[i]Colab Post - Crafty and TDN[/i]

The huge, cavernous atrium of the Ministry had always been bustling with life. As soon as a single clock began to strike 8:50 the whole building sprung to life. Fireplaces erupted with puffs of green flames over and over on either side of the entrance hall. Hundreds of hands and hundreds of feet walking and shuffling towards the appropriate offices and the necessary floors, each carrying that unmistakable and lingering anxiety they all shared. Something was going on and there was no denying they could all feel it. No matter who they were, everyone within the Ministry could feel the fear as if they were trying to swim through treacle, thick and heavy. As if each one of them were trying to escape, water already up to their knees but too shallow to swim. The crowds didn't share their usual cheer, but instead bundled together like penguins during a blizzard, protecting their eggs with all the strength they had left. 

The atrium was a see of brown robes, flecks of the occasional green, purples and reds. In the increasing crowds often made it more difficult to push through to find a familiar face or chase after someone important. In between the ocean of colours were darker shapes, like fish beneath the surface, shifting through the crowd with ease. Both were dressed in black, from head to foot; the uniform kept them together, bound and tight. The pair aimed for the first of many elevators, although the latter of the two hurried his way through the crowds, shoving and pushing until a single hand could grab the black material of his colleague in front. 

"When we got there, you and Wiles were gone." The man spoke with an urgent tone, his voice hushed and low. It was always their way: Keep it quiet, don't let anyone know. "The whole place was a blaze. We didn't think either of you had survived." Arthur Travers, a smaller man, with a wirey frame yet piercing eyes that seemed to bubble with an intelligence that no one really understood. Having trained as an Obliviator for a few years, the man took up the opportunity to join George and the band of Hit Wizards on the second floor of the Ministry. His usual cheery demenour was gone, replaced with a tired and worried expression. "We only found two of them. What happened?" He asked, pulling his friend in close. 

"Wiles got there first. I saw six by the time I arrived, it must have been seconds after. The building wasn't on fire to begin with but whole street would have gone up if we hadn't chased them into the countryside." George spoke, his voice sore and jaded. Things were getting worse. They'd lost more than a dozen muggles this month to Snatchers in the north. Despite the Azkaban breakout the previous week, there had only been a small number of Death Eater sightings, yet the number of werewolves, giants, and whatever other scum the world had to offer were only increasing. Maxsim Dolohov, one of George's closest friends, was laid in St Mungo's at precisely that moment, struggling to recover from a rather nasty blow to the head and a life-changing scratch on his arm. "We caught two, one I lost, the rest of them we lost track of." Capture not kill was the way they'd been trained but in the heat of battle, often that wasn't always the easiest thing.

George pulled from his friend quickly enough and passed him a nod before turning back towards the lifts. They wouldn't speak again until they reached the safety of their Department. They weren't supposed to tell the rest of the Ministry the truth. They were prescribed with a code, a list of what truths there were allowed to speak and what statistics they had to reduce. A full scale panic wasn't what they needed. The elevator crowed quickly enough, with the unaffected voice of the elevator dictating the name and number of the floor it reached.

[i]Floor Two - Department of Magical Law Enforcement[/i]

Travers slipped between two elderly wizards and turned to look at George as the gates pulled shut again. 
"They were Spanish." He smiled as the lift disappeared back into the dark, speeding off into the rest of the Ministry that muggle London wasn't even aware of. George pulled his robes around him a little more, tugging on the sleeve of his right arm as like a child trying to hide something from his parents. 

[i] Floor Four - Department of Experimental Charms[/i]

The two elderly wizards made a step forwards before feeling the strong arm of the youngest Nott son push past and into the green marble hallways beyond. Everyone never seemed to be in a rush here. Two floors below and everyone was always rushing, dashing from place to place. It was almost serene travelling this far up the Ministry. George looked a commodity in the corridors, walking past witches and wizards doning all colours of the rainbow. He never passed them a smile, never bothered to greet any one he passed in the halls. It wasn't ignorance or arrogance, just a lack of care; he was so much like his brother's, minus the need to murder and seek the company of the Dark Lord himself.

He walked round a corner and stopped before one door. Without the curtosy of knocking, George pushed the door open. The handle rattled against the stone wall and every one inside the office seemed to shake, jumping and suddenly alert like rabbits. George glanced over each of them and stopped his attention on a blonde women inside the room. He lifted his arm, waved her over and whistled. Taking a short number of steps outside the office, George waited, not bothering to hold the door open for Caroline. When she finally arrived, George pulled back his sleeve and revealed what seemed to be the most intricate and detailed tree he'd ever seen.

"What the fuck is this?" He asked, lifting it towards her. George knew offensive spells, more than most, in fact, he was beginning to wonder if he even knew any defensive spells any more. 

She moved back a small smile on her face hand reaching into her robes for her wand

"That's a beauty" she rolled the wand between her fingers talking half to herself half to the Hit Wizard before her. "I've never seen this hex before but I've heard about it" She began to run her wand round the arm as if wrapping a bandage

"it comes from the foothills of the Pyrenees, where a couple of early wizarding settlements had a bit of a tiff everyone now and then and used to raid each other. From what I read it was more for shits and giggles than any particular reason but this was a parting shot used to try and disfigure and weaken one of the raiders." She tapped the mark 3 times. "wherever it hits it turns your skin to bark and your blood to sap and using the bloodstream spreads throughout the body. The mark is small but, see the little branches above. It has already spread through your smallest arteries and veins. Within 3 nights it is said it spreads through the bloodstream and at that point there is nothing more you can do. Skin and muscle will turn to bark and the limb becomes useless."

A complicated little wave and the mark seemed to peel off the skin like a plaster, a small wooden strip with leaves and roots of glittering green liquid. She carried on talking her voice distant as she studied the undulating tentacles.
"Lucky you were not hit in the heart, they say a heart shot turns the whole body to bark and reports of such a death is not pretty. It is said if you listen to folklore that those that died from a strike to the heart are the origins of cremation, the villagers burned their bodies in the hope their souls may be reunited with their ancestors in the afterlife" A twist of her wand and the tiny tree vanished as Nott went on as if nothing had happened. 

He watched her during the entire process, not exactly entranced. Her curiosity was attractive, as it was in anyone, but the sheer excitement irked him to the core. It was only a spell, he couldn't understand the obsession these guys had with old magic. Clearly his relationship with magic was different.