Needing a bit of leverage. [OPEN/BATTLE]

Boom. That was enough to many any house elf frightened.

"S-stay out of this home-" he stopped himself, "Inn!" correcting himself. Port quickly closed the door in front of the man [Elliot] and put his body in front of it, "Mr. Nobody Important, you cannot go out there!" He said, and as a precaution whispered very loudly to Yibba,

"Distract him girl!" and with that, the cockroach opened it's wings and flew at the man.

The longer he distracted Mr. Nobody Important, the more likely it was he'd survive.

Wizards . . . Why couldn't they just warn before they attacked? He took the last sip of his flask, and closed it, storing it in his rags, pushing as much as he could against the door.

When the explosion sounded, Jane frowned deeply at Alexander. The goal was not, in fact, to lure the Order in, but instead to find the girl Lorcan was after. Of course, the boy was just that - a boy. So how could she have expected everything to go perfectly? She, who was actually new to this whole thing, but was looking for a bit of, to be cliché about it, leverage - she had no right to be upset with him. The meeting itself had been strange, hadn't it?

Drawing her wand, Jane had to hope that there weren't any other wizards set up within the Inn to play guard or anything like that. The last thing she expected, however, was for a House Elf to shout at Alexander and the other woman. Jane, you see, was not great at learning names, and had not caught each person's name in that single meeting. So she hurried over to a window set a few away from the door, and covered her face with one hand before extending the other and shattering the glass panes.

"Alexander!" she called, gesturing towards the window despite the stinging bits of her arm that had caught backlash from the glass exploding. A spare bit of wood from his exploding the door was nearby, so she took it to whack away any sharp edges of the window that remained, hoping he would come and help lead the other Death Eaters in through the window until they could get the elf to leave the entryway alone.

[ooc: Krissu, if you see this and would prefer me to edit, let me know!]

Hadley reached the floor where the younger "muggles" were staying, knocking on the doors and helping them out into the hallways. A crash sounded below that sounded oddly like one of those explosions they used in movies. Cassie, one of the students, was staying at the end of the hall, and likely was surprised to see Hadley duck instinctively, even though the sound was clearly from somewhere below them. At the back of the Inn, however, she couldn't tell what exactly had happened.

"Get somewhere safe!" she told Cassie, gesturing towards the stairs. Whether or not they followed her lead was up to them, Hadley supposed. But a particularly young boy was looking around as though he couldn't quite believe this had happened.

Hadley was almost furious that he had been expected to stay here when his parents were not. Where were they anyway? For an instant, Hadley wished that her sister had actually asked to meet tonight instead of the next afternoon, if only because she would have had someone skilled to help her. It wasn't as though the blonde had heard what Audriana had done, of course, so that didn't help her come up with a more rational wish. But she took the boy's hand, and ran to the top floor, ducking into a room, hiding him in the closet before following him inside and shutting the door.

Wizards must be super lame if a cockroach could scare them. Elliot swatted the insect aside and lunged at the creature now blocking his path.

He wasn't usually the one dishing out the violence, but he'd seen enough films to know the moves. Elliot grasped the house elf's throat with both hands and hauled it upwards, using the door to take some of its weight so he could look it in the eye properly. For such a small creature, it was surprisingly heavy.

"Oh?" his eyebrow lifted. "Feeling guilty all of a sudden?"

"If you'd got me a knife instead of that useless piece of rubbish, you wouldn't be so worried. Don't think I don't know you did that deliberately."

"Got anything to say for yourself?"

It was Friday night and Hallie was finally going to start getting her life back. Her work load had slackened, she wasn't married or pregnant, both her legs were fully functioning and the blonde had decided that she was going to start living like a twenty year old should live, which mean't one thing: A night out. As per usual Hallie had been slow at getting ready, especially as she hadn't dressed herself up in quite a while. It was surprising how much work can take over your life. Even when you aren't actually working you're so tired that at the end of the day all you want to do is sit by the fire listening to the radio whilst you read Witch Weekly with your feet resting on the pouf. Hallie, however, wasn't ready to turn forty five and in an effort to revisit her youth the blonde had agreed to a night out with some of her old friends from Hogwarts.

