Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Eight: Invasion of the Ministry

Ah. The thestrals. An idea that would never have occurred to Harry, or, indeed, most normal people. But Luna had never been normal, and neither was Harry. He paused, and turned to her.

"Thestrals?" he repeated.

What followed was an impromptu review session of that disastrous class that Umbridge had interrupted. Harry hesitated, turning from the fireplace, to Luna, and back. But, thestrals would probably be less noticeable of an entrance. And, Luna was a ravenclaw. She might know best.

He managed, somehow, to completely ignore Ron's thoroughly sincere concern for his well-being, as they made plans to seek for the thestrals in the Forbidden Forest.

"They're drawn to the scent of blood," Luna reminded him. He had remembered that. But, he'd stopped by Gryffindor Tower following the last exam, and had retrieved the Sword of Gryffindor. If all else failed….

Harry took the opportunity, as they made their way, some with more understanding of why than others, down to the Forbidden Forest, to explain just what each of those tokens represented. "This way, if we become separated, I can still communicate with you."

"Shouldn't we have made it so that anyone could contact anyone else?" asked Ginny, still seething. She knew that some big secret was being kept from her, now. But, she knew better than to confront the Trio now. She would wait, but she would not forget.

Harry glanced at her, and had to look away. "No, that would be too complicated," he said. "Also, as I am the leader, and these were made by me, I'm the only one able to open the channels of communication. I don't think it would even work if I tried to make it work the way you describe. That's what muggle walkie talkies are for."

"Electronics don't work at Hogwarts, or places with high concentrations of magic," Hermione reminded them all, with exaggerated patience.

"I basically took the spell Hermione used to make those galleons, and tweaked it slightly. I didn't have the time to do anything else."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at this statement, but did not gainsay him. She must be thinking of what sort of use he intended to put these to, in the future. But, the five who bore these coins, other than Harry himself, were those he trusted most within the Defence Association. They were also the most promising. If anyone were to have a future in the front lines….

Still, he probably should have figured out a way to connect them to one another, other than the obvious bond they shared of being cut from the same sheet of parchment.

Hmm.

After the introduction to the way the coins worked, he had to attempt to explain the current phase of the plot. Ron was in charge of strategy. Harry was, technically speaking, leader of the expedition. He was the one skilled at winging it. But, Ron could read a situation, too, and figure out a more long-term plan. He could give them an outline, even now, a basic strategy, tips for not dying.

Harry told them the why. He told them that it was necessary to draw Riddle out of hiding—otherwise, they were giving him time to gain resources—knowledge, allies, a power base. He'd proven that he wasn't simply sitting idle as he focused on this one goal, and the Order was trying to fight both the Ministry and the Death Eaters. They were fighting on two fronts. They were the ones at a disadvantage.

Riddle would never pass up an opportunity for an end-of-the-year battle against Harry. He had, essentially, sent Harry a challenge, complete with meeting place and time. Perhaps, Harry shouldn't follow his instructions, but if he didn't….

Well, who knew what Riddle would resort to, then? Not to mention, he would then know that Harry had been learning occlumency. Suspicion would fall on the spy at Hogwarts, Professor Snape, and Riddle would redouble his efforts to break into Harry's mind. Sooner or later, he was bound to succeed, and do far more damage. Better to walk into a known trap, spring it, and put Riddle on the defensive.

He did not lay out the entirety of these thoughts—just a sketch, and there was hardly time to go into detail, regardless, but the others trusted his judgement—all except for Hermione and Ron, who knew the truth about him, and who couldn't help wondering how much of this plan was influenced by the corrupted corner of his mind. Harry had to shove aside his own doubts concerning that same quandary.

"Harry," Hermione said, eyes narrowed at him. "Are you quite sure you're up to this? How is your head?"

Sometimes, when Hermione was being particularly bookish, he wondered how Ron and Hermione had ever got together. At other times, however, a certain similarity of disposition made it abundantly clear.

"Do you mean from when my scar hurt because of Riddle contacting me from afar? Or from Ron hitting me over the head? That was quite the blow."

"Or how about the Cruciatus?" Hermione said, glaring daggers at him.

Harry glanced around. Neville was shaking at the mention of the Curse, and Harry winced. It should have occurred to him just how badly Neville would react to witnessing the Curse cast, the one that had taken his parents from him, but in the moment—

They were about one staircase away from the Great Hall. They were out after curfew, technically speaking, but that was as nothing next to the other rules they had broken, and intended to break. Not worth thinking about. Still, the absence of crowds meant that he'd have to drag Neville into this if he wanted to get out of discussing it. He sighed.

"I redirected it," he said. "And Umbridge, while she has hate in abundance, lacks the power and magical presence necessary to make the spell excruciating as Riddle's version. I am not about to go mad and attempt to conquer the world."

