Rescue Mission
Three figures walk across the grass grounds of Hogwarts castle, illuminated by the setting orange sun, despite the dark shadows falling onto them from the many windows of the massive building. One walks behind the other two but not by much, to ensure that the stumbling teens before her don’t try to run off her trail. The male of the group, distinguishable by his height, looks up at the windows from which Draco watches him, and while realistically he knows Harry could never see him from that far away, he still inches back into the curtains just slightly.
This was his chance. Umbridge was out of the castle, and he might never get the opportunity to sneak down to the Room of Requirement on such an eventful night again.
He turned and hurried the rest of the way up the stairs to the fourth-floor, and when he rounded the corner to the tapestry of the ballet-trolls, who, so familiar with him by now, waved at his presence, he pulled his H.O.O.D. coin from within his pocket. Only, it didn’t serve the purpose Hermione had given it of alerting people when meetings were anymore, but rather as a means to talk to his father, and other Death Eaters, to whom he had sent duplicated coins. Tonight, particularly, it would be their way of communicating while their forces were split between the Ministry and Hogwarts.
The coin glowed bright, and while it was dim enough that in daylight would be barely noticeable, in this dark, abandoned hall, with the lights out for the night despite it only being dinner time - curfew would still be quick to come - it illuminated his face up in yellow as he paced the length of the blank wall before him, tapping his wand so that the numerals indicating the serial number of the coin rearranged themselves into Arithmancy code.
Ready. Estimated time of arrival?
The door appeared and Draco wasted no time in opening it and weaving his way through the maze of junk before him, only hesitating when the coin felt warm in his palm. He raised his hand to look down, and couldn’t help but gulp.
Wait until confirmation.
Draco didn’t have a moment to fear what those words meant - he knew. Confirmation that Harry and his friends had reached the Ministry of Magic. Confirmation that all was going according to plan. That could take hours, but Draco had waited this long hadn’t he? Waiting as fear and guilt ran through his bloodstream, flooding out the adrenaline he had felt before at the end of exams. He’d waited so long now, he could wait a little longer.
He sunk to the floor with the long dried tears he had shed on these very floors. Now… Now he was left with the inevitable future before him; he had finally reached the moment that he had known was coming since all those months ago in the darkness of the Malfoy Manor dungeons. The choice he’d known he’d have to make eventually, and at one time seemed far off by the impossibility of fixing this Vanishing Cabinet, was now a step away, down one crossroads, or another.
Dumbledore, or his parents?
The choice was easy, it just had to be.
But for now, he’d wait.
-*-*-*-
Harry’s fingernails dug deep into the bark of the tree he was ducked behind, not daring to press his stinging palms against it. The amount of falls he’d taken in this thick, all too sharp and branch-filled forest guaranteed he had splinters and scabs, but he was too focused on the horrific scene before him to really care for the pain in his hands, or knees for that matter.
Not a word of Hermione’s frightening description of Grawp could have prepared Harry for this massive, childlike figure before him, picking up Centaurs like toys and tossing them out of his way in his desperate search for Hagrid. Harry could see blood and he could hear screams, but at this point, he couldn’t tell the difference between the Giant’s howls, and the Centaurs shouts.
“Smart plan,” Harry glanced over at Hermione, crouched and shaking with a thin, bloody cut running straight through her robe sleeve as she too gazed up at the scene, certainly regretting what she’d done. “Really smart plan. Where do we go from here?”
She looked over at him, held out her hand, and kept a face of tight determination. “We run.” She declared and he nodded, taking the hand and turning tail to run through the trees as fast as their legs were carrying them, so that the sounds of the fight between Giant and Centaurs faded away, as did the galloping footsteps of the running half-man half-horses.
Harry’s lungs were burning more than his scar was throbbing by the time they finally reached the sunnier parts of the trees, and Hermione must have been the same because she collapsed against a rock and he let himself fall to his knees on the grassy ground, glancing down at his palms which, as expected, were dirty with blood and dirt, before feeling a sudden sharp jab of pain in his skull and clutching his scar.
“Hermione -” He winced with gritted teeth and met her gaze, which looked sick with worry as she attempted to steady her racing breaths. “Hermione… What’re we going to do?”
She sighed. “We have to go back to the castle.” Her voice was still faint with the struggle for breath, but resolute all the same. Harry didn’t care; “By the time we’ve done that, Sirius’ll probably be dead!”
“Well, we can’t do anything without wands,” Hermione stood up and looked down at him, touching her arm then wincing and dropping her hand again, probably from the sting of the cut. “Anyway, Harry, how exactly were you planning to get all the way to London?”
