Chapter 25: Mystery upon Mystery

The lift was clearly bigger on the inside, but even so it was a tight squeeze with all seven of them inside. Harry went in last, determined to be at the front in case of a welcoming committee when they reached the Department of Mysteries. All his friends were quite handy with a wand, but he had rather more faith in his own abilities than theirs, if he was honest. He clutched Perks' wand so tightly he thought he might snap it, such was his anticipation of a fight. He prayed they might find the prophecy and get out of there before the Death Eaters even showed up, but it seemed unlikely somehow. He was never that lucky.

"So…you flew here?" Hermione asked, finally breaking her ponderous silence. She had clearly been mulling the issue over since he had mentioned it, trying to work out how. "I can't imagine they just leave brooms lying around at Azkaban. How did you get out?"

"I turned my cell door into plants, then fought my way to the top of the highest tower in there, before basically pushing myself across the North Sea and to London with the wind," Harry explained shortly, not wishing to go into too much detail. There was silence behind him, and he turned his head slightly. Each one of his friends was staring at him, amazement on their faces. "It wasn't as easy as it sounds," he offered as his only further comment.

"You can fly without a broom?" Ron said, stunned and clearly thinking hard. "Heh. The Cup is ours for the taking next year!"

Hermione scowled at him, and clipped him round the ear. "Could you be a little less thoughtless, Ronald? Harry doesn't want to be thinking about Quidditch now!"

"Actually, I have missed Quidditch," Harry mentioned, largely to see what reaction the comment would inspire. "Haven't been able to keep up with the scores recently. Although I don't think the flying thing is going to be all that useful. Not all that many storms powerful enough for me to steal wind from, you know."

"Well quite," Draco remarked, as if Harry's statement was a masterful piece of rhetoric, and not something he could only barely understand. Harry grinned at him.

"Anything else I missed while I was away?"

Draco looked away, scowling bitterly at something, while the others looked at each other uneasily. "I don't suppose you heard about Nott, did you?" Ginny asked, tentatively. Harry shook his head, and she sighed. "He…well, you remember Eloise lost her keystone? He stole it from her, and he – well, he gave it to You-Know-Who. He was hoping that You-Know-Who would break in and kill you, apparently."

"He nearly got his wish then, didn't he," Harry said, calmly. His tone did not reflect his true feelings, however. His fingers twitched as if Nott stood in front of him, just out of reach, and he could feel his magic roiling inside him, a mirror of the storm he had latched onto not two hours earlier. "Draco, you knew him best; was he actually insane, or just really focussed?"

"I don't think I knew him at all, actually," Draco muttered. "I never saw anything like this coming. None of us did."

Harry grunted. He couldn't criticise the Slytherin for that. Neither had he, when it came down to it. "Where is he now?"

"Nobody knows," Hermione said. "He ran away from Hogwarts, we know that. Nobody's seen him since then. Nobody who's saying, anyway."

Harry took a deep breath. "I'm sure he'll show up sooner or later." He could all but feel their eyes on his back, watching him warily. He could understand it, but he was determined to keep his cool over it, not to swear bloody, murderous vengeance. It had been bad enough doing that with Sirius, and he had been practically family. Nott was nothing, a mere pawn in a grander plan. He had to be.

But his actions had brought about Dumbledore's death…Harry's fist clenched, almost of its own volition, and his eyes hardened. He pushed the thought away. There was more to Nott than met the eye, and he wanted to know the full story before launching himself into another quest.

"Department of Mysteries, level Four." The lift doors opened with a resonant ding, and the calm voice ushered them out into the corridor. It was as quiet as, appropriately, a tomb, Harry thought. The lack of activity was beginning to unnerve him. Bodies would have been horrific, but he had expected those. The distraction attack, whatever and wherever it was, couldn't have taken every last person in the Ministry to resolve. If the Knights had that kind of power, Voldemort would have walked into the Ministry months ago, surely. Would the Death Eaters have cleaned up so thoroughly? There wasn't even any blood.

