Chapter Twenty-Five: The Secret in the Department of Mysteries
"It's just lucky that they came when we were switching shifts," Arthur told Lily, James, and Remus later that night when they were gathered around the Headquarters kitchen table and sipping at hot drinks. "I don't think I could have held them off by myself." He passed a brief grateful smile to Tonks, who raised her cup of coffee in response.
"Cheers," said Tonks, a bit sarcastically. Her shirt had been pulled over her left shoulder, and she was dabbing at the spot where she had been grazed by one of Yaxley's curses.
They smiled weakly at Tonk's gesture.
"I'm just relieved that we managed to escape before the Ministry official," Remus said finally.
"Who knows what story they'll invent in the Prophet to explain the Death Eaters in the Ministry," said James.
"Some bizarre rubbish," Lily said. James snorted.
"They'll have to explain the state of the Ministry as well," Remus said after a brief silence. "They won't be able to look at the rooms and deny that a high number of spells has been cast there."
There was an indistinct murmur of agreement.
"…My concern is that the Order will have a harder time organizing shifts there," Arthur said. "You-Know-Who is on to us, and we can't afford to have the Ministry believing that we're behind this as well."
"And with the recruiting going badly, we can't afford to mess this up, either," Remus said.
"Well, the matter of the fact is that we can't afford for You-Know-Who to collect the prophecy," Arthur said. "Who knows what he'd be able to do with that knowledge."
Just then, the pantry door swung open and Sirius entered in with another kettle of tea.
"Here we are," he said, and flicked his wand so that the kettle would move around to each of the cups and pour. "More tea." Each person murmured his or her thanks as the kettle dipped over the cups.
Sirius sunk into a seat beside Tonks. When she waved the teakettle away, he frowned at her cup of coffee. "That coffee?"
"Yeah."
"Where'd you get it?"
"Transfigured it," she said.
"What was wrong with my tea?"
"I needed more caffeine," she told him. "Don't take it personally."
Sirius looked perturbed, but didn't reply; the kitchen door shortly opened and Molly entered in. She held up three potion vials in her hands and smiled brightly as the weary crew before her.
"I thought it might be a good idea to have these here!" she said. "Especially no one knew when we might need them. Merlin knows this won't be the last time we'll come back with scrapes."
"We're just grateful you're here to heal us, Molly," Arthur told her fondly.
Molly seemed content as she set two of the vials on the table. She opened the third, applied it to a fabric pad, and began dabbing at Tonks' shoulder. "This'll sting, dear," she told Tonks, who was already gritting her teeth. Molly's eyes scanned the table, lingering on Arthur and James. "You two are next," she said.
"Here, Molly," Lily said, reaching for one of the vials on the table. "I'll do James."
"Sure, dear." Molly continued to work on Tonks' shoulder. "Just use it sparingly. It stings."
James watched Lily open the vial and conjure a second fabric pad to wet it in. After the pad had been soaked, she gently removed his glasses and reached up to dab at his temple. "Eyes closed," she instructed, and he obliged. The wound stung a bit as the potion touched the raw skin, but it was not as painful as he expected. James actually found Lily's touch to be soothing after such a draining night.
"You don't think that Voldemort'd try to break through the memory charms we put on Rowle and that crew?" Sirius asked them abruptly.
Arthur set down his cup. "He'd have to torture it out of them," he said. "I don't know if he'd be willing to do that."
"He might," said Remus darkly. "He's shown that he'd be willing to go any lengths to accomplish what he's after."
"But to only get a glimpse of what the Department of Mysteries looks like?" said Lily. "It seems a bit extreme for such little information."
"Maybe he'll find it suspicious that we chose to wipe their memories," Remus said. "Maybe that'll spur him on."
"He could use their memories to target Order members," Arthur suggested. "I'm certain he already knows some of our identities, but he certainly doesn't know all of us. We've made sure to keep Kingsley's affiliations secret, as well as Tonks' and Podmore's… And that's not to mention the numerous undercover wizards. Snape, Mundungus, Arabella Fig…"
Remus nodded. "If he learned about them, that'd be an even bigger loss."
"Yes, but he wouldn't," Molly said firmly. Tonks hissed as Molly let a particularly large drop of potion touch her shoulder. "Not from breaking those memories. The only thing that's at risk here is a little bit of knowledge about the Department layout and the identities of one or two Order members." She dabbed more potion onto the fabric pad. "Mad-Eye thought it through before he selected which members to take. He chose to bring only known members." She set the vial down on the table. "Talking about the situation as if You-Know-Who will discover all of our secrets from a few memories is ridiculous."
"He would learn that we are alive," Lily said after a beat. "Who knows what he'd do then."
"He'd probably find about Harry's change of house," James added. "He might go after Lily's sister."
Sirius' eyebrows rose cynically and he drained his cup of tea. "He'd be livid, that's for sure."
"We don't even know if the Death Eaters got close enough to get a good look," Arthur said.
"We'll worry about it later. We'll find out soon enough," Molly said.
Hermione practically pounced on Harry and Ron when they arrived for breakfast in the Great Hall the following morning.
"Have you read the headline of the Daily Prophet?" she asked them as they sat down across from her. She pushed a copy across the table for them. The headline read: Death Eaters Found in Department of Mysteries: Work of Albus Dumbledore?
"What's this?" Harry asked her, thinking it was another ridiculous article of slander. His scar pickled on his forehead, but he ignored it. It had been acting up more than ever now that he had returned to school, and the constant pain was something that he was learning to live through.
