5:00 am
Muggle Hospital
Montrose, Scotland


A steady persistent beep filled the quiet of the stark and sterile hospital room. Numbers in red and orange flashed across a “monitor”, shifting back and forth between higher and lower digits as if they could not make up their mind on what they wanted to be. Long squiggly lines flashed in sync to the altering numbers. The muggle wannabe Healer had tried explaining many times that the annoying machine was “monitoring” (creative namers, muggles) her heart rate and respiratory activity, oxygen, and other such nonsense. She just knew that many more days of “beeping” and she was going to hex the ridiculous contraption into oblivion, Statue of Secrecy or no Statue of Secrecy.

 Gray eyes glared at her nemesis for a moment longer before glancing back down at the parchment carefully spread across the bed in front of her.  She sat cross-legged, the sheets bunched up in front of her with the Bible confiscated from the bedside table propped in her lap to act as a temporary writing surface. If Tamis Raynor could not come to the Office, she was making Squeak bring the office to Tamis Raynor. Last week had been a different story, but she was perfectly capable of reading and signing documents now. A fact she had stressed to Archer. It made her more complacent at least.

Carefully not bending or compressing her chest, the Auror flourished her signature at the bottom of the current document, considerably less… eloquent… that usual. Not for the first time, she frowned at the “pen” in her hand, a horrid bulky contraption with dried crusty ink and poor calligraphic capabilities. One of her current self-proclaimed overseers had suggested it would look a lot less conspicuous than a quill should a muggle walk in. Three guesses to who that brilliant mind was. She could have sworn she caught the redheaded man swallow a laugh as she scrutinized the excuse for a writing apparatus. 

Pulling a lock of hair back from her face, she lowered her arm back down carefully, risking a glance up at the Wizard Poker opponents considering each other over the tops of their cards at a nearby the table. Notably, they were huddled next to a wall-mounted lamp, much like the one glowing eerily near Tamis. They at least carried a yellow-sheen and she could trick herself into believing they were oil-lit. Unlike the bright white, rectangular monsters hanging dormant overhead. 

 Shaking her head, she lifted up another document to read when suddenly there was another, new, tapping sound, much less mechanical in its repetition. Looking up, the petite woman scanned the small, private hospital room. Beyond the closed door, steady footsteps grew louder and then drifted away again as one of the staff passed by. There was a large eagle flapping impatiently outside of the room’s only window. A very familiar eagle.

Having given up on trying to get out of the bed on her own (there was only so many times she could use the loo as an excuse), she tossed one of the flat pillows from the bed at the card players to get their attention, and gestured toward the window with her head, “That is Nadge’s bird.”

It was five in the morning, well past the time that any normal person would be asleep, and yet the epic battle showed no signs of abating.  They'd run out of pre-designated betting chips nearly an hour before, and had had to result to tearing off bits of paper every time they wanted to raise instead of call. 

Luckily, the makeshift money hadn't dampered the quality of the game.

"I raise you two woolongs and seven mugglys," Jonas said with a perfectly straight face, sliding two sugar packets and a handful of torn-off pieces of napkin into the pile at the center of the table. 

The monetary system that they had invented for betting had come to the pair in a flash of genius at three in the morning almost two weeks before, when Tamis had still been under the heavy influence of Muggle drugs and both he and Archer had been doing a poor job of pretending that they weren't worried.  It had quickly expanded from their staples of sugar packets and straw wrappers to include nearly anything that they could round up; Archer was still hoarding his two snooflas, the monetary designation for the pair of stuffed monkeys that Jonas had rescued from the cafeteria the week before, as if his financial future depended on it.

"Actually, eight mugglys," Jonas amended, flicking another piece of napkin into the pot.  Judging by the light that was just beginning to creep in the window, it was nearly breakfast time, which meant he could restock once the cafeteria was open.  That was the best part of having an open banking system; it was so much easier to pilfer from the woolonginaires downstairs than it was to worry about little things like printing money.  "And I call."

Flashing Archer a crooked grin, he laid his cards down one by one.  The best kept secret of Jonas's adult life was that he had absolutely no idea how to play Wizards' Poker.  He wasn't actually sure if his former partner knew any better - for as long as he'd known Radley, the other man had pulled rules and turned tricks out of thin air just as often as Jonas had, and it wasn't as if the Muggle-born private investigator had anything else to turn to for reference.   