Ginny shot him a suspicious look at this, and he met her gaze, keeping his level, a hint, a plea for understanding. She bit her lip, and looked down, clutching her upper arm with her hand, as if it pained her.

Luna noticed none of this, and Neville was still shaking and pale, looking around, casting furtive glances around them, on edge. Well, he might be.

"Neville, this is a dangerous task," Harry said. "Lestrange will likely be there. You need not join us."

Neville straightened his shoulders, and seemed to be trying to still the shaking. That they were walking helped to hide it, anyway. "I'm coming, too. I'll do my part. I'm a gryffindor!"

Hermione sent Harry a decidedly reproachful glare, as if he'd just talked Neville into this, instead of offering him a way out.

Neville had a hold of himself by the time they exited into the cooling nighttime air. Dusk had come and gone hours ago. At least, Harry thought it had. He was never quite sure how long he was unconscious for, and Ron had hit him quite hard.

Harry reconsidered the merits of cutting open his hand with the Sword of Gryffindor, remembering what it had done to the mist within the locket. Who knew what spells were on it, indeed? Besides, he'd recently met with some success in making the material from which he'd formed those blades, way back in first year.

Hermione, as he was thinking things through, withdrew a Swiss Army Knife, and dragged it down the palm of her left hand. "Blood, right?" she asked, shaking her head in a flurry of frizz.

Harry blinked, staring at her. She sounded far too businesslike. Indifferent. He suspected that that was his fault. And Ron's.

As they watched, the four of them who could, the skeletal equine shapes of thestrals began to emerge from the Forest, drawn to the scent of blood. They gathered around Hermione, who stared straight ahead, looking stoic. Ron stood next to her, folding an arm around her, as if for protection.

"Something's nuzzling me," Hermione said, with a hint of panic creeping in, as Harry could tell by the slightly rushed way she was starting to speak.

"We will share a thestral," Ron told her. "It is safest."

"Ginny?" asked Harry, as if that were his cue. Ginny was the only other of them who couldn't see the thestrals.

"I still need you to answer my questions," Ginny said, almost huffy.

"I doubt you'd hear, over the rush of wind," he told her. She scowled at him.

"I play quidditch, too, you know," she said, shaking her head, and sending bright red hair whipping around her.

Harry helped her onto one of the thestrals, and then, after a moment's pause, mounted in front. "Hang on to me," he said, in a lower voice. "Ron is right to say that that's safest."

It was very rare that he was obliged to concede that Ron was right.

A glance around the Forest's edge showed that Neville and Luna had had an easier time of mounting their thestrals. Since they could see the horses, they were each able to ride solo. But, Harry didn't mind.

"Er—the Ministry of Magic, in London," he told the flicking ear before him. "If you've been there, before. You, and the others—"

The thestral spread broad, black, bat wings, then, and they were airborne in less time than it had taken Buckbeak.

They arrived at the Ministry a surprisingly short time later. It was true night, now, with a sky full of stars. Harry managed to ignore them by focusing on the task ahead, but Ginny would insist on trying to speak with him. He welcomed any distraction, but knew that the wind would swallow any reply he might make.

They stopped at the tollbooth, dismounting, Ginny and Hermione with the help of Harry and Ron. Ginny was quite pale, and Hermione's eyes were wide, but they were taking it better than he had any right to expect of them.

"Harry—" Hermione began, but just then, a tiny green dragon soared through the air, clutching an envelope.

Harry took no notice of Neville's gobsmacked expression, dropped jaw and all, or Luna's of mild curiosity. He took Cedric's letter with an appreciative pat on the head of the not-quite-living dragon, and tore it open, reading it as he walked.

Reinforcements were coming to the Ministry. They should be there not long after Harry and company. The missive suggested half an hour.

Harry kept this in mind, during the ride down to the Ministry, down the lift to the Department of Mysteries, even whilst they were trying to discern which of the doors leading off that central hub of spinning doors might lead to the Hall of Prophecies. He would not have thought to mark the doors they had already tried, even had he been thinking on such matters.

He closed the first door, one full of vats with brains floating in them, without giving it more than a cursory look. They studied the secrets of the universe here in the Department of Mysteries. He didn't need a label to know that that was the room dedicated to the mysteries of the Mind. He stumbled back out of it, shaking rather, trying not to think dangerous, counterproductive thoughts.

The next room they'd tried, perforce, had been worse, in its own way—a room with small scale models of planets, and the floor, walls, and ceiling full of stars.

