scheming while she was still shaking inside. Anyway, she had worked so hard all night, and deserved some time and fun before she had to get clever again.

* * *

_Thank you for reading. Please, leave a note if you liked it.  
I would also like to thank my friends, **Gitta**, **Anna**, **Sam** and __**DolbyDigital** for all their help and support with this story._

_Also, there's a lot more Scabior in the following chapters. :)_


	2. Chapter 2: What can I get for you?

_Six months before._

It was one of those hatefully long nights, with all the tables taken by customers who decided to stay for hours over the same bottle of cheap Butterbeer, minimizing the chances of a good tip, but making sure there would be no early closing either. So as soon as the clock struck eleven and Madam Scrooge decided to leave for her bed upstairs, Tamora dragged a stool behind the counter and perched herself on it.

Sadly enough, she didn't even have time to decide if she wanted to read her book or do the crosswords in the Prophet, before the door opened for a newcomer. She slipped off the stool without much haste or enthusiasm, and put only a quarter of a smile on as the wizard took a seat.

"What can I get for you?" she asked, walking up to him.

"Whatever's the strongest," he said with a sigh, sweeping back his long hair from his face, and he looked like he could use it, if not exactly afford it. He must have sensed her hesitation, but didn't take it to heart, only leaned back slightly to rummage in his pocket and put a handful of coins on the counter.

"Shall I leave the bottle?" she raised her brows, pouring him the first shot.

"You read me, love," he smiled, reaching for the glass and emptying it in one go. It was always good fun to see men trying to impress her with their drinking skills, so she cocked her head and watched him pour and devour a second round. "Got anythin' to eat?" he asked, clearing his throat, before going on for the third.

He looked like he needed food even more than drink. And a good night's sleep. And a long bath. And–

"There's some stew left," she nodded, cutting her own train of thoughts, and leaving for the kitchen in the back.

It wasn't much, but luckily it was still warm enough to be served without a fuss, so she ladled all of it out of the pot and returned to him, before walking on towards the tables to give him some privacy by collecting empty glasses from the other customers. There weren't too many, but at least the witches at the table in the corner noticed it was time for them to say good night and leave.

By the time the man finished his stew and returned to finishing his drink, two more tables cleared, leaving only four more people in the room; a wizard playing chess against himself and three other regulars, deep in some very secret conversation.

"Anything else?" she asked, taking his empty bowl.

"Nah, I'm fine," he shook his head, not bothering with the glass any more, but taking a sip from the bottle. And almost spilling some of it when there was a loud crash, as the lonely wizard flipped his own chess board with an angry yell, sending pieces flying all over the room.

"Sorry! Sorry about that!" he cried before Tamora or the wizards at the neighbouring table could even make a step towards him, swishing his wand and re-collecting the pieces. "For... for your trouble," he coughed, putting a coin on his table and leaving the room as fast as he could.

"We should go too," said one of the wizards, cleaning the front of his shirt with his wand while his friends quickly finished their drinks. "See you tomorrow," he smiled at Tamora on their way out, putting their payment on the counter for her.

"Good night," she smiled, pocketing the money, before walking to the tables to clean up.

With her wand she could have finished in a blink of an eye, and it could have been even more easier to yell for Zizzie and let her do it, but she had no wand and Madam Scrooge didn't want the elf to be seen by customers, so she collected the glasses and mopped up the spilled drinks first from the tables, then from the floor herself. She could feel the eyes of the last customer on her, but she finished the floor before getting up and turning back to him.

"If there's nothing else I can get for you, I'd like to close," she said, gathering her tray with the glasses.

"A room for the night," he said, still holding on to his now empty bottle.

"Of course," she smiled politely, if not too keenly. "Thirteen Sickles and nine Knuts. Ten if you want an extra blanket," she reached for the keys and walked to the door to lock up while he counted out the money for her. If he didn't want to leave, she didn't want to let anyone else in. Not that anyone was on the street, threatening to come in for a last minute drink. These days even Diagon Alley became deserted after dark, and they were only a side-street to them.

"Thank you," she pocketed the money on her return. "Follow me," she nodded, heading towards the stairs and waiting for him at the bottom. She couldn't tell if it was the drink or just a bit too much of manly swagger, but decided not to worry about it, and slowly led him upstairs. "There you go," she opened the first room on the left for him. It wasn't big, but it was clean and had a good bed. She was quite sure he didn't want or need anything more.

He walked in as she stepped away from the door, taking off his coat and tossing it on the armchair beside the window with a content nod.

"Bathroom's at the end of the corridor, and that's for the elf, if you want something cleaned," she motioned towards a basket in the corner as she walked around, lighting a few candles and the fireplace for him.

"Is there a chance you could wake me at 'alf past six?" he asked, standing beside the window and admiring the view on the roof of the neighbouring house.

"Half past six," she nodded. "Good night then," she said, heading towards the door.

"Sweet dreams," he said, dropping himself on the edge of the bed to take off his boots and giving Tamora a smile that made her regret that she let him get this drunk. He could have helped her have a good night and some very sweet dreams.

But at least she didn't stay up until very late, and when she woke early in the morning, the bed let go of her without much fight. Still, some coffee would have been nice, so when she couldn't find any in the kitchen she went to look for Zizzie, and got even angrier when she found her in the laundry room, elbow deep in the soapy water.

"Are those mine?" she frowned, stepping closer and almost frightening the elf off her stool.

"Yes, Miss," squeaked Zizzie, balancing herself with great difficulty.

"And those?" asked Tamora, pointing at a pile of clothes still dry and crumpled.

"From the guest in room three, miss," said the elf with a heavy gulp.

"Start with those and be quick about it," sighed Tamora, walking back to the kitchen. She could have told Zizzie for the hundredth time that the requests of customers always came first, but that would have ended in the elf beating herself up with a bar of soap or a wet pair of jeans, so she decided not to say a word about it. Instead, she walked back to the kitchen to make some coffee and have a look at the Prophet.

Sometimes she wondered if it was worth the paper it was printed on, and concentrated on the crosswords or the astrology section, but today she couldn't tear her eyes from the article on the front page.

Above a picture of the prison itself, large black letters screamed at her about a general pardon for the convicts at Azkaban. According to the Prophet, the New Ministry of Magic saw fit to re-evaluate the verdicts of the old regime, and released people who could no longer be considered a threat. After that it went on and on about the many misconceptions and injustices in those verdicts, before it concluded in announcing that the Ministry also decided to employ these people, giving them a chance of reintegration into society.

"Zizzie is finished, Miss." The elf appeared in the kitchen with a pop. "Shall Zizzie return the clothes, or shall she make Miss breakfast first?" she chirped.

"What?" asked Tamora, still absorbed in her thoughts about the Prophet.

"Shall Zizzie return the-"

"Just leave them," said Tamora. It wasn't even six o'clock and she didn't want the elf to wake him with her clumsiness. "Get the breakfast going".

It was hard to close the Prophet and put it away, but by the time she finished eating and left to wake the guest, she made herself get over it.

"Good morning," she said, knocking on the door, but there was no answer from inside. "Morning," she repeated, this time a bit more firmly. When there was not a sound even after her third knock, she transferred all his clothes to one arm and reached for the keychain in her pocket.

"Good morning?" she whispered, poking her head through the opening door.

He was still in the bed, lying on his stomach, with a leg hanging over the edge and tangled in the sheets, but she could tell he was alive, and that was all she was hoping for. She would have hated to find another dead body.

She could feel the urge to creep closer and get a proper look, but as she was about to put his clothes down on the armchair next to his coat, she found something even more tempting. Under some coins and a pack of cigarettes, lay a piece of parchment. Parts of it were typed and parts were hand-written, like most Ministry papers. It ordered his release from Azkaban, and also the return of his wand.

It was almost identical to her release, from two years ago.

Except she never got her wand back.

Glancing towards the bed and making sure he was still asleep, Tamora bent closer to the armchair to get a better look. Touching the paper lightly, she could tell it had the usual basic spells on it. Nothing she didn't forge a thousand times before. Her plan was only beginning to form, but she could already feel a grin tugging the corner of her mouth. Dumping his clothes in the armchair, she fluffed her hair a bit and walked closer to the bed, putting a hand on his arm.

"Morning," she whispered, and screamed when his hand lashed out to grab her just above the elbow. "It's me, it's me, sorry, I'm sorry," she winced, putting one knee on the bed to keep her balance.

"Damn, girl," he let go of her with a tired sigh. "That's not 'ow you wake a man."

"Sorry," she said again, rubbing her arm and getting off the bed, back on her feet. "Your clothes are there, and there's breakfast downstairs if you want some." She walked to the door. She could have told him that she knew perfectly well how to wake a naked man, but she had to move fast to get her plan going.

oOo

She still had some supplies back from the old days, hidden at the bottom of her trunk, so writing her new release papers wasn't a big deal. Borrowing Madam Scrooge's wand for a few minutes and adding the proper spells wasn't too complicated either. The fight she had to have to get an extra day-off, and navigating to the Ministry through Muggle London in time were far more challenging, so when she finally got there, she felt like she could slump on the floor next to the wall like some of the others already in the queue and not move an inch more.

"Single line along the wall, please!" shouted a Ministry official, walking up and down the corridor leading to the Main Hall. Tamora didn't envy him for his job, but stepped closer to the wall.

There was a queue reserved for the freshly pardoned, and she was happy to see so many security witches and wizards keeping their eyes on them. Most of the people on her side of the barrier looked like they should have been kept locked up for the rest of their lives, but she couldn't feel bad about the Ministry's sudden rush of leniency. And who knew, maybe some of them were just in the wrong place at the wrong time like her.

Or maybe not, she couldn't care less, not with all the worries that started seeping into her mind after two hours of standing on the same spot. Gone were the thrill of excitement and adventure, and when in the distance she saw the man, Scabior being questioned, searched, and then lead away, for the first time she felt like she should have stayed away and carried on with her life as a Squib, so she pulled her hood deeper down before her face and tried harder to keep it together.

It was well into the afternoon when she finally got past the first security check and was lead into Room 378, where they had five tables set up waiting for them, so she walked to the only free one with shaking knees.

"Good afternoon," she nodded, putting her papers before the elderly wizard sitting behind it. He didn't look too intimidating, but the two guards on each side of his chair made up for that.

"Good afternoon," he nodded back, taking the papers and giving them a quick scan. "Tamora Malory?" he asked, adjusting his spectacles and looking up at her in a way that made her feel like she was just caught cheating during her O.W.L.s on Herbology. It was perfectly absurd. She never ever got caught cheating. And it wasn't the time for thinking about cheating on tests anyway.

"Yes," she said in a small voice as he turned to his own list.

"M-a-l-o-r-y?" he adjusted his spectacles again as he reached the last page and failed to find her name on.

"Yes," she whispered. She tried very hard not to look up at the guards standing behind him, but she could not resist it, catching the eye of the witch on his right. She had a haughty look about her, and in her hand she had a wand ready.

The wizard took his time reading and re-reading her papers, and he even lifted it up once to let the light of the candles and torches go through them. Tamora knew he'd find them perfect, but when he nearly touched them to his nose, she could almost feel her fingernails breaking the skin on her palm.

"Just a second," said the wizard, and Tamora nodded obediently, even though he probably was speaking only to the guards and not to her, as he stood up and walked to the back of the room, where more people with drawn wands were waiting. "Sorry, Albert, but there's another," he stepped to one of them, a tall man with a face like a bloodhound.

When she came up with the story back in her room, it sounded perfectly believable, but now that this Albert was reading her papers, suddenly she felt like it was the stupidest thing she ever had the misfortune of thinking of. This man wouldn't ask for her forgiveness and let her walk away if she told them it was their mistake to send her new papers, making her believe she was part of all this. He'd probably take her back to Azkaban personally.

"Murder," he said slowly, putting a finger on her registration number at the top of the page. "Of a Muggle?" he added as he got to the end of the runes and numbers.

"Yes," she croaked, wondering if telling the whole story would make things better or worse this time. It didn't help her much during her trial.

All he gave her was a curt nod before putting down her papers, writing something on them and adding his signature. "Put her on the list," he said to the other wizard, straightening his jacket with a single tug and walking back to the others.

"Right away," said the old man, but all Tamora could hear was her own voice screaming in her head. _She did it!_

oOo

When Scabior finally got out of the Ministry, he walked into the nearest park and took a seat on one of the benches, burying his face in his hands. He could feel a scream building up in his throat, which he knew was the grown up male equivalent of crying his eyes out, but couldn't tell where it was coming from. Probably had to do with the Dementors. He truly hoped it would pass soon.

Lifting his head, he looked around and saw trees. Sweet smelling, green trees, with leaves dancing. He never knew they could be this pretty.

He even toyed with the idea of sleeping here, on the bench, to get as much fresh air as his lungs could take, but then he remembered that the last time he had anything to eat was in the morning. Reaching into his pocket, he quickly counted the coins he had. He was happy he left some money with his clothes when he was taken to Azkaban, because he would have hated to share whatever the Ministry had to offer for the likes of him before they got their first pay-checks.

He was all right for a few more days, even if he had a decent meal every once in a while, and the Ministry promised work soon, so he decided to treat himself to another dinner, a good bed at last night's inn, and maybe some company too, if he managed to woo the barmaid. She looked wooable enough.

It sounded tempting, even against a night of fresh air and watching the stars, so he got off his bench and started walking back towards Diagon Alley, breathing deeply and enjoying the sight and sound of other people around him.

The shouting could be heard from the other end of the street, but Scabior walked on curiously, watching them from the shadows. The sun has only started to set, but the street was so narrow it turned dark right away, and with so few streetlamps, it wasn't hard to keep out of their sight. And they were too absorbed in their row anyway.

"I owe you nothing," stated the middle aged witch with a wild mane of silvery white hair, guarding the door with her body, wand in hand. "I took you in, when nobody else would have touched a dirty little Squib like you. I put a roof over your head and I have fed you; you should be thankful."