Upon deciding her outfit Hallie had initially picked a pale green dress. Although, when it came to zipping herself up, the blonde couldn't do it for it was the dress she'd worn the day she had met Theodore. Hallie hadn't been optimistic about the marriage law, in fact she had wanted to try and shut the whole thing down completely, but in spite of that her partner-to-be was innocent and Hallie had felt it only respectful to dress nicely for their first meeting. Since that meeting Hallie hadn't worn the dress, she hadn't thought about the dress, the dress even smelt of the perfume she'd worn that day. It was peculiar how many memories a dress could bring back. Being taken into a separate room by Ana Levski who checked her fertility levels, watching Theodore reel off a list of demands for having to marry her. Well, at least he got something out of their marriage all Hallie had was regret, wishes to have tried harder. That's all it was though: wishful thinking. The truth was Hallie had tried as hard as she could have and there was really no point dwelling on the past. That's exactly what this night out was all about, revisiting her youth and not being chained down by her ghosts.

After deciding on a white dress and letting her hair lie loosely over her shoulder Hallie dropped her wand into her purse (which only just fit) and quietly locked the cottage door behind her in hope not to wake her Mother. Once she'd walked the length of the garden and onto the leafy path that led towards the heart of the village Hallie not-so-elegantly, due to her high heels, spun on the spot and arrived outside of The Leaky Cauldron.

Checking her watch Hallie realised that she was a lot later than she intended. Then again, was Hallie actually late at all? Her friends were used to her poor punctuality they were no doubt only expecting her to arrive at the Knockturn Alley club just gone midnight and Hallie had five minutes before then.

After walking through the not-so-crowded Leaky Cauldron, most of the Leaky's clientele had either moved onto Satan's or aborted their night out and headed home, Hallie found herself strutting along Diagon Alley. The blonde hadn't worn heels for a long time now and she was starting to question her ability to ever walk along the cobbled street in six inch stilettos. She could take them off, carry them until she was in the club, but the dimmed street lamps weren't bright enough to guide her without cutting her foot on some shard of glass.

Her shoe problems were quickly forgotten, however, at the sight of a band of people further along the alley outside of the Buckley Inn. Hallie hadn't been to the Inn before but, working for the Ministry, she knew it to be the place where the muggles who'd acquired magic were staying and, as far as the blonde knew, it wasn't open to selling alcohol at this time on a Friday night-now Saturday morning. It soon became apparent that they weren't drunk eighteen year olds out for a wild one. They were masked, had their wands drawn and set Hallie's heartbeat racing.

Crouching out of sight behind a large cauldron that sat outside the apothecary Hallie peered over the top, watching a witch knocking lose pieces of glass from the window by the front door that had been blasted from it's hinges. Death Eaters were making their way into the Inn.

Realistically Hallie should have alerted the auror office and requested backup. However, the Ministry had always been slightly prudish when it came to death eaters. They weren't always taken as seriously as they used to be, especially since Lord Voldemort had died. Still, having led the Order of The Phoenix at one point Hallie knew exactly what they were capable of.

Instinctively the auror opened her purse, tugged her wand out and aimed it to the sky muttered a series of words beneath her breath before casting the patronus charm using a newly acquired happy memory: the knowledge that her Father was alive. Seeing her Father again. Hearing his voice once more.

A silvery lioness had erupted from her wand and vanished into the distance where it would inform Oliver that Death Eaters were infiltrating the Buckley Inn and the Order were needed.

No longer caring about cutting her feet on broken glass (she'd sustained far worse injuries than that), Hallie pulled her heels off and left them, along with her purse, in a smaller cauldron that sat on the windowsill. Then, her wand firmly in her hand, Hallie scuttled across an alleyway that ran alongside Quality Quidditch Supplies and led the blonde to the back of Diagon Alley. Her breathing heavy Hallie ran the length of the backalley dodging binbags and broken boxes before coming to the gate that led to the back yard of the Inn.