“Yeah, we were just wondering that.” In an instant, Harry and Hermione whipped around and tensed for a fight defensively, Harry leaping to his feet despite the instant pain in his no doubt scraped up knees, only to watch with grins forming on their lips as Ron stepped out from a bush with his own triumphant smirk, Ginny following close behind and helping Luna out and then Neville, while Cedric and Pansy stepped out on Ron’s other side. They all looked a bit beat up, further than they had when dragged into Umbridge’s office, but thoroughly proud with whatever they’d done to get out of there. All except Pansy, who had her arms crossed, looked very grumpy.
“So,” Ron held out two wands to his friends, winking at a certain bushy haired girl as he asked, “had any ideas?”
“How did you get away?” Harry immediately asked, stunned, and Ron shrugged it off nonchalantly, saying, “Couple of Stunners, a Disarming Charm, Neville brought off a really nice little Impediment Jinx,” Ginny punched him in the arm and he laughed, “And yeah, Gin got Pucey with that Bat Bogey Hex of hers. It wasn’t all that difficult though - believe it or not, Smith, Crabbe, and Goyle actually wanted to help us.”
“I believe it,” Harry said honestly, because he knew from Draco his oldest friends weren’t what they used to be, and Zacharias had looked pretty guilty when they left.
“What’ve you done with Umbridge?” Ron asked and Hermione winced as Harry explained, “She got carried away. By a herd of Centaurs.”
“And they left you behind?” Ginny asked, clearly not believing it as much as Harry couldn’t that he was still alive.
“No, they got chased off by Grawp,” he explained, while Luna glanced up with an interested look and asked, “Who’s Grawp?” Getting a prompt, “Hagrid’s little brother,” response from Ron before he went straight to business with, “Never mind that now. Harry, what did you find out in the fire? Has You-Know-Who got Sirius or-?” With a sudden realization, Harry remembered he’d never gotten a chance to tell his friends what he’d seen, not even Hermione.
“Yes, he wasn’t there. But I’m sure Sirius is still alive, though I can't see how we’re going to get there to help him.”
A long moment then, “Well, we’ll have to fly, won’t we?” Luna stated as if it was obvious, which it most certainly was not.
“OK,” He turned to glare at her, “First of all, ‘we’ aren’t doing anything if you’re including yourself n that, and second of all, Ron, Cedric and I are the only ones with broomsticks so -”
“I’ve got a broom!” Ginny declared a fact Harry was just learning in that moment, to which Ron angrily said out of the corner of his mouth, “Yeah, but you’re not coming.” and got a little sister with a face bearing a startlingly and quite frightening resemblance to Fred and George in response. “Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!”
“You’re too -” Harry began, but it of course was a mistake because all too quickly Ginny bit back at him with, “I’m three years older than you were when you fought You-Know-Who over the Philosopher's Stone, and it's because of me that Pucey's stuck back in Umbridge's office with giant flying bogies attacking him -"
“Yeah, but -”
“We were all in the HOOD together,” Neville said, looking Harry straight in the eye though his voice was quiet. “It was all supposed to be about fighting You-Know-Who, wasn't it? And this is the first chance we've had to do something real - or was that all just a game or something?”
“No - of course it wasn’t -”
“So why won’t you let us fight?” Pansy asked and, seeing Harry’s eyes flick to her, took advantage of his attention, stepping forward and uncrossing her arms. “Look, when I joined this… Defense of Hogwarts I didn’t… I didn’t know what I was looking for in it, really. I mean, I guess I wanted to annoy you guys, and annoying that Macmillan kid on the train was fun, but for some reason hearing all those things Draco told the other Slytherins about what this group could do… I saw… Hope. Hope that I had a future beyond the Death Eaters my friends and I’s parents strived to be. A future beyond that monster. A future where I could actually fight, and before this, I never thought I’d be able to.” Her eyes had welled up, so she wiped them furiously, batting away Cedric’s helpful hand before looking Harry straight in the eye once more, declaring, “Whether you like it or not, we’re coming, because you taught us all those months in the Room for a reason, and that reason was to fight. I’m ready now, so let’s go fight.”
They stood in silence for only a moment, stunned by Pansy’s strong words, before Neville raised a fist up, slowly and awkwardly, and said, “Let’s fight.”
Cedric placed his hand on the younger boy's shoulder and said as well, “Let’s fight.” Luna smiled happily and brightly said, “Let’s fight!” to which Ginny grinned then smirked up in her big brother’s face and said, “Let’s fight.”
