ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE;;

[James Sirius Potter]

As he headed down to Albus' office he couldn't help but think to himself, "Here we go... It was only a matter of time..." Sirius had been preparing for months, years even, for something on this scale to happen, and he did not even know what had happened yet! He got word to his office that they were putting The Ministers office on immediate lock down, no one goes in, no one comes out. Except for the Head Auror and maybe one other. Jumping right to it, between Sirius and Claire they had gotten all protections active on Albus's office and sent auror's down to every way in or out of the Ministry itself. Now Sirius was limping down the halls and impatiently riding the lift up to the office they had just sealed off, as the men and women working for him were doing the same to all the other departments in the building.

From the start Sirius had had a feeling it was going to be a long day. And by long day he always meant bad day because all day's were long when they started at five in the morning and ended around midnight or a little later. He had gotten up at four in the morning with a lot more leg pain than usual, downed a couple glasses of straight whiskey and then made his way to the shower where he had stood under the burning hot water until it started to relieve his pain. Then of course he did the dumb ass thing and got dressed and pulled on his sneakers and knee brace and went for a run. Like that was really a good idea for him, but he had done his best to avoid Claire most of the morning from the time he had woken up, just so she couldn't remind him of what an idiot he was being. Then when he got back he jumped in the shower again and got cleaned up for work, took another few swigs out of his whiskey before filling his flask and putting it in his pocket.

As he had for a while now, he had gotten in the habit of making a cup of coffee with Claire in the morning to drink with the on-the-go breakfast of an egg, bacon, toast sandwich and he looked tired as always for the first few hours of the day. Even more tired than usual today after being woken up as early as he had been. Then the two of them had left for work and things seemed to be business as usual. Sirius sitting at his desk munching on whatever breakfast he had put together and drinking the coffee Claire had made for them, as she sat at her desk opposite of his, as they both poured over paper work and mail that had been delivered over night. Thank God no knew cases today, he had been over loaded with them recently. He had actually started pawning off smaller, more by-the-books cases off on other auror's and was keeping the important cases for himself and Claire to work on.

Lunch had gone as usual, he and Claire made their way to the little hole in the wall diner down the street from the hidden phone booth entrance, ate a quick lunch and then were back in the office. It had been a quiet morning but Sirius had known from the start of his day that it wouldn't stay that way... He was right when suddenly dozens of the little flying memo's were zooming to his desk and the first one he opened and read was the most important. None of them said what had happened, but something was wrong, Albus was involved and so was The Nex. "God fucking damn it..." he remembered mumbling under his breath as he started barking orders first to Claire who relayed them to the rest of the staff on hand. It took less than five minutes for everything to happen, just as he had hoped if it ever came down to this. That just reassured him that he and Claire had trained a good team.

Now it had been maybe a total of ten minutes since he had gotten an urgent message that The Nex had staged a first move towards getting to Albus and within three minutes his office had been locked down and now the rest of the Ministry would be in under fifteen minutes. He and Claire were together, but completely silent as they walked the hall up to Albus office. Finally once there Sirius waved his wand in a series of small movements and the door opened for them, and he went in, unsure of what to expect. He had no idea what had happened, for obvious reasons none of the memo's were specific, he just knew he really was not in the mood to deal with any of the ass holes from The Nex today, but hey, it was as good a day as any, right?

word count, 849
tags, claire/jana, albus/valval.
notes, sorry it took so long ive been feeling shitty recently, sick ughhhhh. =/

[Claire Pierce]

words: six hundred seventy four tag: padfoot/sirius & valval/albus
notes: i probably should have waited for the albus reply, and this isn't very good,
but i was bored and felt like writing so this happened!

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The day had seemed long enough when it was just an average day at work. Then everything had to go wrong. It seemed as all the increasing worries that had been driving her crazy and not leaving her alone for the past weeks crashed down on her in one moment. When she really thought about it, the day had been so much more calm and simple compared to what she knew was ahead of them for the night.

Claire had been up since around three in the morning; she had fallen asleep at one in the morning for about two hours, waking up at three. She had wandered quietly around her house for a little while, as she was really quite bored. There was nobody to talk to, as Sirius was asleep, and she knew it would be a bad idea to pull out work when she would be going to the office in a few hours anyways. Instead, she had gotten a snack, settled down on the couch, and read until it was time to go on her run. She had gone out for longer than usual, returning to make coffee for the two of them, which was a new ritual for them now that Sirius was living with her. They had then gotten ready, gone to work together, and settled down at their desks for the day.