Once upon a time Hallie would have charged down the street and tackled all of the death eaters. She'd learnt better than that. The best attack was a surprise attack, once that the enemy wasn't expecting and one that wouldn't display Hallie so openly to a stunning spell - or worse.

The backdoor was locked and Hallie wasn't going to make the mistake of blasting herself in through the backdoor. Looking up she noticed an open window on the first floor landing. If only she could somehow get in through there?

Back at number twelve Grimmauld Place, Oliver was in the midst of yelling at Christian Zabini for allowing Augustus Rookwood to steal his wand when Gabby wasn't looking. The Death Eater had escaped, and the Hufflepuff graduate was quailing under Oliver's glares, despite the fact that the older man's arms were crossed and he hadn't exactly brought his wand out threateningly or anything. But there was something dark in Oliver's glare that could come out when he needed it to. In this case, he could only think about the consequences for Alice, and what the Rookwood man might tell the Death Eaters about their place. Despite the additional wards put up, and their attempt at forcing him to take Veritaserum, he had disappeared before Jack could give it to him.

But Christian was saved when a silver - was it a lion? - burst into the room, landing in front of Oliver. Hallie? Christian stared, but Oliver didn't look as surprised as he should have. He knew Hallie used to lead the Order, as everyone did, so he wasn't exactly shocked that she had sent him word of something gone wrong. Somehow, he wanted to blame Augustus for the attack, even though he knew he shouldn't.

So while some of the others started jumping up to take off, Oliver sent word to those who had not made it to the meeting, letting them know that, whatever they had used as their excuse to get out of attending, they had better hurry up and meet him at the Buckley Inn, in Diagon Alley. Then, he turned to Alice, half wanting to tell her that she didn't have to go if she didn't want to. But he had given her his word that he wouldn't do something like that.

So he wrapped an arm around her waist and gave a nod to those looking his direction, and a moment later they had landed outside the Inn. Cursing under his breath, Oliver ducked around the wall, hating the fact that he had let them land almost within the Death Eaters' sight.

"Around back," he said to anyone interested in following, releasing Alice but tossing her an anxious expression over his shoulder in her direction.

It was as they came around the back of the building that he saw the blonde who had called them, registering only for a breath that she had no shoes on. How odd. Regardless, she knew that help was needed, so he quickly crossed the back lawn to reach her side, not even bothering to offer a greeting, considering the circumstances.

"How do we get in?"

Port squeaked a little bit, looking at the man now, he started to cry, "Port is sorry-"

The cry was rather loud and nasally. He looked right into the mans eye and laughed, "- that you don't know about Apparating." he said, disappearing into a puff of smoke and reappearing outside the door.

He then started bolting for the stairs, knowing that he could only use that trick so many times before he used something that could hurt him, "Leave me alone!" he shouted as he bolted down the stairs and into the main room.

He hopped over the bar, knowing it was bigger than him to allow him a perfect hiding spot.

That was. . . Until he saw the bottle of wine. Without even thinking, he bit off the top and started pouring it into his flask, causing himself a bit of noise.

Elliot was suddenly subjected to a strange sensation, obviously this apparition the elf was talking about. It was like being pushed through the eye of a needle. He lost his bearings as the creature screamed something at him, twisting out of his grasp, before he realised he'd been transported.

The hallway was full of noise, but strangely void of people. It didn't do a thing to put Elliot at ease.

He already knew the amenities were toward the back of the Inn, so he walked in the opposite direction than the elf had taken, incidentally taking him further from the noise and disruption from downstairs as he looked for the servants' access.

Jane wasn't really the sort to be irritable, on the whole, as she felt that life was meant to be lived. She had to pause and ask herself, however, if this was how she meant for hers to go. Alexander chided the other witch for taking time doing something useless, and she almost wanted to know if he thought her musings were pointless as well. But there was hardly time for that.

In truth, Jane didn't want to find the girl. Or, she didn't want to be the one who found her. How strange would it look for her to have brought in the news about the blonde and then also be the one to locate her? That likely would not go over well. So she loved the idea of splitting up their trio.

"That sounds great," Jane agreed. "I'll take this floor, and you guys can head up? Maybe a floor each?"