17:04.  Level 1.

It was the end of the day, and as far as Kurby's sanity was concerned, the lift could not come quickly enough.

The werewolf hunter pressed the button intensely several times for emphasis, just to make certain.  With a loud sigh, he cast an impatient look back over his shoulder, and then returned his attention to the golden grating that would slide open as soon as the magical lift arrived.  It was the end of the day and nearly the end of the work week, although that mattered little with the full moon coming up on Sunday.  Employment with the Werewolf Capture Unit meant a schedule dictated by lunar rhythms, rather than any sort of normal expectations.

But full moon or not, here he was: it was just after five o'clock, and he was nearly on his way out of the Ministry at something close to the normal quitting time.  Kurby heaved a sigh, hefting the heavy stack of papers that he'd gathered in his arms.  Another wasted afternoon, spent in endless meetings with the Minister's staff, briefing them on plans for the upcoming full moon.  He was only glad that he'd survived it, and that the assistant that he'd been meeting with had wanted to leave at a reasonable hour as well.

The bell dinged, and the golden door of the lift creaked as it slid open.  Finally.  Without a look back over his shoulder, Kurby hurried inside.  Shuffling the papers into one arm, he quickly jabbed at the buttons, pressing the one that read Level Eight: Atrium.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he leaned back against the wall and waited for the doors of the lift to slide closed.  The lift would only go down from here, and before long, he'd be on his way home.

It was the end of another tiring day. Unfortunately, one Sam had to use to catch up on some overdue paperwork.  As a result, he was  tired and glad to be going home. Entering the lift, he noticed Bagnold from the WCU was already in the lift. He jabbed at the button for the atrium, then leaned against the wall with a sigh. "What a day..." he muttered.

Lexus held back from the rest of those gathered in front of the lifts that would take them through the Ministry. She had been on Level Two once again updating Evans on the goings on of the Knockturn residents. He had become increasingly interested in the rumors of a mole and she almost wished she had more to give him but there were only whispers at this point. She had slightly more concrete evidence on the resurgence of Runespoor activity but that didn't seem to be as high ranking information as the possibility of one of their own helping the criminals.

She kept her eyes downward. She was successfully disguised as her Aunt, whom she had been using as an alias for over a year now. After the last time she had reported to Evans and caused a major scene by getting stuck in one of the lifts and having her polyjuice run out she had been extra careful to be on time along with bringing a back up flask of polyjuice potion if things went south again. She eyed the golden gate with a look of disdain. If there was any other way to travel through the immense building she would have. She was starting to hate using the lifts.

"What a day..."

"You can say that again," Lexus practically growled out. Not only did she just spend almost an hour with her oh so friendly Auror contact but she now had to make it back to her shop, hope Mark hadn't managed to burn it down and start inventory so she could figure out what she needed to brew for the weekend and which ingredients needed to be picked up from her regular and some of her irregular suppliers. 

Lexus looked to the men in front of her. She knew Samuel just in passing, recognized his face more than anything but she was sure he only knew her as Ambassador Collins Wife. The other man he had spoken to though had made Lexus skip a beat. She had spent one glorious night of passion with the grumpy wizard and bailed early the next morning when she discovered he worked for the Werewolf Capture Unit, considering at the time she was still unregistered not to mention of fugitive from her own country. 

Being back in the office after an extended trip to Romania was not Margo’s idea of a welcome home.  It was in short order after several disastrous nights in early February that the woman was sent out (perhaps mercifully) and was able to spend a good chunk of time soaking in cold, wet mountain air and falling asleep to the sounds of dragons.  It was much preferred to the apartment building that tended to be cold, quiet, and dark – especially when a certain someone was mad at her. 

Compounded by the fact that she hated sitting in her little cube, reading papers, and figuring out where the poor saps who applied to work where they wanted – and she couldn’t go out and do it anymore – it infuriated her.  The sharp contrast to living in a tent and working in the wide open... somewhat exhausting and difficult to adjust to.  Additionally, it was not as free as being on the reserve was – she couldn’t just walk around in her comfortable clothes (granted, February in the mountains was bloody freezing – but she could stay comfortable, rather than having to button up in an itchy suit jacket to pretend to be professional). 