"I'd say I've been thankful enough," shrugged the barmaid, stepping away from a small trunk that most likely held all her earthly possessions. There were items of clothing poking out from under the lid here and there, as if they were just thrown inside in a hurry. "I've kept my eyes turned away from your business and my mouth shut tight about it, haven't I, _M__istress?_" she said in a voice so low it was getting difficult to hear.

It was also hard to tell if the older witch turned pale with anger or with fright, but when she looked around and saw Scabior, she put on a forced smile and straightened her shoulders. "Can I help you, sir?" she asked in a voice so cheerful it must have strained a muscle. "We're open, have our own Firewhiskey, a nice pot of stew on the stove, and rooms clean and comfy if you like."

"That's very kind, ma'am," nodded Scabior pleasantly, taking a step towards the light, "But I'm 'ere for your girl."

Even if nothing else came out of it, their faces were worth his effort. The crone's face soured as if she'd just looked under a pile of gold and found what came out of the dragon guarding it, and the maid gave him a grin that said she was willing to kiss him wherever he pleased, so he smiled back at her and walked up to them.

"'Ello, beautiful," he offered the girl his arm, pulling her close when she took it without missing a beat.

The witch eyed them suspiciously for a moment, but then she must have thought it didn't make much difference if they really knew each other, or if the girl was just jumping on the first knight in shining armour that came her way. "Wait here," she spat, turning on her heels and shutting the door behind herself with a loud bang.

"Thanks," whispered the girl, giving his arm a squeeze. "I owe you a drink."

"Yes, I think you do," he nodded, suddenly feeling very thirsty indeed.

"There," said the witch, not even stepping back out on the street, just throwing a handful of coins on the cobblestones. "Good luck finding a new place!" she laughed bitterly, before closing the door again.

"I'll miss you too!" huffed the girl, letting go of Scabior to collect her money.

As he watched her bending for coin after coin, he could feel his hand reaching for his wand on its own accord, and his chest expanding with a sigh of relief as he touched it through the fabric of his jacket. He would have hated to live like this, without magic. Two more months in Azkaban would have been bad enough, but not getting his wand back for another three years... Just thinking of it made his skin crawl.

"Need an 'and with that?" he asked, as she marched on to her trunk and kneeled before it.

"No, thanks," she shook her head, quickly pushing all her stuff inside and closing the lid properly. "It's self-folding," she added, getting up and dusting her knees as the spells in the fittings started to work and shrunk the whole thing until it was no bigger than a Ministry official's briefcase. "So," she said cheerfully, grabbing the handle when it was ready, lifting her other hand towards him with a playful smile, "Drinks?"

"Drinks," he took it, hoping her fingers were not always this damn cold.

They remained cold even after an hour at the bar and then in bed, but he only pinned them above her head when he had enough of her on top. Not that he didn't enjoy her riding him like there was no tomorrow, but he wanted to give her something to remember him by, so when she finished getting him ready again, he took her by the waist and put her on her back, pushing her wrists into the pillow with one hand.

"My turn," he whispered, wiping her hair out of her face before lowering his head and kissing her long and hard on the lips, taking the last of her remaining breath away and moving downwards to her throat.

"Sorry, love," he chuckled, giving her one last bite before lifting his head and feeling his own jaw when she tensed under him and tried to nudge his head away with her chin. He was quick with the shower and even quicker with the razor upon his release from Azkaban, and while he enjoyed soaking in the warm water last night, he didn't care much about shaving again. "Sorry," he crooned, caressing her shoulder and neck soothingly, even though he wanted nothing more than to go back and mark them. They were so smooth, so white, so–

"What's this?" he asked, rubbing his thumb against her skin to reveal more of it.

"Nothing," she said, raising her shoulder closer to her jaw to cover it, but she was way too late. He saw the runes and numbers she tried to hide under the paint, and it made him smile.

"You're not a Squib. You've been to Azkaban," he nodded slowly, searching her face, as he let go of her hands and brought his fingers down on her arm until he reached the other, truly unmarked side of her neck. "Naughty girl," he whispered with a smile.

"I don't want to talk about it," she said in a voice she must have thought firm, bringing her arms down in front of her chest before putting her cold hands on his shoulders. "Just fuck me, will you?" she added, burying her fingers in his hair.

"Your wish is my command, love," he said, giving her a feral grin before claiming her mouth once again.

* * *

_Thanks for reading! Please, leave a note if you liked it :)  
__I would also like to thank my friends, **Gitta**, **Anna**, **Sam** and __**DolbyDigital** for all their help and support with this story._

_Want to read a more detailed version? Check out my new story, "Just Don't Think I'm Finished With You"!_


	3. Chapter 3: Now that you know your place

It was too dark to even guess the time, but it was definitely well before dawn, which meant they couldn't have been asleep for more than a few hours when someone knocked on their door. Tamora wanted to shout at them to go away, but her head was too heavy, so she just whispered it into Scabior's neck, hoping it would act like a new, wandless spell.

"Ministry of Magic, open the door," came a man's stern voice, accompanied by another set of knocks, making her eyes snap open and her whole body tense.

"Damn," grunted Scabior, moving his head slightly. "I'm comin'!" he raised his voice, rubbing his face with his free hand. "It's all right. Just let me get up," he whispered to Tamora, but he also had to push her slightly to make her move off his shoulder.

"No, wait," she breathed, trying to free herself from the sheets.

"It's all right," he hushed her, but grabbed his wand from the bedside before walking to the chair beside the fire.

Finding his pants in their pile of clothes and putting them on wasn't easy in the dark, but jumping from deep sleep to sheer panic made Tamora slow too. By the time she managed to get her wand from between the mattress and the bed frame, where she hid it last night when he wasn't looking, he was already at the door, so she could do nothing but cover up and hope the people at the door didn't see her jerking her hand away from under the pillow.

"Yes?" asked Scabior, keeping his wand hand out of sight and his foot ready to stop the door if they wanted to push it in. Tamora wondered if he'd be able to do that without boots on, and tried not to fidget with her wand under the covers. So far the element of surprise had been working against her, but she was keen on changing that.

"Nicholas Scabior?" asked one of the wizards standing in front of the door. It was hard to tell how many of them were there, but Tamora could see at least two wands with lights at their tips.

"Yes," nodded Scabior, not moving the door at all.

There was a rustling of papers, before the man cleared his throat and started reading. "Nicholas Scabior, you are hereby summoned by the Ministry of Magic," he articulated carefully, making it sound like a sentence. "The time is 4:47 a.m., you have fifteen minutes to use the Portkey attached. Should you fail to comply with these orders, you'll be held responsible. Do you understand?" he finished, rolling up the summons and offering it to Scabior.

"Yep," he nodded, taking the scroll reluctantly. "Is that all?" he asked, taking half a step back to be able to close the door.

"Not quite," said the wizard, and before he even drew breath for it, Tamora knew what was coming, and could feel a knot forming in her stomach. "We are Tracing another individual in here. Tamora Malory?"

For a moment Scabior did not move, but then he looked at her over his shoulder, with a face perfectly unreadable in the dark and under just a slice of wand-light.

Trying to concentrate on the fact that this wasn't going to be an arrest after all, Tamora nodded to him and slipped off the bed, putting the covers around herself as if it they were her best royal cape, hiding her wand in its folds.

"It's me," she said, stepping beside Scabior at the door. He moved back slightly, but stayed close.

"Right. Tamora Malory, you are hereby summoned by the Ministry of Magic," said the Ministry wizard, taking her summons in hand. "The time is 4:49 a.m., you have fifteen minutes to use the Portkey attached. Should you fail to comply with these orders, you'll be held responsible. Do you understand?" he gave her the exact same speech, and probably did the exact same little flick of hand to roll up her parchment too.

"Yes," she reached for it, taking care not to touch the wax seal that acted as a Portkey and sending herself to the Ministry before time and in this state of undress.

"Then good day to you," nodded the wizard, before he took a step back and turned on his heel to Disapparate, closely followed by his colleague.

"And to you too," said Scabior, shutting the door and bolting it too. "So," he smiled, putting his back against it and looking down at Tamora.

"So," she looked back at him, with her fingers tightening around her wand.

"I like a girl with secrets and surprises," he said in a low voice, with eyes lingering on her tattoo. "But you are really full of 'em, love," he added, raising an eyebrow.

When Tamora cocked her head, smiling at him, and he returned the smile, she knew she could easily flirt her way out of the situation, but she wanted to give him something that would put an end to his curiosity. It was the least she could do after being so stupid and taking him of all people to bed.

"I made a deal with the Ministry, like you," she said, trying to keep her eyes locked with his, concentrating on the fact that technically it wasn't even a lie. "And now I owe them, like you," she moved her scroll between her fingers slightly.

"Just don't tell anyone you've joined us freely," he whispered, leaning closer with a grin. "People might think you're mad."

oOo

When they arrived to the Ministry and they were sent to a large auditorium to wait, it felt a bit like being back to Hogwarts again. There were a few people sitting in the first rows, eager for whatever they were about to be told, even in this ungodly hour; up in the back of the room almost all the seats were taken by those who didn't want to be seen by whoever was going to do the talking; and between them, there were those who wanted to be left alone, sitting as far from everyone else as possible.

In around the fourth row, Scabior saw a wizard he vaguely remembered from the boat that took them to shore from Azkaban, but when Tamora walked past him on the stairs, he didn't stop her. He knew he'd have to have friends later but, for now, there was a lady in need of him.

It wasn't hard to see what she was playing at in this room full of men of all different ages and sizes, but with the same cruel air hanging around them. It was flattering to say the least, so when Tamora guided them to an empty row, he followed and took the seat beside her with a content smile. She was lucky he was in the right place at the right time last night.

Whatever the Ministry wanted with them, they took their time.

After an hour of waiting, while more and more people kept coming and taking up seats, Scabior could feel a dull headache forming behind his eyes, so he decided to put his head back against the railing separating them from the row behind and close them for a few minutes.

He was sure he didn't fall asleep, because he could still hear the others talking in low voices and could feel Tamora fidgeting beside him all the while, but when she touched his arm and he looked up, the room was almost full, and there were people putting up new chairs with high backs and chains attached to their sturdy arms and feet in the middle of the hall.

"Trials?" asked Tamora in a whisper, watching them from the edge of her seat.

"Probably," he cleared his throat, sitting up straight, watching the chairs being secured to the floor. His headache was gone, but his chest was beginning to feel tight with worry.

When all seven chairs were finished, one of the Ministry wizards left the room, while the others joined their colleagues standing in front of and on the stairs leading to the seats, keeping their wands in hand.

"Someone's trying very hard to intimidate us, boys," laughed a man sitting right behind them.

"Too bad they are succeedin'," added Scabior, leaning closer to Tamora with a wry smile. After being dragged here before the break of dawn, and with their wands taken from them at the door, all they needed were more armed men to make them feel even less comfortable. "Want me to 'old your 'and?" he asked jokingly.

She chuckled nervously, crossing her arms tighter in front of her chest when the doors opened again, and a group of Ministry officials and guards walked in.

"Good morning," stepped up one of them, a shortish blond man with a gravelly voice that caused the whole audience to fall silent at once. "My name is Edward Yaxley. I am the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, the Department you will be working for in exchange for your parole."

There was some shuffling and whispering in the rows, as some of the people seemed to know him, but it settled quickly enough as the doors opened again and a group of witches and wizards were lead to the empty chairs.

One of the men was sobbing so hard he was unable to walk and had to be carried, and there was a witch who kicked and screamed, and had to be dragged to her chair by two of the bulkiest security wizards and held there while a third secured her chains. The rest of them were silent, as if they already knew what was going to happen and just wanted to get it over with.

"Some of you may think that there's space for negotiation in holding up your end of the bargain, or that any attempt to break our terms wouldn't be taken in all seriousness," said Yaxley, as all the prisoners were made to sit in the chairs and held there by the chains. "But you would be wrong." He looked at them, taking his wand out.

With a swish of it, he conjured a ball of light that shaped up into a large dog of a Patronus, that looked like it was about to kill. Seeing that the other two men and some of the security officials followed his example and conjured their own Patronuses, Scabior swallowed hard and tried to steady himself.

As the first pair of Dementors glided in to the room, he could feel his jaw tightening instinctively and, by the time there was one standing behind each prisoner, he was grinding his teeth so hard it made his whole head ache again. He never took the time to learn how to conjure a proper, corporeal Patronus, but as a shiver started running up and down his back, he decided to give it a try as soon as he got out of here.

They all knew the Department's second in command, Albert Runcorn, as he was present when they left Azkaban, making sure only the right people could leave the island, so when Yaxley nodded towards him, he just stepped up, unrolled the parchment he was holding, and started reading the names of the prisoners and their crimes out loud.

All of them were guilty of breaking their parole. Some didn't even show up to claim their wands, but most of them tried to sneak away during the night. The witch who was still screaming hoarsely killed two of the Ministry's people when they wanted to arrest her, and the wizard who had stopped crying since, only to sit very still with his eyes closed, failed to come when he was Summoned like the rest of them.

They were all sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss, in a perfect demonstration of power, and a very clear warning for the rest of them.

"Proceed!" ordered Yaxley, and there were gasps and grunts coming from the onlookers as the Dementors one by one lifted their hoods and revealed their faces. When they stepped closer to the prisoners, Scabior dropped his gaze, closed his eyes and tried very hard to concentrate on something else - anything else.

Next to him, Tamora was watching it with a hand pressed against her mouth, breathing heavily with horror, and listening to that gave him some distraction for a while, but then the prisoners started screaming for mercy, and it sounded an awful lot like being back in Azkaban.

No matter how hard he tried to open his eyes to make sure he was still in the Ministry of Magic and not back in his cell, they remained shut, so when he felt Tamora's hand looking for his, he grabbed it and hoped she wouldn't break any of his fingers in her desperate need for support.

She gripped his hand even tighter when the screams stopped, which told Scabior that it would be the worst possible time to look up, so he took a deep breath, pushed his chin closer down to his chest and waited.

It couldn't have lasted for more than a few minutes, but it felt like hours until her fingers finally relaxed a bit.