"Where is everyone?" Ginny said in hushed tones. Nobody answered her, and Harry could hear his friends bunching closer together, reacting to the oppressive quiet. Shaking his head sharply, he set off down the corridor, his cloak billowing in his wake.

"Come on. We're not going to get anything down standing around like this."

It was a few seconds before anyone followed him, but follow him they did. He prowled along the corridor, stretching out as best he could to see if he could sense anyone – or anything, he pondered uneasily – lying in wait. As far as he could tell though, they were the only ones down there. He stopped when he reached the corridor that had haunted his dreams for so long. In the flickering torchlight, it was hard to make out the carvings on the door at the end; all he could see resembled a few scratchings in the stone.

Perhaps more importantly, he could not hear any whispering, intelligible or otherwise.

Emboldened by the silence, he strode towards the door, reaching out to see if it felt the same as it did in his dreams. He was used to it feeling angry, unsettled; now it felt placid, almost calm, but…there was something eager about it, like a dog waiting for a ball to be thrown. A big dog, possibly closer to a wolf on the evolutionary scale. Harry shivered, suddenly wary of touching it. This could all go horribly wrong, and it wasn't a dream. The door had been intimidating enough when he was asleep, but it couldn't really hurt him there. Now though…now there was the very real possibility that something awful could happen, and it wouldn't just be him getting hurt – it would be his friends, the people who had blithely followed him into danger.

He took a deep breath as that fact resonated around his mind. They had followed him, he hadn't asked them to come. It was their choice. He should and would be cautious, but he couldn't shield them from everything. They were here. They had to go through the door. There wasn't much more he could do to protect them. He stepped forward, bracing himself for any sort of reaction.

Stone ground on stone, and the door rolled open ponderously at his approach. The corridor beyond was pitch black, and silent. Harry stared at the doorway, dumb-founded. That had been deeply anti-climactic. After all that time sweating – literally – over the bloody thing in his dreams, and it just rolled open without even touching it? It was almost insulting. He wasn't going to complain about the result though.

"Told you it was this way," he called out to the others over his shoulder, trying not to let his voice tremble. The least he could do for them was show them that he was confident, that he wasn't second guessing the whole scheme to come here. Part of him desperately wanted to wait here for Remus and whoever else showed up from the Order, but he had no idea where the Death Eaters where. At this very moment, they could be taking the Prophecy and making their way back to their master.

"After you, fearless leader," George murmured. Harry dearly wished that epithet was true, but he marched off into the darkness, raising his wand to cast a ball of light before them. It illuminated cold, dank stone, seamlessly worked together. In fact, as he looked closer it was hard to see if there were actually separate blocks of stone. The walls, floor and ceiling gave every impression of having been formed from one solid block – or maybe one enormous piece of stone had been hollowed out. Theoretically possible, he supposed, given the use of magic, but even magic usually left a few flaws in the structures he had seen. Looking over his shoulder, he could see Hermione studying their surroundings intently, clearly determined to absorb everything possible. The others seemed to be understandably intimidated by their surroundings; each of them had lit the tips of their wands, holding them close to maximise the light around them.

Without warning, the corridor exploded with light. Harry dropped into a crouch immediately, scanning their surroundings for enemies, but the corridor was still deserted. Slowly standing up, he looked at the walls. They were on fire. Perplexed, he stepped closer, feeling the heat from the flames. There were no torches or candles; the dark stone had just sprouted little plumes of fire at regular intervals. He breathed out on the nearest one, and was not entirely surprised to find that it didn't so much as flicker.

"Illusions?" Draco asked, eying the flames warily.

"I don't think so," Harry said, shaking his head. "They're definitely warm…" He twirled the wand in his hand, and snatched a piece of cloth out of the air. He threw it at the ball of fire, and stepped back as the cloth fell to the floor, burning brightly. By the time it reached the floor, only cinders remained. "Definitely not an illusion."

"Where's it coming from then?" Ron said.