She had hoped the day would not be too painful, too hard to get through. It had started off okay; the usual cases, nothing new. A quick lunch and then back to work. It was a normal, average day, everything following the boring day routine. She was fine with that, honestly, a day with just the regular paperwork and things to sift through, because she didn't need anything else to worry about at this point. But then the notes came, and the day changed completely.

Sirius, sitting across from her, swore quickly, and Claire's head shot up, and she was already thinking seriously and grimly. She stood as he did, snatching the notes from his desk to read them as he began yelling. Her face hardened, finding not much information except for that there was an emergency related to Albus and the Nex. "Fuck," she said, glancing back at Sirius and throwing the notes down on her desk. He was snapping orders at her, and for once, she didn't snap back at him for ordering her around. Claire got everyone's attention and started to do a few of the things that she did best: yelling a lot, ordering everyone around, and being a bit scary. She organized the groups of aurors that worked as teams for them, relaying the orders that Sirius had decided on. It was done quickly, just as Claire had organized and planned for an emergency to be. It didn't take more than ten minutes before exits were being sealed off, areas protected, special security was added to the Minister's office: basically, Claire had the whole Ministry in lockdown. If it had been another situation, Claire would have been rather pleased with the work that the teams had done, and pleased with her own work of organizing this emergency response plan.

Now, she strode down the hall beside Sirius, her strong strides with short legs differing from his longer ones, although he was limping. Sirius was clearly impatient; Claire, on the other hand, was only showing composure. Following the single curse word she had spoken aloud, Claire had only showed calmness, efficiency, and getting everything done perfectly and quickly. She walked fast and then waited beside him as he unlocked the complex security to the office to let them in. Once inside, she spoke before anyone else could speak. She settled for getting the facts, because it was killing her not to know. "What's going on?" she snapped, crossing her arms. An angry, frustrated tone masked the worries that were killing her recently. This event was already making her worry and stress more, and she didn't even know yet what had happened.

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[Albus Severus Potter]

This couldn’t be happening. When Albus woke up this morning he never expected this. He woke up to the sound of a muggle alarm clock and groan at its annoyance. Keliey had bought them and placed them in theirs and the kid's room long ago. Every time Albus blew one up would go out and bought another one. It was never ending. He rolled out of bed only wearing shorts hair sticking up everywhere on his head. He rubbed his face and put on some shoes and went for a run like he did every morning. It was one of the things he had in common with his older brother. After his run he came back home and took a shower. He let the water run over his body as he rubbed his leg.

After his shower he dried off and pulled on his pants. He tried to fix his hair. Sighing after fixing his hair he pulled on a shirt. He rubbed his face some not ready for the headache he would soon have at work. He sat in the kitchen eating breakfast with Keliey and the kids. Ethan wasn’t there and he hated that. He and Ethan had been drifting away from each other and Albus knew he needed to fix it. He sipped his coffee as he read the Daily Prophet. When he was younger he never thought he would ever be doing this, sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper exactly what his father use to do before going to work.

After breakfast he fixed himself some coffee for on the go. He kissed Keliey and said goodbye to the kids as they were about to floo back to school. He floo first to his office and went to work. He worked and sipped his coffee. The day had seemed like any normal day, well as normal as his day could get. Sighing he went through files that was on his desk. Things needed to be approved and his signature and some got it and some didn’t. Lunch came and Albus ate in his office working through it. He had to cancel lunch with Keliey because he was so swamped. He hated that but he couldn’t help it. He knew she understood and they would have the house to themselves that night.

After lunch he had left his office and did a few errands for himself. He needed to be out of the office for a little bit. When he got back he received the worst news ever. He stared at the piece of parchment that was left on his desk and the whole world froze. He stared at it for a good solid twenty minutes before he came out of it. He sighed as he ran a hand through his hair as he got up and sent word to the auror department, to Sirius. He couldn’t believe this was happening, not to him, not his son.