Besides, she’d gotten a new tattoo – long claw marks filled in with a scaled pattern, like a dragon’s skin underneath - before she left and as it rubbed against the red fabric, it irritated her shoulder.  Shrugging and fussing, she was just glad to be going back to her flat where she didn't have to worry about covering up. 

Tapping her foot impatiently, Margo waited for the lift, pulling her long, dark hair into a ponytail.  She rolled her neck, ponytail secured and cursed under her breath as it seemed like the entire world must have been getting on this lift if it wasn’t getting to her quickly enough. 

When the bell dinged for the first time and the doors finally peeled open, Margo could not get on faster.  She’d been trying to avoid conversations with anyone else on the floor (not that they really spoke to her anyhow – given her propensity for being a general screw up), and with her opportunity for escape in front of her, she dashed into the lift as quickly and ungracefully as she could, ready to repeatedly stamp her finger on the atrium button – whether it needed a good rapid-fire poking or not. 

And that was exactly, what she did as the doors started to close and anyone else who was leaving would have to run or wait - she didn't want to see them anyway. 

Every day, the descent to freedom became an exceedingly painful process -- in this case, only made worse by the fact that he was starting on Level One.  The lift doors never failed to open on every single floor.  Kurby couldn't help but roll his eyes as the lift stopped on Level Two, pausing to admit Sam Harcroft and a middle-aged witch that the werewolf hunter couldn't place.  At least Harcroft wasn't one of the chatty Aurors, or a particularly offensive one; end of the day or not, Kurby wasn't certain he could have lasted all the way to the atrium if he were stuck in a closed compartment with someone like Ed Pratt.

He gave a grunt in response to the new arrivals, his eyes fixed firmly ahead.  It only took a moment before the golden doors slid shut and the lift began to drop again.  Thankfully, this time it passed by Level Three without stopping, and descended on to Level Four, where the familiar pairing of bell and jolt signaled that they were going to take on another passenger.

The doors slid open, and the new figure surged on in a rush of flurry and activity, jabbing at the buttons as if attacking them enough might cause one to bypass the lift and travel by apparition.  Recognition hint a second too late.  Kurby's eyes widened, and in a hurry, he tried to elbow past Harcroft and the Level Two witch to make it out the door in time.

"Wait!  I need --"  But the doors were already slamming shut.  Frustrated, he threw an elbow at Amherst's side and jammed his finger at the OPEN button, pushing it repeatedly with fervor equal to the witch's.  The combination of button upon button proved to be too much for the beleaguered spells powering the lift:  the contraption gave a shuddering jolt as the doors half-opened, and then it promptly dropped with far more speed than was healthy, knocking him off his feet and into the closest person.

One might say that Kurby Bagnold had bad luck with Ministry lifts.  Too much of his time at work seemed to involve waiting for them, waiting on them, or getting stuck inside them.  It was as if the golden contraptions had never forgiven him for once using one to trap an angry werewolf, but he'd suffered lift-initiated misfortunes for long before the infamous Ides of March.[1]  So with that taken in mind, it perhaps wasn't surprising that when the floor beneath them came to a convulsive halt, with a bone-shaking screech as metal scraped on metal, that Kurby knew exactly what it meant.

"The hell?!"  This was not happening.  This was not happening.  He was not stuck on a lift again, and certainly not with Margo Amherst.  Somehow, in the drop, he'd managed to get tangled up with the pretty witch who'd gotten on at Level Two.  It could have been worse -- it could have been Amherst -- but Kurby still gave a snarl as he yanked himself free of the woman and whirled on the former dragon researcher who'd gotten on last.  "What did you do?!" he shouted, jabbing a finger at her accusingly.

1.	These Dog Days Aren't Over

Lexus herded into the lift with the others shifting her way towards the back. She wasn't getting off until it reached the Atrium and she didn't need to be constantly moving every time someone wanted off. She had gone through that irritation the first time she had visited the Ministry and wasn't eager to repeat it. There was already enough tension in the lift as it was with the other brunette, who was obviously in a hurry,  she didn't need to add to it by getting pestered by the constant comings and goings of other lift riders, especially this close to a full moon.

She pulled her flask out, screwed off the cap and started to take a sip when the golden cage lurched and suddenly dropped. With her mind, along with one of her hands, preoccupied Lexus lost her balance and started to stumble. In the few split seconds it took for gravity to inflict itself upon the passengers inside the dreaded cage she lost her footing, which wasn't helped when the scrumptious Werewolf Hunter knocked into her and they both fell to the floor.