"Buggered if I know. Come on." Harry set off again, quickening his pace; with the sudden illumination, he could see the end of the corridor. The door at the other end was the same smooth stone as the walls and floor, with no markings to differentiate it from the rest of the corridor. Indeed, he was only assuming that it was a door at all, and not just another wall – there didn't appear to be any other way out of the corridor. This time, he didn't wait around to see what happened, but strode towards it confidently. Sure enough, the stone swung back silently, as insubstantial as air. He stepped through into a large, circular room, with doors evenly spaced around the wall. The others followed him through, all of them congregating in the centre of the room, and the door slid shut once more.

The firelight went out, plunging them into pitch darkness. Before any of them could react, the room began to spin, so fast that they were thrown to the floor. Harry grunted as he landed, the momentum of the room keeping him pressed to the floor. Just as abruptly as it had started, the room shuddered to a halt. The flames reappeared, and Harry looked around in confusion.

"So…what was the point in that?" Fred complained, rubbing his head. A vivid bruise was forming, where he had apparently hit his head in landing.

"Which door did we come through?" Hermione asked, looking around.

Harry swore. She was right. The spinning had completely disoriented him, and all the doors looked the same. He picked one at random, walking through even as it swung open. The door that opened revealed an astonishing room. Harry couldn't help himself, walking in utterly slack jawed. The others followed him closely, gasping in awe. The room was dark, illuminated by little pin pricks of light. Here and there, there were bigger spots; Harry recognised each one. As he reached the centre of the room, the spots of light shot out of the walls. He raised the wand in an automatic defensive gesture, but all they did was float around the room. Thousands of little motes of light spawned around him, glowing brightly golden. He took a step back, and smiled as he realised what it was. The Sun. They were standing in a room sized model of the solar system, made of light.

"Why would somebody make this?" Hermione asked breathlessly. She was looking around with wonder on her face, and reached out to touch the Earth. Her fingers passed through it, and she giggled. "It's warm."

"Maybe they study it somehow?" Draco suggested.

"Why would the Ministry be studying the solar system?" she replied. "Looking for aliens?"

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised," Harry said. "Let's face it, they're more likely to find something than Muggles. Got to say though, I wouldn't need a reason to do something like this. It's beautiful."

"Sappy sod," George said with a snort, but he didn't disagree. He was staring around the room, almost hypnotized. Harry grinned at him, and turned to examine Saturn. The rings around it dispersed around his fingers as he waved them through, like little motes of dust in the sun. He could feel the magic inside them, something pure and simple.

"Maybe it's something like the ceiling in the Great Hall?" he said, heading over to Jupiter. He poked his finger through the red eye, waggling it around. "Y'know, an exaggerated…weather…thing?"

"I don't think there's much weather up there to speak of," Hermione pointed out. "Solar storms, maybe, but I don't think they affect us that much."

"Who cares?" Ron called from the other side of the room. He had walked right into another planet, his head poking out of the top. He looked at Hermione and winked. "Hey, Hermione – I'm in Uranus."

She stared at him and sighed. "So you are Ron. Well done. We shouldn't hang around too long, Harry."

Harry nodded, ignoring Ron's quiet protestions about the humour of his joke, although he did notice Fred high fiving him surreptitiously. "There's no other door in here – must be one of the other ones."

"Let's go then!" Draco led the way out of the room. Harry brought up the rear, pushing Ginny gently out of the door as she took one last lingering look behind her, as if trying to imprint the spectacle on her mind forever. As he walked out, the lights dimmed and the planets vanished back into the walls, only the stars remaining.

As the door clicked shut, Harry felt the room start to move. Whirling around, he slashed his wand across the door, a streak of blazing light scorching across the stone. As the lights went out, the spell remained, burning into his eyes as it span around. When the room stopped spinning, he found himself with spots in front of him, but he knew which door they had last been through.

"Good thinking," Hermione remarked approvingly. "Which one next?"