Harry frowned, meeting Ron’s eye with the resignation that they were never leaving without these kids now, but he didn’t feel quite happy about going with them. At least Cedric would have some experience as a Hogwarts Champion.
“Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway, because we still don’t know how to get there -”
“I thought we’d settled that,” Luna threw her arms up, looking a bit grumpy that no one had listened to her, “We’re flying!” Ron gritted his teeth and jabbed a finger at her, “Look, you might be able to fly without a broomstick but the rest of us can’t sprout wings whenever we -”
“There are ways of flying other than with broomsticks,” Luna cut him off, smiling dazedly and seemingly not looking at him anymore. Ron didn’t seem to care, continuing, “I s’pose we’re going to ride on the back of the Kacky Snorgle or whatever it is?”
“The Crumple-Horned Snorkack can’t fly,” Luna raised her chin to proudly declare, “but they can,” She pointed a finger behind Ron, “and Hagrid says they’re very good at finding places their riders are looking for.”
Harry spun around and gaped when he was met with two Thestrals, white eyes boring into him and so interested they seemed to have understood every word of their conversation. In a moment, Harry felt full of hope again, smiling and stepping closer to one of the reptilian horses. “Yes!” He stretched out his hand to touch their manes as they tossed them back, and wondered how he could have ever thought them ugly.
“Is it those mad horse things?” Ron tried to keep his voice strong, but he now sounded a little uncertain, turning to try and find the Thestral, staring at the point Harry was patting. “Those ones you can’t see unless you’ve watched someone snuff it?”
“Yeah,” Harry said, dazed in the wonder of the beautiful creatures. “How many?” “Just two.” “Well, we need three,” Hermione said, as Cedric stepped forward and raised a hand to pet the nose of the one beside Harry, who whipped around in surprise.
“Marvelous creatures, aren’t they, Thestrals?” He asked, turning and giving the younger boy a half smile, who closed his mouth and nodded in response. “Yeah… real marvelous..”
“Um, I believe we actually need eight,” Pansy cut in, coughing into her fist and now Harry spun around, broken out of his daze to angrily declare, “Don’t be stupid, we can’t all go! Look, you five,” he pointed at Neville, Ginny, Luna, Pansy, and finally Cedric now frowning down at him. “You’re not involved in this, you’re not -”
He was cut off by their protests and the stinging in his scar which reminded him they were on a tight schedule so if they were ever getting off school grounds, much less to the Ministry, it had to be now. “OK, fine, it's your choice, but unless we can find more Thestrals you're not going to be able -”
“Oh, more of them will come,” Ginny said with no hesitation and as if it was obvious and, when Harry exasperatedly asked, “What makes you think that?” He turned to eye him and Hermione up and down and said, “Because, in case you hadn't noticed, you and Hermione are both covered in blood and we know Hagrid lures Thestrals with raw meat. That’s probably why these two turned up in the first place.”
As if to answer her theory, Harry felt a tug on his robes and turned to see the Thestral he had been petting was now licking his sleeve, which was still damp from the droplets of Grawp’s blood that had fallen onto him in the chaos. He smirked, an idea formulating in his brain.
“OK, then, Ron and I will take these two and go ahead, and Hermione can stay here with you three and she’ll attract more Thestrals -” Immediately, he felt Hermione in his ear and he looked down to see her shouting, “I’m not staying behind!” at him. He opened his mouth to reply then,
“There’s no need,” Luna smiled, pointing again towards the trees. “Look, here come more now… you two must really smell…” Sure enough, six or seven Thestrals could be spotted by he, Luna, Neville, and apparently now Cedric, pushing through the trees, flapping their wings as if already all too eager to fly them to the school. Harry sighed as he gazed into a certain one's eyes, which were narrowed upon him. Clearly, there was no trying to get around it; they were all going.
“Alright, pick one and get on, then.”
Within minutes, Harry, Neville, and Cedric had all found comfortable ways to settle themselves onto three of the Thestrals' backs while Luna had slid herself easily onto a fourth, sitting up straight and looking quite comfortable while the other girls plus Ron gazed up at them in horror. Understandably, as Harry assumed to them it looked like they were floating midair.
“How're we supposed to get on?” Ron pointed on, raising his hand like a student asking a teacher a question. “When we can’t see the things?” All too eager to help, Luna said, “Oh, it’s easy,” and slid off her Thestral, marching forwards to take Ginny by the hand and lead her, Hermione, Pansy, and Ron forward. “Come here…”
One by one, they were all helped onto the back of a Thestral, instructing them to hold onto the black manes tight, before climbing onto her own side-saddle once more.
