Leaving Green Sleeves

The four men took up the whole pavement as they headed off to the Ministry. On the far left, Pug walked with his hands buried deep in his pockets and eyes shooting daggers at the passers-by. Next to him was Tyke, uncomfortable from being pressed in between his brother's sullen silence and Sykes' never-ending flood of words. Beside Sykes, on the far right, Lupin walked, looking extremely sceptical about the whole business.

"Are you sure Dung's at the Ministry?" he asked again, cutting Sykes off. "I must say I find it very hard to believe that he would spend all this time there, of all places. And he hasn't been arrested?"

"No," Tyke replied, trying to keep the defensive tone out of his voice. "And I don't know much more than you. In the letter, he clearly said he would be there, waiting for me." He'd never been a good liar, and he'd seen on Lupin's face that he didn't believe him - in fact, the disbelief reeked off of him.

Luckily, it wasn't far now. He let out a long sigh of relief when he saw the tattered old telephone box in the distance. "What do I tell the welcoming witch?" Lupin asked suddenly.

"What?"

"I have to state the reason for our visit. What do I say?"

They looked at each other. This hadn't even occurred to them. "I guess you could say I want to file a complaint," Sykes muttered, scratching his chin slowly before lighting up. "A complaint about the Ministry's treatment of squibs. Yes! And I need to speak with the Minister himself - that should give us time. Mum says it's almost impossible to get an appointment with the Minister."

The others nodded in agreement. "If push comes to shove and the Minister shows up, we could actually do it," Tyke replied. "I wouldn't mind telling that sod a few truths about his regime."

"That's settled, then." Lupin entered the phone box, picked up the handle and dialled the numbers, managing, not quite by accident, to step on Pug's foot. Only Sykes' hard elbow in Pug's side saved Lupin's life.

"Remus Lupin, Sykes Ogden, Paul Pommeroy and, er..."

"Terrence," Tyke muttered quickly.

"Terrence Pommeroy," Lupin continued, "to see the Minister for Magic, and to file a complaint concerning the discrimination of squibs." There came a jingling sound as four badges popped out. Lupin gave them their badges, and they stuck them to their respective shirts, jackets and cloaks. The box shivered slightly and begun its descent.

Tyke stared at the enormous hall that opened up in front of them. He had been there once before, tagging along with his mother, but that was almost twenty years ago and he hadn't remembered much. He remembered the crowds and the fireplaces, but not this incredible ceiling; a radiant blue with golden marks and symbols restlessly moving and changing in front of his eyes, making him feel very small.

"Close your mouth," Pug whispered in his ear, and Tyke did as he was told, swallowing heavily. A quick glance over at Pug told him that he too felt uneasy in this enormous hall, where the presence of magic was so strong that it felt like electricity in the air. A flock of documents flew by his ear, close enough that he could feel the soft gush of wind against his face.

Lupin led them along the hall to a security stand next to a set of golden gates. After being scanned, Tyke grabbed Pug by the arm and dragged him off to prevent his brother from making the security wizard eat his scanner, and they entered the smaller hall on the other side of the gates. They stood outside the doors to one of the lifts, waiting for Sykes and Lupin to join them.

"Level nine, that's what Trip said." Pug scratched his head and looked at the lifts with a tired expression. "How the hell do we find anything in this place?"

"Lupin will lead the way, I'm sure," Tyke muttered. "I just don't know how we'll shake him off."

"I could kill him and place his dead body in a broom closet," Pug offered with a grin.

"If you do that, we'd better stay in nineteen fifty. Shut up, here he comes!"

Lupin and Sykes walked through the gates together, both of them laughing at some joke Sykes had come up with. Tyke was surprised to feel a tickling emotion he recognised as jealousy. Where did that come from? he thought to himself, and annoyed, he cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should get going?"

"Yes..." Lupin looked at the lifts. "Going where, exactly?"

"Level nine," Pug replied gruffly, for the first time speaking directly to him. He turned toward the lift, and the doors slid open. They entered, although Lupin seemed more sceptical than ever.