Harry shrugged, and headed over to the door opposite the space room. The room that was revealed was, if anything, even more cavernous than the last. The room declined, laid out like a theatre or opera house. Or, Harry thought, an arena – the room was circular again, the floor carved into rows upon rows of stone seats, all centred round a raised platform. On the platform was a ragged veil, hung from a crumbling stone arch. The veil wafted in the breeze – which was odd, because there was no breeze to waft it. Harry took a deep breath, and almost gagged. The room reeked of death and decay, a sour taste in his mouth. He closed his eyes, and tried to tell himself that he couldn't hear screaming, pleas for mercy, ringing in the back of his head. He braced himself against the door frame, and in doing so created space for others to get past him.

"What on earth is this?" Hermione asked as she squeezed past him. She cast a ball of light high above the arena, all the better to see the veil. "Something they're researching?"

"I don't think so…" Draco had followed her in, and was staring at the veil, something like fear on his face. "If that's what I think it is, it's killed a lot of people over the years."

"How? It's a piece of cloth, it's not like it's going to attack us with a knife…" Fred spoke confidently, but he didn't enter the room, staying in the circular hall and looking over Harry's shoulder. Draco shot him a disdainful glance.

"It's a gateway. No-one knows where, going by the stories. They used it centuries ago, then decided Azkaban was the more humane option."

"We don't want to go through here," Harry said under his breath.

"There isn't anywhere to go through to," Ginny pointed out. "We don't need to worry about it. Let's just…" She trailed off, her eyes on the veil. There was something disturbing about her expression. Something longing, to Harry's eyes. He touched her shoulder and she started, jerking back quickly. She blinked, and looked away from the veil.

"Let's go," Harry said firmly. No-one argued. When he repeated the streak of light over the door, it burnt particularly vividly. This time, he had moved to a door before the spinning had completely stopped. It completely failed to move. There was no handle, nothing to indicate how to open it, as with all the doors around them. On the other hand, as with the main door into the Department, there was an eye carved in the stone, slab bang in the centre. It seemed to watch him, mocking his confusion. After a moment, the others followed him, their footsteps echoing loudly around the stone room. They clustered around him as he ran his hands over the door tentatively. It was an uncomfortable realisation – the door must have been warded differently to the others.

"Have you tried Alohamora?"

Harry rolled his eyes, and turned to glare at Draco. "Do you really think that the most secret part of the Ministry for Magic is going to be opened up with a basic charm?"

"Hey, it's possible," the blond replied defensively. "Deceptively simple, you know?" He drew his wand, and fired off the spell. Absolutely nothing happened, and Draco shrugged. "At least we know now. You'd have been kicking yourself if it had turned out to be right."

"Yes, of course," Hermione muttered sarcastically. "Maybe you should try Mellon next."

Harry smothered a grin as Draco looked at her in confusion. "I think there are probably a whole host of complicated spells on this. We're not going to crack it without a key."

"Then how are we supposed to get in?" Ron asked in exasperation. "Don't tell me we've come here for nothing!"

"I don't think so…" Harry reached up to the carving of the eye, and stroked it with his fingers. As he did so, he let little tendrils of magic seep through his fingers, felt them flood into the stone around the eye. Something in the door stirred, and it was as if a connection had been made in a circuit. Something in the door pulled at him, his magic pouring out of him. He tried to take a step back, but it was as if a giant fist had closed around his core, holding him in place. The magic stormed out of him, faster and faster, until he was sure that he could have no more to give – but when he focussed, quashing his panic as best he could, he found that nothing had changed; there was just as much magic in his system as ever there was. Before he could properly assimilate the information, the fist released him, and he staggered back.

"Harry, are you al-" Ginny trailed off as the door creaked. It slid open, vanishing into the wall – an impressive feat, given the curve of the stone surrounding the doorway. His senses still straining, Harry felt a little tremor of anticipation as he watched the door disappear; it felt sated. As if something it had been waiting for for a long, long time had finally happened.

