Chapter 37

The Department of Mysteries

KIARA

I wound my hand tightly into the mane of the nearest Thestral, placed a foot on a stump nearby and scrambled clumsily on to the horse's silken back. It did not object, but twisted its head around, fangs bared, and attempted to continue its eager licking of my robes.

I found there was a way of lodging my knees behind the wing joints that made me feel more secure, then looked around at the others. Nikita had heaved herself over the back of the next Thestral and was now attempting to swing one leg over the creature's back. Lincoln was already in place, sitting side-saddle and adjusting his robes as though he did this every day. Chris, Sian, Chrissie, Kestrel and Keziah, however, were still standing motionless on the spot, open-mouthed and staring.

"What?" I said.

"How're we supposed to get on?" said Chris faintly. "When we can't see the things?"

"Oh, it's easy," said Lincoln, sliding obligingly from his Thestral and marching over to him, Sian, Chrissie, Kestrel and Keziah. "Come here ..."

He pulled them over to the other Thestrals standing around and one by one managed to help them on to the back of their mount. All five looked extremely nervous as he wound their hands into their horse's mane and told them to grip tightly before he got back on to his own steed.

"This is mad," Chrissie murmured, moving her free hand gingerly up and down her horse's neck. "Mad ... if I could just see it - "

"You'd better hope it stays invisible," I said darkly. "We all ready, then?"

They all nodded and I saw seven pairs of knees tighten beneath their robes.

"OK ..."

I looked down at the back of my Thestral's glossy black head and swallowed.

"Ministry of Magic, visitors' entrance, London, then," I said uncertainly. "Er ... if you know ... where to go ..."

For a moment my Thestral did nothing at all; then, with a sweeping movement that nearly unsettled me, the wings on either side extended; the horse crouched slowly, then rocketed upwards so fast and so steeply that I had to clench my arms and legs tightly around the horse to avoid sliding backwards over its bony rump. I closed my eyes and pressed my face down into the horse's silky mane as we burst through the topmost branches of the trees and soared out into a blood-red sunset.

I did not think I had ever moved so fast: the Thestral streaked over the castle, its wide wings hardly beating; the cooling air slapped against my face; eyes screwed up against the rushing wind, I looked round and saw my seven fellows soaring along behind me, each of them bent as low as possible into the neck of their Thestral to protect themselves from my slipstream.

We were over the Dragon Mort grounds, we had passed Dragsmede; I saw mountains and gullies below us. As the sky began to darken, I saw that we were crossing over the sea, where the first early stars were reflected like diamonds on the smooth surface of the ocean water ...

"This is bizarre!" I heard Chrissie yell from somewhere behind me, and I imagined how it must feel to be speeding along at this height with no visible means of support.

Twilight fell: the sky was turning to a light, dusky purple littered with tiny silver stars in England, and soon only the lights of Muggle towns gave us any clue of how far from the ground we were, or how very fast we were travelling. My arms were wrapped tightly around my horse's neck as I willed it to go even faster. How much time had lapsed since I had seen my parents lying on the Department of Mysteries floor? How much longer would my parents be able to resist Zira? All I knew for sure was that my parents had neither done what Zira wanted, nor died, for I was convinced that either outcome would have caused me to feel Zira's jubilation of fury course through my own body, making my scar as painfully as it had on the night Mr Dawson was attacked.

On we flew through the gathering darkness; my face felt stiff and cold, and my legs numb from gripping the Thestral's sides so tightly, but I did not dare shift my position lest I slip ... I was deaf from the thundering rush of air in my ears, and my mouth was dry and frozen from the cold night wind. I had lost all sense of how far e had come; all my faith was in the beast beneath me, still streaking purposefully through the night, barely flapping its wings as it sped ever onwards.

If we were too late ...

They're still alive, they're still fighting, I can feel it ...

If Zira decided my parents were not going to crack ...

I'd know ...

My stomach then gave a jolt; the Thestral's head suddenly pointed towards the ground and I actually slid forwards a few inches along its neck. We were descending at last ... I thought I heard a shriek behind me and twisted around dangerously, but I saw no sign of a falling body ... presumably they had all received a shock from the change of direction, just as I had.