He paced waiting for Sirius to get to his office. His office was closed off in three minutes. He had aurors everywhere following Sirius orders. He held the piece of paper in his hand as he finally stopped pacing and stared out the window. Finally Sirius and another auror Claire got there. He closed his eyes as Claire snapped asking what was going on. He stayed silent for a few minutes trying to keep his emotions under control. He hadn’t told anyone what was going on just that there was a breach in security. Finally he opened his eyes again. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He finally turned around to look at everyone. It’s Ethan he said his voice low and raspy. He sighed and cleared his throat. Ethan has been taken he said handing Sirius the note. I am going to find him Sirius, with or without your help he said running his hand through his hair again.

WORD COUNT::656
TAG::SIRIUS/PADFOOT,, CLAIRE/JANA

[James Sirius Potter]

The walk to Albus office had never felt longer than it did that morning. Sirius's mind was swimming with fears, wondering what exactly had happened. The memo's were vague, as they should have been in case they got to the wrong place or were intercepted. But finally they were there and before he could even get a word out of his mouth Claire had demanded to know what was going on. Not that he expected anything less of his best friend. Straight to the point as always. Which in any case, was probably a good thing right about now. While he waited for Albus to respond Sirius took in his appearance, physically he seemed to be well enough, or as much as he ever does. Like Sirius, his brother had a bad habit of not taking nearly as good care of his health as he should. At least Sirius knew so far, Albus had not been harmed, but that lead him to wonder once again what had caused all the uproar this morning.

It's Ethan.... Ethan has been taken. Albus then said with a grim look on his face as he passed Sirius the parchment. Sirius had just started to read it when Albus spoke once again. I am going to find him Sirius, with or without your help. At those words, Sirius handed the note off to Claire before he could even finish reading it. He turned to give Albus a look that could just kill. "Are you fucking insane?" he asked and then he started to pace again as he does every time he gets stressed about something. "Of course you are, why did I ask..." he muttered and ran his hand through his hair. He knew Albus was reacting the exact same way he would had it been his child that was kidnapped, but he just was not thinking rationally at all. Which Sirius also understood, but he was in work mode now and personal feelings just couldn't matter right now.

That's the thing about Sirius Potter, he can go from goofy, sarcastic and playful to serious, focused and all business in zero to sixty. "Albus that is exactly what this guy wants. He wants you to get protective and pissed off. He is using Ethan to get to you. That is all he wants," Sirius said calmly now. "He tried to take me out of the way so it would be easier to get to you. When he failed, twice now I remind you, he got frustrated." still pacing Sirius thought briefly of the owls he had been receiving for years now, signed same as the letter to Albus. C. Leader of The Nex. "Now he is going directly for you, pulling at the strings he know's is going to get you to react. You can't give him that. It's a suicide mission if you go Albus. You are going to wait right here in this office where you're safe, until Claire and I come back with Ethan. And we will. I promise."

Now Sirius gave Albus a look of sympathy for only a moment. "I know it's scary, not knowing what's happening. Not being in control. But when we get Ethan back he is going to need you here. So don't do anything stupid, got it?" Every word was spoken with seriousness that you rarely heard come from his lips. But when it came to his job, Sirius was all business and when it came to The Nex Sirius had a burning hatred and desire to stop them at all costs, even his own life. But he would not let his little brother, the Minister of Magic and a loving father be killed by the same bastards that had already killed so many people he cared about. Albus had done a lot to help him out and now it was time for Sirius to do something for him in return. He hoped and prayed to God that his speech so far would be enough to convince Albus to stay put and wait but he knew his brother better than that and nine times out of ten there will be retaliation, an argument, after all one of the most common traits as a Potter was stubbornness.

word count, 732
tags, claire, albus/jana,valval
notes, not as good as yesterdays post was before i lost it >.<

[Claire Pierce]

words: nine hundred nineteen tag: padfoot/sirius & valval/albus
notes: i'm extremely tired as i write this, so hopefully it's okay. it's rambly as usual, though.

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Claire had to contain herself as she stood there in the Minister's office, with him standing in front of her, and a crisis currently occurring. Sirius, standing beside her, was initially quiet as Claire first started talking, asking the necessary question of what had happened. If Albus had not been there, Claire might not have been so calm, so composed - Claire only displayed even the smallest of cracks in the walls around her when it was only Sirius with him. There was a lot going on in her head right then, all the worries and stresses coming together at once when Albus replied, but she showed only composed, pulled together determination.

