VI. The Tunnels

Weapons training goes fairly well. After I showed up Williamson, the rest of them are a lot more willing to use the guns, and since I'm the only one who has ever fired one, they decide to listen to me. I look around, watching them as they shoot at the targets that Harry and Hermione conjured at the other end of the gym. It doesn't surprise me that the younger Aurors get the hang of it much quicker.

"I wish we had more time," I mutter, looking out over them as they struggle. Harry can hear me because Silencing Charms have been placed everywhere, absorbing the sounds of the gunshots. "You can't get good at this with only an hour's practice."

Harry shrugs, aims, and fires his Beretta. He hits the bulls-eye, then grins at me.

"How'd you do that?" I ask, surprised.

He levels the gun, keeps both eyes open, and does it again. "I just pretend it's a Snitch," he says.

"Huh," I say, impressed, but trying not to be. "We'd better go. Remus is waiting."

Harry nods and signals to Ron and Hermione. The other Aurors are struggling with using the guns, but Hermione seems to have gotten it down. Ron keeps firing his Beretta and then looking at it as if it's malfunctioning. At least he's hitting the target, which is more than can be said for some of them. At Harry's nod they put on their safety, holster their guns carefully, and join us at the door.

"What should we expect from this meeting with Remus?" Hermione says. She's all business now as we climb the single staircase from the gym up to Harry's office.

"Oh, brilliant," Ron mutters sarcastically. "First vampires, now werewolves."

"Scared?" I taunt him. He has reason to be, but I don't want it to distract him.

"No," he says, scowling at me. "Just smart."

He's got that right.

We file into Harry's office, where a plate of sandwiches has been left on Harry's desk. Remus is waiting for us by the window. He turns and smiles when he sees me. He looks older—more lines in his face, more grey hair—but stronger somehow. Tougher. My confidence level rises a notch.

"Hi, Remus," I say with true affection. I slide my arms around his middle for a quick hug, only slightly impeded by the weaponry hanging on my body. "How are you?"

"As well as can be expected," he answers, giving me a tired smile. "The baby isn't sleeping through the night yet, but we manage."

"I'm glad," I say sincerely. I disentangle myself from him and grab a sandwich off Harry's desk. Ron reaches behind me and grabs about six of them.

"I hate to make your life harder, Remus," I say around a mouthful of roast beef, "but I'm going to need some help."

"If it's mine to give, it's yours," Remus says with no hesitation. "Is this about the vampires?"

"Yeah," I say grimly. Harry goes around his desk, sits down, and picks up a sandwich. He doesn't take his eyes off me. Ron and Hermione sit in the chairs in front of Harry's desk. I pace; the battle—if there is one—is still hours away, but I can feel the adrenaline beginning to flow already. Remus continues to lean against the window sill.

"There's an Albanian master vampire here," I begin, giving him the edited version. "She's going to challenge the territorial master tonight, and she'll win. Her animal to call is the wolf."

Remus gives a low whistle. Hermione's mouth drops open in a startled "O." Harry and Ron look blank.

"Ginny?" Harry says, cocking a black eyebrow. "Want to explain that?"

"Every master vampire has an animal that they influence, that they can call and bend to their will," I explain. "The current master of London calls rats, which have their uses, but Zana calls wolves. Including werewolves."

"I knew there was something here," Remus murmurs. "I could feel it."

"Who's the Alpha?" I ask, cutting to the chase.

Remus gives me a mild look. "Me."

I nod. I had suspected as much, just from the new strength and leanness around him. It helps that the Alpha is on our side, but it might not solve our problems.

"Did you kill Greyback?"

He grimaces. "If there's another way to take over leadership of the pack, they forgot to write it into the werewolf by-laws."

"Can you hold them?" I ask urgently. "I don't want to kill anyone in your pack, Remus, but I will if I have to."

He shakes his head. "I can hold them."

"What if there's blood?" I press.