"That's a Stegosaurus Bronto," he rattled off confidently, affecting a smug look.  In his experience, winning at Wizards' Poker was solely dependent on how well one could bluff.  "Which counters the Twice Round the Moon you threw on the last hand, which means I'm up by at least a quadloo again.  Which also means," he concluded, shooting his opponent an enormous smile, "that you're buying breakfast, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't forget the two woolongs in me tea this -"

He cut himself off with a muffled yelp as a droople (which had been banned from being included in the exchange system after they had unsuccessfully attempted to steal one from behind a sleeping Tamis two nights before) collided with the side of his head.

"Hey!" he complained, shooting the patient an irritated look as he made a show of rubbing the site of the impact.  "You could've just said something.  You're going to bloody well scatter all the mugglys again, and how'm I going to cash 'em in if they've been all over the floor?  Whose bird?" he asked with a frown, sobering slightly as he looked between the two Aurors.  Nagde rang a bell, but he couldn't quite place the name.  "Bit early for a mail call, innit?"

Normal people would be asleep right now.  Normal people would be at home right now.  Archer doubted he could ever be one of these normal people.  At five o’clock in the morning, he was sitting in a muggle hospital room, looking at a deck of cards with assorted miscellany on the table, the humming awful lights over their heads and a sickly yellow glow of a lamp helping him and the Ginger play a decent game of Wizard Poker, if one could call it that. 

It was clear that if you threw either of them into a tournament, they’d have to dig them out of debtors prison before they could throw down the first hand.  Archer had never been one for cards, even if he grew up in a pub, it was more of a sports betting deal, and that was where Archer was going to excel.  For now, they were just playing to be awake and keep amused. 

The system they had devised was certainly amusing.  It was fitting that neither of them had the money to really be bargaining about things, the system of woolongs, mugglys, snooflas, and about a dozen other nonsense words for a made up system of currency Archer was still trying to peddle as the real deal to Tamis.  He wanted her to take some sugar packets downstairs to the gift shop (when she was fully well, of course), and ask how many woolongs flowers would cost or something.  It would be absolutely hysterical, but he couldn’t really do that to her… not without Trevelyan present, anyway.  Then, at least, he’d have a scape goat, or a partner in crime.

Raising his eyebrows at Jonas, he threw down two cards and sighed.  “You know, I think you’re a cheat,” Archer said as he pushed forward two paperclips and five napkin pieces forward.  He glanced at the purple monkeys behind him, his snooflas that would secure his position in the game.  He wasn’t going to put either of them in until he knew he could make up a winning hand. 

Glancing at his partner’s haphazard hand, Archer rolled his eyes.  “Are you kidding?” he laid down his own cards, “Clearly, you don’t remember my Purple Whizzbang four hands ago – you owe me bacon.”  That was certainly far more important to Archer than anything else at the moment.  He wanted bacon – and something real to eat.  That would be even better, actually, than anything.  Archer wanted food that didn’t get served to him by ladies with mustaches and ran off his plate before he tried to put his fork into it.  He swore his sandwich was alive one day. 

He was about to pick up a tooth pick from the pile, removing a woozie from the exchange, but a pillow flew across the room and Archer was immediately alerted that something had changed.  He raised his eyes from the hand full of cards that he did not even know what they meant and blinked at Tamis, who had so quietly been doing paperwork on her bed, true to insomniac, workaholic tendencies – but now she was throwing pillows. 

“Ray!” he sighed as he threw down the cards, “If you destroy the pot we’ll have to start all over and I’m not going to know how to divide up my snooflas,” he gave Jonas a cheeky smirk, leaning back to pat the stuffed monkeys on the head, glad that he had secured them with a well played Clean Sweep 2000.  He followed her direction, the bird, and Archer sighed as he got up.  “Something at Hogwarts,” Archer immediately thought, that was the only reason Nadge would even think to send her bloody giant bird in the very early morning. 

He pushed himself up from the chair and made his way to the window, hobbling a bit as he realized that sitting in a hospital chair for three hours was definitely just as bad for his back as anything.  Groaning slightly, Archer pushed the window open as far as it went (not very, he supposed to keep the muggles from throwing themselves out of them – torture place this was), and reached his hand out.  He didn’t have anything for the bird, unless it wanted some of what this placed claimed was meat – and even then, he was fairly sure that the bird would probably rather take a bite out of his hand. 

