Harry Underhill drew his wand and moved quickly down the corridor, which flashed with bright alarm lamps as he kept his back to the wall, headed for the secret lift to the Minister's outer office. He had been a part of the planning committee that had set the rules and magical protection for the lift's security measures. He had been the one to propose the lift be operable only by a selected list - Annalee and Sean, himself, Moody, and the Minister himself. This, he supposed, was the only thing keeping the Minister's attackers from descending by the Lift.

With the sirens sounding, the entire Department of Magical Law Enforcement would be on the way to the Minister's office, but all of them would be going "the front way". He, however, had perfect, quick access to this - a back way in. He was approaching the lift then, pushing open the doors. Blood stained the walls of the corridor and the interior of the lift itself. It was everywhere.

"Sir."

He looked back over his shoulder and saw James Potter coming up behind him, wand in his hand, pulling on a Ministry-issued leather glove, which held the wand to the palm to hinder an expelliarmus from disarming the aurors. He handed one to Underhill as he strapped his own into place.

"Go back to the office and help your friends."

"Remus has the office secured," James replied.

"Then go get Annalee's official testimony."

"Already extracted it sir."

Underhill scowled, "Then just go back and await a command."

"You can't go upstairs without a second, sir," James said. "It says so in the Training Manual I'm meant to be following," he added pointedly.

Underhill growled, but it was true and not much to be argued about it, as he has been the one that had laid down the law that James Potter wasn't to vary from policy. "You've a little one on the way," he tried for his last bid to make James turn back.

"And you're a single father."

They locked eyes.

"I'll protect you for Marjorie and you protect me for Harry or Ottalie."

Underhill stepped into the lift, and James followed. The lift door closed, both of them jostled into position - Underhill in front with James at his back, both armed. They stood in formation, breathless as the lift jostled its way through the floors of the Ministry.

"Harry or Ottalie?" Underhill asked.

"Yeah," James answered.

"After your Aunt?"

"Yup."

Underhill nodded. "Good. Good, excellent."

James said, "Harry after my - uh - my -"

"Your parents told me about the baby they lost," he said.

"They did?"

Underhill's eyes didn't move from the dial showing the floor they were on. "I was to be the godfather."

James looked at Underhill. "You were?"

Underhill nodded.

James had a thousand questions but before he could put the words together to ask any of them, Underhill motioned for silence, and pointed at the dial. They were arriving to the Minister's Office. "We asked Sirius to be ours," James murmured before falling silent and he saw Underhill's lips curve into a smile for just a moment before his face stoned and the lift jolted to a halt.

They were still for a long moment. Poised. Ready.

The lift doors opened and Matija Blagojevic lunged toward them.

Underhill jabbed his wand instantly and the blast of magic that came forth caught Blagojevic securely under the arms like two great hands and sprang him back, away from the lift door. He was closely followed by Greyback, who James's magic knocked to one side as the pair of them stepped off the lift and the doors closed behind them. Annalee's desk had been overturned, papers were everywhere, strewn all over the outer office and James could see through the door to the inner office that there were things all over in there as well - they'd been looking for something, clearly, but what? He didn't have long to think on it as Greyback was back on his feet and he hit James in the elbow with a stinging spell that shot up James's arm like a shock and James turned to engage him.

Even without magic, Blagojevic was proving difficult even for Underhill. Being a vampire, Blagojevic had the advantage of extraordinary speed and his motions were blurred by the quickness with which he did them as he lunged himself around the desk and at Underhill, his strategy a constant attempt at getting behind the larger man. His fangs were bared and his eyes flashed red and ravenous - he'd been interrupted during his feeding and the blood of the Minister for Magic was all over the vampire's face, chin, and chest. Underhill moved carefully around the nearly bloodless body of the Minister, which lay in the space between the overturned desk and the wall, pale and cold.

James was trying at hitting Greyback with an incarceration spell, but every time Greyback managed to duck and roll or else to block it, and he laughed at James mockingly as he shot back another, more sinister spell and James had to duck and roll to avoid being hit. Greyback's eyes flashed with amusement.

"Anaticula!" James jabbed his wand at Greyback, but missed.

Greyback snorted, "You aren't hitting me with that fucking ridiculous duck spell, boy."  Greyback waved his own wand, sending a barrage of thick law books at James, which hit him, making James shout as they slammed into him - he was certain to have a great many bruises that night from the velocity and the weight of those books. James stumbled backward, tripped on some of the books that had fallen after striking him in the chest, and landed on the floor as Greyback hooted with amusement.

James put up a shield charm that blocked some red-sparked spell which Greyback shot at him and the whole of the shield glowed brilliantly, making a loud crackling like a firework being set off overhead and James covered his eyes with his arm to block the brightness of the flash.

 The door of the office was broken open then and a stream of people came in - first was Mad Eye Moody, blundering forward on his wooden leg, wand up, and he instantly blasted a spell that took out the wall between the inner office and the outer, sheet rock spraying about the room. It bounced off James's shield spell for a moment before it went out and rained down on him. A large piece of it struck Greyback, who gave James up as a bigger target had entered and refocused his efforts on Mad Eye instead.

