I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.

Breaking In

Alex smiled to himself as he soared along with the Thestrals. They were far, far faster than he had expected, and were also much more conversational than he'd have guessed. Whole he was a Thunderbird, he could understand them, and passed the time chatting with them to learn about their daily routines and anything he didn't already know. After a while, once the ride had proven smooth enough, Luna cast a charm she'd learned from one of his spell books, one that he had never managed to get right, to block the slipstream from affecting her, then shifted into her own animal form to join in on the conversation. The others kept glancing at them jealously, and he merely grinned. He glanced back once, wondering if the raw meat he'd summoned from Hagrid's hut for the other Thestrals had been enough, or had been to their liking, since he wasn't sure if it was rotted or not. He knew he'd felt the magic pull something, but he wasn't sure what. He turned back to the front again as the lights of London finally appeared on the Horizon, approaching rapidly. The Thestrals all began to descend and Luna transformed back to cast a Disillusionment charm on herself and Alex, allowing him to smoothly circle to the ground without causing a scene. Once he'd landed beside the others as the Thestrals all took off again, Luna dismounted and Alex transformed back, both ending their Disillusionment Charm. They all looked to Harry to lead, since he'd had them go to the visitors' entrance and only he knew the way.

They all crammed into the phone box and Harry had Ron dial a specific number. When the phone's automated voice asked for their names and business, Harry told it their names and that they were there to rescue someone. When the visitor badges appeared a moment later, Alex laughed. It listed them as being there for a rescue mission. He loved it. The voice informed them they were required to allow their wands to be inspected before the entire phone box began to sink into the ground. Finally, they arrived in the atrium and all toppled out of the phone box. However, they simply pushed themselves up and began to follow Harry at a run. As they passed the desk where they were supposed to have their wands inspected, Alex frowned. Even at night, the Ministry of Magic should have someone on guard at the visitors' entrance, but the area was deserted. They made it to the lifts, and the gates rattled and clank open noisily. They took them down to the Department of Mysteries in an even louder orchestra of rattles, clanks, bangs, and dings, and yet, as they reached the Department of Mysteries, the only movement were the torches along the hallway.

Harry took off at a run again, everyone else following. However, he stopped within six feet of the door, glancing at Ginny. "Okay, listen. Maybe some of you should...should wait here as a...as a lookout, and-"

"And how are we supposed to signal you if there's something coming?" Ginny asked. "You could be miles away. And besides that, I don't know why you're looking at me as if you expect me to be anywhere except at your side."

"Face it, Harry, we're coming with you," Alex said.

"Right," Neville agreed.

"Let's get on with it," Ron said.

Harry hesitated before approaching the door. It swung open on its own, and they all passed over the threshold, Alex lighting a cigarette as he went. Luna slipped a hand into his and he squeezed it lightly before taking his back. He had a feeling he'd need it. They were standing in a large, circular room. Everything in here was black including the floor and ceiling. Identical, unmarked, handleless 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," Harry muttered.

He regretted giving this order the moment Neville had obeyed it. Without the long chink of light from the torchlit corridor behind them, the place became so dark that for a moment the only things they could see were the bunches of shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly reflections in the floor. Just as Harry gazed ahead at the doors opposite him, 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.

"Oh, piss off," Alex groaned. "Of course they have traps here."

Hermione grabbed Harry's arm as though frightened the floor might move, too, but it did not. For a few seconds, the blue flames around them 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. Alex blinked the blured blue lined from his vision.

"What was that about?" Ron whispered fearfully.

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

Alex realized at once she was right. He could no sooner identify the exit door than locate an ant on the jet-black floor, and the door through which they needed to proceed could be any one of the dozen surrounding them.

"How're we going to get back out?" Neville asked uncomfortably.

"We'll figure it out," Alex said.

"That doesn't matter now," Harry said forcefully, clutching his wand tightly "We won't need to get out till we've found Sirius."

"Don't go calling for him, though!" Hermione said urgently.

"Where do we go, then, Harry?" Ron asked.

"I don't..." Harry began, then 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'll know the right way when I see it. C'mon."

He marched straight at the door now facing him, the others following close behind him, set his left hand against its shining surface, raised his 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 Harry had seen in his 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 them to swim in. A number of pearly-white objects were drifting around lazily in it.

"What're those things?" Ron whispered.

"Dunno," Harry said.

"Are they fish?" Ginny breathed.

"Aquavirius Maggots!" Luna said excitedly. "Dad said the Ministry was breeding-"

"No," Hermione said. She sounded odd. She moved forward to look through the side of the tank. "They're brains."

"Brains?" Alex frowned.

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "I wonder what they're doing with them?"

Harry and Alex joined her at the tank. Sure enough, there could be no mistake now that Alex 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," Harry said. "This isn't right. We need to try another door."