“This is mad.” Ron stated, staring forward with a blank, numb look on his face as he ran a hand up and down the horse’s neck. “Mad… if I could just see it -”
“You'd better hope it stays invisible,” Harry gave him a quick, dark glance and Ron swallowed hard, but then Hermione leaned over to stretch out her hand, and he took it, squeezing lightly. Harry frowned, tightened his grip on his Thestral’s mane. “We're all ready, then?”
They all nodded, and he leaned forward, whispering, “OK…” before bending down to where he thought the Thestrals' ears might be, hidden beneath their manes, to say, “Ministry of Magic, London. If you know - er - where to go…” He felt a hand on his arm, looked up, and smiled with relief to find Cedric’s kind eyes looking at him, and murmuring in his own Thestral’s ear, “Visitor’s Entrance, please.”
It only took a moment for all eight Thestrals to flap their great big wings, and then they were rising into the air, off to the Ministry, and off to Sirius. And Harry realized, as branches of the trees scratched at open skin and they soared into a blood-red sunset, that there really was no going back now.
-*-*-*-
Hogwarts was in chaos. Students had just been flooding out of the Great Hall and on their way to their dormitories when at least four Death Eaters came out of every hallway, rapidly firing curses to knock down portraits and chandeliers, aiming only to create enough chaos that any ally to Albus Dumbledore nearby would have no choice but to call for aid.
Their Headmistress was gone, they were down two Professors, including a Head of House, so of course the students fell into chaos as well, screaming and running every which way for safety from the falling projectiles, blast of fire and ice, or even knives being thrown their way. Anything that wasn’t a death sentence, as the Dark Lord had been very strict in his instructions that they were not to risk young, susceptible magical blood being spilled, and Draco hadn’t been in any mood to challenge that order.
It took ten minutes, at most, for Severus Snape to send a messenger Patronus to Dumbledore, but in that time Draco had also begun to make his way up the stairs to the Astronomy Tower, Gibbon and Rowle trailing behind, dragging a screaming and crying boy he had noted to be a muggleborn between them.
He paused at the entrance, feeling as if his cold blood was freezing him now, but managing to resolutely order Gibbon, “Now.” causing the other Death Eater to grin and point his wand out a window, calling out, “Morsmordre!” and shattering the window upon impact.
Dennis Creevey let out a vicious howl of agony as Rowle drove a knife down his arm and Draco slammed the doors to the topmost chamber of the tower open, letting the two men throw the little Gryffindor inside, screaming bloody murder as his blood drenched the wood floors beneath him, before slamming the doors shut.
It was most certain to anyone who knew anything about Dumbledore that he would have to come now, for this boy's life, and for the countless other muggle-borns and even half-bloods of the school, not to mention the very school itself. All Draco had left to do now, as the two Death Eaters wished him luck through gritted, yellowed teeth before charging back downstairs to the chaos below, was wait.
Behind the window, a crack of thunder sounded, followed by a clash of lightning.
-*-*-*-
He’s still alive, he's still fighting, I can feel it…
If Voldemort decided Sirius was not going to crack…
I'd know…
The Thestral touched solid ground surprisingly lightly and as Harry slid off its back, he felt a rush of relief of finally having arrived at their destination, but was immediately filled with dread once more as he gazed at their surroundings, and the various Thestrals touched ground behind him.
He hadn’t a clue where they were, but he very much doubted it was the ‘Visitor’s Entrance’ Cedric had told the Thestrals to take them too.
“Er - sorry Luna but I don’t think the Thestrals are as smart as you say,” He turned to tell his companions, who were sliding, falling, or scrambling off of the backs of their own horses. “Because this is not the Ministry of Magic.”
“Well,” Hermione frowned, peering around at the dark, shabby looking alleyway they had landed in. “You don’t know. None of us have seen the Ministry have we? This might just be -”
“I’ve seen it,” Cedric practically hopped of his own Thestral, with the air of the jockish boy Harry had first met nearly two years ago on the way to the Quidditch World Cup, and jogged forwards ahead of them before turning and gesturing a hand forwards for them to follow, calling, “Just follow my lead.” and leading them to a heavily vandalized looking telephone booth. It even looked to be missing windows.
Harry kept his mouth shut only because he was getting slightly concerned as Cedric had them all shoved inside the tiny box a moment later. First he does terribly at Quidditch and now thinks the Ministry of Magic is inside a muggle telephone booth? Had he hit his head in the Fourth Task too?
Harry was nearest Cedric, pushed against the glass with Hermione on his other side and crammed in the corner, and could barely see him dialing numbers into the receiver, though he didn’t know which. He must have been successful, though his arm could only move a fraction in the tight space, however, as suddenly, a cool female voice sounded inside the box.
“Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business.”
Cedric glanced over at Harry, who pushed his smushed face off the glass as much as he could to declare quickly, “Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, Cedric Diggory, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, and Pansy Parkinson” - he sucked in a deep breath because damn that was a lot of names - “we’re here to save someone, unless your Ministry can do it first!” Cedric laughed a little under his breath at that.
“Thank you. Visitors, please take the badges and attach them to the front of your robes.” Over eight badges slid out of a chute that coins would usually appear in, and Cedric, who was still closest, scooped them up and handed them to everybody, his tall frame able to reach them all easily. Harry pinned his own to his chest, but couldn’t find it in his stressed state to smirk at the title; “Harry Potter, Rescue Mission.”
“Visitors to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wands for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium.”
“Fine! Now can we move?” As if on cue, the floor of the telephone box began to shake, sliding down, down, below the pavement, so that Harry’s view of the shabby street became smaller and smaller, until all they could see was darkness and all they could hear was the grinding noise of them sinking deeper into the dirt. Until finally, a chink of golden light illuminated their feet and, widening, rose up each of their bodies, before reaching the tip of his hair and vanishing.
“The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening.” The door swung open, and Neville, Luna, and Ginny practically fell out, Ron and Pansy stumbling out after and leaving Cedric, Harry, and Hermione to step out after that into what Harry assumed to be the Atrium.
The Atrium had dark, highly-polished floors, peacock blue ceilings with glowing symbols that rotated as if serving as a giant notice board, not unlike that of an airport, and the two walls on either side of them had countless golden fireplaces built into them, with baskets of Floo Powder set beside. A statue of a woman beside the closest one turned its head to Harry and declared, “You can’t imagine how inconvenient travel was before I invented Floo Powder.” In quite possibly the most annoying voice he’d ever heard, if Umbridge didn’t exist of course.
The Atrium was frighteningly quiet other than the statue’s obnoxious voice, however, and the rushing water of a large golden fountain before them, laden with statues of a witch and wizard, a Centaur, a Goblin, and a House-Elf on top of a clear, glistening pool of water.
“Come on,” Harry said quietly, and led them all down the halls, suddenly feeling as if he knew exactly where he was going and letting his dreams (or nightmares, what have you) guide him to the Department of Mysteries.
The ominous feeling that had filled the empty Atrium halls increased within Harry as they reached the lifts and Cedric jabbed in the number nine button, for the Department of Mysteries, and they all listened in bated breaths to the clanging and clattering of the lift taking them down, feeling they were incredibly loud though he was sure it was only because of the stark contrast to the startlingly quiet building, or whatever this underground fortress could be called.
“Department of Mysteries.” That same cool female voice from the telephone booth said, and the grilles of the lift slid open, allowing the eight of them to step into the corridor, which was as eerie as the rest of the Ministry, but now lit with torches, which flickered from the rush of air at their arrival out of the lift. Harry turned and spotted the plain black door, and couldn’t help but smile to himself, because this was it. This thing that had haunted his dreams for months and months was here, before him, close enough to touch.
Cedric touched his shoulder and he turned around to look up at him. “You know where to go from here?” He nodded. “Good, then I think I should go find Fudge, or some Ministry official who believes us. But I don’t think you - we can do this on our own.” Harry was already shaking his head before he finished speaking.
“No, you wanted to come, you stick with it. We can’t split up,” But even as he said those words, Harry was suddenly getting all too familiar feelings of the maze. Of these polished walls turning green and vicious looking, and of the boy before him growing slightly longer, darker hair and a small stubble. Of Viktor, insisting to come with him…
Maybe splitting up was the best idea.
“Actually…” He looked down, then grabbed Cedric by the arms and looked him straight in the eye. “Find Fudge, and bring him down here. Don’t waste a moment with anything else. Even if someone stops you, or looks trustworthy, don’t trust it. Just find the Minister, alright?” Cedric grinned a little. “You know, I am two years older than you?”
Harry wished he’d be able to laugh. “Go.” He said sternly and Cedric nodded and backed away, back into the lift where he pressed a button and nodded once more sternly to them, then vanishing with a jolt and rising from the lift.
Harry turned to face the door once more, jaw set tight. “Let’s go,” he whispered, and all seven of them moved forward through the dark and down the corridor. Once more, when they reached the door, Harry stopped and hesitated over splitting up. “Look… Maybe… maybe a couple of people should stay here as a - as a lookout, for Cedric and Fudge! And -”
“And how're we going to let you know something's coming?” asked Ginny, her eyebrows raised. “You could be miles away.” “I don’t think a Death Eater would take kindly to ‘Weasley Is Our King.’” Pansy added. “We’re coming with you, Harry,” said Neville and Ron firmly declared, “Let’s get on with it.”