And now bright orange lights were growing larger and rounder on all sides; we saw the tops of buildings, streams of headlights like luminous insect eyes, squares of pale yellow that were windows. Quite suddenly, it seemed, we were hurtling towards the pavement; I gripped the Thestral with every last ounce of my strength, braced for a sudden impact, but the horse touched the dark ground as lightly as a shadow and I dismounted gracefully from its back, looking around 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.

Chrissie landed a short way off and toppled immediately from her Thestral on to the pavement.

"Never again," she said, struggling to her feet. She made as though to stride away from her Thestral, but, unable to see it, collided with its hindquarters and almost fell over again. "Never, ever again ... that was the worst - "

Chris and Sian touched down on either side of her; both slid off their mounts a little more gracefully than Chrissie, though with similar expressions of relief at being back on firm ground; Nikita jumped down, shaking; Keziah rolled right off of hers; and Lincoln dismounted smoothly.

"Where do we go from here, then?" he asked me in a pointedly interested voice, as though this was all an interesting day-trip.

"Over here," I said. I gave my Thestral a quick, gentle pat, then led the way quickly to the battered telephone box and opened the door. "Come on!" I urged the others, as they hesitated.

Chris, Sian and Chrissie marched in obediently; Kestrel, Nikita, Keziah and Lincoln squashed themselves in after them; I took one glance back at the Thestrals, now foraging for scraps of rotten food inside the skip, then forced myself in the box after Lincoln.

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

Chrissie did it, her 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."

"Kiara Pride-Lander, Chris Rickers, Sian Dawson, Chrissie Dawson, Kestrel Dawson, Nikita Bore, Keziah Rea-Bradley, Lincoln Lovedream ... we're here to save a couple of people, 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. Sian awkwardly scooped them up and handed them mutely to me over Chris' head; I glanced at the topmost one, Kiara Pride-Lander, 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!" I said loudly, as my scar gave another throb. "Now can we move?"

The floor of the telephone box shuddered and the pavements rose up past its glass windows; the scavenging Thestrals slid out of sight; blackness closed over our heads and with a dull grinding noise we sank down into the depths of the Ministry of Magic.

A chink of soft golden light hit our feet and, widening, rose up our bodies. I bent my knees and held my wand as ready as I could in such cramped conditions as I peered through the glass to see whether anybody was waiting for us 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 mantel-pieces set into the walls, but as the lift slid smoothly to halt I saw that the 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; I toppled out of it, closely followed by Nikita and Lincoln. The only sound in the Atrium was the steady rust of water from the golden fountain, where jets from the wands of Harry, Ron and Hermione continued to gush into the surrounding pool.

"Come on," I said quietly, and the eight of us sprinted off down the hall, with myself in the lead, past the fountain towards the desk where the watchwitch who had weighed my wand had sat, and which was now deserted.

I felt sure there ought to be a security person there, sure our absence was an ominous sign, and my feeling of foreboding increased as we passed through the golden gates to the lifts. I pressed the nearest "down" button and a lift clattered into sight almost immediately, the golden grilles slid apart with a great, echoing clang and we dashed inside. I stabbed the number nine button; the grilles closed with a bang and the lift began to descend, jangling and rattling. I had not realised how noisy the lifts were on the day I had come with Grandmother Sarabi and Mr Dawson; I 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. We stepped out into the corridor where nothing moved but the nearest torches, flickering in the rust of air from the lift.

I turned towards the plain black door. After months and months of dreaming about it, I was there at last.

"Let's go," I whispered, and I led the way down the corridor, Lincoln right behind me, gazing around with his mouth slightly open.

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

"And how're we going to let you know something's coming?" said Chris incredulously. "You could be miles away."

"We're coming with you, Kiara," said Nikita.

"Let's do this," said Chrissie firmly.

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

We were standing in a large, circular room. Everything in there was black including the floor and ceiling; identical, unmarked, handless 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," I muttered.

I regretted giving this order the moment Nikita had obeyed it. Without the long chink of light from the torchlit corridor behind us, the place became so dark that for a moment the only things we could see were the branches of shivering blue flames on the walls and our ghostly reflections on the floor.

In my dream, I 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 I was gazing ahead at the doors opposite to me, 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.