The Dementors were still there, moving around their victims as if they wanted to make sure they didn't leave a morsel of soul in them, but they sat with faces so blank, they looked like they'd never even lived before. The Dementors hovered even further back when Yaxley motioned towards the guards to escort the prisoners out of the room to be taken to the Isle of Azkaban, where they would spend the rest of their lives, wandering the rocky shores around the prison.

There was no need for another big speech about their duties towards the Ministry so, soon after the last Dementor was out of sight, Yaxley dismissed his Patronus and left too, leaving Runcorn behind.

Feeling a bit shaky, Scabior took a few deep breaths, then looked at Tamora. She still had her free hand in front of her mouth, and was sitting with her eyes closed, but when he gently squeezed her cold fingers she looked up at him, clearing her throat and trying to force a smile.

"I'm all right," she cleared her throat again. She looked sick and tired, with lips perfectly white and circles under her eyes that were alarmingly dark, but as she was trying to be brave about it, Scabior smiled back at her with all his might, but decided not to pull his hand away.

It took the guards a few minutes to get everyone who needed help out of the room and make the rest of them settle down, but when they were finished, Runcorn took a step towards them and raised his head.

"Now that you know your place," he started, looking at them like he was their one and only master, "there is work to be done. I want those who hear their names to come down here and wait for further orders. The rest of you are dismissed," he barked, then gave the floor to one of his men, who started reading names from a parchment.

There must have been some logic behind all this, but since he could not see it, Scabior sat back and watched as groups of sixes and sevens were called and taken out of the room, all the while hoping that he wouldn't be on the list. He needed some air, he longed for a drink, and he truly, desperately wanted to lie down and not move for the rest of the day.

He got into the fourth group.

"See you later," he whispered to her as he stood up and let her hand slip out of his, before marching down the stairs to join the others. For her own sake, he hoped she wouldn't be picked, but was happy that at least they got into different groups. She was a spectacular fuck, but he would have hated to babysit her through the thick of it when curses started to fly.

oOo

Tamora only Exceeded Expectations in her N.E.W.T.s for Palmistry and Physiognomy, but by the time the third group gathered around their assigned leader and left the room, she could tell that whatever the job was, the Ministry needed people who did serious time for violent crimes, but managed to keep their wits in Azkaban.

She also knew that both her and Scabior would likely be chosen, because there weren't that many sane people in the room, and so she watched him strutting down the stairs with a sigh. At least they got into different groups. He had gorgeous eyes and was as insatiably hungry as she liked them, but she would have hated him to think that she needed him to hold her hand from now on.

Or maybe she could have been a little more careful about what she wished for, because as she looked at the group she ended up with, she had to admit that there were worse things on the planet then men who wanted to treat her like a doll.

* * *

_Yay, cliffhanger! :)_

_Sorry for the delay. Some Stupid Real Life Drama caught up with me, so I didn't really have time to write. I promise the next chapter will be coming sooner and will be of proper lenght too.  
Sam, Anna and Gitta are still the best consulting readers ever._


	4. Chapter 4: Come over 'ere

Tamora only met the Carrows once before, when she was around five.

Some great-great-great-uncle of her father's died, and in his will he left something to each and every one of his relatives, no matter how distant, so they had to go to some big house with an even bigger garden to collect it. Her mother put her in a lovely new dress and braided her hair so intricately that it took half an hour to undo it in the evening. While the adults listened to the will being read out, the children were waiting in the second largest reception room, under the supervision of a pair of ghostly twin sisters, wearing the most magnificent dress robes and neck ruffs.

Tamora was playing with two other girls around her age whom she knew from the nearby villages, when Alecto and her brother, Amycus started a fight. He was a big boy, already in his second year at Hogwarts, but before the sisters had a chance to float out of the room and fetch a parent, Alecto was on top of him, pressing his face into the carpet and keeping him pinned to the ground so effectively he could hardly move.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I yield!" he groaned under her.

"All right, then," nodded Alecto, letting go of his hand and rolling off his back as elegantly as her short legs allowed, before looking around with a wide, triumphant grin. Tamora was too thrilled to see a girl win over a boy to be able to suppress clapping her hands, earning a friendly wink from Alecto.

"Well done, little cuz!" cheered one of the Avery sisters, sitting at the big girls' table and waving for Alecto to join them. "Just wait until you get a wand too," she and her friends chuckled, offering her a seat with them.

Tamora wondered if she should try to remind them of their family connections, but as soon as they got back their wands and arrived to the garden of a small cottage at the middle of nowhere, they had to start working.

"The hostage arrives within an hour, and I want this place to be impenetrable by then," announced Alecto, opening the front door with a flick of her wand. "You three, with me." She pointed at Tamora and two of the men, waving her hand for them to follow, while the rest of the team stayed outside with her brother.

They needed all sixty minutes, and a little more. The house must have belonged to Muggles before they were taken care of, as it was packed with all kinds of electric rubbish that kept on making strange noises whenever they went too close to them with magic, and lacked even the most basic charms.

"It will do," nodded Amycus, when he came in to the house to check how they were doing. Since they didn't have three days to weave a proper net of Anti-Apparition charms and hexes, they concentrated on covering all the doors and windows, and setting up a few traps and alarms.

"We can send word to Travers to bring him," agreed Alecto, stepping towards the door and her brother.

When she saw her conjure a Patronus, Tamora shifted from one foot to the other, gripping her wand just a fraction tighter and expecting Dementors to burst through the door, but as soon as the large, feline creature took shape, it disappeared into thin air too, carrying their message back to the Ministry, or wherever this Travers was.

They didn't have to wait more than a minute, until a tall wizard with an extremely well-kempt, full beard Apparated into the living room. He didn't say a word, only scanned the room and nodded with a grunt, before snapping his fingers. Two more men arrived instantly, carrying a third, unconscious one with a bag over his head to the nearest armchair.

"You want him Revived, ma'am?" asked one of them, when they finished securing him to the chair with chains and charms.

"Just take off the bag and make sure he doesn't choke on his own tongue," shrugged Alecto.

The man's face was covered in bruises and blood, but it couldn't keep Tamora from recognising him at once from the scars around his left eye and cheek, because she was the one who gave them to him.

Edmund Savage, and his father, the former Junior Assistant to the Head of Auror Office were the reason she got seven months in Azkaban for that stupid accident; four for the dead Muggle and three more for attacking the Aurors sent for her. She really shouldn't have ruined the kid's pretty face.

"Let his father know that he has until midnight," said Amycus, clapping Travers on the shoulder, as he and his men were about to leave.

"I hope he comes sooner than that," sighed Alecto as they Disapparated with three faint pops, clearing the sofa from all the cushions and sitting at the middle of it, putting her feet up on the coffee table. "This place makes me sick in the stomach."

"You should see the garden," grunted Amycus. "It's full of gnomes. Muggle gnomes, made of porcelain." He shivered theatrically, before putting on his hood against the wind and backing away towards the door.

"Save the ugliest for me, will you?" cried Alecto, turning after him. "I promised Malfoy something to replace that vase of his wife's I've broken."

It was a little unnerving that the Carrows spoke so freely in front of them, and it made the other two wizards shift uneasily, but Tamora had time to get used to being treated like a deaf elf during her stay with Madam Scrooge, so she just turned her eyes towards Edmund Savage. He looked like he had a long line of rough nights.

"You have unfinished business with him?" chuckled Alecto, and Tamora snapped her head towards her with a start. She couldn't tell how long she had been staring at Savage, but considering the smile on the other woman's face, it must have been quite some time.

"He put me in Azkaban," nodded Tamora, and before she could bite down on her tongue, she went on. "What happens to him after midnight?" she asked, looking Alecto in the eye.

"I'm gonna kill him," she replied with a grin and a curiously raised brow, but she could have Legilimented Tamora then and there and never learnt how she felt about it.

Sometimes she still saw Edmund Savage in her dreams, locking her in a cell, and the notion of him dying was too out of this world to induce feelings that could be named, apart from a quickened heart rate and a crawling sensation around the back of her neck.

oOo

Back when he'd been at Hogwarts, Scabior had a Muggle-born friend, Vincent, who used to teach them the most hilarious and expressive phrases from the non-magical side of the world. 'Cannon fodder' was one of them, and as he pulled himself up to the top of a Muggle metal container, Scabior briefly remembered Vince, and wondered if he and his pretty wife were still in Mexico, breeding feathered serpents, and if they were still willing to have him around.

Becoming a farmhand had never been part of his great plans for life, but by the time the sun was setting on his first day in the service of the Ministry, it was starting to sound more and more like a promising alternative. He heard somewhere that the venom of those beasts could give you the most spectacular hallucinations before you finally died.

His only problem was that he had to survive the night to be able to give proper thought to getting rid of the Trace on him and slipping away to sunshine, sandy beaches and other pleasures of an ever-lasting holiday.

None of them doubted that Kingsley Shacklebolt and his friends knew they were tracking them, for they've been luring them from one perfectly defendable hiding place to the next all day. Too bad the Ministry wanted him alive, because they could have torched the first house they found them in and be done with it, instead of scrambling after him up and down the country.

After a few seconds of laying flat against the top of the container, he raised his head tentatively to watch the others take their position. Even though they were nine against three when they set off, they have already lost two men at previous locations, so they were all getting a little more cautious with the team of ex-Aurors.

As soon as the fight started, Scabior knew he picked the best spot he could. True, he was out in the open, but he wasn't in any danger of being buried under a large pile of scrap metal, and he could see everything that was going on, so he only gave up this perfect position when one of the fools let himself be lured away from the rest of the group by Proudfoot. Not that he didn't deserve anything the witch had in store for him, but they couldn't afford losing another man when Shacklebolt alone could fight three at a time.

No matter how fast he ran, by the time he caught up with Proudfoot and the idiot, he was already too late. So late that for a moment he considered letting the other man deal with the consequences of his own stupidity.

Duelling amongst all that Muggle junk made both parties slower, but here, where there were no piles of sharp metal object around and the curses could fly wherever they wanted, the ex-Auror had the upper hand. Even though she was outnumbered, her training seemed to make up for it easily, and it soon turned into something very different from the fights Scabior usually got into.

To make things even more difficult, the moron on his right kept blocking Scabior and sending his spells at the worst possible moments, so while he considered himself a good enough team player, soon he stopped caring if his curses hit him or the witch.

He almost thanked her when she finally hit the halfwit square in the face with a Stunning Spell, but of course she left him no time for such niceties and turned on him with all she had right away.

She knew all the tricks he wanted to play on her, and used some of her own that Scabior had never even heard of, so in the end he won by sheer dumb luck.

His curse only grazed her, but it gave him a chance to turn the tide. He gave up on big, powerful spells that could win you a duel, and concentrated on hexes and jinxes that could be cast quickly and without much effort to keep her from a counter-attack for a while, and most importantly to try to push her out of the clearing.

There was some grim satisfaction in watching an Auror struggle, and it turned into a thrill so fast that Scabior almost had to remind himself that this wasn't a game, but when she failed to block a second jinx of his, he couldn't keep himself from grinning, and when a third, final curse hit her, he threw caution to the wind and enjoyed a few precious seconds of laughter and joy before he went near to check if she was really down and to tie her up.

After securing the last bit of magical ropes around her ankles, Scabior sat back on his heels and looked around, raking his nails across his tattoo.

The Trace was one of the main reasons he didn't try to make a run for it then and there, with the rest of the group either unconscious or busy fighting Shacklebolt and the other Auror, but he had to admit that greed played some part in it too. A reward was promised to them, and he just single-handedly caught Miranda Proudfoot, so he scratched his neck again, this time with a bit more force, and decided to stay at least until he could find a proper way out.

And if he could earn some gold while he waited, the more the better.

oOo

Knowing that he would be too valuable in the hands of the Death Eaters, William Savage stayed away and never came for his son, but as any true general would, he sent his best for him. They arrived a little after sunset, and killed two of the Ministry's new men within as many minutes, and from then on it quickly evolved into a flurry of spells and cries of pain.

As per instructions, Tamora never left the side of the hostage, and soon she found herself in the room with three Aurors and only Alecto by her side. She deflected curse after curse, but as panic started to creep up her spine, she gave up on defensive spells and started a counter-attack that was almost too vicious for duelling indoors.

With Alecto they managed to kill a wizard each and capture the third one, but all Tamora could feel was fatigue numbing her muscles and melting her bones, so when the fighting was done and Amycus and the others brought a second prisoner to the room, she drifted to the side, buried both her hands in her pockets and hung her head slightly.

They didn't give her much time to recover though.

As soon as the identities of the trapped witch and wizard were cleared, Alecto beckoned her closer.

"You deserve it," she put a hand on her shoulder like a big sister would, motioning towards Savage with her head.

Tamora could feel both Carrows watching her, and some of the men too. So it wasn't just a gift; it was a test. She could also feel some new blood seeping from her nose, so she sniffed and swallowed hard, never taking her eyes off Savage. He must have known he was going to die, but she couldn't see any signs of fear on his face.

"You know how it's done, right?" asked Alecto. "The key is that you have to mean it," she whispered. Her hand was getting heavy on Tamora's shoulder, but she didn't take it away, not even when she nodded and moved half a step closer to the ex-Auror.

This wasn't how she imagined it. She wanted Savage to feel at least some of the terror she felt when he and his friends took her, but here he was, tied to a chair, all bloody and bruised, his life in her hands, and he wasn't afraid at all.

"Go on then," said Alecto, petting her shoulder one last time before letting go and taking a step back.

Tamora raised her wand slowly, pointing its tip at Savage's heart and gripping its handle hard. He raised his head slightly, looking her right in the eyes with every last bit of defiance he possessed, so she swallowed again and spoke the words firmly:

"Avada Kedavra!"

To Tamora's horror, the jet of green light lost some of its momentum as it entered Savage's chest, causing him to throw his head back in agony, but leaving him very much alive, if a bit gasping for breath.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," groaned Amycus, turning away slightly, as if he knew nothing more disgusting than a Killing Curse messed up.

Behind her back, Alecto gave a disappointed sigh too, and as Tamora could feel her step closer and lift her wand to finish what she failed with, she raised her own without a second's hesitation, and slashed it in front of Savage's throat with a cry.

