If they were too late: He's still alive, he's still fighting, I can feel it: If Voldemort decided Sirius was not going to crack: I'd know:

Harry's stomach gave a jolt; the Thestrals head was suddenly pointing towards the ground and he actually slid forwards a few inches along its neck. They were descending at last: he thought he heard a shriek behind him and twisted around dangerously, but could see no sign of a falling body .'.. presumably they had all received a shock from the change of direction, just as he had.

And now bright orange lights were growing larger and rounder on all sides; they could see the tops of buildings, streams of headlights like luminous insect eyes, squares of pale yellow that were windows. Quite suddenly, it seemed, they were hurtling towards the pavement; Harry gripped the Thestral with every last ounce of his strength, braced for a sudden impact, but the horse touched the dark ground as lightly as a shadow and Harry slid from its back, looking around at the street where the overflowing skip still stood a short way from the vandalised telephone box, both drained of colour in the flat orange glare of the streetlights.

Ron landed a short way off and toppled immediately from his Thestral on to the pavement.

'Never again,' he said, struggling to his feet. He made as though to stride away from his Thestral, but, unable to see it, collided with its hindquarters and almost fell over again. 'Never, ever again: that was the worst -'

Hermione and Ginny touched down on either side of him: both slid off their mounts a little more gracefully than Ron, though with similar expressions of relief at being back on firm ground; Neville jumped down, shaking; and Luna dismounted smoothly.

'Where do we go from here, then?' she asked Harry in a politely interested voice, as though this was all a rather interesting day-trip.

'Over here,' he said. He gave his Thestral a quick, grateful pat, then led the way quickly to the battered telephone box and opened the door. 'Come on!' he urged the others, as they hesitated.

Ron and Ginny marched in obediently; Hermione, Neville and Luna squashed themselves in after them; Harry took one glance back at the Thestrals, now foraging for scraps of rotten food inside the skip, then forced himself into the box after Luna.

'Whoever's nearest the receiver, dial six two four four two!' he said.

Ron did it, his arm bent bizarrely to reach the dial; as it whirred back into place the cool female voice sounded inside the box.

'Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business.'

'Harry Potter, Ron Weasley Hermione Granger,' Harry said very quickly, 'Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood: we're here to save someone, unless your Ministry can do it first!'

Thank you,' said the cool female voice. 'Visitors, please take the badges and attach them to the front of your robes.'

Half a dozen badges slid out of the metal chute where returned coins normally appeared. Hermione scooped them up and handed them mutely to Harry over Ginny's head; he glanced at the topmost one, 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!' Harry said loudly, as his scar gave another throb. 'Now can we move?'

The floor of the telephone box shuddered and the pavement rose up past its glass windows; the scavenging Thestrals were sliding out of sight; blackness closed over their heads and with a dull grinding noise they sank down into the depths of the Ministry of Magic.

A chink of soft golden light hit their feet and, widening, rose up their bodies. Harry bent his knees and held his wand as ready as he could in such cramped conditions as he peered through the glass to see whether anybody was waiting for them in the Atrium, but it seemed to be completely empty. The light was dimmer than it had been by day; there were no fires burning under the mantelpieces set into the walls, but as the lift slid smoothly to a halt he saw that golden symbols continued to twist sinuously in the dark blue ceiling.

The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening,' said the woman's voice.

The door of the telephone box burst open; Harry toppled out of it, closely followed by Neville and Luna. The only sound in the Atrium was the steady rush of water from the golden fountain, where jets from the wands of the witch and wizard, the point of the centaur's arrow, the tip of the goblin's hat and the house-elf's ears continued to gush into the surrounding pool.

'Come on,' said Harry quietly and the six of them sprinted off down the hall, Harry in the lead, past the fountain towards the desk where the watchwizard who had weighed Harry's wand had sat, and which was now deserted.

Harry felt sure there ought to be a security person there, sure their absence was an ominous sign, and his feeling of foreboding increased as they passed through the golden gates to the lifts. He pressed the nearest 'down' button and a lift clattered into sight almost immediately, the golden grilles slid apart with a great, echoing clanking and they dashed inside. Harry stabbed the number nine button; the grilles closed with a bang and the lift began to descend, jangling and rattling. Harry had not realised how noisy the lifts were on the day he had come with Mr Weasley; he was sure the din would raise every security person within the building, yet when the lift halted, the cool female voice said, 'Department of Mysteries,' and the grilles slid open. They stepped out into the corridor where nothing was moving but the nearest torches, flickering in the rush of air from the lift.

Harry turned towards the plain black door. After months and months of dreaming about it, he was here at last.

'Let's go,' he whispered, and he led the way down the corridor, Luna right behind him, gazing around with her mouth slightly open.

'OK, listen,' said Harry stopping again within six feet of the door. 'Maybe: maybe a couple of people should stay here as a - as a lookout, and -'

'And how're we going to let you know something's coming?' asked Ginny, her eyebrows raised. 'You could be miles away.'

'We're coming with you, Harry,' said Neville.

'Let's get on with it,' said Ron firmly.

Harry still did not want to take them all with him, but it seemed he had no choice. He turned to face the door and walked forwards: just as it had in his dream, it swung open and he marched over the threshold, the others at his heels.

