Paying Your Dues

CHAPTER THREE

A light flared in the dank space. It threw ghostly-green flickering shadows on Fred's face. Mostly it illuminated his nose, which George didn't feel helped them find their quarry.

"You might want to try holding the light in front of you. That way we might get to see where we're going," he whispered.

"You want it done your way, you do it," Fred snapped at him.

George rolled his eyes. Fred could be a bit waspish when they were on a mission. He never failed to take a suggestion personally. It was nerves really. They were both on edge down here.

They were standing against an old oak scrollcase. George risked a quick peek round the side of it. He couldn't see anyone. He checked the map. The dots moving round on the parchment made him smile as they brought back memories of good times during night raids at Hogwarts. Snibbets had been suspiciously willing to assist in producing a new map of their current location, for which they were both immensely grateful. They couldn't have done it without his help. Briefly, George wondered what grudge Snibbets had against the Ministry, apart from the obvious matter of having deprived him of employment, but set that thought aside to concentrate on the matter at hand. Beside him, he felt rather than saw Fred smile, and knew he was thinking the same thing.

The cellar they were in showed no signs of occupancy. The nearest other living soul was on the next floor up. He wasn't sure if this building had ghosts. He probably should have considered it earlier when they created the map. They were bound to have a few floating round here, what with all the ill feelings it aroused, but there was very little he could do about it now. They were just going to have to hope they didn't run in to any resident dearly departed, or that if they did, the ghost would be willing to turn a blind eye, as it were.

"We're on." George nodded for Fred to move out, and Fred stepped slowly and carefully toward their goal. George followed his footsteps, taking care to move in the same pattern across the flagstones. His slippered left foot slid slightly on the damp surface as he stepped outward and he froze. One wrong step down here would bring the whole Ministry down on them. Fred glanced back at him to see what was up. George nodded at him to continue. Fred moved cautiously on.

They continued moving carefully in a demented dance pattern across the cellar till they found themselves face to face with the largest filing cabinet either of them had ever seen. It stretched from floor to, well, somewhere near where George guessed a ceiling should be. Not that he could see a ceiling. He just hoped they weren't going to have to climb the cabinet. He'd never guessed they might need hardhats and crampons for this job.

The cabinet stretched in either direction till it vanished in the gloom. He looked at the label on the drawer directly in front of him. Bart - Bartholomew. The one on his left was Babbage - Babby. The one above him was Bard - Bardale.

That meant they had to go to the right, and hope the drawer they wanted was somewhere near ground level. He tugged on Fred's sleeve and pointed. Fred nodded and led the way.

They crept silently on, stopping every now and then for a rest, and the occasional shared chocolate bar. Nearly two hours had passed when Fred put his arm out behind him and motioned for George to stop. Fred was peering closely at the cabinet drawers. He found the one he was looking for and whispered a spell that held the illumination charm in place, hovering just above their heads.

"This is our column."

George checked. Sadly, it looked like they were going to have to exert themselves after all. The drawer with their paperwork in it was probably about half way up. They hadn't brought their brooms with them - too bulky and noisy for an indoor raid. That had been an early Hogwarts lesson. Not quite the one that McGonagall had meant for them to learn, he was sure, but hard learned all the same.

Hovering spells were out of the question. Any unauthorized floatation bigger than a candle was likely to trigger the automatic alarms. And they couldn't just accio the scrolls either. The drawers had safety mechanisms on them specifically to prevent just such attempts.

They looked at each other. Fred's hand delved into his pocket and came out a moment later with a chocolate coin.

"Heads," said Fred, who flipped the coin, and deftly caught it as it descended, slapping it onto the back of his other hand. When he revealed the coin's face it was clearly 'tails'. He sighed. "You owe me."

George moved back to give Fred a little more room. Fred placed his still lit wand between his teeth and reached up to put his hand on the handle of the drawer above him. Then his left foot on the bottom-most drawer to his left, then his left arm stretched to reach the handle up to the left. Slowly and surely he hauled himself up.

George's heart worked faster. He stopped watching Fred and peered into the shadows of the cellar. A small shiver ran up his spine. This was the part of any mission he loved most. They hadn't quite reached their goal but they were so close he could feel the victory. And he also knew it could be taken away in a second. It was delicious and toxic, that explosive taste of danger and triumph, like gunpowder chocolate.

Bill had once suggested, after a particularly vicious game of Quidditch had landed them both in the infirmary, that the twins were addicted to danger. George had strenuously denied the accusation. Mostly on the grounds that it was Bill who was levelling the charge, and it was a teenage boy's duty to disagree with his brother, unless that brother was Fred.

Yet here he was orchestrating an illegal midnight raid on the third most heavily secured building in Wizarding Britain. Maybe, just maybe, Bill had a point.

A muffled curse from above made him jerk his head up. Fred was hanging off the cabinet by one hand. George's heart skipped a beat. It was one hell of a long way down from there.

"Hang on, hang on," he murmured, but Fred couldn't hear him.

"Left foot. There's a handle right by your left foot," George thought at Fred, but for once the psychic twin thing didn't seem to be working for them. George felt the prickle of sweat starting against his shirt. His hands felt clammy and he couldn't breathe.

Fred found his foothold.

They both paused for a moment, Fred catching his breath, and George offering up prayers of thanks to whatever deities might be handy. He closed his eyes, and swallowed the large lump that had lodged itself in his throat.

He opened his eyes again, just in time to see Fred plunge into freefall.