I heard a few people gasp behind me, as though afraid that the floor might move, too, but it did not. For a few seconds, but the blue flames around us 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.

My eyes had blue streaks burned into them; it was all I could see.

"What was that about?" whispered Chrissie fearfully.

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

I realised at once that he was right: I could no sooner identify the exit door than locate an ant on the jet-black floor, and the door through which we needed to proceed could be any one of the dozen which surrounded us.

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

"Well, that doesn't matter now," I said forcefully, blinking to try to erase the blue lines from my vision, and clutching my wand tighter than ever, "we won't need to get out 'til we've found my parents - "

"Don't go calling for them, though!" Sian said urgently, but I had never needed her advice less; my instinct was to keep as quiet as possible.

"Where do we go, then, Kiara?" Chrissie asked.

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

I marched straight at the door now facing me, the others following close behind me, set my left hand against its cool, shining surface, raised my 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 I had seen in my 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 us to swim in; a number of pearly-white objects were drifting lazily in it.

"What're these things supposed to be?" whispered Chrissie.

"Dunno," I said.

"Are they fish?" breathed Chris.

"Aquavirius Maggots!" said Lincoln excitedly. "Mammy said the Ministry were breeding - "

"No," said Sian. 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?"

I joined her at the tank. Sure enough, there could be no mistake now I 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," I said. "This isn't right, we need to try another door."

"There are doors here, too," said Kestrel, pointing around the walls. My heart sank; how big was this place?

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

So we hurried back into the dark, circular room; the ghostly shapes of the brains swam before my eyes instead of the blue candle flames.

"Wait!" said Sian sharply, as Lincoln made to close the door of the brain room behind us. "Flagrate!"

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

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

Again, I strode directly at the door facing me and pushed it open, my wand still raised, the others at my 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. We were stood on the topmost tier of what seemed to be stone benches running all around the room and descending in stone steps like an amphitheatre, or the courtroom in which I 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 I 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?" I said, jumping down on to the bench below. There was no answering voice, but the veil continued to flutter and sway.

"Careful!" whispered Sian.

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

"Daddy? Mum?" I spoke again, but more quietly now that I was nearer.

I then had the strangest feeling that someone was standing right behind the veil on the other side of the archway. Gripping my wand very tightly, I 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 Sian from halfway up the stone steps. "This isn't right, Kiara, come on, let's go."

She sounded scared, much more scared than she had in the room where the brains swam, yet I thought the archway had a kind of beauty about it, old though it was. The gently rippling veil intrigued me; I felt a very strong inclination to climb upon the dais and walk through it.

"Kiara, let's go, OK?" said Sian more forcefully.

"OK," I said, but I did not move. I had just heard something. There were faint whispering, muttering noises coming from the other side of the veil.

"What are you saying?" I said very loudly, so that my words echoed all around the stone benches.

"Nobody's talking, Kiara!" said Sian, moving over to me.

"Someone's whispering behind there," I said, moving out of her reach and continuing to frown at the veil. "Is that you, Chris? Chrissie?"

"We're here, Kiara," said Chris, appearing around the side of the archway, with Chrissie appearing a second later with her head above his, grinning and waving at me. She only faltered in doing this when she sensed Chris glaring at her. Chrissie stopped and looked at Chris questioningly. He glared at her. I ignored them.

"Can anyone else hear it?" I demanded, for the whispering and murmuring was becoming louder; without really meaning to put it there, I found my foot on the dais.

"I can hear them too," breathed Lincoln, joining us around the side of the archway and gazing at the swaying veil. "There are people in there!"

"What do you mean, "in there"?" demanded Sian, jumping down from the bottom step and sounding much angrier than the occasion warranted. "There isn't any "in there", it's just an empty archway, there's no room for anybody to be there. Kiara, stop it, come away - "

She grabbed at my arm and pulled, but I resisted.

"Kiara, focus here! We are supposed to be here for your parents, remember?" said Sian firmly.

"My parents," I repeated, still gazing, mesmerised, at the continuously swaying veil. "Yeah ..."

Something finally slid into my brain; my parents, captured, bound and tortured, and I was staring at this archway ...

I took several paces back from the dais and wrenched my eyes from the veil.

"Let's go," I said.