They were standing in a large, circular room. Everything in here was black including the floor and ceiling; identical, unmarked, handleless black doors were set at intervals all around the black walls, interspersed with branches of candles whose flames burned blue; their cool, shimmering light reflected in the shining marble floor made it look as though there was dark water underfoot.

'Someone shut the door,' Harry muttered.

He regretted giving this order the moment Neville had obeyed it. Without the long chink of light from the torchlit corridor behind them, the place became so dark that for a moment the only things they could see were the bunches of shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly reflections in the floor.

In his dream, Harry had always walked purposefully across this room to the door immediately opposite the entrance and walked on. But there were around a dozen doors here. Just as he was gazing ahead at the doors opposite him, trying to decide which was the right one, there was a great rumbling noise and the candles began to move sideways. The circular wall was rotating.

Hermione grabbed Harry's arm as though frightened the floor might move, too, but it did not. For a few seconds, the blue flames around them were blurred to resemble neon lines as the wall sped around; then, quite as suddenly as it had started, the rumbling stopped and everything became stationary once again.

Harry's eyes had blue streaks burned into them; it was all he could see.

'What was that about?' whispered Ron fearfully.

'I think it was to stop us knowing which door we came in through,' said Ginny in a hushed voice.

Harry realised at once she was right: he could no sooner identify the exit door than locate an ant on the jet-black floor; and the door through which they needed to proceed could be any one of the dozen surrounding them.

'How're we going to get back out?' said Neville uncomfortably.

'Well, that doesn't matter now,' said Harry forcefully, blinking to try to erase the blue lines from his vision, and clutching his wand tighter than ever, 'we won't need to get out till we've found Sinus -'

'Don't go calling for him, though!' Hermione said urgently; but Harry had never needed her advice less, his instinct was to keep as quiet as possible.

'Where do we go, then, Harry?' Ron asked.

'I don't -' Harry began. He swallowed. '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,' he said hastily, 'I'll know the right way when I see it. C'mon.'

He marched straight at the door now facing him, the others following close behind him, set his left hand against its cool, shining surface, raised his wand ready to strike the moment it opened, and pushed.

It swung open easily.

After the darkness of the first room, the lamps hanging low on golden chains from this ceiling gave the impression that this long rectangular room was much brighter, though there were no glittering, shimmering lights as Harry had seen in his dreams. The place was quite empty except for a few desks and, in the very middle of the room, an enormous glass tank of deep green liquid, big enough for all of them to swim in; a number of pearly-white objects were drifting around lazily in it.

'What're those things?' whispered Ron.

'Dunno,' said Harry.

'Are they fish?' breathed Ginny.

'Aquavirius Maggots!' said Luna excitedly. 'Dad said the Ministry were breeding -'

'No,' said Hermione. She sounded odd. She moved forward to look through the side of the tank. They're brains.'

'Brains?'

'Yes: I wonder what they're doing with them?'

Harry joined her at the tank. Sure enough, there could be no mistake now he saw them at close quarters. Glimmering eerily, they drifted in and out of sight in the depths of the green liquid, looking something like slimy cauliflowers.

'Let's get out of here,' said Harry. This isn't right, we need to try another door.'

There are doors here, too,' said Ron, pointing around the walls. Harry's heart sank; how big was this place?

'In my dream I went through that dark room into the second one,' he said. 'I think we should go back and try from there.'

So they hurried back into the dark, circular room; the ghostly shapes of the brains were now swimming before Harry's eyes instead of the blue candle flames.

'Wait!' said Hermione sharply, as Luna made to close the door of the brain room behind them. 'Flagrate!'

She drew with her wand in midair and a fiery 'X' appeared on the door. No sooner had the door clicked shut behind them than there was a great rumbling, and once again the wall began to revolve very fast, but now there was a great red-gold blur in amongst the faint blue and, when all became still again, the fiery cross still burned, showing the door they had already tried.

'Good thinking,' said Harry. 'OK, let's try this one -'

Again, he strode directly at the door facing him and pushed it open, his wand still raised, the others at his heels.

This room was larger than the last, dimly lit and rectangular, and the centre of it was sunken, forming a great stone pit some twenty feet deep. They were standing on the topmost tier of what seemed to be stone benches running all around the room and descending in steep steps like an amphitheatre, or the courtroom in which Harry had been tried by the Wizengamot. Instead of a chained chair, however, there was a raised stone dais in the centre of the pit, on which stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked and crumbling that Harry was amazed the thing was still standing. Unsupported by any surrounding wall, the archway was hung with a tattered black curtain or veil which, despite the complete stillness of the cold surrounding air, was fluttering very slightly as though it had just been touched.

'Who's there?' said Harry, jumping down on to the bench below. There was no answering voice, but the veil continued to flutter and sway.

'Careful!' whispered Hermione.

Harry scrambled down the benches one by one until he reached the stone bottom of the sunken pit. His footsteps echoed loudly as he walked slowly towards the dais. The pointed archway looked much taller from where he now stood than it had when he'd been looking down on it from above. Still the veil swayed gently, as though somebody had just passed through it.

'Sirius?' Harry spoke again, but more quietly now that he was nearer.

He had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the veil on the other side of the archway. Gripping his wand very tightly, he edged around the dais, but there was nobody there; all that could be seen was the other side of the tattered black veil.

'Let's go,' called Hermione from halfway up the stone steps. This isn't right, Harry, come on, let's go.'

Title: Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix
Author: J.K.Rîwling
Viewed 430475 times

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