"I'm fine, Ginny," he said, not entirely truthfully. He tightened his grip on his borrowed wand. "We're not going to find out anything just standing here."

Again, the room seemed vast, but it was hard to tell; there was little light to see by. Harry took a step inside, expecting flames to burst from the walls once more, but nothing happened. He raised his wand, casting a ball of light towards the ceiling. The were-light revealed an incredible ruby, suspended from the ceiling by thick golden chains. Harry cocked his head, examining it. It looked…familiar, somehow. He took a tentative step towards it, and halted. The ruby had begun to glow, white light shining forth. The light streamed over him, and –

He fell to his knees, palms down to catch himself, his eyes wide. He had never felt anything like that. The closest thing he could compare it to was the magic the unicorn had cast into him, just a few short years ago. Even that, intense and wonderful as it had been, had been nothing compared to this. Even direct contact with Voldemort's inhuman magic had not affected him as much – even the magic of the door he had just opened paled in comparison. He looked up at the ruby, and knew two things, knew them as if it were a fact of life, drilled into him on some level deeper than knowledge: the ruby was old, and it was not of human origin.

"Harry? Harry, are you all right?"

He forced his gaze away, turning to look over his shoulder at his friends. They were standing, tightly bunched in the doorway, their wands raised and aimed at the ruby. To a man, they wore expressions of unknowing fear.

"Can't you feel it?" he asked them, scarcely able to believe it possible. Ron shook his head emphatically.

"It's just a fancy stone, mate. Looks pretty, but that's it."

"God, I've never felt something like this…" Harry forced himself to his feet, reaching out to touch the ruby. He dimly heard someone – Hermione? – shouting to him, but he ignored them. His fingers were in the light when something hit him in the back. A shock ran through him, and he spun around, fire erupting into life in his palms. Ginny stood there, her wand shaking in her hand, her expression set. She was very carefully not looking at his hands.

"I really don't think you should touch that, Harry," she said, her voice trembling. Harry blinked. When he wasn't looking at it, it was easier to think. Ginny was right, he realised. He couldn't get any sense of the ruby, not the pure simplicity of the illusion, nor the foulness of the veil. He stepped closer to her, trying to smile reassuringly.

"I think you might be right. I just – I feel like I should know what it is, you know?"

"Not really, no," she said bluntly. He grinned. He supposed she wouldn't, at that. He looked around the room, trying to focus on anything except the glowing ruby. It was harder than he would like to admit. It was filled with desks and chairs, the desks covered in parchment. It looked like an office – or, he realised, a lecture hall. If you imagined the ruby as some sort of bizarre lecturer, and the people at the desks taking notes…although that was stupid. He shook his head, and looked back at Ginny. She was still staring at him, her eyes protruding alarmingly.

"What's wrong?"

"Harry, your hands are on fire!"

"What?" He looked down, startled. Sure enough, the fire he had called when Ginny had jinxed him still burnt there. "Huh. I forgot about that." He waved his hands, and the flames vanished. He moved his hands carefully, tilting them slightly the better to examine them. Not a mark on them, not even the faintest hint of residual heat. Somebody smarter than he would probably be able to divine something fascinating from that; he was just glad he hadn't injured himself.

"How the bloody hell do you forget your hands are on fire?" Hermione barked at him. He shrugged.

"I don't know. I don't even know how I did it, to be honest. I'm good, but I'm not that good."

Hermione tutted, and walked behind him to have a closer look at the ruby. He rather got the impression that she didn't believe him; he supposed self-deprecation would ring a little hollow after some of the things she had seen him do. But then, she didn't really understand how much work went into it all – it was hardly a matter of learning an incantation and a hand movement. He looked down at his hands again, and tried to ignore the unease at the back of his mind. He really shouldn't have been able to do that.

"I think there was something else here," Hermione said from behind him. He turned to find her bent over a stand that he hadn't noticed before, a thin layer of dust over the top of it. Two prongs stood out of the base, and it looked vaguely familiar to Harry.