He was right, and the eagle screeched, causing Archer to look over his shoulder, horrified that a nurse might come and he leaned back in the window.  It picked at its feathers, like nothing had happened as soon as Archer leaned away and, having caught a glimpse of the name on the front - clearly Tamis Raynor - Archer sighed.  "You gotta get it Tam," he shook his head, he hated bloody birds.  Rubbing his hand against his side, the dumb thing must have a beak of steel. 

He glanced at Trevelyan, "Fecking hate birds, Mate. Hate them."  He walked to the side of the bed - not a distance by any means, and readied himself to help her out - she'd probably hit him, several times, as she did not think she needed the help, but he could tell, from the pressure on his arm when he helped her get up, that it wasn't something unwelcome. 

“Exercising your reflexes,” Tamis flashed the private investigator a wide, innocent smirk. “You might want to work on those.”

The truth remained that Tamis Raynor was secretly grateful to both of the men present. Neither of them had to do what they had done, but they still did it. They were far from saints. The patient could now name every muggle crime show on the moving picture box above the bed and just the other day had caught herself arguing the inconsistencies in the plot of one of them with Jonas. She was not quite sure if she had lived that one down yet. And then there was card game. It was utterly preposterous that muggles would use such mundane items of seemingly no to little wealth as currency. It was even more ridiculous that Archer expected her to believe it. But aurors, former and present, had excellent Poker Faces. Sometimes she wondered.

The early morning hours were the most practical for catching up at the Office with decreased risk of being caught by the Hospital’s staff. The night shift was far more relaxed and, as they expected their patients to be sleeping, was far more infrequent and consistent with their check-ins. And, as an ulterior motive, she was hoping to exhaust the watchmen into seeking the comfort of actual beds. Had not worked yet.

“Tulojow Nagde, a well-meaning nuisance,” Raynor further clarified, not sounding particularly happy about the fact, as Archer creaked and groaned to his feet, ambling toward the window and shoving it up. Pen still poised on the sheet of parchment, her expression was grim as she watched the giant of an Auror fight and lose to the bird. She sidled a glance back at Jonas when he commented on the inconvenience of the time. “That is what I am afraid of.”

She had still yet to confront Archer about the development of calling her “Tam”. He could have simply, subconsciously picked it up from Jonas but she had come accustomed to reading a significance in his form of address; ‘Ray’ at work and in platonic situations, ‘Tamis’ had become more frequent in private of the past few months. She could still remember where him addressing her by her first name at all had thrown her off. Not the time to contemplate subtleties, however.

Her Gaze lifted up to meet Radley’s carefully neutral expression as he offered her assistance, her lips pursed. The handicapped treatment was growing tiresome; she was expecting the not-Healer to tell her she was being released any day now. She was quite convinced she did not need the help, even as she allowed Archer to absorb most of her weight when she got carefully to her feet. The tightness in her chest passed quicker than it had the week before, settling into, the now familiar, tenderness.

The eagle remained impassive as she reached through to extract the letter from his talons. He let out a far more cordial cry, ruffled his feathers, and task complete spread his impressive golden wings no doubt on a flight back to Hogwarts. Tamis had not watched, preoccupied with opening the letter. She read it twice before handing it over to them men.

Tulojow Nadge
Hogwarts Health Hut
Hogwarts Grounds

Tamis Raynor
London, England

Tamis –

A student has been killed.  Response from Auror office needed as promptly as possible.  I'm begging a favor of you.  Due to the circumstances, I ask that you personally evaluate the situation before deciding who the investigation would be assigned to.  If you are unable to come, please, do not send Ackerly. 

It's a long walk from the gates to the hospital hut.  It's fastest to apparate to the entrance hall of St. Mungo's and floo from there.

- T. Nagde

“She is not usually cryptic,” nor did she ever ‘beg a favor’ of any one, let alone the Head of the Auror Office. Given the way the letter had been addressed, the eagle had outsmarted his owner on the recipient’s location. Somehow, Raynor did not think it would have changed the contents. That was the thing about her job, in situations like these she had to consider personal welfare last. Waiting for the two men to finish reading, she stood there silently, expression grim.