The cut went deep, almost severing his neck in half, but Tamora only flinched when she turned around with fear and saw Alecto's smile.

"You've got a lot to learn," chuckled the Death Eater.

Tamora nodded shakily, and looked back at her handiwork. Edmund Savage was finally dead, and she was the one who killed him.

oOo

Edward Yaxley sat back in his chair and waited for his assistant to put down the tray, pour his tea and leave. It was going to be a long night, and for a moment he wondered if he should have asked for something stronger instead. Messages had been flying in to his office all day, so pieces, scraps and rolls of parchment covered his table, and he didn't want to leave a single one unread before his visit to Malfoy Manor in the morning.

"Anything else, sir?" asked the young wizard in a low voice, stepping back when he was finished with the tea.

Yaxley just waved his hand, sending him away before reaching for the next report.

Boosting their numbers by opening the gates of Azkaban had been his idea, but of course his ambitions were greater than giving the Dark Lord some foot soldiers. While the rest of the Death Eaters considered these people only little better than dogs, he already had his eyes on a dozen of them, knowing that in the right hand, a well-trained bloodhound could be invaluable.

oOo

The Leaky Cauldron was so crowded with plenty of witches and wizards getting unexpected gold, that people were sitting even on the stairs. As Tamora made her way upstairs, she felt happy she had her dinner at the first Muggle vendor she passed, and was even happier to have paid for one more night in her room before they left in the morning. She had no idea where she would go next, so keeping this room for a few more days sounded like the best of plans she could come up with for the time being.

There must have been a thousand more important things on the minds of the staff and the elves, and the candles burned really low on the corridor, but finding the key in her pocket was harder than finding the keyhole, so she didn't even bother with a Wand-Lighting Charm.

She almost backed out to the corridor when she opened the door and was met by a single candle's light.

It was a surprise to see Scabior here, to say the least.

When he told her he'd be back, she thought it was something he tells to all the girls before never seeing them again, but here he was, fast asleep in her bed. He didn't even stir when she entered the room and closed the door, and while it was too dark to make out much of his face, his breathing was deep and peaceful, and Tamora could hardly wait to join him.

As she put her jacket next to his on the hook, she noticed that he had the same red armband that she was given back at the Ministry, as a reward for her good work tied over his arm. She looked at him again, wondering how he could have earned his, but then she just kicked off her boots and walked further into the room.

The floorboards creaked a bit, no matter how slowly she stepped on them, but he woke up only when she put her trousers over the back of the chair next to his, and it slipped off, pulled by the weight of his heavy, studded belt.

"Sorry," she whispered as he turned to her with a frown, picking it up and folding it neatly in two, before putting it back on the seat.

"It's okay." He rubbed his face, before looking back at her, and propping himself up on an elbow as she took off her shirt too.

She loved his eyes on her body, and so she went on without a word, but when she finished she turned to him, searching his face.

"I killed the man who put me in Azkaban," she said, raising her chin, because she wanted him to know that. She wanted everyone to know that. His eyes snapped up to hers instantly, and his smile widened into a grin that had nothing to do with her nakedness. She loved that grin on him even more.

"Come over 'ere." He kicked the covers aside and was about to get up too, but Tamora stepped to him and put a hand on his shoulder, keeping him seated on the edge of the bed, running her fingers through his hair.

"I need a shower first." She moved from him, when she felt his hands on the back of her thighs, trying to pull her closer. "But don't go back to sleep," she caressed his face with a smile, before turning away and walking to the bathroom. With her wand back, Edmund Savage dead and a new lover in her bed, she felt truly alive for the first time in a very long while.

* * *

_Sorry, some scenes proved to be trickier than I expected, so it took me ages to finish this chapter.  
I'd love to know what you think of it, so please read and review! :)_

_As ever: thanks for my wonderful helpers, Gitta, Anna and Sam._


	5. Chapter 5: Thanks

[A.k.a. Chapter Four and a Half]

Tamora returned to The Leaky Cauldron well after midnight, looking tired and worn, but when Scabior waved at her from their table where he was sitting with some new, but all the more valuable friends, she joined them with a smile. She didn't say much, but snuggled close when he put an arm around her shoulder, laughed at all their jokes, sipped his drink every now and then, and Scabior never suspected a thing, not even when upstairs she pushed him against the door and kissed him so hard it almost hurt.

He was way too intoxicated to be able to tell the difference between a woman in heat and one in despair, so he just handed over the reins with a pleased grunt, and afterwards, when she slipped out of bed to have a shower, he laid back with an exhausted sigh and a satisfied grin.

Life finally started treating him right. He had money in his pocket, a place to sleep at, and someone to sleep with, and it was all the happiness he needed for now. He knew it wouldn't last long, because nice things never did, and because the Ministry was still holding him on a leash, but he was very good at ignoring gathering clouds.

He only noticed that something was amiss when he dozed off and woke again, and she was still in the bathroom. Some of the candles were burnt out, and the rest were getting really short too, so she must have been in there for some time, and overlong showers right after sex seldom bode well. But before he could have decided what to do about it, or if he should do anything about it at all, she was back, blowing out the candles and lying back next to him.

"Everythin' all right, love?" he asked, turning on his side and caressing her upper arm with a finger.

"Sure," she nodded, but her body said otherwise. She turned her back to him and leaned against his chest, but her spine and neck remained stiff, and there was something about the rhythm of her breathing that Scabior just didn't like, so he snuck an arm around her and kissed the back of her head.

He waited for her to say something, but wasn't surprised when she didn't. So maybe it was nothing. Or just none of his business.

Still, having the final word in this conversation was the honourable thing to do: "If you need 'elp with guttin' the bastard who 'urt you," he pulled her closer, "just know that I'm 'ere, okay?"

Sure, it wasn't the most romantic thing he ever said to a girl, and even further from riding in on a white Hippogriff and saving the day, but it seemed to work just fine.

"Thanks," she chuckled, finally relaxing in his arm a little, and since he knew it was all he could have wished for at the moment, he put his forehead against her still damp hair and closed his eyes. It didn't take him more than moments to fall back to sleep after he gave up on fighting against it.

oOo

When Scabior finally went back to sleep, Tamora felt a little relieved that he didn't want to push things further, because after the day she had, it would have been very hard not to bury her face into his neck, cry her heart out and tell him everything.

That what she did to him in the morning was her way of saying goodbye, because even though she knew it was vanity, she wanted to make sure he'd think of her fondly when she was gone, and because she wanted to hear that sound he usually made when he came undone, something between a laugh and a groan, one last time.

That she had a really good plan and that it was only a matter of luck that nobody had to die so that she could slip away from duty unnoticed.

That she had given practically all her money to a friend of a friend of an acquaintance of a friend, who promised to eliminate her Trace, and that there's only one thing more painful than the procedure itself; when in the end they tell you that they can't do it, but they give you a shot of Firewhiskey free of charge, because you really need it, but you couldn't buy it.

If he pressed on, she probably would have even told him that she was terrified, because she just wanted to get her wand back, but ended up more trapped than when she had to live as a Squib, and because she had no idea what to do now.

But he was asleep, safe and sound, so she didn't have to worry about her tears and secrets.

She'd cried enough already, anyway – once at the dingy store-room where she wanted her Trace to be lifted, once on the way home, collapsing on a park bench, and once again under the shower –, so it was time to stop the tears and look ahead.

She had her wand, and as people bigger than her put it, magic was might. She had one more piece of jewellery that could be turned into coin if things got even worse. And to have more than two items on that list of counted blessings; she had someone to hold her tight when she needed it the most.

Knowing that she wouldn't get much rest this night, she closed her eyes to keep them from burning and allowed herself a shaky sigh, hoping that it wouldn't be too long before she could stop thinking of propaganda one-liners as friendly advice, and a tacky old necklace as financial security. But at least she didn't know Scabior well enough to start guessing how much of a mess he really was, and so she could find some comfort in him, snuggling closer to his chest, listening to him breathe in his sleep and playing with the ring on his finger absent-mindedly, as a child would with the ear of her teddy bear.

* * *

_My special thanks to __**Dragon MoonX**__, because I wanted to deal with this topic a little later, but her question made me think about it, and once I started thinking, I couldn't let it go. And because she leaves the most wonderful reviews.  
Thanks again, and I promise that the next chapter will be of proper length._


	6. Chapter 6: Yes, ma'am

It's been three years since his mother had gone, and she was the only person Scabior was willing to properly doll up for. It meant that he never needed more than fifteen minutes to get ready in the morning, and subsequently that now he had a really long time to eat his breakfast, sip his tea, and read the morning paper whilst waiting for Tamora to decide how to put on the ill-fitting uniform they were given for their day of guard duty at the Ministry, if she should remove the little silver stud from her nose, or which lipstick to wear, but no matter how absurdly domestic it all was, he liked it.

Loved it, because sometimes watching the girl was almost as good as bedding her.

Ever since he first became interested in girls, he liked to watch them; how they moved and how they talked, or how they tried to push it back when the wind caught their hair. Then as he got a bit older, he started to really like watching them eat with their fingers and sleep with lips slightly parted, but few let him watch while they made themselves even more beautiful, and Tamora was one of them.

Sometimes she even acted as if she didn't notice, but Scabior knew that today she was truly too absorbed in her morning routine to feel his eyes on her. Days at the Ministry could be rough, and she preferred looking good whilst being treated like scum by people higher up the ladder.

"'Ere's a picture of you," he said when he got to the article on the new school term and the Ministry's effort to make getting to Hogwarts as safe as possible on page two. She'd been stationed on the Hogwarts Express and he at Hogsmeade the day before, to make sure everything went well, even if Undesirables turned up.

"Really?" she left the mirror with a smile, and rushed to the bed to sit beside him.

"See?" He pointed at the photograph. There were a very happy little group of Hogwarts students and their parents on it, and on their left side, the steps leading to the carriage were visible.

She was standing on them, holding onto the railing with one hand and gripping her wand with the other, looking at something far out of the picture with brows slightly knit, as if she was modelling for one of those pamphlets that warned people about the dangers lurking everywhere in these dark times and asked them not to fret about it, because the Ministry was here to watch over them.

"Wanna keep it?" He offered the whole paper to her. It was a good picture, she looked pretty in it.

"No, thanks." She shook her head with a chuckle. "But what does the old toad have to say about all that?" she asked, pointing at the photograph on the other side of the page and taking her cup from the breakfast tray.

"'As former 'Igh Inquisitor and 'Eadmistress of 'Ogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it pains me beyond words to see so many students stayin' away,' says Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic and 'Ead of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission," read Scabior aloud, taking a deep, theatrical breath before and after the long name and title to emphasise its importance. "'I can assure everyone, and especially the parents of these bright young witches and wizards, that the safety of our little ones is amongst the top priorities of the Ministry of Magic, and thus it is folly to keep them away from their studies,'" he gave his best girlish voice, making Tamora laugh into her tea again.

After that the interview went on with the same old song about peace and prosperity for those who played along nicely, and they both heard that too many times, so Scabior had to work extra hard to make it sound funny.

"All right, children, story time's over." He closed the paper when he reached the end of the article. "Are you finished with the mirror?" he asked, clearing his throat.

"It's all yours," nodded Tamora, taking the paper out of his hand as he got up from the bed.

From the mirror he saw that she was checking her picture again, re-reading the article and sipping her tea, and he wondered how many just one more nights they had left. She still kept all her stuff in her trunk by the door, and the few things he had were all tucked into the pockets of his jacket or the small bag thrown into the otherwise empty wardrobe, but while both of them were ready to go, neither of them seemed to want to leave.

"Want some more?" She looked up at him as she reached for the pot when her cup was empty.

"You can finish it." He smiled, adjusting the mirror so that he could properly see what he was doing.

Knowing that the price of such luxury items was rising steadily since fear and panic became sensations as common as hunger and thirst in the wizarding world, and now he'd have to pay more than nine Galleons for a jar the size of his thumb, Scabior applied the kohl carefully around his eyes, making sure he didn't have to wipe away any excess later, and as the potion kicked in, he shut his eyes tight and pinched the bridge of his nose with a hiss, because the ones that didn't sting cost a fortune.

When his eyes slowly got used to the suddenly sharper shapes and brighter colours in the room, he blinked a few tears away. Drawing a fine, even line wasn't something he was especially good at, but as he looked back in the mirror, he saw that he managed to smudge on so much that he could now spot a newborn will-o'-the-whisp from a mile, in broad daylight.

He just shrugged and made sure he put the lid back properly. If there was a place where seeing a curse before it left the tip of the wand could come in handy, it was the Ministry of Magic.

oOo

Some people hated standing guard at the Atrium, but Scabior enjoyed it more than any other levels, because it was busy enough to keep him entertained throughout the day, but without the risk of being blown up like at Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes on Level Three.

The first wave of witches and wizards – employees of the Ministry and those with early appointments – was about to give way to a second, even larger one, when a Blasting Curse hit the monument over what used to be the Fountain of Magical Brethren, closely followed by a second.

Over the gasps and screams, someone ordered the exits to be sealed, but with such a crowd in the corridor leading to them, it wasn't an easy task.

"Move," cried Scabior, pushing a witch aside and into a wizard's arm, only to be stopped again by a group of warlocks. "I said move! Move away from the fireplaces!" he shouted, making way with his free hand and shoulder, and shutting down the first exit with his wand.

Whatever caused the commotion, it was getting closer.

Some people started pushing each other towards the fireplaces and the way out. Some tried to go the other way and to further back to the corridor. And of course there were the idiots who stayed where they were, craning their necks and trying to catch a glimpse of the fight.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please, move back towards the–" shouted the senior officer, raising her arms in attempt to get some attention, but suddenly the crowd parted before a small group of people and the shower of curses following them.

"Harry Potter! It's Harry Potter!" yelled a wizard, as Scabior was about to move to his second exit, and as he turned the right way, he could just see Undesirable No. 1 and his friends vanishing through a fireplace, closely followed by Yaxley and three more wizards.

10,000 Galleons down the drain, just like that.