He hesitates. "I can hold them."

"What if there's carnage?" I ask. "Injuries?"

Ron makes a sick little choking sound and lowers his sandwich. Hermione lays a hand on his arm. Harry's jaw is set like stone, his eyes brilliantly green behind his glasses.

Remus looks at me. "Try not to let it come to that."

I nod again. I understand what Remus is and is not promising me. Damn Greyback for letting this pack go so long with no checks on their worst instincts. Remus sure as hell has his work cut out for him. I know he'll do his best, but it might not be in his control.

"Thanks," I say. "I'll try."

I turn to the other three. "I want one more quick meeting with the Aurors and the security guards. Everyone gets a vampire kit, and that includes the guards. Anyone on night shift carries a gun and a full kit. Day people can stick with wands, crosses, and a modified kit. Where's my goblin?"

"He'll be here at one," Hermione says. "He seemed to know what you wanted."

"Good," I say, nodding briskly. I turn to Harry. "A week ago I'd've asked Kingsley to authorize a Special Mission team. Do I go through you now?"

"Er…yeah, I guess so," Harry says, shifting uncomfortably. "What's involved with that?"

"You fill out a form, appoint me head of the team, and the Ministry picks up the expenses," I say. "It allows us to arrest people and act with the authority of the Ministry behind us."

"Why us?" Ron asks. He reaches for the last sandwich; apparently the threat of carnage isn't enough to dampen his appetite for long.

I shrug, look at my watch. "Because you're the newly appointed Vampire Special Mission Force." Or some such title. Hermione would have to think of something good.

"Appointed by who?" Harry says, looking at me suspiciously.

I give him a dazzling smile. "By you, of course," I say. "And I can't tell you what it means to me to get such immediate and unqualified support from the Ministry hierarchy."

He gives me a disgruntled look, but doesn't argue. Ron sniggers and he and Hermione exchange glances. The irony is beautiful; Harry Potter is now part of the Ministry hierarchy.

I turn to Remus, who grins at my tactics. "Tonks is still on maternity leave?"

He nods, the smile slipping from his face. "Yes, thank heaven," he says grimly.

"Can I come see the baby this weekend?" I ask hopefully. "Assuming I'm alive?"

Harry, Ron, and Hermione give me sharp looks, but Remus just gives me that deceptively mild, serious look for several long heartbeats.

"Yes, of course you can," he says quietly. "Assuming you're alive."

An hour later, the four of us walk out of the Ministry of Magic, armed to the teeth against every possible threat. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all dressed like me now: guns in shoulder holsters and inner-waistband holsters, goblin-made knives of the highest possible silver content strapped to wrists, ankles, belts, and, in the case of Hermione and me, the sword-sized blades hidden down our backs and concealed by our robes and long hair. Our kits have been transferred to magically expanded hip-packs, and I am reassured by the weight of mine bumping against my pelvis as I walk.

"Explain this to me again," Ron says. He wasn't thrilled to have his wand moved to the right side for a left-handed draw, but he can handle it. I watched all three of them do a dry-run with all their weapons, and he's fast. I'm proud to be working with him. I hope to God I can keep him alive. "Who are we now?"

Harry gives me an amused look, and Hermione answers him. "We're the Special Mission Task Force for the Destruction of Illegal Vampiric Activity," she says. I grin at her; she loves to say things like that.

"And where are we going?" he sighs, telling me he hasn't forgotten for one second where we're going. He looks wistfully at Fortescue's as we stride quickly past, and I promise myself that if we're all alive tomorrow I'll buy him an ice cream.

"Master of the City's daytime resting place," I say. "There's still the matter of the punishment for Kingsley and Eric."

Harry gives me a sideways look. "You want to kill the local master and just clear the way for Zana?"

"No," I say curtly. "I really don't want to."