"That's what I've been trying to - well, come on, then!" said Sian, and she led the way back around the dais. On the other side, Kestrel, Nikita and Keziah were staring, apparently entranced, at the veil too. Without speaking, Sian took one of Kestrel's arms in one hand, and one of Keziah's in the other, Chrissie grabbed Nikita's, and they marched them firmly back to the lowest stone bench and clambered all the way back up to the door.

"What d'you reckon that arch was?" I asked Sian as we regained the dark circular room.

"I don't know, but whatever it was, it was dangerous," she said firmly, again inscribing a fiery cross on the door.

Once more, the wall span and became still again. I approached another door at random and pushed.

It did not move.

"What's wring?" said Sian.

"It's ... locked ..." I said, throwing my weight at the door, but it did not budge.

"This is it, then, isn't it?" said Chrissie excitedly, both she and Chris joining me in the attempt to force the door open. "Bound to be!"

"Get out of the way!" said Sian sharply. She pointed her wand at the place where a lock would have been on an ordinary door and said, "Alohomora!"

Nothing happened.

"My parents' knife!" I said. I pulled it out from inside my robes and slid it into the crack between the door and the wall. The others all watched eagerly as I ran it from top to bottom, withdrew it and then flung my shoulder again at the door. It remained as firmly shut as ever. What was more, when I looked down at the knife, I saw the blade had melted.

"Right, we're leaving that room," said Sian decisively.

"But what if that's the one?" said Chrissie, staring at it with a mixture of apprehension and longing.

"It can't be, Kiara could get through all the other doors in her dream," said Sian, marking the door with another fiery cross as I replaced the now-useless handle of my parents' knife in my pocket.

"You know what could be in there?" said Lincoln eagerly, as the wall started to spin yet again.

"Something blibbering, no doubt," said Sian under her breath; Keziah snorted and Nikita gave a nervous laugh.

The wall slid to a halt and, with a feeling of increased determination, I pushed the next door open.

"This is it!"

I knew it at once by the beautiful, dancing diamond-sparkling light. As my eyes became accustomed to the brilliant glare, I saw clocks gleaming from every surface, large and small, grandfather and carriage, hanging in spaces between the bookcases and standing on desks ranging the length of the room, so that a busy, relentless ticking filled the place like thousands of miniscule, marching footsteps. The source of the dancing, diamond-bright light was a towering crystal bell at that stood at the far end of the room.

"This way!"

My heart was pumping frantically now that I knew we were on the right track; I led the way down the narrow space between the lines of desks, heading, as I had done in my dream, for the source of the light, the crystal bell jar quite as tall as I was that stood on a desk and appeared to be full of a billowing, glittering wind.

"Oh, look!" said Kestrel as we drew nearer, pointing at the very heart of the bell jar.

Drifting along in the sparkling current inside was a tiny, jewel-bright egg. As it rose in the jar, it cracked open and a humming-bird emerged, which was carried to the very top of the jar, but as it fell on the draught its feathers becamed bedraggled and damp again, and by the time it had been borne back to the bottom of the jar it had been enclosed once more in its egg.

"Keep going!" I said sharply, because Kestrel showed signs of wanting to stop and watch the egg's progress back into a bird.

"You dawdled enough by that old arch!" she said crossly, but followed me past the bell jar to the only door behind it.

"This is it," I said again, and my heart was now pumping so hard and so fast that I felt it must interfere with my speech, "it's through here - "

I glanced around at them all; they had their wands out and looked suddenly serious and anxious. I looked back at the door and pushed. It swung open.

We were there, we had found the place: high as a church and full of nothing but towering shelves covered in small, dusty glass orbs. They glimmered dully in the light issuing from more candle-brackets set at intervals along the shelves. Like those in the circular room behind us, their flames were burning blue. The room was very cold.

I edged forwards and peered down one of the shadowy aisles between two rows of shelves. I did not hear anything or even saw the slightest sign of movement.

"You said it was row one hundred and seven," whispered Sian.

"Yeah," I breathed, looking up at the end of the closest row. Beneath the branch of blue-glowing candles protruding from it glimmered the silver figure fifty-three.

"We need to go right, I think," whispered Sian, squinting to the next row. "Yes ... that's fifty-four ..."