"I've seen something like this before – somebody my aunt and uncle took me to visit, they had a sword collection. I think there ought to be a sword here."

"Who collects swords?" Ron asked curiously. "I mean, I can get why Muggles might want one or two around, they haven't got wands to defend themselves with, but a collection?"

"They can be important historical artefacts, you philistine. Not to mention artistic," Draco responded, with a long suffering sigh. Ron rounded on him, his cheeks flushing startlingly quickly.

"Important historical artefacts my arse! It's a sword, who cares who killed who with it?"

Draco fixed the red head with a level gaze. "This is why everyone thinks you're lower class, Weasley. You have no appreciation for the finer things in life."

Ron's brothers knew him well; by the time his wand had left his belt, but before the tip was actually poking Draco in the eye, they had moved in and grabbed his arms, pulling him back. He shook them off, and went for his wand again.

"Perhaps we could do this later? You know, after we're not wandering around the Ministry looking for Death Eaters?" Harry suggested, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. Ron flushed again, this time with embarrassment more than anger. He pointed at Draco meaningfully, then turned and walked over to join Hermione. Draco hung back, a vague expression that might have been guilt, but might equally have been boredom, hovering on his face. Shaking his head, Harry turned back to the ruby.

This time, he felt the ruby's magic layering itself over his thoughts and instincts – although it was a close run thing. He quickly wrapped himself in the comforting glow of his own magic, hoping to stave off the other presence. The result was not what he had hoped. Instead of repelling the other magic, the two fields seemed to bond. He could still feel the magic from the ruby moving around him. He took a step back, raising his hand in a borderline subconscious gesture of defence. His own magic, far from blocking off the foreign magic, seemed to be welcoming it with open arms. For all that the other magic seemed to cloud his thoughts though, it did not feel dangerous. If anything, he felt welcomed. It was as if the ruby was greeting him.

He reached a decision, and took a purposeful step forward. Before any of his friends could react, he had touched his left hand to the surface of the ruby, his other hand poised to unleash all the curses he could think of should the need arise. The result was anti-climactic: absolutely nothing happened. He withdrew his hand, feeling a little foolish. Behind him, he could hear Fred and George sniggering. Trying to ignore them, he leant forward, pretending to examine the ruby closer. The closer his head was to the ruby, however, he realised he could hear something. Turning his head, he pressed his ear tight against the ruby. It was deathly cold to the touch, but he could feel an incredibly faint vibration in time to the sound.

"Harry…what are you doing?" Ron asked. Harry waved a hand at his friend to be quiet, and closed his eyes in concentration. It was a long moment before he stood up, frowning. The frown faded to embarrassment as he looked at his friends; they were all giving him considering looks, as if they weren't entirely sure of his continued mental fortitude.

"I could hear it saying something," he explained. Even as the words left his mouth, he realised that they probably wouldn't do a great job of convincing anyone of his sanity, but he decided to ignore that issue for now. "I think it's called Tamuz's Eye. I think."

Fred nodded slowly, and shrugged. "If you say so. Never a dull moment with you, is there, Harry?"

"I strive to entertain at all times," Harry shot back. "Shall we move on?"

"Couldn't agree more," Ginny said, giving the ruby one last look of disdain. "This thing weirds me out, it really does."

"I think Harry wants to take it home," George whispered to her with a grin. "He does seem very fond of it." He leant away, chuckling as his sister reached up to slap him around the head. Grinning to himself, Harry led the group onwards. This was the first room they had come to that had a second door inside; he still had absolutely no idea about where to go, but this seemed promising.

The other door led onto another corridor, stretching off into the distance in either direction. It was featureless; not the same bleak stone as the corridor they had entered through, but more a blankness that spoke of functionality more than anything else. The other rooms they had seen had been impressive, showy – magical, above all else, albeit not necessarily in a pleasant way. Harry got the distinct impression that this was the real gateway to the Department of Mysteries, more-so than the spinning room they had passed through. Ordinary members of the Ministry probably never saw beyond the first few rooms.

