A Birth day

"Marcus is with him," Evan said, "but I'd like to know what is so important about that one. He saw something that, clearly, I didn't." Just then someone hit his right arm with a blast of wand fire and causing him to fumble and drop his wand, his sleeve on fire. He used a nonverbal accio to summon his wand and began again to fire.

Angus had not wanted her to get out of the atrium, but she had, and she was racing down the hallway, and Marcus was wondering if, in the midst of the firing, he was hearing sneezing. Then he slipped on the floor and righted himself and saw a couple flobberworms on the floor. Could it be? He wondered. Was this short person in the death eater's costume really Suzanne in disguise? Was that who Angus was after? What in the world...? Marcus was puzzling. And then it made complete sense to him.

Marcus remembered hearing that Tom had apparently tried to find Robert at St. Mungos and hadn't been successful. Was this honestly all about getting Robert's attention to try to get him to heal Suzanne? If that was the case, this surely was not going to appeal to Robert's more merciful side--if Angus didn't off the hussy first.

"I'm fine," Evan said. "I was hoping I could keep track of Angus, but he took off after one of them. They went in one of those doors on the other side of the room. I presume that goes to some of the offices or something."

Upstairs, Marcus dashed into one of the offices that overlooked the atrium and blasted out a window.

"Hey, we got flobberworms up here," Marcus shouted to Aria. "Evan, watch your six!" He turned right away and dashed right back out to continue to try to follow Angus. He knew the mention of flobberworms would tell Aria all she needed to know.

"What?" Evan frowned, out of the loop entirely about Suzanne and the hex and the flobberworms. "I don't have a six, do I?" he asked Aria.

Marcus ran back out into the hallway and tried to find Angus, but Angus was nowhere in sight. How could he have disappeared that fast. A wave of panic ran through Marcus. He had hoped to be able to send Aria a clue, with the flobberworms, that they were in pursuit of Suzanne since Suzanne had been sneezing and vomiting flobberworms. Thinking about it now, though, that didn't appear to be changing anything. Marcus ran as fast as he could go, looking for any sign of Angus, but it was as if Angus had just completely vanished.

Minutes ticked by, and in the atrium they were still fighting, although the death eaters were getting fewer. Evan ran over and ripped the masks off a couple of the death eaters who had fallen. He'd seen these faces before.

"We know these people from somewhere," Evan said, thinking. "Paris. I've seen them in Paris. They work for Gelding, I'm sure of it. And I bet you Angus is after either Tom or Suzanne. I bet that's who he ran after."

Evan was clock watching now. It had been close to fifteen minutes, and still there was no word on Angus and Marcus. The Atrium was quieting now because there werent' enough of Tom's men left to keep it going, and some of the ones who were left appeared to be abandoning ship, either apparating out or dashing off to other parts of the ministry.

And then, there was breaking glass from some of the windows on the highest level above the atrium floor. Tom came to the window, and he used a sonorus spell.

"Lupin, come out and play!" Tom said loudly. "I've got your boy right here." He motioned, and his top two enforcers came forward. These were men who were close to Jack's size and muscle, and between them, they held up Angus's limp frame. Angus appeared to be knocked out. Evan froze, wide eyed. Angus had been overpowered? That just rarely happened. "Come out and play, Lupin, before my boys try to see just how well your lad here does a swan dive right out this window. If they don't practice their killing curse on him first."

"If they lay one hand on him..." Evan began softly, furious. He knew they needed to give Robert a moment to respond.

"Now listen very carefully, Tom," Robert's voice spoke through a sonorus spell. "I am giving you absolutely nothing while you have him, and if you hurt him, I will make sure you and Suzanne and your entire crew don't leave here until your ashes are swept up and chucked in the dustbin. You let him go--very, very gently---and then I might consider listening to you."

"You don't seem to understand, Lupin. I have the cards this time, not you. I have your boy, and I can take him out in a mere moment."

"I heard you the first time," Robert said. "If you harm him, you get absolutely nothing. You're going to have to let him go before you get anything. And every minute you stall means one of your men is going to be secured and taken into custody." Evan looked at Aria.

"We're supposed to start securing them, I take it?" Evan knew that if they secured all of Gelding's fighters down here, that wasn't leaving Tom much bargaining power at all. "Oh, and by the way, you might be interested in queen in my hand tonight."

A flash of magic swept around the atrium, and all the flags changed to what really was a beautiful photo of Robert holding a baby girl in a pink blanket with a golden script G monogram in the corner. Tom's face paled, seeing the image of Robert holding Diamond in his arms.

"Oh, and now Robert's playing a rather fierce game of chess," Evan said quietly to Aria.

"Don't you hurt her!" Tom shouted.

"You let him go first," Robert insisted calmly. Marcus apparated in behind Aria.

"Robert knows where Suzanne is trying to hide upstairs, I think," Marcus said softly to Aria and Evan. "Nice of you to join us, Jack. Suppose you and I can apparate up there and take out those two big gorillas of Tom's before they could off Angus? Is it worth the risk to try it?"