"Back to your positions! Seal the exits! Nobody leaves!" ordered one of the officers.

It wasn't the wisest thing to say, and they had to realise that very soon. The people standing around started pushing towards the fireplaces almost immediately, with many of them slipping away through the few still open, and the rest demanding to be let go.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Minister for Magic, Pius Thicknesse speaking," sounded a voice above their heads, from the several magical speakers hidden in the ceiling. Most people seemed to settle down, looking up expectantly, and the few who hoped that the announcement would be a good distraction and tried to sneak past the guards were sent back to their places too.

"Let me assure you that within these walls, there's no reason for you to feel anything but perfectly safe," Thicknesse said in his slow, even voice. He sounded like he was reading it from some big, old book with a long, fancy title printed in gold on its spine, but then again, every time Scabior heard him speak he gave that impression.

"In order to help our work I would like to kindly ask you to keep calm and remain where you are until further instructions from members of staff," the Minister went on, but Scabior wasn't listening any more. A small group of witches and wizards came hurrying through the Atrium, and after a few quick words with the senior officer, she beckoned Scabior and two other guards closer.

"Go upstairs, seal the entrances, then report back to me," she told them.

Seeing that the other two were most likely chosen because of their size, Scabior nodded towards the witch, then jerked his head towards them to follow him. After spending the previous day under the strict supervision of a moron with shiny shoes and freshly manicured nails, he wanted to make sure that today he would be bossing others around.

oOo

Bursting out of Courtroom Three to follow the intruders, Yaxley took most of the guards with him, and it meant that there were only a handful of them to take care of the still agitated Dementors. It was a hard task, but giving an order to a Dementor and seeing it obeyed left Tamora with the strangest kind of happiness.

She could feel her heart trembling in her chest instead of beating properly, and her fingers still couldn't decide if they were too weak to hold her wand, or if they were ready to snap it in two, but as the hooded figure stepped back and glided away from her and the wizard behind her back, her Patronus shone up a little brighter and she could have sworn that for a moment she saw its proper body taking shape from the glowing cloud.

"Are you alright?" she asked the wizard a little more cheerfully than the occasion called for.

He mumbled something about a day off and switched shifts, and kept running his hand over his bald head as if he still had hair on it, but otherwise he looked perfectly fine, until a terrible scream came from the other end of the room. The Dementor lingering around cocked its head and turned towards the noise, but just as the wizard scampered out of the room, another witch appeared in the door, closely followed by a Patronus in the shape of a magnificent raven.

"Was it you?" she asked, looking at Tamora.

She just shook her head and took a step towards the dais, where the scream came from.

"Hello?" she raised her voice and her wand. "It's alright, you're safe," she said, trying to sound reassuring as she walked closer, with the other witch following her.

For a moment there was an eerie silence, then the large, throne-like chair moved with a sharp scraping noise that sent a shiver down their spines before Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic and Head of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission poked her head out from behind her desk.

"You're all right, ma'am?" asked Tamora, lowering her wand only slightly. Umbridge still had hers aloft, gripping it so hard that it made all her chubby fingers white.

"How could I be 'all right', I've been attacked!" she snapped, gripping the desk and pulling herself up from the ground. "Attacked! In my own courtroom!" she went on, taking a long, shivery breath and smoothing out her skirt. "Now... where is everyone?" she asked, looking around and noticing for the first time that despite her utmost importance, people weren't exactly buzzing around her. "Where is Edward?"

"He went after the intruders," nodded Tamora, hoping that she meant Yaxley, and not a small dog as her tone suggested.

"Good. Very good," sighed Umbridge, adjusting her cardigan and walking down from her dais. "Since I guess that everyone of rank is after Potter, you two will escort me to my office and make sure no harm comes to me until I get there." She stepped uncomfortably close to Tamora. "Lead the way." She jerked her head towards the door.

After an awkward moment of silence, during which it became quite clear that the other witch was ready to help Tamora with all the Dementors, but not with the toad, she put on her best polite smile, the one that in a previous life she reserved for the most troublesome customers, and took a step back before she answered.

"Sorry, ma'am, but we are under lockdown," she said, making sure that her eyes met the other woman's. "We have to stay here until it's lifted."

"I see," smiled Umbridge, in a way aunts smile at their favourite, but tragically stupid nieces. "Do you know what the official security protocol for lockdown is?" she crooned. "And you?" she added, turning to the other witch, because obviously she had two heels and she needed two people under them for balance.

When neither of them spoke or ran, she started reciting it in a sing-song voice.

"According to the current security regulations, in case of threat, internal or external, magical or otherwise, the official protocol for lockdown demands that all personnel with or above Level – " she stopped for the shortest of seconds to take a breath, because no matter how much she thrived on other people's misery, she still needed a bit of oxygen too, "Three clearing and Junior Assistant status, are to be escorted swiftly and securely to their offices, where they shall remain until said threat is eliminated, or the Minister for Magic orders otherwise."

It felt like a bucket of ice cold water from above and a Bludger to the stomach combined, and Tamora could do nothing about it apart from hanging her head slightly, so that her hair would cover at least some of her burning face. She was ready for a day of hard work and humiliation, but this was worse than she could ever imagine.

It was the breath.

Up until that point Tamora felt appropriately intimidated and enraged, but when Umbridge had to stop mid-word, she suddenly remembered Scabior and his wonderful impersonation from the morning all too clearly, and she almost burst out laughing.

"So. Lead the way," nodded Umbridge when she finished her little speech, very pleased with herself.

"Yes, ma'am," whispered Tamora, and she was very pleased with herself too. Due to the effort she had to make not to laugh, she sounded exactly like a schoolgirl who was about to cry.

oOo

It took about seventeen minutes for the Ministry to arrest Mafalda Hopkirk, and a little more than an hour to get to the Cattermoles, but Runcorn was nowhere to be found, and Tamora ached to join the hunt. Yaxley and his fellow Death Eaters were a constant, but distant threat and it was easy to laugh at Umbridge and her rules, orders and decrees behind her back, but Runcorn's malice and brutality earned him so much hate from his subordinates, it was a miracle he was still breathing. It also went without saying that whoever managed to catch him in the end, would quickly become a hero.

With Yaxley still out chasing Harry Potter and the Minister too busy with speeches and interviews to keep the public calm, it fell to the Undersecretary to deal with everything else. At first it amused Tamora to watch Heads of Departments, security officers and the occasional Death Eaters flock into Umbridge's office, one right after the other to give her their reports and take her orders, but she soon got bored with listening to them, and had to start entertaining herself in other ways.

Trying to guess who would finally take Runcorn down was a fun little game.

Every time Yaxley contacted Umbridge via the Floo Network, they were sent out of the room, but Tamora still heard enough to know that every Death Eater and most Aurors were with him, leaving the chase for the Snatchers (thanks to one of the Daily Prophet's most popular reporters, the name seemed to spread like wildfire in the wizarding community after something went slightly wrong with her husband's arrest).

Her first guess would have been Crowley Nilmar. Everyone knew that before his time in Azkaban, he used to be Runcorn's senior in the Auror Office, and that he craved nothing more than to show that he was bigger, faster and better than the rest of their lot, and especially Runcorn.

Then there was Alexander Nym, the wizard with his brilliant, self-invented spells, who almost turned the table on Runcorn when he refused to hear about setting his sister free and giving her a chance to join the Snatchers.

Of course it would have been a thrilling, unexpected twist to see someone from the bottom of the list do the job. There were many of them, and being caught by a man barely worth keeping around would have added insult to injury too.

Turning slightly towards the window, Tamora let her lips twist into a quick smile. It would have been even better if a witch did it. She has seen ruthless killers giving more respect to the fairer sex than Runcorn ever did, and she knew a few women who would be more than happy to teach him a lesson for that.

Like Agatha Florris, whom he kept in a cell for three days for bringing in a wizard with partial memory loss, Morrighan Sikes, whom he cursed in front of everyone when she dared to laugh at him, or that elderly witch who fought like a valkyrie with her flowing white hair and love for combining magic with blades, and whom he tried to send back to Azkaban, because he said there must have been some misunderstanding and she couldn't possibly be up to the job.

Naturally, Tamora still didn't give up the hope that she could find the bastard before anyone else did. When she filed a complaint after she and her team got short-changed by three Galleons, Runcorn told the boys none of them would get a Knut and they could thank her for that. She was lucky the Grossbart brothers saw reason and helped her out, but she still had to nearly kill a wizard in self-defense.

But it was just past midnight when one of Umbridge's minions came running with the good news, that Albert Runcorn had been captured and was down on Detention Level. Tamora, and even the other witch groaned with a mixture of joy and disappointment, but Umbridge only pursed her lips slightly.

"Has Edward been informed?" she asked, lifting her powder-pink flamingo-quill slightly from the parchment she was writing on.

"Of course, ma'am," breathed the wizard. He sounded like he ran all the way from the cells with this piece of sensitive information.

"Tell Agnes on your way out, to bring me a fresh pot of tea." Umbridge dismissed him with a curtly nod, dipping her quill in the ink and tapping off the excess with a sweet, musical twinkle on the brim. While she managed to take control over most affairs within the Ministry, she wasn't allowed to touch the prisoners without Yaxley, and it has been a thorn in her side all day.

Fresh tea could only have meant that they were about to stay a little longer, and it was getting really hard to sit still without slouching like an old Cleansweep Five, so as Umbridge added three lumps of sugar to her cup, Tamora switched legs, putting the right over the left, and went back to trying to find out who could have been their hero; revising her list, and adding a few more names to it. Including Scabior's.

They have been put on the same team only once. He was good, very good, but a terrible show-off all day, and to make things worse, she took the bait and followed his example in taking some unnecessary risks too. It was the first time Tamora actually enjoyed what she was doing, and no matter how tired and sore she was, she couldn't wait for them to get back to their room afterwards.

She wondered how insufferably smug he would get if he'd be the one who brought Runcorn in, and had to admit that she wanted to see it. She loved seeing him acting as if he was the king of the world, and not just because he was very good at making her feel like a queen too.

oOo

There wasn't anything kingly about the way Scabior and his team were treated down on Detention Level. Instead of just handing Runcorn over, getting their money and setting off to celebrate their great victory, they were made to stick around and wait.

At first Scabior tried to keep himself from dropping off by pacing around the corridor, but after a while he felt too tired for that and took a seat, increasing the risk of falling asleep by putting his head back against the tiled wall.

He hated Detention Level, just like he hated Level Ten, because even when they were not present, the Dementors left behind an air that gave him a knot in the stomach and a scratchy-shivery feeling around the throat. Remembering that he was to spend a day down here around the end of the month made him run his tongue over his teeth irritatedly, but after all that has happened in the morning, he wouldn't have been too surprised if the Ministry doubled the amount of their guard duty either.

"What?" asked one of the Snatchers, a small, fidgety man, as Scabior stood up a little too suddenly and with a slight frown.

"Nothin'," he shook his head and waved a hand for the rest of them to stay where they were as he walked up to the registration desk.

"Is there anything wrong?" asked one of the security officers as he noticed him.

"I 'eard that it all started down 'ere," nodded Scabior, taking his hands out of his pockets slowly, because he knew men of the law preferred it that way.

"We are not allowed to speak about it," said the wizard with a dismissive shake of his head.

"It's all right," shrugged Scabior, but he stepped closer, lowering his voice. "It's just that I 'ad a friend down 'ere, and I wanted to know if any of us got 'urt," he looked up at the officer.

He didn't expect him to answer, but after only a moment of hesitation the officer looked him in the eyes and shook his head again.

"Thanks," nodded Scabior, backing away from the desk and walking back to his men.

They looked up at him expectantly, but he already told them it was nothing, and he was too tired to repeat himself, so he just put back his head and closed his eyes with a faint smile. He wondered if Tamora was already back to The Leaky Cauldron, safe, sound and fast asleep, and hoped that they would let him go soon, before she could take all the pillows and blankets on the bed.

* * *

_Thanks for reading, and please, review!  
I'll try to deliver the next chapter a bit quicker, so stay tuned if you enjoy Umbridge being Umbridge and the Ministry being a dangerous place, or if you want to see how Scabior deals with becoming Snatcher No. 1. :)_


	7. Chapter 7: I get to chose my own men

Waking up on the couch of Dolores Umbridge was an almost pleasantly nostalgic experience, and so for a few seconds after she opened her eyes, Tamora kept on hugging the pillow that was too plush to put under her head and looked around, blinking slowly.

When her grandmother died, leaving her alone in the family home, Tamora saw no reason to keep it, so within a month, she got herself a small flat on the top floor above a Muggle café, but she never learned to like that either. Very soon she started spending most of her nights at places of friends, boyfriends, or in the storeroom at the shop she worked at from practically the day she left Hogwarts.

They were really nice people, the husband was the son of one of Gran's old friends. Tamora always wondered if Gran knew that That-Nice-Bloke-Patrick, and his nice wife dealed in more than second-hand books, and ran a succesful business of forged papers from their attic. She probably did, but they never talked about it, not even when for the first time Tamora was allowed to put all the spells on an International Licence of Apparition all by herself. What happened in the attic, stayed in the attic.

But of course it all ended with Azkaban.

Although they even saved some of her stuff from her landlord when she got locked up, and let her stay with them for a month after her release, after that they couldn't afford to keep someone without a wand around. Gladys, the wife found Tamora her first of many new jobs to come that required no magical abilities, and gave her the necessary papers that proved that she was a poor little Squib, and not a Muggle killer.

She was still welcome for dinner whenever she pleased, but after a while she stopped going. She didn't blame them for getting a new apprentice, who could actually help them, but seeing the guy taking her place, using her tools and even sleeping on _her_ couch when he was too tired to go home after a long day was too much, and she decided to stay away until she got her wand back.

With that, a new cycle of sleeping at other people's places started, and lasted for the better part of the next half a year, up until Madam Scrooge decided to hire her as a barmaid and let her live in.

"We leave in twenty minutes," said Val, the other witch from the Minsistry, cutting Tamora's thoughts about her glorious past in half. "But at least she gives us breakfast," she added with a smile, taking one of the cups from the tray the elf just put in front of them and pouring herself some coffee.

