Chapter 58: The Veil

Calamity was standing, dressed in her finest robes in the House of Black, but also not the house of Black at all. She merely knew that the grand masquerade she was attending was in the House of Black because it didn't look anything like 12 Grimmauld Place. Everyone was masked, though again she knew, simply knew, that some of the masked figured were friends that filled the room. Though she was sure other rooms lay beyond this one, the only thing she could see out of the opened doors was a tall & narrow gothic stained glass window of blue. In fact, Calamity noted looking around the room, the whole room was vividly blue in furniture, walls, and windows. The only feature in the entire room that was not blue was a large ebony clock with a pendulum winging back and forth in a foreboding fashion. As Calamity approached it she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find a horrifying masked costume. The mask was beaked like a plague doctor and so ghostly white in the blue room that Calamity felt a terror swelling deep inside her stomach as if death itself was looking at her. Calamity took a step back, then another, until she found herself against the wall just beneath the ebony clock. The masked plague stepped towards her as well, closing the distance, reaching out as if to seek her help or to attack. It was getting closer and closer! The clock above her began to chime.

Calamity sat up straight in bed sending a book clattering to the floor. Sweat was dripping down her face. She stared around Sirius' familiar room, a light breeze floating through the window and muffled noises from the street below. She reached down to pick up the book, an old copy of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories. Obviously not the best reading before bed. She tried to find the page she'd left off on, skimming across until she found her place.

"It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterward, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero."

She marked the page and closed it, stretching and glancing at Sirius' sleeping form. Except, he wasn't there. He had said he needed to take care of something downstairs and she had fallen asleep. She stood and moved to the door, opening it and listening for any sounds that might indicate Sirius was headed back up. The stairwell was silent, except for a soft calling below. Calamity glanced back at her book, took a deep breath, and against her better instinct after such a nightmare, walked to the voice. It was Dumbledore's head floating in the fireplace.

"Calamity," he said joyfully. "I need your assistance at the Ministry, immediately. Apparate to the entrance when we part."

"What's-" Calamity began, but Dumbledore cut her off with a look.

"I will explain when you arrive. Time is fleeting and at every moment disaster is closer. The ministry has been infiltrated by both sides."

Then, Albus Dumbledore disappeared.

.

Calamity arrived moments later, having quickly searched the house and found in deserted. She let out a string of curses as she hurried towards Dumbledore's form.

"Snape informed me that Harry and his friends have come to save Sirius," Dumbledore explained hurriedly, pulling out six 50 pence muggle coins and handing them to her. "Only Sirius isn't here, rather it is a trap set by death eaters and Voldemort."

"Oh, I'm sure Sirius is here," Calamity said darkly putting the coins into her pocket and patting them for safety. "Because he's not in Grimmauld Place."

"Then that complicates this a bit," Dumbledore said, watching her carefully, as if she might change her mind suddenly and leave. "I will need you to retrace their steps. Once you find any under-aged wizards, heal them as necessary, put the coin in their pocket, and use your wand to activate the portkey. It will send them back to the Hogwarts Infirmary once you tap it and say 'ire ad'."

"How will I follow their steps," Calamity asked briskly. She could feel her wand warming against her leg despite her not even being in the ministry yet. How bad did a situation have to be for such a warning to come so far ahead of the dangers?

Dumbledore held up a galleon. "Ms. Granger created these for their secret meetings. I have modified it only slightly. I was told that it always warmed up to alert the holder to a change in meeting date. Now it will warm up as it gets closer to another holder of such coins."

"You're sending me into the ministry with a warming coin to find children," Calamity repeated. "Dumbledore, the ministry is huge. Can't we narrow it down at all? If there is a medical emergency to handle time is of the essence."

"Indeed," Dumbledore agreed. He placed a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "We've narrowed it down to the Department of Mysteries."

Before Calamity could point out that this in fact did very little to narrow down the locations of those in need, she felt a zap of power move from Dumbledore's hand to her shoulder and she was practically pushed into disapparating away. She appeared in a circular room with a dark marble floor. Calamity peered around the room, noting the candles emitting a cool blue light making the tiled floor look almost like standing water. Surrounding her were twelve handle-less doors. Calamity didn't need a warming wand to tell her that this room was too eerily similar to her nightmare earlier in the evening. Danger was obviously everywhere. Pushing the thought from her mind, she pulled the galleon out and held it in her hand, taking a few steps towards each door to see if it would warm or not.

She paused as the coin warmed. Taking out her wand, she held it up to the door, staring at it determinedly and with all the desire she held to enter to whomever may need her help she said, "Open."