And so, with a heavy sigh, Harry pushed open the door and stepped inside, just as he had in his dream, his friends following close behind.
First they arrived in the chamber where everything was black, including the floor and ceiling, which was set with identical and unmarked doors, without even a handle in sight. There were torches here, too, except now they burned blue, their reflected light on the marble floor making it look as if they were walking on the Black Lake. When Neville shut the door, they were left in darkness, the blue torches too dim for proper light, and that darkness didn’t help the feeling of uncertainty Harry now felt.
It was one thing to walk through this place in dreams, he was beginning to realize, and another for it to be real. This room had never given him cause for trouble before, passing by within seconds, but now their were a dozen doors before him to choose from, and just as he pondered this the room was filled with a loud rumbling noise, much louder than the lift or the grinding of the telephone booth, and the candles and doors began to move sideways, as if the whole room was rotating.
Thankfully, the floor bid them to stay grounded to their feet, even as the wall sped up, and the blue flames spun to look like bright lines twirling around them, before, all too suddenly, the rumbling stopped and the room froze once more, leaving them dazed and dizzy, blue streaks burned into their eyes.
“What was that about?” He felt Ron whisper into his ear, to which Ginny whispered back, in a hushed voice that was just as frightened as his, “I think it was to stop us knowing which door we came in through.”
It was a good theory, because Harry was currently realizing, to his horror, that he really did not know which door to choose, for not only were they mixed up but he couldn’t even identify the one they had walked through, the room so dark and black. It was like finding a needle in a haystack, but a needle that was disguised to look exactly like the rest of the hay strands.
“How’re we going to get back out?” Neville pointed out, shuffling from foot to foot though Harry only gritted his teeth and held his wand a little tighter. “Well, that doesn't matter now,” He tried his best to sound a lot stronger in confidence than he felt at the moment. His dream hadn’t included the room rotating, and he couldn’t imagine what else he missed and would have to be faced with. “we won't need to get out till we've found Sirius -” It was as if he was trying to convince himself of those words.
“Don't go calling for him, though!” Hermione interrupted, though Harry knew a lot better than to shout out into the alarmingly quiet Department of Mysteries.
“Where do we go, then, Harry?”
“I don't -” Harry swallowed tightly. Damn Hermione making him the leader of the Hogwarts Order of Defense. Surely they wouldn’t have listened to him so well if he’d been… secretary, or something. “In the dreams I went through the door at the end of the corridor from the lifts into a dark room - that's this one - and then I went through another door into a room that kind of… glitters. We should try a few doors, I'll know the right way when I see it. C'mon.”
So, seeing nothing for it in standing here, Harry marched on to the door before them and pushed open the door.
He couldn’t tell if the room before him was really this bright or if the last one was just dark, but he did know this was most certainly not the room from his dream, with lamps hanging on golden chains and not glittering and shimmering lights illuminating the room. Not to mention the very obvious and very large glass tank of deep green liquid, bigger than even the Prefect’s bath, which Harry knew to be the size of a swimming pool. A number of strange looking pearly-white objects floated inside of it.
“What’re those things?” Harry shook his head at Ron’s question. “Dunno.”
“Are they fish?” Ginny breathed beside him and Luna exclaimed, “Aquavirius Maggots!” causing Pansy to roll her eyes and mutter, “Not this again…” “Dad said the Ministry were breeding -”
“No,” Hermione stepped forward, voice a bit odd and maybe dazed sounding. “They’re brains.”
“Brains?”
“Yes…” Hermione did not seem that interested in Ron’s apparent horror, and instead in the tank before her, as she again stepped closer to it. “I wonder what they’re doing with them?” Harry couldn’t say the same.
“Let's get out of here,” He instead ordered, backing away from the place. “This isn't right, we need to try another door.”
“But there are doors here,” Pansy pointed out, gesturing along the walls at, what Harry saw to his horror to be, several doors. This place was a maze he wished to not have to stay much longer in.
“In my dream I went through that dark room into the second one, and no rooms or doors in between. I think we should go back and try from there.”