She had already decided she was going. She knew it. They knew it. All that was left was deciding what they were going to do about it.

There was no way, not in any universe, that the playing of any particular combination of cards automatically triggered someone else to owe said player bacon.  Jonas refused to believe it.  Considering that said combinations tended to pop up in increasing quantities when Radley was hungry (which was nearly nonstop, due to the horrid quality of food in the cafeteria), the private investigator couldn't help but put his deduction skills to use and conclude that the other wizard was merely joshing him along.  Still, ridiculous results were part of the charm of Wizards' Poker.  He'd have to remember to invent some rule that made Radley automatically lose his trousers on the next round.

Jonas looked up as the other man stood to fetch the letter.  Normally, he seized any opportunity while Archer's back was turned to stock the deck with opportunistically-placed aces (over the past week, the red-haired man had probably set a world record for Four-of-a-Kinds and Royal Straight Flushes, even though he constantly lost in spite of them due to some random rule that Radley would whip out), but the early morning delivery had left an edge in the air.  Flashing a quick grin in Tamis's direction, he followed Archer's lead and slowly levered himself to his feet, testing his bad knee to make certain that it could take the weight after having sat for so long.

"Yeah, amazingly," he said, smiling crookedly as he put a hand on the table to brace himself, "me reflexes seem to do just fine so long as no one sneak attacks me with a droople to the head.  Nice to see you care so much about your consultants, though!" he finished cheerfully, tossing the pillow back at the bed.

Tulojow Nagde.  The older Auror's enunciated full name clearly struck the bell of his memory.  Jonas recalled an older American woman who had come and gone from the Auror office with a sort of self-empowered grace.  He had never worked too closely with her, but her independence had always impressed him and he was glad to hear that she was still alive and nuisancing Level Two.  That was another person he could notch off his list of war survivors.

Archer, unsurprisingly, was having trouble with the eagle.  Jonas flashed him an appreciative grin, finally testing his bad knee.  "Yeah, it's hard when something with so small a brain gets the better of you like that," he agreed nicely.  "Maybe you'd better test your reflexes on that, eh, Radley?"

With Archer's assistance on the passage between bed and window, Tamis opened the letter, taking a long moment to read it over.  Running a hand over his roughly-shaven face, Jonas limped over to the pair, waiting until she'd passed the parchment to Archer to read it over the taller man's shoulder.

Hogwarts Health Hut.  Not Hospital Wing - interesting.  'A student has been killed.'  Not 'died' or 'murdered' - that was a particular word choice, apparently made with care and all the more ominous because of the tacked-on clause of 'Due to the circumstances.'  Even during the worst of the war, Jonas could only ever remember two individuals being murdered at Hogwarts.  The school had always struck him as an impenetrable fortress, up until its Headmaster's death.  The thought of another death there, so sudden and auspicious, sent a chill down his spine.

Tamis's comment on Nagde's usual lack of secrecy made him glance up quickly, his forehead creasing.

"Then she either must not have had a lot of time to write, or she wants someone to come in unbiased," he mused aloud, only partially mulling over the Head Auror's words as he looked back down again.  "Wants to make sure whatever conclusion she's got is the right one." 

Involving the Auror Office at all meant there was suspicion of dark magic, though Jonas wouldn't have been surprised if they'd be called in for any student death.  Worrying over whom the case would be assigned to meant that there were extenuating circumstances.  Blood purity was an obvious one.  A Pureblood being implicated in the death of a Muggle-born, or vice versa?  Considering the current situation outside of Hogwarts with Tawse and his unrest, that could be a touchy subject.  It would need to be handled carefully, quickly, and quietly.  Too much uncertainty could explode.

Except, Jonas thought quite clearly and firmly, giving himself a mental shake as he took a step back, that it wasn't his case.

