Re: Trio, Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Peter Pettigrew
Snape held his wand stiffly out to his side as he made his way quickly down into the lower levels of the Ministry, ever deeper into the emptying halls on a sham hunt for Shacklebolt. He might not have bothered, had he not had some not-quite-expected company. If he had been alone, he would have rejoined his colleagues with an explanation approximating the truth - the man had been warned off somehow, and was nowhere to be found. If he had any brains at all, he'd be miles away. No point in looking for him; better just to move on and accomplish what they could. But Pettigrew, the wretched little man, had shown up just as he was smashing in Shacklebolt's office door - and it would have looked suspicious not to try to locate the man at all. Anyhow, the more excuses he had not to be present as the lot of them were doing in all the upper level of the Ministry, the better. He had no desire to become known for certain as Voldemort's man. As much as he hated his job, he rather liked his home, and didn't mean to lose it.
He stopped before the series of doorways that led into the various subdepartments at Mysteries. He had never spent any time here. He had the unpleasant suspicion that if he entered one of them, his way back out onto the street would suddenly be much more complicated. - But he wouldn't mind losing Pettigrew to the maze that surely lay inside. His presence was always a little insulting; Snape remembered the way he'd always clung to Black and Potter, and could not - for the life of him - see why he ought to deserve the same treatment. He crossed his arms over his chest, shrugging aside the sleeves of his robe. "Pick a door," he said, impatiently. He stared deliberately ahead as the hunched little man beside him looked up suspiciously.
"Why would he have gone this way?" His wand arm was trembling, and his other hand was scratching nervously at his scalp.
"Because he knows his way around, you idiot. And he knows we don't. He means to lose us. Now pick a door."
Even Pettigrew seemed unwilling to follow that logic. He looked sidelong up at Snape, chewing obliviously at his lip. "Maybe," he began, his voice quavering, "We'd better just go back upstairs - they'll be needing help, still - he's not so special, is he, I mean - ?" He ended with a squeak as Snape prodded him harshly in the shoulder with the tip of his wand, his mouth twisting up into a smile for the first time that night.
"No," he said softly, "I think we'd better not." He shoved Pettigrew towards the far left door, and watched him stumble as he tried to keep from falling into it. "Pick one before I pick one for you."
It was all too easy, obviously. Too easy by far. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were halfway to the Department of Mysteries again when the first panicked Ministry employee - a red-faced plump woman who looked frantic and was calling for someone called 'Louise' - ran past them with her wand drawn. Hermione had been trying so hard to listen for signs that they'd been found that she'd been ignoring that the entire floor had been far too quiet. And now there was something like a crash, and the red-faced woman looking for her friend was also mumbling something about 'masks' and 'dark', and it all clicked too quickly.
"We need to run," Hermione said, and she didn't wait for Harry or Ron to answer, just started at a run toward the Department of Mysteries, not worrying now if they were seen or not. Because if there were Death Eaters here, while they had the Horcrux with them, it would be far, far too easy for it to fall into the wrong hands again.
She was sure that Harry was with them still, she could feel the cloak brushing against her every few steps and could hear him breathing. She could hear Ron's footsteps behind them both in the corridor as they ran toward their escape.