23:50

If a civilian were to question the average auror on the level of their caffeine consumption, it is doubtful the auror would be able to give a precise approximation of the number of caffeinated beverages they swigged down on a daily basis. For aurors like the one presently sat at his desk, coffee was a daily requirement, one he would doubtlessly argue was more necessary for his survival than air. Coffee kept him running and awake, exceptionally important since he was now regularly forgoing sleep and real rest.

And Edward Pratt couldn’t rest. Not until he knew his family were safe from harm and the murderer causing this aggravation was behind bars in the middle of the North Sea, or better, six feet under the North Sea.

As was usual in regular five minute intervals, the coffee cup was raised expertly to thin lips and the liquid was drained as green eyes remained focused on the paperwork before them. The auror scowled and put his mug down, hearing the door at the opposite end of the office close. He pushed his seat back and slowly stood, glancing around the dark office. Now his cubicle was the only one emitting any light. Now he was the only one in the auror office.

Eddie decided to take this moment. He snatched up his wand and muttered a quiet lumos spell before exiting his cubicle and slowly walking around the edge of the office to his target area. The cubicle of Samuel Harcroft, an auror officially on the case Ed wanted closed.

Now Pratt knew the reasons he wasn’t on this specific case. He knew why he hadn’t been assigned to track down Dugan MacDuff. Everyone in the office knew Pratt had a temper and he knew very few doubted he would curse MacDuff dead if he ever got the chance. As much as most other aurors would like to do the same, they would be able to exert more control. Ed wouldn’t. Which was why he had to be sneaky, he had to track MacDuff down and do a job he was certain Harcroft was incapable of doing.

The office remained silent and dark as Eddie slipped into the Senior Auror’s cubicle and looked around, squinting through his glasses. “Where would a stick up his arse keep this paperwork...?” He whispered to himself bending down to the tidy desk. Green eyes settled on a picture frame sat on the desk, the Harcrofts and that know it all kid from career day. Ed scowled and reached a hand out, placing the picture on its face. He didn’t fancy that lot watching him violating Harcroft’s precious desk.

Jonas Trevelyan had not fallen asleep at his desk.  This was because Jonas never fell asleep at his desk.  Contrary to comments that Anna occasionally made, he also did not fall asleep on the sofa, at the dinner table, or while waiting to pick up the kids.  Closing one’s eyes and not opening them until one was disturbed was not sleeping; it was simply taking advantage of a quiet moment and resting with intent.
 
Recently, there had been late nights after late nights.  He had files to dig through, appointments to keep, and a family life to juggle on top of everything else.  Jonas had pared down his casework as much as he could.  Malvivicus was temporarily on the back burner; he’d turned over most of the files regarding O Morain to Aberdeen Spencer.  The Runespoor investigation had once again become all-consuming as he and Adon raced against time to find their next lead before the case went cold once more.
 
The last thing he remembered, he’d been blearily agreeing to continue digging through the collection of reports regarding Ignan Storm while Adon went to the library to look up some arcane Mediterranean magical laws.  Getting anything from their counterparts in Italy was like pulling teeth with a nutcracker.  They’d yet to see even the cover page of an official report; instead, the most they’d had to work with were articles and news clippings, vague references to what had happened over a century before.  Fighting his way through a foreign language was exhausting, but Jonas hated lawyer jargon in the best of times.  He had been more than happy to let Adon wade through the legal code solo, while he stayed at his desk reading…and then he’d merely closed his eyes…
 
It was the sound of a door slamming that jolted the Auror awake.  Not awake – alert, since he hadn’t been asleep to begin with.  Jonas blinked into the darkness, startled by the sudden shadows.  All the lights were off.  It had to be well after hours.  He bit back a fluid swear as he automatically and dazedly began to grope for his phone.  Either the laws that Adon was trying to look up were even more arcane than they’d thought, or his partner had given up and gone home without thinking to officially call it a work day.
 
It occurred to him a beat after his fingers closed around the mobile phone that he was in the Ministry, which meant that it wasn’t going to work.  Jonas nearly groaned, rubbing at his eyes in frustration.  Without a working wand, he had no way of casting a Lumos spell, no way of magically turning the lanterns back on…  For not the first time, he fumbled to gather his papers back into a stack, and then tried to feel for his coat and hat, preparing to begin the long, stumbling exit from the darkened office.
 