"Then why are we going there?" Ron asks impatiently. He shoves open the door to the Leaky Cauldron and stalks in. Harry catches it as it swings back, then holds it for me and Hermione. For some reason I am touched by this small courtesy, and I quickly cover it with a glare. Harry just smiles back at me.

We don't talk as we file through the Leaky Cauldron. We get waves from friends and acquaintances, but we don't stop. Ron leads us behind the bar and past Old Tom to the small room hidden back there. We squeeze in and Harry shuts the door behind us. Hermione immediately begins tapping the walls with her wand.

"We're going there because there are vampires there," I say, turning back to Ron. "And we're going to have to kill the master, anyway, for the attack on the Ministry. Even if he wasn't there, he bears legal responsibility, since all the vamps in the city are in his control to some degree. Anyway," I sigh, checking my Browning and slipping the safety off, "it won't matter to Zana either way. She's a lot stronger than he is."

"What kind of nutter goes looking for vampires?" Ron asks, shaking his head.

"What kind of nutter goes looking for Death Eaters?" I retort

"Yeah, well…" he grumbles, running a hand through his hair.

"Besides, the more we can kill now, the fewer there are to take Zana's side or be controlled by her."

"I found it," Hermione says. She mutters a spell and a panel that had been invisible in the stone wall slides open. A stone staircase opens in front of us, and a tunnel stretches out from its base. I'm sure the damn thing hasn't been used in years, because the smell of mildew and dust wafts up and out.

"Good show," I say, impressed as always at Hermione's research skills. "And this goes exactly where again?"

"According to the old maps, it goes to the undercroft of St. Matthew's Church," Hermione says, wrinkling her nose at the stale air drifting up. "Merlin, I'm going to have to do a Bubblehead Charm just to get through there."

"I wouldn't advise it," I say. "Distorts peripheral vision. We can get to the building we want from there?"

"Yes," Hermione says. "It's on the next block past the church."

"All right, let's go," I say, stepping toward the darkness of the stairs. I turn quickly back and look at them. "Remember, no eye contact."

They nod grimly. Harry's eyes flick down to the scar on my neck, half hidden by my t-shirt collar. I let him look; it doesn't hurt to remind him what we're up against.

"Wait," he says, stepping up next to me. "Let me go first."

He actually thrusts out an arm to move me back. I grab his wrist—hard. "Excuse me, Potter?"

He frowns at me. "I just—I thought I'd go first."

"I don't need your protection," I seethe. "Now get the hell out of my way."

"I'm senior here, Ginny," he reminds me grimly. He still sounds a bit confused that I've challenged him.

"Not on this mission, you're not. Now move."

I thrust his arm away from me, and he slowly retreats a step—enough for me to get in in front of him. I turn away and start down the steps. The stones are worn smooth and shiny beneath my trainers. "We're most likely to encounter human servants during the day, but there may be a few powerful vampires awake if their resting place is secure enough."

"I've never heard of that," Harry says, gesturing for the others to follow me. He's going to bring up the rear. I respect that; next to mine, it's the most vulnerable spot. "I thought they had to sleep during the day."

"No," I say absently. "Lumos. Very old or very strong ones can be awake if there's no light coming in."

"Brilliant," says Ron. "I suppose you're going to tell me there are spiders down here, too."

"I don't think so," I say, scanning the walls with the light from my wand as I walk. "Just rats. Kill any you see."

"That seems unnecessarily cruel," Hermione says, with that oh-so-Hermione tone of suppressed disapproval in her voice.

I shrug. "I'd rather they didn't announce us."

There are a couple of the creepy little buggers now. Their little black eyes glow red in the wandlight and they squeal, then scurry off in the opposite direction. I get a bead on them quickly and send a thin green AK into the darkness after them. I hear the soft flump of a little body dropping to the floor, but before I can get the other one it slithers through a crack in the wall.

"Damn," I swear. I hear it scuttling away. "Lost it."