"Level nine is the Department of Mysteries," Lupin said slowly, sending Tyke an intense stare that made him sweat. "How much do you know about this...?"

"About what?"

Lupin didn't reply, just shook his head and took one more step and entered the lift. Tyke took a step forward so that he stood with his back to Lupin, but even now he could feel the wizard's eyes on the back of his head. He stared into his own reflection in the mirror, trying his best to look casual and relaxed.

Several other wizards and witches, with briefcases and official-looking robes, had tried to enter their lift, but Pug's ugly glare made them turn and walk toward other lifts instead, sending the group bewildered looks. Each time they stopped at a new level, Pug scowled and growled at the people outside the doors. "Who would've known that face of your would ever come in handy?" Sykes said, nudging Pug's side.

"Well, we all have some hidden talent," Pug replied.

"Level nine; the Department of Mysteries," the voice said, and the doors slid open. They stared into a long corridor, no windows, and no pictures on the walls - just this corridor leading up to a black door. Everything around them was quiet.

"There's no one here," Sykes muttered, making a faint echo in the corridor. "I thought there would be people here...Unspeakables."

"Yeah," Lupin replied, looking uncomfortable. Once more he sent Tyke that scrutinising look.

"Come on." Pug walked out of the lift and turned back to them with a grin. "Since we've come this far, let's keep moving. What have we got to lose?" He started walking toward the door.

"Our lives, perhaps?" Sykes answered, his booming voice suddenly sounding very small and insecure. "A life sentence in Azkaban?"

Slowly, the others followed Pug down the corridor and gathered around the black door. Tyke jerked when he heard a sound from behind them, but it was only the lift closing its doors and returning back to the atrium. "Looks like we're on our own," he said, pushing the door open.

They peered inside a circular room. Tyke couldn't see anyone, and Lupin frowned even deeper. "Where is everybody?" he muttered as he entered.

When the outer door closed, the walls started to move - faster and faster until Tyke lowered his eyes to the strange floor just to avoid looking. The whole room made him feel slightly nauseated. After a while, the revolving ceased - twelve doors, all black and without doorknobs or handles.

It struck Tyke that Lupin must have been there before. The way he walked into the room, without bothering to look around at the candles that illuminated the room in an uncanny blue light, gave a feeling of a man who knew what he should look for. Tyke took a deep breath and looked over at Pug and Sykes, who nodded. "Dung said he would meet us in the Time Room," he said, his voice slightly shaky. "You wouldn't happen to know where to find it?"

Lupin turned to stare at them with dark eyes. Slowly he backed away, reaching for his wand. "You're not getting further than this," he barked, pointing the wand at Tyke's chest. "I can't believe I let myself be fooled like a friggin' first-year! Over my dead body." His voice shook from anger, but the hand holding the wand was as steady as ever.

The three squibs stared at him with open mouths. "He's finally lost his marbles," Pug stated, shaking his head. "What are you talking about, you furry little prat?"

"You just turn around and get the hell out of here. I'll give you three minutes, and then I'll call the Aurors. It will be a pleasure knowing you'll rot in Azkaban, you pathetic pieces of scum."

"Azkaban?" Tyke's voice sounded more like a croak. Sweating, he looked at his wristwatch. They'd already been here ten minutes - someone was bound to show up sooner or later.

"Now, wait a minute!" Sykes frowned. "I think the air in here has etched away at your brain, Lupin! What's the matter with you?" Quietly, Sykes started walking along the wall until he'd reached Lupin's left side.

Lupin took the wand off Tyke, and turned to look at Sykes. "Stand where I can see you!"

"Why can't we talk this over like adults?" Sykes asked calmly, spreading his hands out in a gesture of submission. "I can see you're upset about something. Now, put the wand down and we'll talk. All right?" While Sykes was talking, Pug quietly walked along the right wall, coming up behind Lupin. Lupin turned around again, caged like an animal between them - a dangerous animal.

"Who sent you?" Lupin continued. "Tell me!"