"What?" Ron said incredulously as they studied the picture beneath. It showed a rubble-strewn room with bodies lying on the ground. As the picture moved, Ministry officials rushed towards the bodies and flashes of cameras bounced off the black walls. "They can't be serious! They're blaming Dumbledore?"
"Read it," Hermione told them. She was watching them so closely that she had not noticed the oatmeal dripping from her spoon.
Ron blindly reached for the plate of bacon, his eyes never leaving the newspaper as Harry smoothed out the front page. Harry wasn't sure that he wanted to read it if it contained more of the Prophet's usual nonsense, but apparently Hermione found it important enough. He located the article underneath the picture.
"Read aloud," Ron instructed Harry. He shoved three pieces of bacon into his mouth.
"'Last night, Ministry officials received note that the Department of Mysteries had been broken into-'"
"What's the Department of Mysteries?" Ron asked. Hermione looked at Harry expectantly.
Harry shrugged, and Hermione looked suddenly disappointed. "What? So your parents never mentioned…?"
"What?"
"Anything about the Department of Mysteries."
"Why would they mention it?" Harry frowned at her.
She shook her head. "I dunno. I thought they might. I was so sure that they…" She trailed off suddenly. "Doesn't it seem suspicious?" she asked abruptly.
"Doesn't what seem suspicious?"
"That they just came in to find the place littered and bodies on the ground?"
"Hermione, I haven't even read the article yet."
She appeared frustrated, but did not reply. Instead, she shoved a large spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth and watched him continue reading.
"Aloud, mate?" Ron prompted him as he reached for a biscuit.
Hermione glared at him.
"What?" Ron asked her.
"It's only because you're too lazy to read and eat at the same time."
"So?"
"So just read over his shoulder," she snapped.
Ron looked irritated. "Why don't you just tell us what happened and make everything shorter if it bothers you so?"
"Hey," said Harry suddenly, and the two stopped their bickering to look at him closely. "This picture looks familiar."
"The one of Dumbledore?" Ron asked him. Hermione made a noise of disgust.
"No," Harry said, pointing at the one of the Ministry officials rushing about in the room. There was something eerily familiar about it. "The one of the Department of Ministries-"
"Mysteries," corrected Hermione. She frowned at him. "Why, have you been there?"
"I don't think so," Harry said slowly. "I've only been to the Ministry once, for my Hearing." He stared at the picture for a moment longer. Why, then did it look so familiar? "Wait, no, I have been there… My Hearing was a floor below. Mr. Weasley and I got off the lift at that level and traveled down the stairs."
Hermione's mouth morphed into an O. She appeared to drift off in thought. Globs of oatmeal fell off her spoon.
"So why do you think this is so important?" Ron asked her.
"Well," said Hermione, her eyes still fixed on an imaginary point in the distance. "First of all, it's the one of the first times since the Quidditch World Cup that they've made a public appearance."
"Yeah, but the Ministry hasn't changed their beliefs because of it," Harry said glumly, staring at the headline. "They're blaming Dumbledore."
"Yes, Harry, but you're missing the most curious thing," Hermione said insistently. "The Death Eaters were found already disarmed and unconscious."
"So…?"
"So someone else must have been there as well. A duel must have taken place. The article doesn't mention anything about the last spells that their wands had used—probably because it would conflict with their story that Dumbledore had just dropped them there—but it makes sense."
A duel? Harry realized what Hermione was trying to hint at. "So you think that the Order is involved."
"Shh," said Hermione, glancing around the Gryffindor table to see if anyone was eavesdropping. "Most likely. That's why I was wondering if the Department of Mysteries sounded familiar to you. I thought that maybe your parents had told you something about it."
"They haven't."
Hermione looked disappointed. "It's just an odd place to stage a battle," she said.
"If it was a battle," Ron pointed out.
"Ron, there's no question that it was. If you had read the article, you would know."
Ron frowned and opened his mouth to protest, but Hermione cut across him.
"And why would they choose to fight a battle in the middle of the Ministry, the same establishment by which the Death Eaters are so conveniently trying to avoid detection?"
Ron shrugged. "Maybe they liked the location," he joked. Hermione glared at him. "Well, Harry's parents didn't tell him everything," Ron said. "So maybe they were in there for a reason, to get something or find someone, and the Order was trying to stop them." Harry half-expected Hermione to criticize that idea, but she just looked thoughtful. Ron seemed to take that well, and he stuffed another biscuit into his mouth. "M'fm tay trymf-"
"Chew," said Hermione.
He did, and it took him a minute to swallow. "Well, Harry's parents told him that the Order has been recruiting. So maybe they were doing more recruiting and ran into some Death Eaters."
"In the Ministry?" Hermione said incredulously. "There are no other magical creatures in the Ministry; the Ministry hates half-breeds and other types of creatures. Besides, recruiting the middle of the night? There'd be no one there."
Ron didn't appear bothered by her criticism. "Just an idea."
"Harry," she said. "Do you think you could ask your parents about it?"
Harry shrugged. They hadn't even written him back since he had sent his last letter, and he hadn't yet attempted to use the mirror his dad had given him. He suspected that they were waiting for him to initiate that method of communication.
"They might not tell him," Ron said. "If there is actually something that has to do with the Order and Ministry, his parents might have kept it from him for a reason. Besides, my parents always keep Order stuff to a hush-"
"Shh," said Hermione. They waited for a group of sixth-year Slytherins to pass by their table.
"Maybe it's top-secret," Ron whispered. "Stuff the Order can't tell us."
"Hmm," said Hermione, frowning. "Harry, will you think about asking them?"
"Yeah, sure," Harry said, watching the Ministry officials rush in on their never-ending loop.