But the glittering lights weren’t in the next room, which was much larger, sloped down into a stone pit some twenty feet deep and filled with benches and steps that made it look like an amphitheater, or, Harry remembered with an involuntary shiver, the courtroom to which Barty Crouch Jr had been tried and sentenced to prison alongside the Lestranges. But, thankfully, these stone room did not have four chained chairs at the bottom or even a pedestal from which a judge reigned, but a dais that matched the stone of the rest of the room, with an old, cracked, and ancient looking archway, hung with a tattered veil that blew very slightly, though Harry felt no wind.
Harry's first thought was that maybe someone might be hiding behind that veil, and so he jumped down a bench and called out, “Who’s there?” though he got no response, even as the veil continued to sway and Hermione whispered to him, “Careful!” But it was his turn to be entranced, like she had with the brains, as he jumped the benches one by one, heading for the bottom of the pit, footsteps echoing loudly in the eerie silence.
Now that he stood before it, the archway looked much taller, and he could see the veil still swaying gently, as if somebody had just passed through it.
“Sirius?” Harry whispered to the thing, and took a step closer, filled with the eerie dread that someone was hiding behind the veil, just on the other side, if he could just reach them… He gripped his wand tight and did a circle around the edge of the dais, not daring to step onto it and even closer to the mysterious archway, but could see there wasn’t anyone hiding.
“Let’s go,” He could hear Hermione calling, but refused to turn his head from the archway. “This isn’t right, Harry, come on, let’s go.” Her voice was shaky and scared, not at all odd like it had been with the brains, but Harry couldn’t understand why. The archway held something beautiful, he could tell, no matter how old it might appear, and now he felt urged to climb up that dais. Urged to reach out for the veil, and walk right through it.
“Harry, let’s go, OK?” Hermione’s voice was stronger, now, as seemingly she had found a way to steady it, but Harry’s urge to take another step was strong too, even as he muttered, “OK.”
He could hear whispering, and murmuring. Voices just on the other side…
“What are you saying?” He called into the archway, yet his voice echoed around him and he didn’t feel that they had heard.
“Nobody’s talking, Harry!” She was beside him now, he ignored her.
“Someone’s whispering behind there,” So he moved out of her reach and again around the dais, frowning up at the shimmering veil. “Is that you, Ron?”
“I’m right here, mate.”
“Can’t anyone else hear it?” He called out, because now those voices were louder, and now his foot was on the dais, and he needed to know why he’d put it there, and what was going on. Where was Sirius?
“I can hear them too,” Now Luna was at his side, gazing up at the veil just as he was. “There are people in there!”
“What do you mean, ‘in there’? There isn’t any ‘in there’, it’s just an archway, there’s no room for anybody to be there. Harry, stop it, come away -” She grabbed him by the arm, he whipped it back, and so she gave an exasperated sigh, hissing in his ear, “Harry, we are supposed to be here for Sirius!”
“Sirius…” Where was Sirius? “Yeah…”
Sirius. He was captured, and being tortured at that very moment, while he was stuck standing here, hearing mysterious voices in an archway that couldn’t possibly have people hiding in it. Hermione was right.
“Let’s go,” He turned and said, and jogged his way back up the steps, Hermione, Ron, and Luna close behind, back up to where Neville, Ginny, and Pansy were waiting and looking horrified, and through the door to the pitch black chamber.
The next door couldn’t be opened by any lock or charm they tried, even with Sirius’s knife, which got melted and destroyed due to it, but thank Merlin the next one opened and he finally got the rush of deja vu he had been looking for as they stepped into a room shining with glimmering and glittering lights. There were clocks everywhere you looked, from large to small, grandfather and carriage, hanging or standing in spaces along or on top of desks, so that their ears were filled with a pounding ticking. And that diamond-bright light he now saw the source of; a crystalline ginormous bell jar standing at the farthest end of the room.
“This way!” Harry’s heart was beating so fast he was sure now that it would leap from his chest in the excitement that they were back on track at last, almost to Sirius. Ginny stopped to point at the heart of the jar, where a jewel-bright egg sat and cracked, allowing a bird to emerge, but as if watching Fawkes age in sped up time, it’s feathers withered and fell and the bird fell when it bore no more, only to become enclosed once more in its egg. Harry moved them away from becoming entranced in this mystery as well, though, reaching the door at the end of the room he had opened before in his dreams.
“This is it, we’re here.” He looked around at all of them, swallowing hard, but their determination was still burning like fire as they held out their wands, and so he turned back to the door and swung it open, stepping into the room of towering shelves layered with dusty, glass orbs. The candle-brackets set into the shelves held blue flames similar to those of the black, circular room, but this room was somehow even colder than that one.