It's only a planetarium, he told himself. They'd gone there, once, with his class, on a field trip, back when he'd been attending an ordinary, muggle, school, and he'd had no idea that he was—

The third door refused to open, but the tension that had filled him bated only slightly (he was noticing a trend, here, between the Mysteries of the Universe, and the Infinity Stones), when he noticed in the room beyond the fourth door a wall of time turners, and a bell jar with a bird that hatched from an egg, spent an entire lifetime trapped within that jar, before dying, decaying, reforming into an egg again.

Time. Well, at least he had no personal experience with that one (…he didn't think, but he remembered the gaps in his memory, still).

He hoped that the next room wasn't dedicated to power, or reality, or soul. He glanced at Ron, to see whether he'd followed Harry's line of thought, but Ron didn't seem to have noticed.

Ron was thinking of other things. He gave them the sketch of a plan, when finally the door opened onto the right room, full of shelves upon shelves of crystalline orbs. Far too many places for the enemy to hide, far too ready for an ambush.

One to guard the door through which they'd entered, and one for the door on the other side. The other four must stay together. Harry would keep them connected.

Neville and Luna volunteered for sentry duty. Ginny refused to let Harry out of her sight. Which was also the case for Ron and Hermione. He knew that Hermione still suspected that there was something wrong with him. She didn't realise that they'd avoided the danger, entirely. He'd turned the Cruciatus back on Umbridge before it could tear down more than his breakwater barrier. The other was still intact.

But, there was no ready opportunity to convince her of this fact—not only was Ginny with them, but they had to stay on guard, and alert. Who knew when Riddle would spring the trap? Of course, Harry's scar wasn't hurting…he must not be nearby. But, Harry knew how to draw him out of hiding, he thought. Riddle wanted the prophecy, after all.

"Look for the prophecy concerning me and Ri—You-Know-Who," he told the others, and Harry, meanwhile, tried his hardest to remember the clues hidden in his dream.

It was at the end of a row, in a nondescript misty orb, just like any of the others. Harry stared at it, shaking his head at the indecipherable lettering. Bureaucracy was bureaucracy, he supposed, but he tired of initials.

He stared at that glass ball for a second or two, still considering the best course of action. Destroy it? No. If he destroy it straightaway, then Riddle would have no cause to come. He'd just have to avoid Riddle's traps long enough to frustrate the man himself.

Half an hour.

He reached out, and took hold of the surprisingly light crystal ball. (Of course, it would have to be a crystal ball. It wouldn't be clichéd enough, otherwise, now would it?)

"Hard to believe, all this fuss over a crystal ball," he said.

Hermione scoffed. Divination still seemed a very woolly subject to her.

"Good boy, Potter," said a familiar, silky voice. "Now hand that over, and no one need be hurt."

Malfoy Senior. A legitimate threat. And, with him, the Lestranges. (Both, most likely, but Bellatrix was distinctive on account of being the only female Death Eater. She gave a mad cackle as if to confirm her identity.)

"I wouldn't have believed it, but the Dark Lord always knows!" she crowed. "Poor Potter. He had a bad dream, and thought that it was true!"

"And, what, this is a trap, instead? You're after this?" he raised the prophecy aloft, staring down the sunken eye sockets of five different masks.

"Accio prophecy!" cried Malfoy, but Harry's grip was deceptively loose. The thing barely moved. He should have tried the Disarming Spell. Harry was almost inclined to scoff.

"If your lord so desires this prophecy, he may come and get it himself!" he cried.

"There's too many of them; what do we do?" Hermione whispered. At least she wasn't frozen in place.

Harry took a moment to weigh his options. The Death Eaters here had doubtless been informed of events at the graveyard. They knew his tricks. And, he didn't have a free hand with which to shape the buckler, regardless. Could he last half an hour without Mother's love protecting him? Did it matter?

Mother? he asked. Beneath his skin, a fierce stinging rose up. He'd forgot how much it hurt.

The wand he'd taken from Draco Malfoy was in his left hand. He cocked his head to the side, considering. They didn't know all of his tricks.

The prophecy disappeared to all sight, but he knew that it was still in his hand, and he suspected that Ron did, too. The prophecy was the Death Eaters' priority.

"Retreat, for the moment. Back to the atrium! Go!" he ordered the three with him, knowing that none of them would leave him. Sometimes, he thought that gryffindors were the worst friends to have.

"Where did it go?" screeched Bellatrix Lestrange. "The Dark Lord will not be happy about this! Find it!"

"He just turned it invisible—" Malfoy began.

"You can't turn objects invisible without a cloak!" she said, cutting him off. "He must have vanished it, the idiotic—"

"There's an easy way to find the truth," said another Death Eater. Harry knew what was coming. "Stupefy!"