Except it wasn’t entirely darkened.  Across the room, the faint light of a wand was slowly making its way into another cubicle.  Jonas paused for a moment, frowning, as he considered his options.  The odds that representatives of some criminal organization had broken into the Ministry, scammed their way down to the Auror office, and were currently ransacking it for information seemed slim, even after hours.  Either way, there was no bloody way on earth that he was leaving without investigating.
 
Sure enough, it wasn’t Kronos Malvivicus or Cinaed Tawse sneaking about with a lit wand; it was Edward Pratt.  He probably shouldn’t have recognized the desk, but after the long morning two weeks early, Jonas could clearly identify Senior Auror Harcroft’s work space with his eyes shut.  He frowned for a moment, studying the other man’s back as Pratt hunched over their co-worker’s desk.
 
“Well, if he wants to keep it safe, then he’s likely storing it alongside the stick,” he put in nicely.  "Proper job on the nighttime pillaging though, mate.  Add a couple of horns on your head and a beard like Tawse's, and I might've taken you for a Viking, Yorkshire words and all."

Hearing the voice behind him made Eddie pause in his searching of an obsessively tidy and overly organised drawer and spin around to face the only other inhabitant of the otherwise silent office. The lighted weapon (or wand) was instinctively trained on the dozy looking redhead, casting a glow over his otherwise pale faced Irish skin. That was when the accent was recognised by Pratt’s finely attuned ears. The barely comprehensible, sing songy, permanently drunk and slurring Cornish twang.

Oh yes, Eddie Pratt was starting to like Jonas Trevelyan. He was taking drinks with his annoying ginger colleague (however terribly those had worked out) and he had even taken the ginger man’s advice and allowed him to procure Ed a foam. A vibrating, owls in awe-inspiring ecstasy, muggle chick attracting foam.

Okay, so maybe Ed liked Jonas. But there was one thing about this eager redheaded colleague that he was never going to like. That was his accent. And the fact the other auror had just snuck up on him from behind while Ed had been searching for classified information on a big case in another auror’s cubicle.

“Don’t compare me to Tawse.” The auror said bluntly, gruffly, before he lowered the wand from out of Jonas’s face, casting a dark shadow over the two in the cubicle instead. “Then where do you reckon the stick is, Paddy? He has to remove it from his arse sometimes.”

Eddie turned back to the desk and started fingering through the sole; neatly presently pile of parchment on the desk. “And how come yer still ‘ere? In trouble with the missus?”

The red-haired man's expression, kept perfectly even through his coworker's retort and the wand shoved in his face, faltered slightly at the final question.  Jonas winced, taking advantage of both the darkness and the fact that Pratt had turned his back to him as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Naw," he said, keeping his tone light.  "Might be after I get home, though.  I'm still here because Eleor and I work best once the lights are out," he added cheerfully, leaning back against the wall of the cubicle as he stretched out his bad leg.  It was sore and stiff from slee-- from momentarily closing his eyes at his desk, so Jonas shifted his weight, bending his knee and straightening it slowly again.  "Keeps me from getting sucked into the windows to his soul and all; keeps him from getting blinded by me brilliance.  So we're setting up shop after hours.  Glow-in-the-dark ink, those fancy goggles that let you see at night -- pretty soon, we'll be so well equipped that we'll never have to overlap with the rest of you.  Regular creatures of the night, we'll be."

Creatures of the night or not, it didn't take blinding brilliance to guess at what Pratt was up to.  Harcroft was only assigned to so many cases; the diligent Senior Auror tended to take command of manhunts, such as those for Dugan Macduff and Theodora Kingstreet.  Since Ed Pratt had a well-documented disinterest in office supplies, chances were good that it was the other search that had drawn him to his colleague's desk after hours.

It was frustrating to see the signs that he knew too well in his coworker.  Pratt was short-tempered, frustrated: feeling helpless.  He had the same hard, defiant look that Aberdeen Spencer had worn when she'd dared Jonas not to help her find her son.  Back then, he'd known that even if he'd said no, if he'd told her that getting involved in so personal a case was unprofessional and too dangerous, she'd never have listened to him.  Spencer would have just gone about it without his help.  Here and now, Pratt was clearly in the process of doing the same thing.  Quietly forbidden from working the Macduff case, he had taken it upon himself to find a way.

The problem, Jonas thought, was that Aurors weren't like normal people.  They didn't want time and space to grieve.  They wanted action, redemption, vengeance.  Everyone in the office had all been doing the best they could to keep a careful eye on Pratt, protecting him without suffocating him, but the Northerner didn't strike him as the sort to stand idly by while others solved his problems for him.