James scrambled to his feet as several more Aurors came into the room - among them was McKenna Johnston - and they were closely followed by dirty, gaunt looking men and women who were certainly members of Greyback's pack. James could tell by the looks on their faces that a lot of them were terrified and some weren't even carrying wands. He felt his heart clench with a mixture of panic at them but also for them - they were under Greyback's command, likely out of sheer desperateness and not knowing what else to do. James thought of what Remus had said just downstairs in Underhill's office. Hard to believe that had been mere minutes ago.

Underhill suddenly let out a shout and James turned to see Blagojevic had managed to leap onto his back and had his fists buried in Underhill's hair. James rushed toward his boss but was surrounded by a barrage of Greyback's people and spells were flying everywhere so it was hard to keep up with which of the werewolves in the room were magical and which were not - but even many that were not armed with wands were armed with small daggers and one even had what looked like a crossbow. 

There were muggle tools, after all, that were just as dangerous as any wand, James thought, and possibly more so as there was so little training against such things. 

He waved his wand at the one with the crossbow and disappeared the arrow he had knocked in the mechanical, trying to press his way through to help Underhill, who was struggling, shooting spells blindly over his shoulder, trying to get Blagojevic off his back. 

James was surrounded, however. He kept dodging as blades were stabbed in his direction and spells shot over his shoulder, and then a man was before him with a literal ax and James shouted, lifted his wand above his head, and a jet of light flew up into the air like a grappling hook, linking onto the ceiling, and James tugged, the magic pulling him up and out of the tight circle of enemies, directly into the air over their heads. He shouted - he hadn't expected it to be quite such a rush, the magic had pulled him a lot quicker than he'd expected - and clung onto his wand. Lucky he'd been wearing that glove or else he might've dropped himself right back into the midst of the fray as they descended upon the spot where he'd been just a moment before.

He swung himself, releasing the spell, and landing in the gap between the lift where they'd initially come into the room and where Blagojevic was wrestling Underhill, teeth bared, fists tangled into Underhill's hair, yanking, trying to expose the jugular. Spells shot over Underhill's shoulder hit the wall, leaving it pockmarked and smoking slightly and James aimed for Blagojevic's back, a jet of magic striking him in the side. Pained, Blagojevic released Underhill's head and fell back on to the floor. Underhill turned and at the same moment he and James both incarcerated the vampire, who hissed and snapped and Underhill sent him into unconciousness.

Moody was fighting Greyback and the Aurors with the other men and women in the room. Underhill looked around, appraising the situation, then looked to James.

"They're just men and women, sir," James said.

Underhill nodded, and he stepped forward, jabbing the crowd with spells to unarmed them and then knock them out, slowly thinning the cluster. James mimicked him and soon other aurors were taking the lead, knives and daggers clattered to the floor alongside wands.

Seeing the thinning crowd, realizing Blagojevic was down, Greyback used magic and threw the overturned desk across the room, bowling over Mad Eye with a shout and catching several others - including James - in the motion, sending them to the floor with the force as the desk slammed into other far wall and he bolted out the door. Underhill was on him, though, rushing after him into the corridor.

 Greyback threw himself into the main lobby's lift and wrenched the door shut. Underhill shouted, doubling his speed, his breath ragged, and tried futility at pulling it open with his hands before he blasted it open with his wand, the doors shattering, bits flying about and he found the lift cart empty and stared in shock for a moment before he looked up and saw the small door in the ceiling that led into the shaft was opened. Quickly, Underhill used magic to pull himself up, the same spell James had done in the office moments before, and pulled himself up onto the roof of the cart. The shaft was dark, cable lines went away into the seemingly unending ceiling above and the lines of the second cart were strung beside him, extending up and down without end. There was no sign of Greyback anywhere.

"YOU'RE A COWARD, GREYBACK! DO YOU HEAR? A COWARD!" Underhill shouted into the dark, his voice echoing. "THIS ISN'T OVER YOU CANINE SCUM!"

And he could hear Greyback's laughter, echoing back to him... but there was no telling where from... and soon enough it had stopped, cut off by the sound of a slamming door.

Underhill swore, then shook his head and turned, dropping back through the hole in the lift's ceiling. Suddenly, he realized just how bad of a state he was in and he was limping as he made his way back to the Minister's Office.

Aurors were collecting the men and women that had been knocked out, though a quick glance 'round proved that many of them that had come must have found some way of escape in the commotion for there was only a fraction of what had attacked now laying on the carpet. McKenna was pulling James Potter to a sitting position - James was wincing and clutching his abdomen and Mad Eye Moody's wooden leg would need replacing. He had it off and was rubbing the stub of his knee with a pained expression.

Underhill turned and saw Blagojevic, still laying unconscious but bound by the lift, just a few feet away from the blood-drained body of the Minister for Magic. 

He looked over at Mad Eye.

"We need to declare a state of emergency," Underhill said.

Mad Eye nodded grimly.