"Why so early?" asked Tamora, throwing the pillow aside and sitting up. It was almost two o'clock by the time Umbridge decided to leave the Ministry last night, and now it wasn't yet six in the morning.

"An owl came," shrugged the other witch, but she obviously didn't know what was in the letter it carried, so Tamora decided to give themselves some peace, and have some coffee instead.

As she took the remaining cup from the tray, she saw that while it was a pretty, pale-pink thing with the most delicate handle, there wasn't a single whisker of a cat visible on it, indicating that they weren't the most precious guests of Dolores Umbridge after all.

oOo

Handing over her wand to the Auror on Level Nine, Tamora wondered if the security measures installed overnight would stick for more then a few days, but stepped under the gate without so much as a sigh. It looked very much like the ornate garden gates people grow roses or grapes on, but as she put her feet on the small, chalk-marked X, the dull, bronze contraption lighted up to the brightest, shiniest gold within a heartbeat.

"Clear," declared the Auror, motioning her to move forward after a second or two. It was the third time she passed his station since they arrived back to the Ministry.

The first time she had to spend almost two whole minutes under the gate. They didn't care about the off-white aura around her head, indicating a colouring potion, or the small yellow spark of light at her upper lip, where one of her canines had to be magically replaced after her first adventure with a broomstick and flying when she was nine, but her Trace, showing itself as a long, venom-green line along her spine, and especially the bright red light over her tattoo earned her a few frowns and some more poking. The gate came from the good old days when Azkaban Runes (and Dark Marks) were a little less common on people working for the Ministry.

"Everything all right, gentlemen?" asked Umbridge, as Tamora finally got back her wand and their company was ready to move on.

Installing the gates at the enterance halls to each Department was her idea, and she took great pleasure in obeying her own rules, stepping under the gates with what looked like the beginning of a pirouette and waiting for her scan with hands by her sides like a proper little schoolgirl every time they passed one, as if she wanted to set a good example on how people should behave when stopped and searched.

"All right, ma'am," nodded the Auror, trying to sound awake, alert and professional. With the Ministry still under lockdown, he must have been scanning the same hundred or so people who had very special licenses to be present. It was a job only a little less futile than the one Tamora and the other witch were doing, following Umbridge wherever she went and keeping her safe from dangers that never came.

"Good," beamed Umbridge, turning on her heels and marching off towards the stairs leading to Level Ten.

Without visitors the corridor leading towards the courtrooms and the cells behind them seemed considerably more frightening, but Umbridge didn't seem to mind that, or the Dementors floating around idly, turning their heads after them as they passed by.

Not even when they finally reached the courtroom they were heading to and found out there were at least a dozen of them waiting inside, or when the assistant she brought along to take notes during the interrogation burst out in tears and left running.

"Oh, for Merlin's French-braided beard," sighed Umbridge, before turning to Tamora, who unfortunately was standing not even an arm's length away from her. "You take her place," she ordered, jutting her wand towards the small table beside the chair in which poor Reginald Cattermole was half-sitting, half-lying, surrounded by Dementors and a couple of Ministry wizards who were clearly there to keep him alive, so he could be questioned.

"Don't look at me like that. Move!" she snapped, taking Tamora by the elbow, guiding her to the table and pushing her down in the chair with surprising amount of strength for someone her size. "There. And make sure you write everything down," she added, walking towards her own table on the dais, and taking a seat behind it just as the door opened once more and Yaxley entered with his own assistants.

"Edward!" she cried, making it sound like the cake had just arrived to her tea-party. "We almost started without you. Come," she patted the other chair invitingly.

"I'd rather stay here, thank you," nodded Yaxley, sounding more formal than ever. "How long have we got?" he turned towards one of the wizards standing by Cattermole, while one of his people sat beside Tamora and grabbed a quill at once.

"An hour at most, sir," answered one of them meekly, never taking his wand away from the prisoner's temple.

"Make it two," ordered Yaxley coldly, taking out his own wand, making the Dementors step back and give him some space.

As the wizard sitting beside her dipped his quill into the pot of ink they had to share, Tamora grabbed one too and followed his example, getting ready for whatever Reginald Cattermole was about to confess with his last breath.

oOo

When Scabior got home the previous night and didn't find Tamora in the room, he wasn't exceptionally worried, but when morning came and she was still nowhere to be found, he had to admit, he felt a little uneasy. Several people had already been arrested, and there were some the Ministry were still looking for, but the fact that her name wasn't on the list of the latter meant nothing. She could have been off the hook, or already in a cell.

Arriving back to the courtrooms, he fleetingly looked towards the other end of the corridor, where the cells were, wondering if he should take a walk that way, but then he decided to join his men inside, knowing that if she was in there, there was nothing he could do for her.

"We saved you a seat," piped up one of the men, a young, nervous wizard, as he joined them in the courtroom.

"'Ow kind of you," nodded Scabior pleasantly, making the rest of the group snicker at the kid.

True, the Death Eater leading their group the previous night was dead, and the Auror with them was still unconscious (and probably only days away from dying too), and so all five of them Snatchers were required to be present at Runcorn's hearing. But since they had been the ones to capture the bastard, and they had nothing to do with the dead officers, they all tried to act as if no harm could come to them here.

Except for the kid of course, who fidgeted like the seat was burning his backside.

But soon enough Scabior had a reason to shift around and stretch his neck too.

When the doors opened and Umbridge entered the room, he didn't notice any of the people walking behind her, because a moving blot of shocking pink can have that effect on ones optic nerves, but when a dark haired witch left the company and took a seat at the scribes' table, Scabior straightened his back and narrowed his eyes, because for a moment he could have sworn it was Tamora.

He noticed her too late, and now she was sitting with her back to him, mostly obscured by an Auror taking up two seats in the the first row, but the more he watched her, the more familiar she seemed, especially when Yaxley and his people arrived too and she reached for a quill with her left.

How she got to sit and take notes still remained a mystery, but Scabior decided to leave solving it for later, because after exchanging a few words with Umbridge, Yaxley motioned to the guards by the doors and soon Runcorn was lead in and chained to a chair so tightly he looked like some dangerous animal, readly to leap and kill all of them.

He would probably have done just that if they gave him the slightest chance.

The hearing went on an on for hours, and nobody seemed to mind that Runcorn obviously knew next to nothing about the break-in, and only tried to run, because when he finally regained consciousness in some back-alley, found his clothes and papers missing and learned that there had been an incident at the Ministry, he put two and two together and didn't want to hang about.

But thanks to Scabior and his men (well, mostly to Scabior and his ability to Apparate and throw a hex at almost the same time), he had been captured, and was now ready to pay for all the trouble he caused.

Due to the importance of the case and his rank, after Yaxley stepped back, seemingly finished with him, Umbridge took the floor, and turned the hearing into a long, spirited lecture on how all employees of the Ministry should act during such an attack and be extra careful not to give Undesirables any opportunities to threaten the peace so many hard working men and women struggled to keep every day.

It almost made Scabior feel sorry he didn't let Runcorn slip away.

oOo

Umbridge looked very much like she was about to make up for the previous day she spent almost entirely in her office, sending out notes and orders, because suddenly she was everywhere.

She met with the Minister so often Tamora stopped counting, spoke to the Daily Prophet at least three times in as many hours, and was present at each and every hearing, even though Yaxley himself stopped coming to them when they were finished with the really important ones, and sent his personal assistant instead.

Nobody could tell for sure if Caradoc Flint was just some rich boy whose Pureblood parents bought him a very good place at the Ministry, Yaxley's nephew, as some claimed him to be, or really his son from an unknown and since deceased mistress, as few dared to suggest, but it didn't really matter. He wore Death Eater robes and was trusted enough to act in the name of Yaxley.

But fortunately neither him, nor his master could do anything about Umbridge getting herself an extra handful of Aurors and more than a dozen Snatchers transferred from Department of Magical Law Enforcement up to Level One, to protect her and her office

As for Tamora, she could have kissed the witch bringing the good news on a piece of interdepartmentally blue paper, because it meant that she only had a few more hours before the next shift arrived and she was allowed to go home.

oOo

It's been a couple of hard days, and Yaxley was nowhere near leaving the rough waters behind.

With sixty-eight people questioned, twelve removed from their positions and seven sent to Azkaban, he managed to shift the blame on others and keep the Dark Lord's fury at a tolerable level, but there was another threat, dressed in girlish pink, still snapping at his heels.

He didn't mind the Umbridge woman giving speeches to the public and whispering into Thicknesse's ear, but when he returned after not even a whole day of chasing Potter and his friends, and saw how the tables have turned in his absence, he realised he could no longer afford to keep only one eye at her.

His power over the security of the premises was irreparably gone, and it hurt his pride, but having to share men from his Department with her caused not only pain, but actual damage to his plans.

"Leave us," he ordered his second and third assistant, and as they quickly gathered their papers, he motioned towards Flint to take a seat and pour himself from the bottle he originally wanted to finish alone.

"I wish to regain and reassure my power over the new Department functionaries," he said, once the door closed behind the other two and Flint had his first sip of Firewhiskey.

"The Snatchers, sir?" asked Flint, keeping his head slightly turned to the side, like his mother used to.

"Yes, the Snatchers," nodded Yaxley. He quite liked the term. He never had much talent with words, but that never kept him from appreciating the power they held.

"Now," he finished his drink and put the glass down on the table, "how would you like to have Albert Runcorn's old position?"

oOo

They almost made it. Spotting Tamora in the crowd on their way out of the Ministry was easy enough, and elbowing his way all the way up to her in the queue wasn't hard either, but just as he was about to hand over his wand for inspecion to the security officer, one of Yaxles minions appeared by their side.

"My master wants a word with you," she said with a curt nod towards Scabior, and didn't even wait for his reply, but turned on her heels and lead the way back to the elevators, knowing full well that it was an order and it would be obeyed without any questions. Sadly enough, she was right about it. There was nothing Scabior could do, but tell Tamora that they would meet back at The Leaky Cauldron and giving her a reassuring wink before he marched after the witch with a tired sigh.

He didn't spend more than twelve minutes with Yaxley, but when he finally left his office, Scabior felt like he needed a bit of fresh air to clear his head and get his thoughts together, so he walked all the way back to The Leaky Cauldron, but his head was still swirling with the news, as he entered the pub and looked around.

After a month of living in these parts, Scabior knew most people who frequented the place these days, but apparently it worked the other way around as well. He could hardly take two steps without having to stop to receive a nod, a grin, a raised glass, or a friendly clap on the shoulder. Not that he didn't enjoy a bit of attention and a reserved seat at his favourite table.

He had quite a bit of gold coming his way too, and he could have afforded to drink with the boys until the break of dawn, but when Tamora finally brushed his arm off her shoulder and bid them good night, he held her back by the hand until he quickly finished off his beer and joined her on the way upstairs, even though it was just past ten.

Due to the rising demand for rooms at The Leaky Cauldron, the one they orignally moved in to on the third floor ended up on the fifth by now, which meant two more flights of narrow stairs to be climbed, but also two more minutes of watching Tamora from behind, which made the whole ordeal a little more bearable.

For the same reasons he didn't mind it when she walked straight up to the bed and threw herself on her front on it with a tired groan the moment they got into their room either, and just shrugged off his coat to join her, lying on his side and putting a hand on the small of her back.

"Was everything all right with Yaxley?" she asked, resting her head on her arm.

"Of course," he nodded, stretching his legs contently. "'E wanted to reward me for catchin' Runcorn."

"Ooh!" she grinned, freeing her other arm from under her chest and reaching for his face. "Please, tell me it's not just some plaque. Or at least that it's extra shiny!"

"It's not. It's a promotion," he grinned back at her, and when she raised her brows questioningly, he went on with the details; "I'll 'ave my own team. No Death Eaters, no Ministry people, we'll take our orders directly from 'oever gets Runcorn's office next."

"Seriously?" Tamora raised her head from her arm, propping herself on her elbows, and she looked like she was about to warn him that this wasn't something one should joke about.

"Seriouly," he laughed, pulling her closer. "And there's more," he added, savouring the look on her face for a little longer. "I get to chose my own men," he whispered, running his hand up and down her side.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or maybe she was drunk, but it took her a few moments to realise what he was actually saying. "You want me in?" she asked, suddenly sounding very sober.

"Yes," he looked up at her. "I'll need someone I can trust, so that we can watch each other's backs out there."

She gave him such an odd look, followed by a silence so long, that Scabior almost thought he'd have to find someone else for the job, but then a smile that looked like none of the smiles he has ever seen on her appeared on her face before she leaned closer and planted a soft, lingering kiss on his lips.

"Is that a yes?" he asked as she pulled away.

"Yes," she nodded, reaching for his face and brushing back his hair from it. "But I'm not calling you 'sir'," she added mock-warningly and with a laugh.

"Are you sure?" he frowned, moving his hand down her hip.

"Pretty sure. You can't make me," she shook her head, but when he finally reached her bottom, her smile quickly changed into one that suggested that she'd still love to see him try.

Maybe it was his victory slowly, but steadily going into his head, or maybe he was drunk too, but Scabior decided that this wasn't a challenge to be left unfaced. He made her cry out many things before, and compared to some of them, a simple 'sir' didn't sound especially tricky.

* * *

_Thanks for reading, and an extra dose of thanks to Dragon Moon X for all the lovely messages we shared this last month._

_(Also: sorry for the delay, it took me ages to finish this one, but in my defence, I worked a lot on chapters 10 and 8.)_


	8. Chapter 8: Stay still

Growing up in a wizarding home and then at Hogwars meant that Tamora got her fair share of ghosts, magical creatures and all sorts of other dangers, but there was something about the old, dirty Muggle machines that made her jumpy more than anything her own world could offer. But she needed a good hiding place, so she just crouched behind one of them, waiting for the signal and hoping that after what looked like years being out of business, there was none of that so called electricity lurking around in those monsters of metal.