Inside the room was 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 them, their flames were burning blue. The room was very cold, though the coin continued to warm, even as the room began to change. The orbs and shelves disappeared and Calamity began to feel the crunch of broken glass beneath her feet. She paused looking around.

What a number they did, Calamity thought as she continues her walk, following the heat of the coin. Please be alive, please let this destruction be from you idiots causing a distraction to escape with your lives.

Cautiously, she continued onward, through a door to a room with the diamonds, than a office off the side of the room. She noted a baby headed adult on the floor, then some unfamiliar death eater with his mask off. He didn't look familiar, but she muttered a quick binding spell, magically tying them together at the ankle and wrist. A cabinet of time turners distracted Calamity only for a moment as it fell to the ground, only to repair itself and begin its fall to destruction again.

The galleon cooled slightly as she reached the corner wall. Does it want me to turn around, She wondered. However, when she heads back towards the exit, the galleon only warms for a moment, then cools again. There it is, she thinks spotting a small, almost unnoticeable door behind the infinitely repairing and destroying time turners. She takes a few steps towards it and the galleon heats rapidly.

"Alright, I get it," Calamity tell the coin, entering through the door, wand raised.

This new room was long and rectangular, lit by low-hanging lamps that light a strange tank filled with green solution and swimming brains with tentacles. Laying motionless on the floor were Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and a blonde girl Calamity didn't know.

Scars and a little blood on Ron, swollen ankle for Ginny, a curse on Hermione, Calamity listed the injuries to herself as she went down the line, checking their pulses as she went. Mostly unharmed considering they were against deatheaters. Clearly not ones out for a kill.

"It's a miracle you idiots made it our alive," Calamity informed them, tucking the 50 pence one by one into their pockets safely. With a final check of vitals (and a quick binding of Ginny's ankle), tapped the coins and said "ire ad." One by one the teens disappear to the Hogwarts Infirmary.

Calamity looked at the remaining coins. Still two coins which means still two kids left, she thought, tucking them back into her pocket and pulling out the galleon again. It was warming even more, almost hot as she headed heading to the next door at the end of the room.

The room was large, rectangular, dimly lit with a sunken stone pit some twenty feet deep at the center. Stone benches ran all around the room and descended in steep steps toward a raised stone dais in the center of the pit. An ancient crumbling stone archway, unsupported by any surrounding wall, stood on the dais and on the archway hung a tattered black curtain, fluttering very slightly as if blown by a faint wind. From her spot she can see evidence of battle, an unconscious Moody, deatheaters making a run for it, scorch marks on the stone walls from missed spells. She takes note of the room as she moves towards Moody to see if he is alright. Next to him, she is distracted as she blocks a final curse from a retreating deatheater. Sirius' bark like laugh echoes in the cavenous room.

"Come on, you can do better than that," he calls almost joyfully.

In response, Bellatrix sends a jet of light at Sirius, whose eyes widened in response. Harry jumps down the steps, pulling out his wand as everyone seems to watch, frozen in shock as they follow Sirius' falling form. He almost sinks more than falls through the ragged veil hanging from the arch. Bellatrix Lestrange let out a triumphant scream, but it was Harry's desperate yell as he reached the floor that pushed Calamity from her frozen state.

"SIRIUS!" Harry yelled, "SIRIUS!"

Remus made it to Harry, grabbing him around the chest. Calamity turns away, checking Moody's pulse and vitals, pushing the images and thoughts of what has occurred before her from her mind to be dealt with later. A battle field is not the place to get distracted. To get distracted could mean... she shakes her head to focus, not allowing herself to finish the sentence nor allow the emotions the end of the sentence might bring. She has to focus now on surviving here. Moody seems overall fine. She puts a coin in his jacket and mutters "ire ad." He disappears and Calamity can no longer distract herself from the yells coming from Remus & Harry.

"We can still reach him - "

"There's nothing you can do, Harry... nothing... He's gone. — no!"

"SHE KILLED SIRIUS!" bellowed Harry. "SHE KILLED HIM — I'LL KILL HER!" And he was off, scrambling up the stone benches; people were shouting behind him but he did not care. They both disappeared leaving a shocked room.

"Mr. Longbottom, report to Calamity to be checked over, then sent back to school," came Dumbledore's booming voice, breaking through the yells for Harry to stop. "You will all return to Grimmauld place. I will get Harry. This is a direct order. Go."

They all met back at Grimmauld place, to an empty house that now felt more empty than ever before since the last heir to the Black family had disappeared through the veil and the war had been thrown into the public eye.

"What now," Tonks said. No one answered because no one knew.

Okay, I know it's been forever. Really really an eternity. Honestly, I have zero excuses. My goal is to start of 2020 with the final chapter done. We'll see. REVIEW Please!