Under any other circumstances she might have made a snarky remark, or even a lewd one, but her mind was elsewhere. She could think about how much she liked the way he smelt, or how she wouldn't mind taking him to bed again, some other time. Right now she needed to find her flask. As Kurby pulled himself off her Lexus rolled onto her hands and knees and looked around the feet of the other passengers. It didn't take long to find the source of the sweet candy like smell that was slowly wafting it's way upwards.

"Oh no. Nonononono." She picked up the flask but the damage was already done. The sparkling purple liquid was pooled on the lift floor and it was just her luck that every drop had been expelled. She growled loudly. She had gotten pretty lucky in the fact that the essence of Aunt Randy had been a pleasant sweet drink but she didn't think it would take the others with her long to figure out what had been in her flask and the last thing she needed was a wolf hunt while she was trapped in a giant golden cage.

Margo didn’t really care about the person in the back who said to wait.  She only vaguely recognized the voice when  she wasn’t looking – familiar as it was, and until some hand stuck into her line of vision, Margo realized that she knew exactly who it was.  Funny how a pair of hands were so much more recognizable than even a voice or anything else could be. 

For some reason, he started pressing buttons counter to what she was doing and Margo pulled her hand away with disgust and sneered, “What the bloody hell are y-” before she even got the chance to finish her question, there was a sudden shuddering in the lift and Margo watched as the doors started to open, only to watch as wall rushed past and her stomach flew up against the motion of the elevator.

Immediately thrown off her already precarious balance, Margo screeched and fell with a hard thump into the wall, trying to clamp onto anything that she could (finding it was not too easy on the very sleek sort of design this elevator had).  She closed her eyes, nails digging into the wall, and felt a sharp pain in her shoulder, irritation, she figured, of her most recent piece of work. 

As the elevator came to a halt, her ears ringing from the sharp sound and another shuddering pull to a stop.  It made her head and body feel worse than after she woke up from a crazy night out.  In a heap on the floor, Margo let her good leg loose and rubbed her bad knee, feeling her prosthetic not sitting right.  It was half-dislodged in a very uncomfortable way.

Margo couldn’t stand up and now Kurby was yelling at her?!  What the hell?!  She looked up at him, eyes wide and immediately angry, “What do you mean what did I do?!  It worked until you touched it!” she shouted back, jabbing her finger at him in return, because obviously that was the thing to do. She was so busy sneering at him, she didn’t really think about much except fixing her leg or anything else… until she felt something… wet…

Her eyes grew wide and Margo scrambled – though could not stand, and sniffed.  “What the bloody hell is that?!” she shifted again, making a gruesome face and looked at the woman, the other man on the elevator, and finally returned a steely, angry look at Kurby  before she shifted on the floor again, too long limbs and not enough space to get comfortable or fix herself properly. 

Feel free to jump back in, Sam.    But wanted to keep this going.

"I TOUCHED IT AFTER YOU BROKE IT!" the werewolf hunter roared at the top of his lungs.  His voice was loud enough that it shuddered through the tiny lift; the golden contraption was left ringing as he gestured angrily at Amherst.  At least for the moment, he didn't give a damn what the other woman's problem was; she could have transformed into a fugitive werewolf right before his eyes and he would have barely noticed.  "Can't you damn well do anything right, Amherst!?  The next thing you know, you're going to get us all --"

The lift gave a sudden jerk, and then all of a sudden, the floor had dropped out from beneath them again.  Kurby gave a yelp as he grabbed for the wall.  The drop only lasted about a foot, but when his boots collided with the floor, they hit hard.  The wizard stumbled, managing to trod right through the puddle of whatever-it-was that the strange witch had spilled across the floor.

"Oh, hell," he snarled, as the lights in the lift began to flicker.  Being trapped in a lift at the end of the day, when all he wanted to do was to go home -- and being trapped in a lift with Amherst, no less -- was just about the worst case scenario that he could possibly dream up.  At least no one had started tossing their hair and flouncing about dramatically, but with his luck, that was probably about to start too.

Kurby let out a fluent string of swears, in what was probably an accurate though slightly vulgar description of their situation, as he turned his nastiest glare wholeheartedly on Amherst.  "At least it can't get any wo--"

That was, of course, when the light gave one last unhappy flicker and went entirely out.