Interesting as that insight may have been though, it did not help them with their present mission. There were dozens of doors leading off the corridor, and he had no idea which one might be which. He raised his hand, and conjured a ball of light. It shot off towards one end of the corridor, and the faint light it projected revealed that the corridor curved. Another ball in the other direction showed the same thing.

"This place could go on for miles," Draco moaned. "How are we supposed to find this bloody thing?"

"With magic?" Hermione suggested tartly. Moving to stand beside Harry, she placed her wand in the palm of her hand. "Point me Hall of Prophecy!"

The wand spun rapidly, before shuddering to a halt pointing towards a door on the left hand side of the corridor. She smiled smugly at Draco, who looked away irritably. "There was no way that should have worked down here."

"Of course there wasn't," she said, superiority oozing from her voice. She had always relished the opportunity to score a point against the Pureblood. "Do you want to lead the way, Harry?"

He obliged, going through the door wand first, ready for any sign of trouble. The room was, again, deserted, although it had more of a sense of habitation. There were two desks covered in paperwork, and a large fish tank in the corner, a curious touch for a research department. Then he looked closer.

"Erm…is it just me, or are those fish brains?" Ron said, voicing Harry's own thoughts.

Sure enough, there were two brains swimming around, trailing tentacles behind them. As Harry and his friends watched, appalled yet fascinated, the two brains bumped against each other, in a manner resembling nothing less than a cat bumping against its owner.

"That's the creepiest thing I've ever seen," Ginny said flatly. Harry looked at her dubiously.

"Really? 'Cause you've seen some pretty fucked up stuff…"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Brains with tentacles? Why would you do that? This is just…can we go?"

"They are a little odd," Hermione admitted, her eyes swivelling to follow the brains on their path around the tank. She couldn't seem to look away.

"A little odd? Your mastery of the art of understatement never ceases to astonish me, Granger," Draco snarked at her. Harry couldn't help but agree, but he walked off before another argument could ensue. Draco hurried next to him, trying to look as if he wasn't avoiding Hermione, who was glaring at him very pointedly. He looked at Harry pleadingly, but Harry shook his head.

"You started it, you know what to expect."

"Some friend you are," Draco grumbled. "I come out here, at great personal risk, and this is the thanks I get?"

"I'll buy you some Fire Whiskey," Harry replied, lying through his teeth. Forestalling any further comment, he pushed the next door open, stepping through. A quick scan of the room revealed nothing as bizarre as the brain tank, nor as incredible or threatening as the other rooms they had seen. What could be seen certainly qualified as curious.

The room was expansive, although not as vast as some of the others they had seen. In the centre of the room though was a wide pillar of shimmering light, with several objects suspended within. As Harry approached, it became apparent that they were wands; ten of them, give or take, each one releasing little bursts of magic every few seconds. As they watched, a particularly lengthy wand snapped off a brilliant blue plume of magic, and as the spell spiralled slowly upwards towards the ceiling, some of the light went with it.

"They're runes," Hermione breathed. "The light, it's made up of runes!"

Closer examination proved that she had the right of it; the light wasn't shimmering, but each individual glimmer was a different rune. They were moving too fast for Harry to make out, but he could see that more clustered into existence around the new spells as they were cast. As with the brains, there was no indication as to the reasoning behind such an experiment. It was strangely beautiful though; Harry would have been quite content to sit and watch it for a while, had they not had places to be.

They passed through into another hallway, and Hermione repeated the Direction Charm. Following her wand's lead once more, they walked onwards. A few yards down the corridor, the wand pointed them through another door, which slid open at their approach. By now, Harry was almost certain that they must have gone further than the rest of the Ministry actually extended. Either the Department was spread under half of London, or it was bigger on the inside. Either possibility disturbed him a little, if he was brutally honest. That much space or effort devoted to one secretive group of people rang all sorts of alarm bells.