"You know," he remarked conversationally, as if they were merely commenting on the weather and not discussing a clandestine operation to raid a coworker's files, "I spent ten minutes sitting at Harcroft's desk last week and he practically cast an Unforgivable on me for it.  I don't reckon he'd take well to someone going through his papers."  His eyes followed Eddie's movements through the darkness, a slight hint of worry creasing his forehead.  "Whatever you're after, there's better ways to get it, don't you think?"

Despite his attempt not to, Eddie Pratt smirked at the pile of parchment on the desk. It was obvious there was something special occurring between Eleor and Trevelyan. They lived in one another’s pockets, probably whispered sweet nothings into each other’s ears as they worked grinning at one another and laughing at each terrible joke after the next. Ed expected they would soon be finishing each other’s sentences and sharing plates of spaghetti and meatballs under the moonlight.

“I’m sure yer wife really appreciates yer regular late night rendezvous with the dark eyed beauty. Ye wanna’ watch it. That my friend, leads to divorce.” The auror gingerly spoke to the parchment he’d selected from the pile that he was presently holding up to his face to read. “First she’ll think yer just avoidin’ ‘er. Next it’s the certainty yer at the pub drinkin’ away yer wages, ye can’t be spending that much time workin’ after all!” Eddie lowered the parchment, and span around on his heel to face his colleague. “Finally she’ll be convinced yer havin’ it off wi’yer partner. And in your case,” Eddie nodded his head in Jonas’s direction, “she’ll think ye beat for t’other team. And I don’t mean the harpies.”

Eddie would have much preferred remaining on the topic of Jonas Trevelyan and Adon Eleor’s illicit affair. They could then ignore the fact he was pillaging Harcroft’s desk for investigative goodies and continue discussing night goggles, glow in the dark ink and Jonas’s crush on those soulful pools of eye or whatever the much favoured description happened to be.

Unfortunately Jonas pointed out the possible reaction when Harcroft noticed someone had been at his desk and how other methods were probably more sensible. Eddie shrugged and put the sheet he’d been holding back on the pile. “Well he’ll just think it’s you again won’t he? I’m safe.”

But the smirk and confident exterior vanished, replaced by a sigh and a slump in the aurors shoulders. “What other ways, Trevelyan?” Bright eyes shot up to meet the gaze of his ginger colleague as Ed stepped back and leant against the desk, shoving his hands in his pockets and casting them into a shadowy darkness as the wand light extinguished with a faint whoosh. “Protocol says I can’t work this case but I can’t idly await the goods to be brought in either. Harcroft don’t exactly have resoundin’ success on his man hunts.”

Jonas burst out laughing, flashing the other Auror an enormous lopsided smile as he crossed his arms against his chest.  "At least I didn't spend three hours snogging me partner and letting him scribble 'Adon Trevelyan' all over me arm a few weeks back," he replied nicely, still grinning from ear to ear.  "Yeah, I just can't help it.  It's all those soulful protective mechanisms.  Almost as good as being a charming devil with a smile to match.[1]"

It occurred to him that reminding Pratt of the night a few weeks ago -- or bringing up an article that had untowardly criticized his personal life -- was probably not the best way to distract him from raiding their coworker's desk, unless Jonas wanted to turn the interrupted raid into a brutal physical beatdown.  He grimaced, giving Pratt a shrug of apology as he settled against the wall, content to give the other man the last word in smart responses.

It was disconcerting how quickly Pratt's confidence left him.  He let out a sigh and deflated, meeting Jonas's eyes an instant before he plunged them back into darkness.  The red-haired man paused, keeping his expression perfectly neutral even as his forehead creased.  They might have called a temporary truce and gone out for drinks, but Pratt generally wasn't in the habit of asking for his opinion.

And now that he'd been asked, he wasn't entirely sure how to give it.  Jonas hadn't walked into this conversation prepared to offer tips on how to best undermine Ministry case assignments.  Not that he couldn't -- he was keeping an eye on plenty of investigations that counted as hobbies rather than assignments.  Lexus's situation.  Manfred Ashford's death, although he still felt vaguely confident he could link that strangeness somehow to Malvivicus.  Hell, the whole situation surrounding Tait.  Since he'd returned to the force, he'd more or less gotten to pick and choose what he'd investigated.  If Tamis ever put her foot down and told him no, he doubted he'd listen for very long.