Technically, his commitment to the Auror office had ended with Trevor Reid's arrest weeks ago.  Technically, he shouldn't even be here now - though he'd joked about his status as a consultant with both Aurors, Jonas had yet to broach the subject of whether or nor he was actually being paid for the time that he had spent in Scotland.  Driven by both a slight feeling of guilt (which he had already decided he was never going to admit to) and an exceedingly ridiculous and unhelpful sense of loyalty (which he might, but only to win an argument), he'd chosen to undertake the sojourn of his own free will.  Even if he'd known from the beginning that the vigil would turn out to be pro bono and that he would end up completely destitute as a result, the private investigator had no doubt that he would have made the same decision.  Money had had nothing to do with it.  He had been needed, and so he had stayed.

But it was the end of the month.  Rent was due.  With all the chaos he'd been dealing with recently - first the incident with Aileen Reid and the mummies, then the mess with the Eleors and Anna, and finally the extended situation with Tamis - Jonas hadn't taken on an actual case since December.  Avoiding looking at his bank account had become a perpetual habit that he was probably going to regret sometime soon when he finally found out the hard way that it was empty. 

He had to make a living.  Eventually, this play-acting at his old life would come to an end and Jonas would have to go back to the grind.  It had been over a decade since he'd last worked for the Ministry.  Old friendships might keep him here now and convince Tamis to allow him to slip through the administrative cracks on the Runespoor investigation, but the manufactured camaraderie couldn't go on forever.  More than anything, this letter was a vivid reminder that while they were Aurors, he was not.

Jonas let out a quick breath, running a hand over his face again as his gaze shifted to meet Archer's.  It had been misleadingly easy to fall back into the old routines of their partnership over the past few weeks.  If the big Auror decided that he didn't want his boss tromping through the wilds of Scotland investigating a student's untimely death, Jonas would have his back.  But either way, he reminded himself firmly, it still wasn't his case.

"From what the Doc said yesterday, I don't know if they're going to be too keen on you just waltzing on out of here, Tam," he remarked noncommittally.  It was a generic enough statement; depending on which approach Radley decided to adopt, it could either be taken as an insurmountable obstacle or a challenge to be overcome.  "Sounds like they want to keep you under observation for another few days.  We could try offering 'em some woolangs, but as far as I know, the NHS don't take bribes."

Jonas’ snide comment made Archer raise his eyebrows.  Was the Ginger seriously going to start with him at five o’clock in the morning?  Archer was used to little sleep, it was part of the job, but sometimes, even a person with a lot of experience in staying up all hours of the night and day got grumpy.  So, in retaliation, he looked down and grabbed a soggy green bean from the tray that had remained untouched from the night before – Ray’s disgusting looking dinner – and flicked it across the room at his partner.  “Look, someone forgot to take down the Christmas decorations,” he pointed out as the green bean lay dormant surrounded by his ex-partners ginger-red hair.  “There’s some silver in there too… must be tinsel.”   

Archer could not possibly sit down again.  There was no way he would drop himself back into that seat for another moment.  He needed to stretch his back, to move, and he did so without problem as soon as he was able to escort Tamis across the room and toward the window.  He was not letting her do these things by herself yet, she still needed recovery time.  The doctors had explained that what she had gone through was pretty serious, though Archer could still not make heads nor tails of what was actually going on, it did not sound like it had been easy. 

He couldn’t imagine she was feeling one hundred percent better either, the way she carried herself was even more stiff and rigid than usual, and he knew if he touched her the wrong way she got that look of pain, the kind that a predator makes to not show weakness, but it was clearly there. 

The only thing that really made him wish she was out of this place faster was the fact Rufus was suffering pretty terribly at home.  He had managed to find a few hours where he could bring Rufus to his parents’ house, explaining to his Da the situation (took a few minutes) and asked if he could watch after him.  Archer could only imagine how fat he was getting, being in the pub with all of those people, and how much time he was losing on training him.  Hopefully he would be out of the habit of running into walls by the time they resumed a quasi-normal existence, but for now, he just had to hope his mum and da weren’t making Rufus even more ridiculous. 

These thoughts ran through his head briefly before Tamis handed him the letter.  He glanced down at it, skimming the words with furrowed brows and pursed his lips as he handed it over to Jonas.  He was not nearly as vocal as the redhead was in assessing what was going on, no, the wheels in his head were turning quietly, wondering what would have happened and why Nadge was adopting the traits of an auror now – cryptic behavior and tact – years after retiring.  Might have helped when she actually worked with them.