They ducked in unison, and Ginny fired an impediment jinx in return. Bellatrix Lestrange casually avoided Hermione's full-body bind, and Malfoy cast a shield charm to deflect Ron's stunner. Harry stuffed the prophecy in his pocket, which, after all, was reinforced, and in that same movement, as if it were his intention all along, drew the Sword of Gryffindor. He glanced back at them, over his shoulder.

"Didn't I tell you lot to retreat?" he asked, voice almost casual. "We need to get to open ground. More space there. You're not abandoning me, you're giving me room to fight. Go on, now!"

"Harry—" Ron began.

"The prophecy is in his pocket!" cried Bellatrix. "Accio prophecy!"

"Protego!" Harry countered. He had no idea whether or not the shield charm should protect against something like that, so he infused it with some of the other kind of magic. Under his breath, he murmured, "servo stellas!"

"Stellas serva!" he whispered, next, pointing towards Ginny, the only one experienced with using the power boost. She grinned at him, momentarily forgetting the big secret she'd just discovered that he was keeping.

"Expelliarmus!" she cried, throwing Malfoy back several feet as the supercharged spell punched through his hastily erected shield charm. Bellatrix Lestrange looked back and forth between the two. Harry, meanwhile, had taken aim at the wall behind her.

Her eyes widened, and she had the opportunity to cast a shield charm before she was buried in rubble, along with the rest of the Death Eaters she'd brought with her. That wouldn't hold them long.

"Now will you retreat?" Harry demanded. The pure energy of his mother's love was building into an ever-mounting fire within his veins. On top of everything else, it was making it difficult to focus.

The four of them made for the door, but Harry could hear the rubble shifting aside as Bellatrix Lestrange rose to her feet. He didn't know whether she'd wait and try to free her fellow Death Eaters, or go after Harry and company.

"Do you feel up to a duel with Bellatrix Lestrange?" asked Harry of Neville, as they arrived at the entrance to the room. "Moon Dreamer! Neville! Let's go! Retreat to the atrium—there's more room there!"

Bellatrix Lestrange had opted to come after them, of course. Nor was she the only one.

Neville stood his ground. To an extent, that was admirable, and understandable: this was what he'd been training for all year—to avenge his parents.

Harry threw open the door, and, without looking, shoved Neville through. "Not here—not enough room!" he said, as if that were the only foreseeable problem with such a confrontation. "Go on! I'll be right after you!"

It was not a lie, but that was not what ended up happening. Hermione and Ginny understood that he was in earnest, and went through of their own volition, followed by Luna. Ron could not be convinced to leave him, however. Taking his oaths seriously, as always.

"Ron—" he began.

"Go!" Ron said. "I will cover your retreat. You are in enough danger as it is."

That was Ron all over. Sacrifice is the nature of chess, and all. But, he had a point—it was Harry that they were after. Not that he'd point that out.

He handed over the Sword of Gryffindor, with a wry smile. "The Sword of Gryffindor brooks no duplication," he explained, with a shrug. It was hard parting with it, but he knew that Ron—Thor—could make better use of it.

Harry trusted his judgement. Ron's sentries had not been any use, not when the Death Eater had already been entrenched, but it had been a good idea. They hadn't known.

He opened the door, expecting to find the central room—the hub with all of the doors. But, instead, he found himself in another, equally familiar room. He noticed that, noted first that there were two other doors to this room, and then braced his hands against the door, erecting a wall made of the other magic, covered in runes reading, roughly: Let only Thor pass through this door.

It was the room with the time turners, and that ever-respawning bird. It could have been worse. It could have been the one with the brains in wizarding formaldehyde.

Harry remembered the idea he'd had, back during the fight against Quirrell, in first year. Enchantments, to prevent the Stone from being stolen, or at the very least, used. There were such things as anti-theft charms, but—

Why use those, which had counters, when he had a whole other branch of magic at his disposal?

Perhaps, Hermione was right. Perhaps, the pain of his recent injuries had affected him. But, he thought he knew the pattern for it—had studied enough on the subject at the library for the wizarding version, had studied the odd spells on the Sword of Gryffindor, to have enough of the pattern to use. Focus and desire might be the foundations of magic, but that didn't mean you could get by just with those—especially outside of his spheres of influence: Illusion/reality, and combat (and now, somewhat, healing). He closed his hand over the prophecy.

Focus. Desire. None to take this from him against his will, no spells to affect it, or anything around it. A pattern of protection, infused with his mother's love, which filled in the gaps caused by his ignorance as to just how the Sorting Hat prevented the unworthy from drawing the Sword of Gryffindor to begin with. It formed a protective wall around the prophecy, that none could so much as touch.

How did you activate one of these prophecies, to hear it, anyway? If it were any sort of spell, it would bounce off. But, if it were a word of command….

Not that it much mattered. He fully intended to destroy the prophecy, regardless, before he left, tonight.