"Watch your step there, Evans." James reached out a hand and caught hers, helping to balance her as she stepped over the rail and onto the tracks of the Underground.

Behind them, the light from the Harrow on the Hill station was fading and they were approaching the point in the tunnel where the Metropolitan line split - the left went off to Uxbridge and the right to Watford. They'd been walking for quite some time already, the wandlight all that was illuminating the shadowy walls.

Lily clutched James's hand tightly. "D'you reckon the dogs are alright?" she asked.

James laughed, "Remus may be driven crazy by Sirius by the time we see them next, but I reckon they're alright. They haven't called out on the mirror or anything."

She nodded. But the idea of the pair of them being attacked by inferi terrified her. She could just imagine Sirius casting a reducto and crashing the whole tunnel down on himself and Remus, and she worried about Remus's knees on the terribly uneven tracks.

"It's going to be alright, Evans," James said.

"Says the man leading the way to face an army of angry corpses controlled by an evil tyrant of a wizard," Lily muttered.

James chuckled. "Yes, well. There's that. But you know what, I expect that - true to every other attempt to sack the Ministry the blighter's made in the last seven years - You Know Who'll cuck it all up anyways. Probably got himself some rotted corpses whose arms and legs will fall off half way in and end up with a pile of useless torsos."

"That is utterly disgusting," Lily laughed.

James smiled. He could feel the nervousness radiating through Lily and the best thing he could do was to diffuse it and ease her mind as much as possible. He squeezed her fingers. "Just picture them all laying about the tracks groaning and unable to move," he said, "With ol' Moldyshorts standing over them screaming to get on with it! Hell, he probably would give a whole production of a speech, you know how he does..." James cleared his throat, and imitated Voldemort's voice, "You dare at having a lie-in while attacking London? Surely you know better than to defy me! The stupidest git that ever tried to take over the wizarding world!"

"James!" Lily laughed, and she pushed his shoulder, playfully swatting at him, "You're terrible."

"He tries at casting the cruciatus on them, but they're dead so they don't give a damn that he's doing it..." James joked further, enjoying the sound of Lily's laughter echoing in the tunnel. "He gets frustrated because they aren't listening to him, but like he's the one that's gone and lost concentration and dropped his own bloody curse that's mobilizing the poor bastards."

Suddenly, there was a noise ahead and James looked up, his eyes squinting to see in the dark. "Lumos maxima," he murmured, hoping to brighten his wand to see clearer. The noise was like a scrambling, scraping sound, punctuated by loud squeaks and squeals, but there didn't appear to be anything ahead until -

"Oh my gods!"

James turned about and saw that Lily was looking down at the ground. He cast his wand downward and saw them. "What the bloody --" There on the ground, an absolute flood of rodents were running toward them, a current of writhing furry bodies and long wormy tails. "Watch out, Evans!" He scooped her up, sweeping her legs up from beneath her and holding her body to his chest as she shrieked and the rats began streaming past them, shrieking and jumping over James's trainers. 

The rats were hurrying in such a panic that they piled over one another, plowing along without stopping. Nothing could slow them or get in their way. Lily clutched her arms around James's neck, watching over his shoulder as they scurried away into the dark beyond. It seemed to last forever, the barrage of rodents. James couldn't believe how many of them there were, and how quickly they were running. They were loud, like a hard downpour of rain, a million tiny squeaks added up to a dull roar as their little clawed feet carried them off down the rails. As suddenly as they had come, they were done and left behind was only an eerie, terrible silence.

James slowly lowered Lily to the ground. They stood, looking around, holding each others hands, waiting, listening...

"Well." James said finally, having collected himself a little bit.

"Where do you think they're all going?" Lily asked, her eyes cast in the direction the rats had disappeared in - back the way they'd come.

James hushed her, "Shh. Listen." He tilted his head, closing his eyes as though that would enhance his hearing. 

"To what?" Lily asked. But even as she spoke, she heard it. 

A low, terrible wailing sound that built up and grew, filling the tunnel. The sound of it set the hair on her arms straight up and the humid heat seemed to be sucked out of the air. Lily inched closer to James. She looked up at him as their hands broke apart from one another so James could use his wand arm properly.

"I think we've found the inferi," James said.

"Yes," Lily nodded, "Or, rather, I think they've found us."

"What's on! I've got to get to work! What's all the fuss?!"

An irate muggle man stood at the mouth of the stairway going down into the Underground, flapping his arms about with frustration as he argued with the uniformed official blocking the pathway into the tunnel. 

Fabian Prewett shook his head, "Sorry sir, the Underground's - er - closed.  You'll have to get a car to work today, m'fraid."

"Bollocks!" the man's face was red, "What do you mean the Underground is closed? What rubbish."

"I mean that the train's not running. Been a - um - an accident, hasn't there? Delayed everything all up the whole line." Fabian said, shrugging. "Sorry for the inconvenience." Though, if he were honest, he wasn't really too sorry about this particular muggle's inconvenience. When someone acted like a twat, Fabian thought, they deserved whatever lot they got for it. He hoped the man's shiny shoes would give him blisters on his toes.

He was still shooing them off when there came up the stairs a hoard of squealing rats.