I hear Hermione grimace, just a soft little breath, but she doesn't say anything. I hope she doesn't have to kill werewolves later; compared to rats, the moral dilemma is much more challenging. Still, she's a good Auror, and it's not like she's never killed anyone before. She'll do what has to be done. She wouldn't be here if I wasn't sure of that.

"Here" still seems to be a freakishly long tunnel. Where the hell are we going, Ireland? I wish it would end, that something would happen, but so far, it hasn't. I keep us moving at a steady pace, quietly, but I'm getting impatient. And a bit concerned, because I notice that though we've walked what must be a mile underground, we haven't actually seen any rats except those first ones.

"There's a crossing up here," Hermione whispers. "We keep going straight, don't turn."

"What's on either side?" I ask over my shoulder. I'm thinking that a left turn might put us closer to the building we're trying to get to.

"Old sewers," Hermione says. "The maps say they've been caved in for a hundred years."

We continue to walk until my wand light discovers the shadowy openings of the intersecting tunnel. A quick check down either side reveals nothing. I take a moment to feel down the tunnel with my magic, searching for vampires or humans, but I don't feel that. Only little things, probably more rats. I'm about to step into the crossing when Harry hisses, "Wait!"

I don't ask why. I feel it, both with my magic and in the vibrations in the floor. Then I hear it. The echoing squeals of thousands of tiny voices, the scraping of a million tiny toenails on stone, the sliding of slithering, hairy bodies over each other by the thousands.

"Run!" I yell at them.

I shoot an Impediment Curse down the tunnel and take off running. Behind me I hear Hermione do the same, then I hear Ron yell, "Oh, shit, Impedimenta!"

I run flat out, but the rats are just as fast. Hermione shrieks as one jumps on her; I hear it crunch against the wall next to me as she flings it away. I hear Harry's oaths; he's got to be getting the worst of it there in the back. Flashes of red and green light the deep darkness of the tunnel as two rats jump onto my robe; I feel the weight of them swinging there, bumping against my calves as I run. They cling on and begin to climb, and they've reached my shoulder, tangling themselves in my hair when I hear Hermione's voice again.

"Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra!"

The weight pulling on my hair increases, and I can tell the rats are dead, swinging there where they are tangled. "Damn, Hermione, you could have killed me!" I yell back at her.

The noise behind us decreases, the curses keep flying, and a quick look over my shoulder shows me Harry, throwing a half a dozen rats at a time off of him. His hands are chewed and bloody.

"Look, there!" Hermione shouts. "The steps! Hurry!"

She doesn't have to tell me twice. I spring up the steps taking them three at a time. I don't bother with magic; I draw my Browning and shoot the lock out, then slam it open with my shoulder. I practically fall through it, and the others are able to keep running through the door I've gotten open. Harry leaps through, spinning around to throw one last rat off, and I slam the door against the hoard now approaching the stone steps.

"Colloportus!" I shout, and the door seals itself. On the other side I can hear the little furry bodies casting themselves against it, scratching and scrabbling to find a way through. They won't give up; they're in thrall to London's master vampire, and they can't stop until he tells them to.

I turn back to the others. They are bleeding, a hundred small wounds sending tiny trickles down their faces, arms, hands. Their robes are torn, their clothes underneath ruined.

We all take a shaky breath. Ron and Hermione lean against each other, bent over, and I have a sense that they're just making sure the other's okay. Harry steps up to me, hesitates, and lifts his hand. It's hard to see well in the dim light of the undercroft, but in the confusion of the moment it feels like he's about to make an intimate gesture—like he's about to cup my cheek in his hand or stroke my hair.

"Ginny," he says, and I raise my face toward him. He looks down at me grimly. "You have rats in your hair."

Right. Rats. He's correct, of course; I can feel them swinging there. I make an exasperated noise and slide my wrist knife out, then cut the rats out along with a generous hunk of hair. I throw the whole mess onto the floor and turn away from him, annoyed with myself. I don't want those kinds of gestures from Harry, and if I did, this wouldn't exactly be the time or place.