It had to be killing Pratt.  Knowing that the bastard who had gone at him personally, who had murdered his parents, was still at large.  Jonas barely wanted to contemplate being in his shoes, but if he were, he couldn't honestly say that he'd be content to let the other Aurors carry out the investigation without his help.

No, he'd want it done and done quickly.  Every day it dragged out left the coffin open a little bit longer.

He let out a quick breath, rubbing a hand over his face.  "Well, they certainly aren't ones where I go digging through some bloke's papers all on me lonesome and then set off on a secret mission without making sure that me mates have me back," he said matter-of-factly.  It was hard to read expressions in the darkness, but he set his jaw, kept his shoulders straight.  He and Pratt might still not be on the best of terms, but there were some points he wouldn't give ground on.

"I'm happy to jump into this mess, Ed," Jonas said, quietly and resolutely meeting the other man's gaze.  "And I reckon that a few of the others -- Arch and Houdini, and maybe some of the rest -- would too, but not if you're set on walking into the fire on your own."    He raised his eyebrows, tucking his hands back into the pockets of his trousers as he straightened his posture.  "We're all Aurors, yeah?  If one of ours is determined to hang, we might as well hang together."

1.	See #7 on Witch Weekly's 10 Hottest Ministry Men.

It was very lucky for Jonas that he had distracted Eddie quickly enough. Otherwise he might have been punched. He had not done anything of the sort with his partner and Frizzy had outrightly denied being the one to embellish Eddie’s arm with the disturbing collaboration of their names. But Eddie had an idea who had written it and he was standing right in front of him.

The selfless willingness to help Pratt with what, up until now had been a one man mission was overwhelming. With his stubbly face pale, Eddie’s bright eyes stared through the dark at the similarly built auror before him. This ginger fellow that the blond auror thoroughly enjoyed taking the mickey out of. It was easy to mock Jonas Trevelyan, Eddie had found. There was much mock worthy material about the older auror that Pratt had certainly not been able to resist. Trevelyan was a ginger wizard with a dodgy limp and a voice that sounded like a drunken muggle farmer.

Yet no matter how much Edward Pratt had ridiculed the Cornish auror, Trevelyan was stood before him stating he was willing to help Eddie with his own very personal manhunt. Trevelyan was willing to ignore the orders from above and put his neck on the line to help his colleague and Eddie didn’t know what to say.

Eddie blinked. He lifted a hand to his head, running his fingers through the messy dark blond hair as he tried to think. The hand was once more shoved in his robe pocket before he frowned in mild confusion.

“And...” The auror shook his head before he pulled his wand from his pocket once more and pointed it at the lights around the room, filling the large office with candlelight. A small smirk tugged at the corners of Eddie’s lips as he watched Jonas carefully.  “When did we become mates?”

Jonas matched the other Auror's expression with a crooked smile, glancing up as the lights came on again, and then gave a nonchalant shrug.  "Say that, did I?" he asked nicely.  "Just said I'd hang with you; never said we were mates.  Let's relocate, shall we?" he asked, arching an eyebrow quizzically at the other man.  "If we're done with the cloaks and daggers, I wouldn't mind having a sit, but I'm not about to do it in a chair that's like to hex me."

Judging by the still stunned look on Pratt's face, he could probably have coaxed far more out of him than just a return to his recently acquired cubicle.  Jonas let out a long sigh as he eased himself down to sit, stretching his leg out alongside the desk to ease the stiffness in his knee.

Coming up with a way to corner Macduff wasn't difficult.  So far the big wizard had shown an incredibly understandable set of motivations.  With the right bait, drawing him out of hiding wouldn't take much.  But as Adon had deftly analyzed a few days before, simply dangling a carrot didn't make for a successful trap.  There were too many things that could go wrong, too much guesswork that had to go perfectly.  If they were going to entice the outlaw to attack, they needed a more coherent plan to start.

That, too, ignored what he was really trying to do here.  The point of this exercise wasn't simply to catch Macduff, although the bastard's continued freedom after his crimes frustrated Jonas as much as it did the other Aurors.  Macduff was a terrorist; his goal wasn't simply to kill, but to weaken the Ministry, to dwindle the Corps.  They'd lose Ed Pratt just as completely if he did something idiotic and got himself killed, or if he let the devastating crime against his family break his control.  This was as much about keeping Pratt together and on the team as it was accomplishing what they were setting out to do.

"So, other ways," he said, letting out a quick breath.  He looked up at the ceiling, forehead creasing as he thought.  "Let's see what we can come up with."

End.