But, disregarding the technique of information delivery, Archer briefly wondered if the reason she contacted Tamis so directly, so… cryptically, was because a particular student was involved.  A student that meant quite a bit to Tamis, then, by association, to Archer, and had always been a favorite of Nadge’s.  His heart beat a little faster, worrying that it was possibly Eyes. 

No, not possible, Archer quickly reminded himself.  The girl was a trouble magnet, to be certain, but Nadge would have been more forthcoming, more honest than that.  She wouldn’t let them walk into that situation unprepared.  If she did, Archer would have some words with her to be certain, Tamis wasn’t 100% healed, it would be cruel to subject her to something like that – him to something like that – as he would deal with not only his own feelings, but have to pry them out of her as well.  No, Nadge was smarter about people than that. 

Rubbing his chin, he glanced at Jonas, then at Tamis, and then at Jonas again.  He had a point about the doctors, probably weren’t going to let her leave at 5 o’clock in the morning for no reason that they could actually tell them.  It would cause quite a stir, something Archer wished to avoid and would probably throw them all into the clutches of people like Stevenson.  He heard, mostly through watching the picture box, muggles were far more keen on the likes of Stevenson than wizards were, and they’d surely be sent to see a team of them, if the hospital wanted them to.  No, they had to be stealthier than that. 

“Maybe those doctors don’t want to let her out,” he said… forming a thought… “But…” he glanced out of the window looking into the room, “maybe…just maybe…” his voice trailed off as he spied two doctors talking in the hallway, holding those clipboards that they constantly looked at when talking to a patient.  Archer figured it was probably because they couldn’t even be bothered to remember their names, but who knew, really?  All he knew was that the doctors on the picture box did it too, usually used some of those big words while they did it, and everyone believed them even when they had no idea what was going on.  All one needed were those silver and rubber necklaces, a white robe, and a clipboard…

“But… Doctor Radley… and Doctor Trevelyan… well… I think they have different plans.” 

Pursing her lips, the petite Auror refrained from bringing to light that Tulojow Nagde rarely encouraged remaining unbiased about anything. It was far more likely that whatever had happened was controversial or immediately appeared incriminating and she was trying to manipulate them into sympathizing with her bias. It had been the largest headache with the woman when she was still… officially… a member of the Corps. Raynor just did not know what opinion the woman was trying to influence. Not yet.

A death at Hogwarts, under any means, was a grave issue. Especially with the events of the Remembering Day murders, and their recent revelations on that case, unveiled. The fact that there was still potentially an accomplice to those murders within Hogwarts, someone that had supplied a piece of Gibson for polyjuice potion, was weighing heavily on Raynor’s mind.

“We will make sure she has the right conclusion,” she said politically, beginning to cross her arms but winced at the lateral compression to her chest, and immediately dropped her arms. It set her jaw tighter. Muggles and their archaic medicine.

It was much easier to stare down two men more than a head taller than you when one could assume the correct stance. Instead she had to settle for a (mostly) straight back, uplifted chin, and self righteous expression, trying to drill the “look” into the back of their brains. The floral hospital gown and calf-high yellow socks really added to the overall effectiveness.

She settled for directing her efforts on Jonas first. Of the two, he was far easier to make agreeable. With eyebrow still raised, she waited expectantly. The answer was not a ‘no’ but it was not a ‘yes’, but a perfectly respectable ‘maybe’ as he looked over her head at Archer for confirmation. Coward. She did not even try to determine what an ‘NHS’ was, but if shaking some sugar packets at them would get the job done she would raid the cafeteria herself.

Her gaze settled on Archer then, apparently the deal breaker, and her expression softened. She actually looked down for a moment, before turning her head up to look at him, shaking her hair from her eyes so she would not have to reach up to push it back. These past few weeks had not been fair to him, to either of them. Which is why she tolerated the pillow fluffing and escorting across a foot of floor. And why she was letting it be their call. That and they were bigger, stronger, and had her wand.

“Tulojow is a healer,” she reminded both of them. “If there is anything left to fix, she will fix it.” It was a solid point. But. Buts were good. Archer was actually for going to Hogwarts? Watching his face closely, Tamis tried to translate it and find the answer, but it was one of those rare moments where she could not decipher it. Perhaps because she could have never guessed what he was going to say next.