"I don't have the faintest idea what you want me to say," Pug growled as he took one step closer. "You wanted to find Dung, didn't you? Well, that's why we're here, to find him... Now, get that fucking stick out of my face before you poke my eyes out."

"You stop there, or else your eyes won't be the only thing you should worry about."

Pug started laughing and turned his head to Tyke. "He's scared of us! What do you say to something like that? I mean, except 'thank you'."

Sykes, finally having come close enough, tapped Lupin on the shoulder, and the wizard whirled around with surprising speed. "Stupefy!" he yelled, and the spell hit Sykes in the chest, and the floor seemed to shake as Sykes' heavy body hit it. In the same tenth of a second Pug knocked Lupin's feet away beneath him, and before Tyke'd had the chance to blink Pug was sitting on Lupin's chest.

The wand rolled along the floor; Tyke woke from his stupor and hurried over to pick it up. Worried, he checked out Sykes, and was relieved to find his friend unconscious but otherwise apparently fit as a fiddle. Sticking Lupin's wand in his belt, he turned Sykes over on the side and arranged his body to lie in the way he'd seen paramedics do it on television. "And they say too much TV is bad for you," he muttered.

Pug was obviously enjoying himself. "From this angle you look almost handsome," he told Lupin with a satisfied, nasty grin on his face.

"Pity I can't return the compliment," Lupin spat back, but Pug didn't take the bait.

"How does it feel, Lupin?" Pug leaned closer, something that made Lupin let out a half-strangled groan from the weight. "I could break your neck like a twig, right here, right now..."

The malice in his voice made Tyke only more stressed - the last thing they needed now were two unconscious men on the floor of a room they weren't even supposed to know about. With firm steps he walked over to them and bowed down. "There will be no neck-breaking here. We have a job to do, remember?" he hissed in Pug's ear. Lupin's face had turned a nasty shade of pale blue in the light from the candles, and seemed to be having problems breathing. "Don't suffocate him - I have his wand anyway, he'll behave if he knows what's best for him."

Pug sent him a quick glance, and grinned when he saw his face. "You got a kick out of this, didn't you...?"

"Well, yeah - a small one." Tyke shrugged, feeling a bit embarrassed. But Pug was right - there's nothing like a good fight to get the juices flowing. "But we have more urgent business to take care of. Get up before he chokes, all right?"

With a dissatisfied frown Pug got up. Lupin rolled over on the floor, gasping for breath and coughing so loudly Tyke got afraid they'd hear it in the next Department. "Keep it down, will you! Jesus." Not minding Lupin anymore, Tyke walked over to the nearest of the doors and placed his hand on it.

"Are you going to kill me?" Lupin croaked out. "I will tell you nothing, you bastards!"

"Your mother dropped you on the head when you were a child, didn't she?" Pug sneered. "We don't give a toss about you - we've come to find Dung. Exactly what part of that don't you understand?"

Lupin had managed to get up on his knees, and sending Pug an ugly glare he rubbed his elbow.

Pug looked down at Sykes' lifeless body and scratched his head. "He seems to be sleeping heavily," he muttered and grabbed his wrist. Dragging the heavy body after him, he walked over to Tyke, who still hadn't decided which door to open. "Now, where do we... Fuck!"

Pug dropped Sykes, ran back, and managed to knock the feet from under Lupin one more time, just as Lupin was about to open the black door back into the corridor. Lupin landed heavily and got the air knocked out of him, and squirmed as Pug dragged him over to the party by the door where Tyke stood, leaning against the wall. "Now...which door?" Pug puffed before dropping Lupin's leg.

"I will say...nothing!" Lupin moaned.

"I thought we could try the first one. You know, might as well start with the beginning, right?"

"Bastards!"

"Sounds reasonable. You'll take Sykes then?"

"You'll end in Azkaban..."

"But he's twice the size of Lupin," Tyke objected.

"...And I'll laugh all through the trial!"

"Let's just say it's personal," Pug replied with a little grin. "It will give me immense pleasure dragging him along a filthy floor. Humour me, just this once."