"Keep your wands ready," I said softly.

We crept forwards, glancing behind us as we went on down the long alleys of shelves, the further ends of which were in near-total darkness. Tiny, yellowing labels had been stuck beneath each glass orb on the shelves. Some of them had a weird, liquid glow; others were as dull and dark within as blown light bulbs.

We passes row ninety-four ... ninety-five ... I listened hard for the slightest sound of movement, but my parents could be gagged now, or else unconscious ... or, said an unbidden voice inside my head, the might already be dead ...

I'd have felt it, I told myself, my heart hammering in my throat, I'd already know ...

"One hundred and seven!" whispered Sian.

We stood grouped around the end of the row, gazing down the alley beside it. There was nobody there.

"They're right down at the end," I said, as my mouth became slightly dry. "You can't see properly from here."

And I led them between the towering rows of glass balls, some of which glowed softly as we passed ...

"We should be near here," I whispered (foolishly) convinced that every step was going to bring the ragged forms of my dear mother and father into view on the darkened floor. "Anywhere here ... really close ..."

"Kiara?" said Sian tentatively, but I did not want to respond. My mouth was very dry.

"Somewhere about ... here ..." I said.

We had reached the end of the row and emerged into more dim candlelight. There was nobody there. All was echoing, dusty silence.

"They might be ..." I whispered hoarsely, peering down the next alley. "Or maybe ..." I hurried to look down the one beyond that.

"Kiara?" said Sian again.

"What?" I snarled.

"I ... I don't think your parents are here."

None of us spoke. I did not want to look at any of them. I felt sick. I did not understand why my parents were not there. They had to be there. This was where I, Kiara, their daughter, had seen them ...

I ran up the space at the end of the rows, staring down them. Empty aisle after empty aisle flickered past. I ran the other way, past my staring companions. There was no sign of my father or mother anywhere, nor any hint of a struggle.

"Kiara?" Chrissie called.

"What?"

I did not want to hear what Chrissie had to say; I did not want to hear she or Chris tell me that I had been stupid or suggest that we ought to go back to Dragon Mort, but the heat rose in my face and I felt as though I would like to skulk down there in the darkness for a long while before facing the brightness of the Atrium above and the others' accusing voices ...

"Have you seen this?" said Chrissie.

"What?" I said, but eagerly this time - it had to be a sign that my parents had been there, a clue. I strode back to where they were all standing, a little way down row one hundred and seven, but found nothing except Chrissie staring at one of the dusty glass spheres on the shelf.

"What?" I repeated glumly.

"It's - it's got your name on," said Chrissie.

I moved a little closer. Chrissie was pointing at one of the small glass spheres that glowed with a dull inner light, though it was very dusty and appeared not to have been touched for many years.

"My name?" I said blankly.

I stepped forwards. Slightly taller than Chrissie, I did not have to crane my neck in order to read the yellowish label affixed to the shelf right beneath the dusty glass ball. In spidery writing was written a date of some sixteen years previously, and below that:

C.C.C to S.L.J.W.C.

Scarlet Lady

and (?) Kiara Pride-Lander

I stared at it.

"What is it?" Chrissie asked, sounding unnerved. "What's your name doing down here?"

She glanced along at the other labels on that stretch of shelf.

"I'm not here," she said, sounding perplexed. "None of the rest of us are here."

"Kiara, I don't think you should touch it," said Sian sharply, as I stretched out my hand.

"Why not?" I said. "It's something to do with me, isn't it?"

"Don't, Kiara," said Nikita suddenly. I looked at her. Nikita's round face shone slightly with sweat. She looked as though she could not take much more suspense.

"It's got my name on," I said.

And feeling slightly reckless, I closed my fingers around the dusty ball's surface. I had expected it to feel cold, but it did not. On the contrary, it felt as though it had been lying in the sun for hours, as though the glow of light within was warming it. Expecting, even hoping, that something dramatic was going to happen, something exciting that might make our long and dangerous journey worthwhile after all, I lifted the glass ball down from its shelf and stared at it.

Nothing whatsoever happened. The others moved in closer around me, gazing at the orb as I brushed it free of clogging dust.

And then, from right behind us, a drawling voice spoke.

"Very good, Pride-Lander. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."