‘Doctor’ Radley and ‘Doctor’ Trevelyan…. He…. "You are serious,” she sounded surprised even to her own ears. She really wished she could cross her arms. “How are you going to manage that? Stun a couple muggles and stash them in a closet?”

It was worth reminding herself that she really did not want to discourage a break-out attempt.

Jonas regarded Archer as the older man pontificated out loud, not bothering to keep the bemusement out of his expression as he passed the letter back to Tamis.  Apparently, they were leaving.  The older man's answer wasn't exactly what he had expected - Archer was ridiculously overprotective of his boss-turned-something, a fact which Jonas found endlessly amusing - but the surprise diminished as he considered the ramifications. 

It had been a good long while spent in Scotland.  Even with the late night poker games to balance, the endless watching and constant wariness was grueling.  Except for the weekend he'd taken off, Jonas hadn't gotten a full night of sleep in weeks.  The idea of finally getting back to London, to his office where he could sleep when he wanted to and go where he pleased, was not one that he entirely wanted to pass up.  If it meant sneaking Tamis out before she was ready, well - especially since Radley seemed willing to take the responsibility for making that decision if something went wrong, Jonas wasn't about to argue with him.

Though, he thought, that didn't mean he was about to buy in to every ridiculous idea that his former partner might come up with.

"What, you want to mock up medical licenses for us now, Radley?" he returned with a lopsided smile.  "It's a hell of a lot bloody easier just to apparate out of a broom closet somewhere, innit?"

But Tamis seemed to doubt the idea even more, which immediately shifted Jonas to the opinion that there had to be a way to make it work.  He frowned for a moment, his forehead creasing, and then glanced back to meet Archer's eye again.

"Don't think we're about to start stunning anybody.  Be a bit irresponsible anyhow, considering what nice hosts they've been," he pointed out dryly.  The wizarding tendency to go around bewitching Muggles every time they needed something still bothered him.  Jonas hadn't even been happy about the name change and associated Confundus charms that had happened to protect Tamis, but he'd finally acceded to the need for security.  Stunning doctors who were likely on call to save lives and take care of their patients crossed a line - but it didn't mean that they couldn't still pull it off. 

Jonas paused, tilting his head to the side as he considered the possibilities.  "If we're not being too picky about magic, we could probably just mock up a couple of white coats," he suggested thoughtfully and slowly after a moment.  By 'we,' he assumed it was known that he meant 'Radley;' his current roommates were aware that he wasn't about to go mocking up anything with transfiguration.  "There's that storage room a floor down.  Reckon we could buy our way in with Radley's snooflas, recoup a few props from there, and then just wing it.  Could probably even cover you with a sheet, Tamis," he added with a crooked grin.  "They won't ask any questions if we're just wheeling around a body."

Now that he was thinking about it, the possible hilarity that would ensue was quickly endearing him to Archer's idea.  Just walking out of a hospital was one thing.  Aside from the medical dramas that he occasionally watched on the television where similar events seemed to happen on an episodic basis, Jonas couldn't recall ever hearing of it being attempted before.  If nothing else, at least they'd have a story to tell, particularly if they managed to get Raynor inside a body bag.

But, again, he reminded himself, this still wasn't his case.  Once they were out of the hospital, his volunteer assignment would officially be over, and wherever Tamis and Archer headed next, Jonas would be on his way south to London.  It was easy to get caught up in the moment, especially since - he suspected - his current partners in crime were falling back into the patterns of ten years past just as easily as he had been.  Whether he joined in one last escapade or not, once it was completed, that would be the end of it.

The private investigator cleared his throat.  "Ah, I hate to make it seem like I'm not all in, because I think Radley's finally hit his one stroke of brilliance for the decade," he put in nonchalantly, glancing at neither Archer nor Tamis as he directed his attention out the window, "but are we just assuming that we're going to go our separate ways once we sneak Her Aurorness out under their noses?  Seems a bit like this is about to become Ministry business, yeah?  If you've got a kid dead at Hogwarts, I reckon you'll have enough to juggle without having to explain to the Wizengamot why you've got unauthorized civilians mucking about and contaminating the crime scene."