Handing Sirius a note with a terrible look on his face, Albus responded, explaining the situation as he said, "It’s Ethan. Ethan has been taken." Claire fought to not let herself react too much, at least outwardly. Instead, her face was all serious and grim, and all she thought of was with determination - there could time for anything but getting the job done later, like being upset about it. She was just angry, which was not surprising at all, and Albus kept talking, saying, "I am going to find him Sirius, with or without your help he said running his hand through his hair again. Claire took the note from Sirius, talking before she even read it.

Her voice overlapped with Sirius's as he said, "Are you fucking insane? Of course you are, why did I ask..." and she talked louder over him, her voice with a hard edge from stress, "Albus, you have to stay here. This is what Sirius and I do, this is our job, we're going to deal with this. There's no way, no fucking way that you're going to just do exactly what this guy wants you to do!" As Sirius started pacing like he always did, she looked down to read the entire note, as Sirius had glanced at it before dealing with Albus. She looked at the words with utter contempt for a long moment, before setting it down on the desk again to look at Albus.

Sirius had gone into the same mode as Claire; work mode. They were both remarkably calm, putting aside personal feelings. This was Sirius's nephew, and Claire was like family to the Potters, not just Sirius, but neither of them were going to let themselves not do this the right way. "Albus that is exactly what this guy wants. He wants you to get protective and pissed off. He is using Ethan to get to you. That is all he wants. He tried to take me out of the way so it would be easier to get to you. When he failed, twice now I remind you, he got frustrated." Sirius explained as he paced, and hearing this made Claire look at him for a long moment, pursing her lips to control her expression. For a moment, she wasn't quite thinking about Albus and Ethan, but about Sirius.

"He's right. This guy isn't being quiet about it - he wants to get to you, wants to get to both of you." Claire was the only one in the room who had not been targeted as much; yes, her mother had been killed ten years ago, Claire had been deeply affected by and close to the events of the past few years through work and personal relationships, and she had been in her fair share of conflicts with the Nex. But Claire wasn't being hunted down and targeted the way they were.

Claire spoke up again once Sirius had said, "Now he is going directly for you, pulling at the strings he know's is going to get you to react. You can't give him that. It's a suicide mission if you go Albus. You are going to wait right here in this office where you're safe, until Claire and I come back with Ethan. And we will. I promise." She nodded, crossing her arms, as plans already went through her head. "We're going to make sure you are completely safe and protected in here, so they can't get you too - and we're going to bring Ethan back." She eyed Albus stubbornly for a moment, thinking about how it was the combination of ridiculously stubborn Claire Pierce and Sirius Potter against Albus. "If you really think that you're going to do this, I'll make sure that it's us going, and that you stay put in here," she told him firmly.

Claire nodded in agreement to what Sirius had to say after this: "I know it's scary, not knowing what's happening. Not being in control. But when we get Ethan back he is going to need you here. So don't do anything stupid, got it?" Looking at Albus, matching Sirius's sympathy with a bit of her own, she said quietly, "It'll be best for Ethan to come back to you. He's going to need that." She paused and then said, with a grim humorless tone, "I bet that he won't want to be with me after this," as Claire was not good with people, even those she knew. She would be all business, all calm, cool, and composed with Ethan; all about getting him home to Albus. And then she could try to deal with her stress and worries and fears, but she couldn't even think about any of those until this was over. However, she wasn't particularly looking forward to the inevitable time when she wouldn't be able to block everything else away.

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[Albus Severus Potter]

Albus had thought that Sirius was never going to get there. Every minute that passed was like a dagger stabbed into his heart. All he wanted to do was to leave this place and find his son, Ethan. He knew it would be hard for him to leave this place, or even his office. He knew he should have not told anyone. He only told someone so they would know where he was going. He knew no one would have let him out he had just hoped that he could have snuck out during the chaos. He wanted to find Ethan. That was all that mattered to him. He didn’t care about his health or his safety.