"Are you lot all right?" I ask, trying to keep things brisk and efficient, like being overrun by a hoard of marauding rats was just part of the job.

"Oh, yeah, we're bloody great," Ron says sarcastically. "What the bloody hell was that?"

"The rat that got away told the Master we were coming," I said, trying to shrug it off. That wasn't by far the worst thing that's ever happened to me, but that doesn't exactly mean it was pleasant. "It could have been worse."

"Really?" Ron asks doubtfully. He wipes the back of his hand across his face, leaving a streak of blood across both. "Care to tell me how? Or do I want to know?"

"A Master in South America could call snakes," I inform him.

He gulps. "Bloody hell."

"These scratches are going to get infected if we don't treat them fast," Hermione interrupts.

I usually save all clean-up for the end—why bother with scratches until you were sure you were going to live? But we've lost the edge of surprise, so we might as well take a few minutes to treat our cuts and let the others catch their breath, emotionally speaking.

We dab at our cuts with the antibiotic cream, cleansing them and beginning the magical healing process. Every now and then someone stops to point out, "You missed one…just there…" Hermione walks around behind Ron and dots the cream on his neck, where it looks like more freckles, only white. As I watch them, I feel my hair lifted up, and Harry begins to rub cream on my neck, on the side of my throat, on that sensitive spot below my ear lobe…

What were we doing again?

Oh, yeah, rats. And vampires.

I step away from him on the pretext of checking that the blade down my back is still secure under my hair. Anything to get away from the gentle pressure of his hands. He hesitates, then drops his hand and turns away, some expression I can't read crossing his face. His mangled hands are streaked with blood.

"Here," I say impulsively, grabbing his hand in mine. He winces, but glances back up to meet my eyes. I try to smile at him, but it's hard. His hands look terrible. "Let me treat your hands, all right?"

He nods, and I take one of his hands in mine. It's a strong hand, callused, and I remember the roughness of his fingers on my skin earlier that morning. I levitate the tube of cream beside me and hold my hand out. The cream squeezes into my hand, and I rub it over my palms, then over Harry's hand. I rub up and down between his long fingers, over his calluses, across the sensitive skin of his palm, into the pads of muscle and down to his wrist. I slide my fingers under the cuff of his expensive dress shirt, in and out, trying to rub the cream onto every bit of his ravaged skin.

I'm suddenly having trouble breathing, and I look up at Harry. His mouth is slightly open, and his eyes are burning hot. Merlin, he could burn a girl up with that look. My mouth goes dry and I quickly look back down at his hand, still resting in mine. The cuts are beginning to heal, thank God, so I take a shuddery breath and let his hand fall carefully to his side.

"I…er…I need the other one," I say, clearing my throat.

"Oh, right," he says huskily, and he holds out his other hand to me, palm up. It feels like an invitation. I just wish I knew what for. I repeat the process, torturing myself as I go, rubbing and stroking and healing him with my own hands. Finally, I let that hand fall to his side, too.

"Thanks," he murmurs, looking at his hands. They'll have scars for a few days, but those will fade. The important thing is that he can handle a wand and a gun now.

The rats are still flinging themselves at the door, and their sounds bring me out of my reverie. I shake my head a bit and look over at Ron and Hermione, who are on the other side of the undercroft, their arms wrapped around each other, snogging quietly.

Ron pulls back from Hermione, nearly bumping his head on the low ceiling. "You be careful, all right?"

"I'll be fine," she says with a soft smile. "You be careful, too."

I pull my gun and shove in a full magazine. I've only used one bullet, but it helps me get centered. Ron and Hermione start at the sound, and Harry grins as they jump apart.

"Ready?" I ask.

They nod. We quickly remove and Vanish our robes, then I take a deep breath and start up the stairs with them behind me. Single file, we march through the vestry, down the south transept, and finally to a side door. I push it open carefully, and the four of us step out into the sun.

11