Archer did not appreciate Tamis’ lack of enthusiasm for his plan.  He didn’t even get to the rest of it!  Partially because the rest of it didn’t exist yet and he really didn’t want to have to use his wand, if possible.  The real intent of stealing a coat and those rubber necklaces was to get her out without causing a scene, to not alarm anyone.  That’s what he thought anyway. 

Furrowing his brows, he could feel the creases in his forehead, which he suspected had started to deep in the past few weeks.  He’d have to remind Tamis that she not only owed him for charging in and saving her finely formed arse, but also for giving him some serious wrinkles – and probably grey hairs.  He refused to look though, it would only dampen his spirits further, and he was sure he looked like hell. The amount of sleep he had gotten in the past few weeks was probably equivalent to what a normal person got in oh… four days, so he felt like hell, and knew he looked like it too.

Thankfully, he could cloud a mirror very easily.  With that in mind, he mulled his mouth from side to side, “I’m thinking,” he informed both of them, “no smart arse comments,” he quickly added, glancing very pointedly at the Ginger on the other side of the room at the table.  He was forming a plot, a clever ploy that would be fitting of one of the picture programmes on the box near the ceiling.  It was like listening to a wireless show, but better – there were the pictures, your brain didn’t even have to imagine what was going on!  He couldn’t really imagine, after sitting in front of it for endless hours, how wizards and witches did without it, though he imagined once they were out of the mind-numbing white prison that smelled like pine-fresh cauldron cleaner, he would not miss the box at all. 

His mind was churning though, and he looked at Jonas as the man began to speak, actually… expanding upon his idea! Hah! This was going to work.  At least, Archer hoped it was going to work.  He didn’t want to just sneak her out, and he had seen on that box what happened when muggles went missing from places.  They put their pictures all over, he didn’t want her face on every box in Britain.  No, plus, Anna Trevelyan would probably be quite upset to know that her name was being used at this particular hospital and then went missing.  Probably not a good idea.  Archer shook his head and frowned.

“Oi, mate,” he looked to Jonas, “ye reckon we can just… take that form… y’know to let her out? Lift a nametag from some poor sleeping sap and jot down his signature.  Paperwork all taken care of and she’s out without a bit of an issue.”  It seemed solid enough to him, there was probably a doctor wandering around here that was close enough.  Though, Archer hadn’t seen anyone who looked like either of them… he frowned, they were fairly distinct individuals.

He reached up to run a hand through his hair and Archer sighed softly, his hand stopping mid swipe and eyes growing a size or two.  It hit him like a lightning bolt.  Picking up two woolongs from the table, “transfigure these into badges, give ourselves some fake names, and waltz her out.  What were they on the box?” he paused for a minute, he seemed to remember a rash of shows dealing with these hospital settings, all so serious – so melodramatic.  It seemed appropriate.  “Doctor Home… Holmes…. House! And uh… what was it… McDaffy?  McDreamy!  We’ll put our own faces on ‘em, get the coats from that closet, some of the necklaces they wear… and clipboards… all these muggle healers carry around clipboards, we’ll look legitimate.” 

It seemed like something Archer could actually foresee working, something that would get all the ends tied up into pretty little bows and there would be nothing but the matter of paying for the extended stay, which he was fairly sure someone could handle as long as they switched out the currencies.  Ray had enough money to subdue the whole of Gringott’s from what he conjectured. 

He paused though, Jonas brought up a point – he wasn’t an auror, but he was still, on some level, operating as a ministry employee – if only in the… loosest of senses.  Frowning, Archer shook his head.  “Ye can’t get out of this that easily,” he quipped, “You’re still on assignment, technically, and we don’t know what this is.  Another set of hands can’t hurt – even if his wand is useless.  You’re used to that state of affairs though, I reckon.”  Zing of revenge for the revelation of the decade comment. 

Looking to Tamis, he grinned, “No stunning involved.”  And then he turned his gaze to Trevelyan.  “First, we need the coats, the necklaces, and the clipboards.  Supply closet... you can go in, I’ll keep watch.”  Jonas would know what he was grabbing; it was likely Archer would grab something ridiculous, like a bed pan or something, thinking it was a hat.  No, better to let the muggleborn handle the  muggle attire.  “Then we’ll transfigure our tags.  I call McDreamy.”  He winked at Tamis, just briefly, wanting to have a little fun of it, “You  can be the grouchy gimp… oh wait…”