Tyke sighed, but pushed the first door without discussing further. They both looked into the room inside, and had to squint their eyes at the bright light that poured out from the opening. Clocks - clocks everywhere. "Something tells me this is the Time Room," Tyke mumbled.

Pug snorted. "Twelve doors, and we manage to find the right room at the first try? Things like that only happen in bad fiction."

Huffing and puffing, they dragged the two men into the room. It was harder than Tyke thought it would be; Sykes, because he was heavier than a medium-sized truck, and Lupin because he kept on struggling with a passion most suitable for a Gryffindor. "Now what?" Pug muttered and let go of the kicking wizard.

"Yeah, well..." Tyke scratched his head as he peered his eyes against the light that seemed to come from a large bell jar on a desk on the other side of the room. "There should be some sort of time-travelling device down here, big enough for a small party of people. Remember what Trip York said?"

"That simpering little coward? But he was useful, I suppose - doesn't matter; I'll still break his neck when we get back."

Lupin watched them from his place on the floor. Slowly, his frown disappeared to be replaced with a dawning comprehension. "Time travel?" he said as he sat up and rested his elbows on his knees and stared at them in pure disbelief. "Are you two completely insane?"

"I'm not," Pug replied. "Tyke is - he's got papers on it."

"Shut up. We said we'd go find Dung, right?" Tyke addressed Lupin this time. "And that's exactly what we're doing. We think he played around with a Time Turner and got sent back, that's all." He took a firm grip around Sykes' leg again and pulled him into the room. Pug started walking after him, but stopped in the doorway and turned around to Lupin with raised eyebrows, waiting for him to follow.

"That's all?" Lupin snorted loudly as he got up from the floor and dusted off his cloak. "Why is he gone, then? Do you have the faintest idea how a Time Turner actually works?"

"It was broken," Pug growled. "Now get in here. Don't try to run again, or I'll have to sit on your head."

"Wow," Lupin replied sourly. "You're really getting off on this, aren't you? We'll see how brave you are once I get my wand back..."

"Could you two stop it, please?" Tyke placed Sykes' leg gently down on the floor again. The squib architect looked very peaceful where he lay. "Should we leave him here? What if someone finds him? He might get in trouble, and he doesn't deserve that."

"Might? You'll end up in Azkaban, the whole lot of you," Lupin muttered.

"But when we've found Dung we'll go back," Pug replied. "We'll be back just a minute after we left - he's doing all right, don't worry about him. First, we have to find this machine or portal or whatever it is. Come on."

Tyke scratched his chin absent-mindedly. "You mean leave him here? I don't know..."

To the rhythm of a hundred thousand ticking clocks, Pug walked over to the shelves where the Time Turners stood. Lupin followed him with watchful eyes as he leaned over to Tyke. "You'll never get away with this," he muttered in a low voice. "I advice you to leave now while you still can; people will be coming here soon, very soon. The Time Room is never deserted for long..."

"Would look compromising for you too, wouldn't it?" Tyke replied. "Would the Ministry believe the word of a werewolf who can't even afford a decent cloak?" He met Lupin's wary eyes with his own, trying to shake off the feeling of unease that threatened to overwhelm him. Lupin opened his mouth to answer, but then closed it and lowered his gaze to the floor.

"Heh! Look at this thing!" Pug called out. He was standing in front of the bell jar, half blocking it from their view. "There's a little bird inside it."

He'd just lifted his hand to knock carefully on the crystal when all three of them turned their heads toward the door. "Did you hear that?" Pug said, his voice barely audible over the ticking clocks.

Someone was talking outside the door. The sound was muffled and Tyke couldn't make out what they were saying, but it was definitely a male voice, the last syllable going up as if he was asking a question. A few seconds of silence followed, then a female voice answering it. Tyke froze when the door shivered, as if someone leaned his or her hand against it.

Before Tyke knew what was going on, Lupin was pushing him away from the entrance. "React!" Lupin sneered in his ear. "Do you want to end up in Azkaban, or what?"