There were a few panels missing from what used to be the old factory's iron and glass ceiling, but she could still see the light of campfire mirrored in the remaining ones. The sun was only beginning to set, painting the unusually clear October sky pink, but the fugitives were already making themselves comfortable for the night, joking and laughing whilst clearing themselves some space to lie down. They suspected nothing.

Not ten feet from her something moved in the shadows, but she didn't even have to look to know it was just Norell.

Azkaban had left him a little slow of speech and shaky of hand, but he was still one of the most valuable members of their team. His nets and enchantments were works of art, halting anyone trying to Apparate, taking Destination out of the essential Three D's with a simple, but effective Confundus Charm. He was also an acquaintance of Scabior's from those good old days when such practices could earn you a few weeks in prison instead of a handful of gold.

As he slowly creeped by, Tamora looked up at the sky again, wondering if he would finish his job and they could start the fight before it got really dark.

A pair of birds were just flying over the window, catching her eye when the first panel cracked and shattered, and one by one the others followed too, showering them with broken glass.

It wasn't part of their plan.

It was a trap, and it came too suddenly for Tamora to do anything about it but throwing herself closer to the machine behind her back and trying to shield herself with her arms above her head.

"Welcome," whispered a cheerful voice not far from her, and as she looked up, she saw a tall youth throwing back his hood theatrically, wiping some glass off himself with it.

The kid couldn't have been more than twenty, and he looked like he just stepped out of a book on the ancient wars between the druids of Britannia and the conjurers of Rome. His hair was flaming red, his face was painted with bold lines of black and crimson, and he had an ugly scar on the side of his head where his left ear should have been.

He was good with his curses too. No matter what Tamora tried coming up with, the kid seemed to be ready for it, sometimes only deflecting her spells, sometimes throwing them back at her with twice the force. And some people had the nerve to say Hogwarts was getting sloppy with their classes of Defense Against the Dark Arts these past years...!

Other figths began to break out too, but Tamora had no chance to think about how they could have missed seeing all these people when they sneaked in, because the kid sent a Blasting Curse not even towards her, but towards the machine she originally hid behind, sending particles flying and forcing her to duck behind a Shield Charm.

It was a nice trick, so she copied it without hesitation, keeping her Shield up, and Blasting the pile of metal behind the kid. It caught him a little off-guard, but still, when Tamora swung her wand to Stun him as hard as she could, he sent it back with such force that she was knocked out before her head touched the ground.

oOo

By the time she woke, everything was cold, dark and still. There was a pain lingering in her shoulder from the Stunning Spell she took, and her arm throbbed so hard, she feared she wouldn't be able to hold her wand properly for hours to come.

"Wand!" she whispered and sat up with a jolt.

It was too dark and there were too many bits and pieces of broken machinery on the ground, so she had to go on her hands and knees to look for it, but when she finally found it, she held it to her chest, wrapping all ten trembling fingers protectively around it, and sighed with relief.

She was in one piece and she had her wand. So far, so good.

Getting up wasn't much fun, but when she managed to find her balance, she looked around, listening hard, but there was nothing to be heard, so she cast a spell to see if she was alone in the building. She wasn't.

Her first instinct was to leave, to find the others or to go back to The Leaky Cauldron, no matter, just leave, but she stayed and cast the spell again. The light it showed her was very faint and had a reddish hue to it, so she swallowed hard and started walking towards its source, soon finding a pair of legs poking out from behind a corner.

There was no mistaking those plaid pants, not even in the dark, and she could feel the air growing colder and heavier inside her lungs as she moved closer to where Scabior was lying on the ground, but she looked around again, then knelt beside him slowly, reaching for his arm. He wasn't Stunned, his body seemed too relaxed for that, but he was out cold.

"Hey," she whispered to him, touching his face lightly, brushing his hair back and rubbing his jaw with a thumb.

Nothing. He didn't stir, he didn't moan, he did nothing.

She tried again, this time with a bit more force, and when that didn't work either, she reached for the base of his neck, looking for a pulse. She knew he was alive, because the spell showed him to her, but she wanted to feel it too. It was there, and even though it was a little weak, the rhythm felt all right, so she sat back on her heels with a sigh, lifted her wand and Revived him.

He came around with a fit of coughs, then swearing like a goblin under his breath and clutching his side painfully.

"What was it?" she asked, when he finally managed to sit up, and she could brush aside his coat and lift his shirt to take a look. Whatever hit him, it made his stomach and left side look like a troll kicked him.

"Dunno," he breathed, feeling the bruise with his hand, but giving it up with a shaky sigh. "Where is everyone?" he asked instead, looking around properly for the first time.

"Gone," shrugged Tamora, kneeling closer to him, lifting his shirt higher and taking her wand in hand to give herself some more light. "I got Stunned, and by the time I came around, they were all gone, and..." her voice trailed off as she noticed two darker patches on his side right under each other that she didn't like.

"And?" asked Scabior, his eyes following hers.

"And I found you, so I stopped looking for them," said Tamora. "I think the curse is still in there," she frowned, then she put her other hand on his shoulder. "Stay still."

"Damn," groaned Scabior, and as Tamora leaned closer, he raised his head slightly and took a deep breath, getting ready for what was coming.

Still, the tip of her wand barely touched his skin, when there was a small flash of red light, and he jerked himself away so violently and with such a painful cry, that Tamora almost lost her balance and fell back to the ground in fright.

"What was _that?_" he demanded hoarsely when he finally caught his breath, looking at her almost as if he expected to see a knife in her hand, ready to strike again.

"Finite Incantatem," Tamora shook her head with eyes wide from shock. "But I don't understand, I haven't even finished casting the spell when it reacted with my wand's core. It shouldn't have done that," she frowned, reaching for his shirt again and lifting it back to check him. Everything looked the same, or maybe the patches got just a shade darker. "It shouldn't have done that," she repeated, almost to herself, running her thumb over them. "If it's stuck in there, it couldn't have done anything without an influx of extra energy, and I haven't yet–"

"All right, Rowena, priorities," Scabior put a hand on her knee to cut her off. "You think I can Apparate with it?"

"Maybe," she cleared her throat when she realised that she got slightly carried away, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with an apologetic smile. "Side-Along should be okay," she told him after thinking about it for a moment longer, but this time she resisted going into details about it.

"Fine," he nodded, snatching his wand from the ground and putting it in its holster, then holding on to her as she helped him up to his feet.

"Ready?" she asked, taking his arm over her shoulder.

He clearly wasn't, but when he gave her a somewhat pained laugh and a nod, she took his hand, grabbed the back of his jacket tight, and Apparated.

"Almost there," she groaned, as their feet hit the pavement in front of Purge and Dowes, Ltd., and he leaned on her heavier than before with a groan. For a moment she considered easing him to the ground and running inside for help, but he was in no state to be left alone like that.

"Almost there," she repeated, pulling him closer by the waist. "Let's go," she whispered, squeezing his hand and guiding him towards the old shop window.

"We need help," she told to the shockingly ugly dummy behind the glass.

She could have sworn she saw its eyes turn ever so slightly, but when moments passed and nothing happened, she decided it was just the trick of the light.

"Hello," she knocked on the glass. "We need help."

This time the dummy stayed perfectly still, staring at the street behind them blankly.

"You think they changed the way in?" asked Tamora, looking around.

There were several posters and pieces of papers put on the window, telling them that the shop was closed for refurbishment, that someone was missing a cat named Frodo, and that two blocks down there would be an open-air book fair on Saturday, but there was no hidden magic that would let visitors know where to go if they wanted to get into St Mungo's in any of them.

"Changed it an 'aven't told anyone about it?" frowned Scabior, but he ran his hand over the window too, looking for any kind of clue.

"Hello!" Tamora knocked again, with some more force. "We need help! Hello!"

"Help? We can help," called a male voice, friendly with alcohol from behind the corner, and soon its owner appeared too, with three of his friends.

"Oh, it's all right," shrugged Tamora with a smile, because drunk Muggles weren't exactly what she needed to make her night better.

"But you cried for help," said the only girl in the group, eyeing them, and especially Scabior suspiciously. "Is he harassing you or something?"

"No, he's just... It's all right," laughed Tamora. "He's just a little sick," she assured them, but knowing that that was one of the feeblest lies she's ever told, she let go of Scabior's hand on her shoulder and reached for her wand inside her jacket.

"Oh no, guys, no! No!" whimpered one of the boys, turning his head away in panic, and he even lifted his hand in front of his eyes protectively. "If he pukes, I'll puke too!"

"Then you should probably walk on," offered Scabior, taking some of his weight off Tamora's shoulder to help her with whatever she was planning.

"Are you sure?" asked the girl again. "You know, we could get you a cab, or walk you to the next–"

"Quite sure, thanks," Tamora raised her wand, shooting a spell right at her, a bright green light that made her eyes go blank at once. No matter how helpful they were trying to be, she was getting really tired of all this.

"What the hell?" cried the tallest boy, reaching for Tamora's hand to hit it away, so the next Memory Charm got him in the face.

"Nothing," Tamora shook her head, erasing the memories of the other two boys too. They tried to run, but were still easy target. "Just go. We'll be fine," she added with a smile, lowering her wand as the boys stopped, scratching their heads and rubbing their eyes. Her Memory Charms had always been slightly too strong.

"Okay then," sighed the girl, and she looked like she just woke from a weird, but pleasant dream. "Take care," she smiled at them as the tall boy put his arm around her and they started to walk. "And if you change your minds, we'll be down at The Dragon's Lair!" she called back at them.

"Thanks," Scabior waved after them, then put his hand against the window to support himself, while Tamora kept an eye on the Muggles.

"Let us in," she hissed, knocking at the window again the moment they got out of sight. "We are employees of the Ministry of Magic, and we need help. Let us in!" she knocked again, but this time she tried to keep her voice down, because she was in no mood for other Muggles.

The dummy didn't even blink, but kept on staring towards the street behind them with a stupid half-smile on its ugly plastic face.

"Let. Us. In!" Tamora hit the frame of the window with her fist after each word, and she didn't care how much it hurt. She was getting angry, and she was getting scared. What if they really moved the enterance and they were banging on the wrong door? What if something happened, and St Mungo's was under lockdown? What if after three months the Ministry fell again?

"Damn," she sighed to clear her head of all that nonsense, then reached for Scabior's arm over her shoulder and adjusted it slightly so that she could support him better.

"We should go," whispered Scabior, but he kept his free hand on the glass for a little longer.

"Where?" asked Tamora, looking up at him.

"Knockturn Alley," he nodded, and she knew that it was a much better idea than standing here and knocking until her knuckles started bleeding.

oOo

"Are they gone?" asked Maurice in a small, frightened voice.

"So it would seem," nodded James, but he kept his eyes on the magic mirror in front of them for a little longer, just to make sure that the street was and remained empty. "Back to Knockturn Alley, where they belong."

"We shouldn't have done that," the other wizard put his head on the table with a groan, but lifted it back up right away, because he feared his heart would fell out through his mouth.

"Nonsense," James dismissed the idea, reaching for his cup and taking a sip from it.

"But... But what if anyone finds out?" whispered Maurice, looking behind their shoulders and out of their booth for the hundredth time in ten minutes. The Enterance Hall was practically empty, but one could never be too cautious these days.

"Nobody will find out," James shook his head. "The gate gets faulty all the time and everyone knows it. That's why we've been put here," he smiled reassuringly, nudging his partner in crime with his elbow.

Technically they were there to make sure that the gate searched each and every witch and wizard who entered St Mungo's and alerted the Ministry if one of the Undesirables turned up, but he was right; all those newly installed enchantments could get the doors stuck from time to time, and then they had to go and open it by hand.

"Yeah, but–"

"No but," James put up his hand to stop him. "Seriously. Not half an hour ago you helped that Weasley boy slip in and out undetected without blinking an eye, and now that you just have to jam the door for ten minutes to keep a pair of bloody Snatchers out, now you get all shaky and shy?"

"Well... If you put it like that..." Maurice cleared his throat, and he allowed himself a nervous smile and a sip from his own cup. He had never been exactly Order of the Phonenix material, but doing what little he could felt so amazing that he could hardly wait to get home and tell Sandra and the kids how they, simple security wizards became sort of heroes.

oOo

The very last house of Knockturn Alley didn't look much worse than any other before it. It was just as tall, just as narrow and just as worn as all the buildings around this part of town, but once they got inside, it was warm, it had candles and a fire burning, and it smelled so incredibly clean that it almost stung Tamora's nose.

"Welcome," smiled the witch sitting behind the reception table, but neither she nor the wizard next to her moved from their chairs.

"We need your help," said Tamora, as they walked up to them. This second round of Apparition hit Scabior a bit harder, but being so close to the finish line gave her the extra strenght she needed to keep him going just a little longer.

"Of course," nodded the witch. "What is it that you need help with?" she asked, so Scabior lifted his shirt and showed them his side.

"Thirty-two Galleons and a Knut, if you please," she nodded again.

They had never been cheap, but bargaining with them was out of the question, so Tamora just watched Scabior taking the small purse containing all his money out of his inner pocket and putting it in front of the witch, who opened it with quick, slender fingers and spilled all the coins in one pan of the brass scale in front of her.

"This one's fake," the witch took a Sickle that shone up bright red and put it back on the table. "So I've got twenty-three Galleons, eleven Sickles and twenty-four Knuts here," she looked up at them as the spell in the scales balanced the pans out again, so Tamora reached for her own money and gave her what was missing.

"I'll pay you back," whispered Scabior, touching his forehead to her temple with a defeated sigh, and she couldn't suppress a smile. One part oxygen and two parts stubborn pride could keep a Gryffindor on his feet for a very long time.

"With interest," she nodded, earning something between a grunt and a chuckle.

"Come with me, please," said the witch, putting away the money and opening the door behind her with the same swish of her wand, then stepping to the other side of Scabior and taking his free arm to help them get through the narrow corridor.

It was way darker than the reception area, with only a few candles lighting their way, but the sharply clean smell got a lot stronger once they stepped through the door. They could also hear a man begging for someone to stop, and a woman screaming again and again in pain. Tamora wondered if she was in labour, and if she was, why did she have to give birth to her child at this place.