Inching slowly and cautiously, Harry peered down each row of shelves, though he could not see the slightest sign of movement or hear anything. Not the high pitched cackles of Voldemort, nor the screams of agony of Sirius in his dream. He did hear Hermione whisper in his ear, “You said it was row ninety-seven,” and so he glanced up at the number above him, fifty-three, over at the number fifty four, and turned right down that row.
“Keep your wand ready,” He told them all softly, and they all pressed on, glancing up and down each long alley of shelves they passed for any sign of Sirius or a Death Eater or even Voldemort, and listening intently for those same signs. Still, the room remained quiet and still as they passed row eight-four. At row eighty-five Harry reasoned the silence was because Sirius was gagged, or unconscious, and wouldn’t allow himself to think of the other or. He just couldn’t.
“Ninety-seven!”
They stopped short, and Hary tossed his head around, wildly, holding his wand at length in front of him and prepared to fire an expelliarmus at anything that moved, but… There was nobody there.
“He’s right down at the end,” Harry attempted, to the best of his ability, to ignore the dryness in his mouth. “You can’t see properly from here.” He pressed on down the towering rows of glass balls, eyes strained for a shadow he hadn’t seen at first, ears keen on listening for a voice he hadn’t heard calling. “He should be near here, anywhere here… really close…”
“Harry?” He ignored her. He had too. His mouth was so, so dry now, he didn’t even know if he’d be able to respond.
“Somewhere about… here.” He stopped short. They were at the end of the row and again in the dim blue candlelight, but there was no one here. No sound being made. Just dusty silence. “He might be…” He looked down the row to the left, nothing. “Or maybe…” Nothing.
“Harry?”
He gritted his teeth, lowering his eyes to the floor. “What?”
“I… I don’t think Sirius is here.”
Silence, deadenning and deafening, leaving Harry to feel like an idiot and very, very sick. Sirius had to be here, he just had to be. This was it, this is where Harry had seen him be tortured. Gritting his teeth, Harry turned on his heel and ran up the aisle to his right, emerging at the end after seeing nothing and hearing nothing and where was Sirius. He ran back down aisle ninety-seven, past his friends whose faces he didn’t dare look at, came to a stop at the end and panted hard, hand clenched around his wand tight enough to leave a mark.
“Harry?” “What?” He didn’t mean to snap that maliciously, or at least he didn’t think he did, but he honestly didn’t care what Ron had to say. He didn’t want pity or to be told he was loony, and had led them to break into a government building for no reason other than what he’d seen in a nightmare.
“Have you seen this?”
“What?” This time, he sounded eager. Because if Ron had seen something then it had to have been a clue, or some sign of where Sirius is, so he strode back to Ron, only to feel his heart sink once more when he found the ginger headed boy staring at a dusty glass sphere on the shelf. “What?” He asked again, now feeling again glum, and like he’d very much like to sit on this dark floor, curled in on himself, for hours until morning came and Ministry workers dragged him out of their working space.
“It’s - It’s got your name on,” He moved closer to the sphere in question that Ron was pointing at, that glowed from the inside, despite the fact that this orb was so dusty, it seemed to have been left untouched for many years.
“My name?” He asked blankly, and followed to where Ron was pointing, craning his neck to read the yellow tag fixed to the shelf below the glass ball. In spidery writing, the date was that of sixteen years previously, June 1980, and below that was written:
S.P.T to A.P.W.B.D.
Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter
Harry found himself staring at it, blankly, unsure of what to make of it.
“What is it?” Ron’s voice shook just slightly. “What’s your name doing down here? I’m not here, none of the rest of us are here.” Harry stayed staring intently at the orb before him and, without really knowing why, began to reach out to it. Almost instantly, someone grabbed his wrist tight, and he didn’t need to hear her voice to know it was Hermione. “Harry, I don’t think you should touch it.”
“Why not? It’s something to do with me, isn’t it?”
“Don’t, Harry,” He turned and saw Neville’s face, just behind Hermione’s, shaking his head, frowning tightly and looking slightly pained, but the longing for his fingers to close around that dusty ball was too strong.
“It’s got my name on it,” He said, and reached further out, out of Hermione’s grip, and grabbed the orb tightly, lifting it off the shelf and peering into its silvery contents with wonder. He didn’t know what he expected, but for some reason it felt warm and hot in his hand, as if the light within was the sun and he was holding it in his palm. He had also expected, or even hoped, given the uselessness of this long journey and the need for something to make it feel worthwhile, that something grand would happen. His name was on this ball, so it had to be special, right?
Nothing happened, but Harry knew the others were expecting something too, as they crowded around him and he brushed dust off of the orb, gazing into it intently, waiting for something, anything, then -
“Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me.”