"Blimey!" he yelled, jumping aside as the stream of them went streaking off into the above-ground station entrance, rushing along toward overground platforms and the shops that dotted the cavernous hall the underground tunnel let out to. Fabian raised an eyebrow as people started screaming and bolting about, running from the rats. "Well," he muttered, "That's one way to keep'em occupied, at any rate." Quickly, while nobody was looking his direction, he discreetly magicked a nice big blockade with a sign which read TRAINS OUT OF ORDER and hurried quickly down the long, narrow stairwell into the Underground.

"There you are, what the bloody hell took you so long?" Gideon demanded as Fabian arrived on the underground platform.

Fabian waved his arms back toward the stairwell, "Oi, did you not see the entire rat population of Europe run by here just a moment ago? Think that might be more interesting than where I've been, maybe? Also, muggles are very angry when you tell them the trains are shot."

Gideon said, "Well, they are sort of their version of a floo network. You'd be pisser too if the floo was shot."

"You know I hate the floo," Fabian replied, "Dirty, shoddy way to travel. Much better to disapparate."

"Yeah, well the muggles don't have any disapparation, do they?" Gideon said.

"So are you going to just ignore the rats, then?"

"I saw them," Gideon replied. 

"Oh did you now? And they don't seem important to you?"

"I rather thought that what they were running from might be more important."

"An excellent point," Fabian relented. "Which way'd they hail from?"

"Down that way," Gideon pointed and the pair of aurors jumped down onto the tracks.

They were just about to head into the dark tunnel to their right when they heard something to the left and turned to look. Coming closer through the dark was -- "Is that a Patronus?" Fabian asked, stopped in his tracks.

Gideon squinted, "A - a wolf patronus?"

Fabian thought for a moment, then both twins together said, "Remus Lupin!"

They sprinted toward the patronus, drawing their own wands as they went. At first, the darkness they were plunging into seemed to be just from being in the underground tunnel, but it was worse than that, thicker, too, they found, as their illuminated wands seemed to do nothing to ward off the blackness. Then they felt the cold, heard the rasping breath and the movement in the air.

"Dementors?" Fabian gasped. "In London?"

"Nearly as unbelievable as the Inferi, ey?" Gideon asked. He slashed his wand and his patronus erupted in a shine of white light, followed a second later by Fabian's. They ran together, ducking below the line of sweeping cloaks that hovered, filling the air, following yet another sound - a quiet, melodic sound.

"Wild thing... you make everything groovy..." 

"Remus? Remus Lupin?" Gideon cried into the pale blue light as they approached, and the light of the three patronuses meeting in the middle cast a shimmery glow over the twins and over the limping form of Remus Lupin, weighted down by a panic-gripped Sirius Black. "C'mon!" Gideon said, waving for them, "We've got them at bay, hurry now." 

Remus had never been so thankful to see two faces in his life. He felt like crying. "Sirius, Sirius - look, it's the Prewett twins - they've found us. We're alright." Renewed by the excitement of seeing them, Remus shrugged Sirius up higher on his shoulder with new resolve and staggered toward the aurors. 

"Where the hell did they all come from?" Fabian asked, looking 'round at the dementors.

"Watford, if the map's right," Remus replied. "There's inferi in London."

"Yes we've heard," Gideon said. 

"Underhill's told us," Fabian added. 

"We didn't know about these blighters, though," Gideon jerked his chin toward the canopy of dark cloaks that hovered above them.

"Neither did we," Remus said.

When they were close enough, Fabian grabbed hold of Sirius, relieving Remus of the weight, which Remus's knees were quite thankful for. Sirius was still shaking, still clutching at his heart.

"Is he alright? Did they try at kissing him?" Fabian asked, worried.

"He's had a bad experience with them," Remus explained, "You remember. In Fifth Year, when they were guarding the school. Nasty one really affected him. He's not done well with them since."

"Poor bloke," Fabian said. "Don't worry, mate, we'll get you out of here and into a mug of chocolate in a jiffy."

They moved together in a cluster, the patronuses moving about them in a circle, holding off the dementors, until they reached the platform and Fabian climbed up from the rails and pulled Sirius, then Remus along before helping his brother up as well. The dementors continued to press against the shield, but Gideon doubled down and tried at blasting them back, pushing the gliding figures into the tunnel as best he could. "Fabby," he called over his shoulder, "Get Underhill. We need back up for this."

Fabian nodded and hurried to deposit Sirius onto a bench by the stairs that led up into the overground station. Remus sank onto the bench beside him, rubbing his knees with one hand and hugging Sirius to him with the other arm. "It's alright," Remus said quietly. "It'll be alright."

Fabian send a messenger patronous into the air and it took off, flying away like a shimmery spark, out of the Underground to Underhill.

An alarm went off.

Fabian looked up, covering his ears, wand clenched in his fist. The alarm was piercing, loud, and made the lights seem to flash all around them. "What the hell is that?" he shouted.

Gideon was so stunned by it that he nearly lost his footing against the dementors, only just barely catching it again before they would have come streaming out of the tunnel. 

"Fire alarm," Remus replied looking up at the flashing lanterns. 

"Bloody hell, now there's something on fire, too?" Gideon asked.

"So let me get this straight - we have hoards of rats, swarms of dementors, and now fire alarms going off - anything else to add to the list of horrors we're all encountering now?" Fabian demanded loudly.

"Inferi," answered Remus.

"Oh, right, I forgot about them," Fabian said.