Confused, Tyke looked at him, and saw Pug dragging Sykes' body over by the wall. A few yards to the left of the entrance there was another door - though he couldn't remember having seen it when they arrived...? A door leading out into the circular room they had left just a few minutes ago, surely. There was no way out; they were trapped in this room like rats and outside the big, fat cats were waiting. Once more his eyes sought the black door and Tyke prepared for the inevitable.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned..." he said, closing his eyes.

Then a ham-sized hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back so fiercely he nearly lost his balance. "Wake up, you idiot!" Pug hissed at him as he pushed Tyke in through the opening. "You'll get us killed one day!"

He closed the door carefully after them, and stood there for a while, just glaring at Tyke with furious eyes. On the other side of the room, Lupin had bent down next to Sykes; he too was eyeing Tyke in a less-than-friendly manner. The room was small and the walls naked - in the far end a large box stood, dominating the whole room.

Tyke scratched his chin and gave a short laugh. "Er, yeah. I thought this door led back into...you know." He waved casually in the direction where he assumed the circular room would be located. "Obviously, it didn't."

"That's because you think like a Muggle," Lupin said in a cold voice as he stood up. Frowning, he paced the room. "Now, how do we get out of here? Got any smart ideas, Terrence, considering it was you who got us here in the first place?"

Tyke shrugged. "We'll just have to wait until they're gone," he answered. "Unless they come in here, of course... No more secret doors?"

"No." Lupin walked over to the box in the corner - it reminded Tyke of an old-fashioned photo box, the sort he'd played in when he was a child. Put in a coin, press the button, make funny faces, take the pictures home and get a scorching reprimand for having spent all the money on rubbish. Muggle rubbish at that; the pictures didn't even move.

A curtain of thick blue silk covered the narrow opening. Lupin pushed it aside and looked into it. "Think I've found somewhere for us to sit," he muttered and disappeared inside, the curtain fell back in its place and hid him from the others. Crossing his arms, Tyke looked over at Pug, who stared after Lupin with a determined look on his face and then followed.

Tyke was left alone in the cold little room, reluctant to go closer to the box - he'd just about had enough of magic for one day. A low snoring sound made him jump; it came from Sykes in the corner. Tyke walked over to him and poked him in the ribs with the tip of his shoe. No reaction. "Come on, then," Tyke muttered and took a firm grip around the man's wrist. "Can't stay here, can we?"

Sykes seemed heavier than ever, but Tyke managed to get him over to the box and pushed the curtain aside. He dropped him when he saw what was hiding behind the cloth...a lounge, complete with a sitting group of five leather armchairs and a bar in the corner. Lupin had sat down in one of the chairs, resting his chin against the back of his hand, staring into the air with a gloomy expression. Pug stood by the bar, pouring himself a drink. "You want one?"

"All right." Scratching his head, Tyke looked down at Sykes again. "Help me get him into a chair first."

Sykes sighed in comfort as they placed him in one of the deep chairs, but gave no signs of waking up. Tyke sat down next to him, and sighed deeply as Pug gave him a drink. "If this isn't absurd, I don't know what is. You don't want a drink?" he asked Lupin, but the only answer was a scowl.

Right above them on the wall, there was a large screen. "It looks like a TV," Pug snorted. "It's even got a remote control! Put it on, will you."

"All right! What channel?" Tyke replied and laughed. Lupin shook his head slowly and covered his eyes with his hand.

Pug poured himself a new drink and sat down in the opposite end from Lupin. "Let's see... Why not channel...four nine nineteen fifty." He grinned at his own joke as he crossed his legs and leaned back. "We didn't find anybody, but none of us say 'no' to free drinks, right?"

Tyke fumbled with the remote. "I don't know this brand... Ah! There. Showtime!"

*

Outside in the room, the photo box made a humming sound and shook slightly. Then it spat out a little photo of four men sitting in a group of armchairs; three of them staring out of it with open mouths, and the fourth in heavy sleep.