The room that they entered next raised him from ringing bells to a cacophony fit to rouse an entire city, and proved once and for all that the Department of Mysteries didn't give a fig for the laws of physics.

The high vaulted ceiling stretched further than they could see, obscured in murky darkness, but the ceiling had to be a good fifty feet above them. Rickety rows of shelves towered over them, terrifyingly fragile in appearance, but deceptively sturdy to the touch; Harry could feel good solid oak when he touched the nearest one, with the faintest tingle of magic emanating from it. Each shelf was stacked with silvery glass balls, mist swirling within them.

"What are they?" Ginny leant closer, examining one of the orbs. She held out her hand, touched the tip of her finger to the smooth glass, just for a second. There was a blinding flash of light, followed by a thud. When Harry's vision cleared, his wand was raised and the younger girl was sprawled on the floor, staring at the orb in stunned befuddlement. "What the hell happened there?" she demanded, pushing herself to her feet. She had to hold onto the shelves for support, but she was very careful not to touch any of the glass.

"I think they're protected – it looks like memories inside," Harry offered. "Erm…are you ok?"

"Just wonderful, thanks for asking!" she shot back at him with a glare. "Memories of what? I can't see any Pensieves around."

Harry turned back to the shelf, inspiration striking. Leaning down, he could see faint labels, mostly hidden by the thick dust. The one Ginny had touched read: "Leonard Hawkins, to Brandon Balfour, concerning the coming Solstice. 12/08/1993." Harry grinned widely. They had found it.

"They're prophecies! We're in the right place – we just need to find the prophecy, and we're sorted!" He turned to face his friends, beaming at them, only to be met with rather downcast expressions. "What's up?"

"Harry…" Ron started to speak. "Have you seen this place?"

Harry looked round, and quickly saw Ron's point. The room was vast – comfortably bigger than the Great Hall at Hogwarts, probably twice over in fact. They had no idea where the relevant prophecy might be, and as far as he could see, no way of finding it other than looking at each individual orb.

"Bugger," he said with a sigh. Placing his wand in the palm of his hand, he concentrated, mustering all the conviction he could manage, but his hopes were in vain. The wand span like a gyroscope, but refused to come to a halt. In the end, he had to cancel the spell.

"How come it works in other rooms, but not in here?" Draco asked, looking down at the wand with a confused expression on his face.

"How am I supposed to know?" Harry responded with heat in his voice. "Department of Mysteries, remember? It's practically part of the job description. Any ideas?"

"We can't just go through them all individually," Hermione said. Harry resisted the urge to congratulate her on pointing out the obvious so well, but it was a close run thing. He looked around in frustration. His eyes lit upon the label he had just read, and he finally absorbed the information on it. "Hang on; this label is from 1993. When are the other dates?"

A cursory examination suggested that all the orbs on that row of shelves were from the same year. Hurriedly, Harry jogged to the end of the row, and headed left. The next row covered 1994. He waved to his friends, beckoning them after him, and set off looking for the row for 1981. It was a fair distance – it appeared that 1989 had been a busy year for prophecies, since it had three whole rows devoted to it – but eventually, they found what they were looking for. Harry broke into a run, dashing down the row, his wand held high to illuminate the names on the labels. Dawson, Edmundson, Fairfax…he ran faster, leaving his friends behind. Moody – possibly a relation? – Howarth…he skidded to a halt suddenly, his frantic gaze catching sight of his own name. He let out a triumphant laugh, and looked over his shoulder gleefully.

"I found it! It's still here!"

"So it is," a terribly familiar voice replied. Harry raised his wand, a fearful chill seeping over him, and projected more light from his wand. A group of Death Eaters stood there, his friends cast down but unhurt amongst them. Except Ginny. Sirius stood at the front of the group, the light from Harry's wand giving his eyes a manic glint. He had his hand wrapped in Ginny's hair, holding her in place, and his wand at her neck.

"So it is," he repeated. "Now be a good boy and get it down, would you?"