The look in James eyes sent a chill down Albus back. Of course that wasn’t going to stop him. Nothing was going to stop him. He didn’t care who he had to go through he was going to go find his son. His mind was on auto pilot and going crazy trying to come up with a plan to get Ethan back. He had barley heard James speak. He turned to glare at his older brother not caring about anything else but Ethan. No I am not insane alright. My son is missing Sirius, he has been taken and that psycho is doing who knows what to him right now he said.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. I am not just going to sit or stand here and do nothing he said. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and sipped it. Albus whole body was shaking. He was shaking so bad he could barely hold onto the glass. I am going to bring my son home. No one can tell me what to do or how to handle this. I am going after this bastard and I am killing him and bringing Ethan home he said then took another sip of his drink. He wasn’t going to just do nothing while his son was in danger. That wasn’t Albus; he would protect his family at all cost. He was determined to bring Ethan home.

With the glass in his hand he started to pace. He had to figure a way out of here. He wasn’t going to let Sirius just imprison him in his own office while he went off and rescue Ethan. He sipped his drink then set the glass that was half full on his desk. He continued pacing as his brain went through every possibility. He was smarter than Sirius, he knew this. He couldn’t let Sirius win this. He chewed on his bottom lip as he thought as he often did. He ran a hand through his hair again as he looked around at every corner, every inch of his office trying to figure out some way to get out.

[James Sirius Potter]

Every time Sirius paused for thought, or just effect to hopefully let some of what he was saying sink into his little brothers thick skull, Claire would stick in her piece. Which was perfectly welcomed by him. "He's right. This guy isn't being quiet about it - he wants to get to you, wants to get to both of you."" When she said this, it gave Sirius an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, but only for a moment. He had been through too much for thinking about it to bother him much anymore. It was moments like this though, when things got tough, more real, that it finally started to get to him. Albus then spoke up, No I am not insane alright. My son is missing Sirius, he has been taken and that psycho is doing who knows what to him right now,

Sighing, he looked at his brother, the cold look in his eyes angry, sad and determined all at once. It was a look that would have never been seen on his face twenty years ago, but now, it seemed that those feelings tried to run his life. Only recently since he had been staying with Claire, since he had tricked her into going to the ball with him, the old Sirius started to come back tot he surface. The happy guy, the joking, sarcastic guy, who he had always been. But today, as soon as this incident occurred, those feelings flew to the back of his mind and once again he felt like the cold hearted man he had been turned into over the past several years of his life.

He stayed silent for a little longer, listening to Claire try her efforts and reminding Albus that their jobs were to save Ethan and his job was to stay protected and wait. I am going to bring my son home. No one can tell me what to do or how to handle this. I am going after this bastard and I am killing him and bringing Ethan home. With that said, Albus set his half drank glass of whiskey down on his desk and started to pace, picking up where Sirius left off as he stopped at Albus desk, picking up the glass more out of reflex than anything else, and downed what was left of it. He shook his head and replaced the glass on the desk and pulled his own flask from his pocket that never seemed to leave his person and drank some more before closing the flask and speaking once again.

"Claire is right, I am right. And there is no more time to be wasted standing around talking about this. You're not coming with us, you're not getting out of this fucking office, and we will bring your son home safe. End of story." And when Siriuus said "end of story" that was really the end of that story. Bottom line. Period. There wasn't going to be another argument from his little brother, they had no time for that. They needed to take action and quick, before it was too late. Sirius pulled out his wand and ropes shot from it, tying Albus to his own office chair. "Sorry little brother, I can't risk that you will be a dumb ass and not listen to me. I know you better than that. Don't bother trying to get out, those ropes aren't coming un-done until someone else comes and uses the counter charm. I really am sorry."

With that he gave Claire one quick nod towards the door and the two of them were out of the office and immediately apparating to where they needed to be. Where Cato Blackwell was keeping Ethan Potter.

words, 635
tags, jana & valval


***MOVING THINGS ALONG HERE, TIME TO PICK UP THE PACE, SORRY! The next post need to be in the other thread, CAN'T BE SAVED... OR MAYBE CAN BE? in the order of CATO BLACKWELL, SIRIUS POTTER, CLAIRE PIERCE, ETHAN POTTER, then so on and so forth. Gotta try to make it kinda quick so we can get to the father/son reunion thread, and so Cato can hurt Sirius so everyone can find out about him and Claire finally, and Claire can have a mental breakdown. XP Sounds like fun, RIGHT?!

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