"In here," the witch opened another door for them, guiding Scabior to the low table standing in the middle of the room, so that he could sit on its end after Tamora helped him take off his jacket and shirt. "You can wait outside," she told Tamora kindly, looking at her and rolling up her sleeves.

"I'd rather stay," said Tamora. She knew she wasn't needed, but she didn't want to leave, and Scabior seemed to be thankful for it too. Or he just enjoyed hearing that she was so worried for him, it was hard to tell.

"As you wish," nodded the witch, moving some of the candles closer to the table and touching the bruise on Scabior's side. "Have you tried doing anything to it?" she asked with a frown.

"Finite Incantatem," replied Tamora, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. "It didn't work. It even seemed to make it worse..."

"Then you're lucky you stopped in time and brought him here," the witch nodded before conjuring a second, smaller table with dozens of potion bottles on it. "But I can't promise that there will be no scars left," she took one of the largest jars.

"I can live with that," shrugged Scabior. "And you, love?" he asked Tamora jokingly.

"Sure," she smiled back at him, trying hard to look anything but nervous, because he looked miserable enough for the two of them.

"Right," sighed the witch. "This will feel very hot when I put it on you, but it won't burn you, and it will cool off quickly," she warned Scabior, then she took a spatula, spooned some thick, off-white paste out of the jar in her hand and started applying it to his bruises.

It was nice of her to give a warning, but it didn't seem to help much, because no matter how much he tried to prepare himself, when the paste touched his skin, he jerked away with a hiss, and had to grasp the edge of the table he was sitting on to be able to stay still afterwards.

"And now you can take a few deep breaths before I go on," announced the witch when she was ready, putting the lid back on the jar.

Scabior kept watching her as she stepped to the smaller table and placed the jar back where it belonged, but then he closed his eyes with a sigh, and when he looked up again, he looked at Tamora, slightly raising his brow.

"I'm fine," she mouthed with a tired smile. Her heart was no longer fluttering with fright, but crouching heavily in her chest, ready to pounce again, and her shoulder was aching badly too, but unlike him, she had no strange spells lurking around in her body, so fine felt like the right word for her to use.

"Ready?" asked the witch, turning back to Scabior, and this time she had her wand in hand.

"I guess so," he swallowed, eyeing her suspiciously.

Tamora couldn't tell what the potion she put on Scabior was, because it had no distinctive smell, and none of the witch's bottles were labelled. She couldn't recognise the spell she was using either, so she watched with a deepening frown as it slowly dried the paste and turned it from white to crimson, whilst draining all the colour from Scabior's face and robbing him of his breath again.

"The worst part is over," said the witch when she was finally done, and she and Tamora helped Scabior lie back on the table. "The magic is out," she reached for what used to be the paste, and started peeling it off like a plaster, "and now it's just a broken rib," she smiled, revealing Scabior's side like Muggles calling themselves magicians would reveal a cleverly hidden bunny to their audience.

Fixing that wasn't a pleasant sensation either, but compared to everything he had to go through that night, it must have been like a pinprick, because all Scabior did was taking a deep breath and holding it in while the spell mended the bone and faded the bruise until it looked several days old.

"Here, something to help you get home," the witch turned to her smaller table and poured two cupfuls of a pale pink potion as Scabior finally was able to sit up again, handing one of them to him, and the other to Tamora. "Drink it slowly."

"Thank you," Tamora took hers with a surprised smile, wondering if she looked as bad as she felt, and if it was an act of charity, or the witch thought that she deserved something for the money she helped Scabior out with too.

"My little brother is one of you," the witch explained, motioning towards the Ministry armband on Tamora's jacket.

"I see," nodded Tamora, raising the cup to her nose curiously.

"Well," Scabior cleared his throat after the first sip of the potion. "You can tell 'im that if 'e finds 'imself in need of a team with good statistics and friendly people, 'e should ask for Scabior at The Leaky Cauldron," he bowed his head gallantly.

"I will," smiled the witch in a way that suggested Scabior wasn't the first group leader interested in her brother because of his connections to a healer. "Now drink."

The potion they were given smelled heavily of wormwood, but when Tamora took a seat beside Scabior and finally tasted it, it was so unbelievably bitter that it almost made her gag. But it was a gift and she needed it to get her strength back too, so she waited for the witch to pack up and vanish her stuff, say goodbye to them and leave the room before she pulled a face, almost in perfect sync with Scabior.

"So... 'friendly people'?" she looked at him, because not commenting on that was just as hard as swallowing the potion with a straight face.

"What?" he raised his brow innocently. "I can be friendly, " he sneaked an arm around her waist and pulled her closer with a grin.

"That's true," she nodded with a chuckle, resting her hand on his thigh before bringing the cup to her lips again, because no matter how awful it tasted, the potion was working wonderfully, and even just after a few sips it made her feel a lot stronger.

He smiled again, raising his cup in a toast and taking a mouthful.

Then another, a few moments later, and since it wasn't the kind of drink that would inspire long, meaningful conversations, Tamora sipped hers in silence too, running her nail along a small ridge in the fabric of his trousers where he tore them a few weeks back. He had no patience for a proper Sewing Charm, so while he managed to mend it securely, he left behind a scar like thread and needle would, and she just couldn't stop playing with it.

"Home?" she asked, as he finished his potion and slid off the table to get his clothes, giving her a chance to look at his side. Now that the bruising started to fade, Tamora could see two angry red marks where the spell must have hit him. They looked like they would stay visible for some time, probably even turning into scars.

"Not yet," he took a map out of the inner pocket of his jacket and spread it out on the table next to her.

Most of the maps the Ministry handed out to the leaders so that they could keep an eye on their people were in pretty bad shape, and Scabior's was no exception either, so they had to shade it with their hands and lean very close to the parchment to see the little green lights indicating the others.

"I've got Bart," Tamora put a finger on him. He was back at the factory, probably looking for them.

"And I've got everyone else," nodded Scabior, showing her the other four lights just north of Leeds.

"You think...?" she looked at the lights and up at him.

"I 'ope!" he grinned.

There could have been other reasons for the four of them to stay put and stay together while one of them went back to the place they have last seen their leader, but Tamora was hoping too that they managed to catch at least one of the Undesirables and were waiting for Bart to find her and Scabior back at the factory.

"Drink up, love," he ordered cheerfully, patting her on the knee as he reached for his shirt. "The poor wretches must be worried sick for us by now!" he almost cried, as if they didn't know that the poor wretches were more likely already planning to keep their shares of the reward if Bart returned with their corpses.

* * *

_I offer this chapter to the one and only **Dragon MoonX**, because she loves seeing Scabior all bruised and battered. :)_  
_Thank you for reading, and please, review!_


	9. Chapter 9: Damn, you're an ugly bastard

Losing a member of the team was always rough. Too many people tried to find a way out by faking their own death, so after they returned to the Ministry with three Undesirables and the body of poor Caius Rykener, they were all held in for questioning for more than six hours. Sure, the corpse had been badly burnt by his own messed up Fiendfyre and was hard to identify, but treating them like fools who'd risk their lives to help someone they had only known for a few weeks was a little too much, even from the Ministry.

But no questions or papers to fill could sour their good mood. One of the Undesirables had been a high-ranking Auror before she had to flee the Ministry, so for the first time since they've put on their armbands, they earned not only some or a decent amount of gold, but a small bucket of it, and it had to be celebrated. They had to raise their bottles and glasses to the memory of Rykener, to the gold, and to Tamora and Bart of course, because they were the ones who saved the Auror, and so their money, from the flames when all hell broke loose.

Too bad that by the time they made it to their room, both Scabior and Tamora were too tired to do anything but kick off their boots, and get rid of a few layers of clothing, because he had every intention of being a good leader and giving her some extra reward. But at least this way they could get some sleep before the Ministry's owl landed on their windowsill and started knocking on the glass the next morning.

To make it absolutely clear which one of them would have to go and let the bird in, she rolled off his shoulder with a sigh and pressed her face half into and half under the pillow. He kept his hand on her waist only for a moment longer, before pushing himself into a sitting position and giving the owl an angry look. After two days of tracking those Undesirables, it could have been their well deserved day-off, and he wanted to start it by sleeping at least until noon.

"All right, all right, I'm comin'," he sighed, untangling his legs from the blanket and padding over to the window as the bird started attacking the glass even more vehemently. "Damn, you're an ugly bastard," he muttered almost to himself. It was the biggest, blackest owl he'd ever seen, with eyes so pale they were almost white and feathers all ruffled up in every direction, giving it a fiercely sinister look. But as soon as he opened the window for it, the owl swooshed by him to land on the bed next to Tamora and offer her the letter in its beak.

"Ugh," she groaned as she raised her head and saw the bird. Not that it seemed to mind their opinion on its beauty (or the lack of it). It dropped the letter dutifully on the bed, gave Tamora a nonchalant hoot and took flight towards the window again.

"Look 'ow popular we are this mornin'," huffed Scabior, as another owl landed on the sill almost the moment its colleague left the room. "Same as yours?" He raised the envelope for Tamora to see.

"Looks like it." She nodded, sitting up in bed and breaking the seal on hers.

The letter wasn't long, but Scabior read it three times, holding it closer and closer to the light with a deepening frown, before he walked back to the bed to sit on its edge beside Tamora.

"You think it's about Rykener?" she asked, looking up at him with worried eyes.

"Dunno." He scratched his neck and upper arm uneasily. Unlike his predecessor, Caradoc Flint preferred giving his orders in a written form or through his other minions, so an invitation to his office could easily make any Snatcher feel a little nervous. "All right, let's get goin'." He snapped out of it with a sigh, then ran his fingers through his hair. "Elf!" he barked, almost making Tamora flinch.

"Yes sir, good morning sir, Parsley is at your service, sir!" One of the Elves appeared, wearing a prim little toga made of the same fabric as the curtains and bowing deeply. "What shall–"

"We'll need breakfast," Scabior cut in. While Pepper, the other Elf charged with the rooms on their floor was practically numb, Parsley loved to talk so much they sometimes wondered if he should be renamed Parrot. "Coffee and toast," he ordered, putting a hand on Tamora's knee. "And some eggs," he added, looking at her with a raised brow.

"No eggs for me." Tamora shook her head. "Just some orange juice."

"Yes, ma'am, very good, ma'am." Parsley bowed again, before looking back at them, waiting for further wishes and instructions.

"And make it quick." Scabior sent the Elf on his way with a wave of his hand.

"I'll be quick too," said Tamora, slipping off the bed and disappearing in the bathroom. Sometimes she left the door ajar just to tease him, but it wasn't one of those mornings. Since there was nothing worth craning his neck for that way, Scabior turned back towards the window and took his pack of cigarettes from the bedside, fishing out and lighting one lazily, wondering if they should try to make a run for it.

oOo

After a shower and smudging the previous day's eyeliner into a better shape whilst brushing her teeth, Tamora took a few more things she would have hated to leave behind out of her trunk and stuffed them into her satchel, then set to the task of having some breakfast. She didn't feel hungry at all, but forced down a piece of toast anyway, then stood by the fireplace, watching the flames and nursing her coffee in both hands.

Tricking the Ministry and getting her wand back sounded like a brilliant idea when it first came to her mind, but as she slowly began to realise that there would be no way out of it for her, she almost started wishing she never even met Scabior. But before she could have started banging her head against the wall like a remorseful Elf, he turned off the shower and returned to the room with a towel around his waist.

"You're all right, love?" he asked, sniffing a bit from the steam.

"Sure." She smiled weakly, because she could tell they were both far from it.

"And are you comin' like that?" He stepped closer, reaching for her shoulder and untwisting the strap of her bra between his fingers before putting his hands on her upper arms.

"Maybe I should," she chuckled, transferring her cup out of the way and into one hand so that she wouldn't spill the coffee on both of them.

It was the part where he should have told her that everything would be all right, but while he was very good at a lot of bad things, telling a lie wasn't one of his talents, so he rubbed her arm with a thumb and tried to pull her closer to plant a kiss on her forehead.

"It's gonna be all right," she whispered before raising her chin and kissing him hard on the mouth, because she needed to hear that said out loud.

oOo

As they entered Flint's office, he wasn't sitting behind his desk, but standing by the window with his two guests; Edward Yaxley, and a tall, shabby man who looked like trouble and vaguely smelled like what Tamora guessed to be blood.

"Make sure nobody disturbs us," Flint ordered his assistant as the man left the room, but it was Yaxley who came forward and took a seat behind the desk, as if it was his own.

"You lost a man yesterday." Yaxley put a hand on the parchment in front of him. So it was about Rykener.

"Yes, sir." Scabior took half a step forward and clasped his hands behind his back like a good soldier.

Tamora tried to stand as still as he did, and she could feel Octavian taking up a calm, confident stance behind her too, but Bart and his friend, Weir were fidgeting badly, and there was nothing to be done about Norell, who always breathed like a small rodent smelling predators.

"This is Fenrir Greyback." Yaxley motioned towards the man standing beside Flint, and Tamora could feel her mouth going dry and her heart skipping a beat at the mention of the infamous werewolf's name.

"Unfortunately, current Ministry regulations concerning Beings and Beasts keep us from officially hiring him." Flint stepped forward before they could have said anything. "But a special licence can be arranged, and he can be put on your team," he addressed Scabior.

Beside him, Greyback looked like he dared them to say no, but it was quite unnecessary. None of them wanted him, but as Scabior looked back at them, one by one they all nodded in agreement, and Tamora could have sworn she saw the shadow of a smile cross Yaxley's lips. He must have appreciated people who knew when not to put up a fight.

"Good," nodded Flint too. "And as for your first assignment..." He offered a sheet of parchment to Scabior, who took it with a smile that bared a little too many of his teeth to be considered polite, but neither Flint, nor Yaxley seemed to mind it. Unlike most of their colleagues, they didn't expect people to jump for joy when they gave them unpleasant tasks. They only expected them to do it without delay.

* * *

_Please read &amp; review, because it took me _ages _to finish this chapter and I need every (positive) feedback I can get.  
My thanks goes to DolbyDigital this time, for all the quick and hard work!_


End file.