"There are doors here, too," Ron said, pointing around the walls.

Alex's jaw fell, staring around at the half-dozen doors around the room.

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

They hurried back into the dark, circular room. The ghostly shapes of the brains were now swimming before Harry's eyes instead of the blue candle flames.

"Wait!" Hermione said sharply, as Luna made to close the door of the brain room behind them. "Flagrate!"

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

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

Again, he strode directly at the door facing him and pushed it open, his wand still raised, the others at his heels. This room was larger than the last, dimly lit, and rectangular, and the center of it was sunken, forming a great stone pit some twenty feet deep. They were standing on the topmost tier of what seemed to be stone benches running all around the room and descending in steep steps like an amphitheater, or the courtroom in which Harry had been tried by the Wizengamot. Instead of a chained chair, however, there was a raised stone dais in the center of the pit, on which stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked and crumbling that Harry 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 air surrounding it, was fluttering very slightly as though it had just been touched.

"Who's there?" Harry called, jumping down on to the bench below.

There was no answering voice, but the veil continued to flutter and sway.

"Careful!" Hermione whispered.

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

"Sirius?" Harry spoke again, but more quietly now that he was nearer.

Alex stared at the veil in silence, brow furrowing as cold seemed to radiate from it. There was something very wrong with it. Gripping his wand very tightly, Harry edged around the dais, but didn't react like he could see anyone.

"Let's go," Hermione called from halfway up the stone steps. "This isn't right, Harry. Come on, let's go."

She sounded scared, much more scared than she had in the room where the brains swam. The gently rippling veil tugged at Alex, calling to him until he didn't notice his cigarette falling from his mouth and through the door. He felt a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it. Fear rippled through him. He hurried down the stone benches, slowing to a stop just behind Harry, inching toward him as though afraid to anger the Veil.

"Harry, let's go, okay?" Hermione urged more forcefully.

"Okay," Harry said, but did not move.

"What are you saying?" he asked, very loudly, so that his words echoed all around the stone benches.

"Nobody's talking, Harry!" Hermione said, now moving over to him.

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

"I'm here, mate," Ron said, appearing around the side of the archway.

"Can't anyone else hear it?" Harry demanded, for the whispering and murmuring was becoming louder. He glanced down, seeming to only just notice his foot was on the dais.

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

"No, there aren't," Alex said, an old legend his family had told him returning to him.

"What do you mean, 'in there'?" Hermione demanded, jumping down from the bottom step and sounding much angrier than the occasion warranted. "There isn't any 'in there,' it's just an archway, there's no room for anybody to be there. Harry, stop it, come away." She grabbed his arm and pulled, but he resisted.

"Harry, we are supposed to be here for Sirius!" she pleaded in a high-pitched, strained voice.

"I can hear people," Luna said, glancing at Alex.

"So can I," Alex said, gently but firmly pulling her away from the Veil. "But they aren't in the Veil. They're on the other side."

"On the other side?" Luna frowned.

"I'll tell you once we're away from it," Alex promised.

They quickly followed the others up to the round room again, Neville and Ginny both having also been entranced and having to be led out of the room.

"What d'you reckon that arch was?" Harry asked Hermione as they 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.

"Alex says he knows," Luna said.

"I have a theory," Alex said. "There's an old legend that my family told me about Atlantis. Even before it sank, there was an archway there which contained a manifestation of the barrier between the living and the dead. A doorway to the afterlife. A piece of the Veil between life and death. However, a very, very long time ago, Sirens were swimming through Atlantis and the archway was gone."

"And you think...you think that's what that was?" Hermione asked as the round room stopped spinning at last.

"I think that the story includes a part about Sirens, who attract people using their voices, being entranced by hearing mutters and whispers through the veil, and moving closer to listen, then disappearing through the veil and never being seen again," Alex said.

All of those who'd been drawn to the mirror paled.

"We're not going back there," Harry said. Harry approached another door at random and pushed.

It did not move.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked.

"It's...locked..." Harry said, accenting his words with a collision of his shoulder and the door, only for it to go nowhere.

"This is it, then, isn't it?" Ron said excitedly, joining Harry in the attempt to force the door open. "Bound to be!"

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

Nothing happened.

"Sirius's knife!" Harry said.

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

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

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

"It can't be. Harry could get through all the doors in his dream," Hermione reasoned, marking the door with another fiery cross as Harry replaced the now-useless handle of Sirius's knife in his pocket.

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

"Heliopaths," Alex said softly. "That suddenly seems a little more credible now that Harry's knife melted instead of breaking."

Luna beamed up at him happily. The wall slid to a halt, and Harry, with a feeling of increasing desperation, pushed the next door open.

"This is it!" He gasped.

Alex peeked around him, seeing the room was filled with beautiful, dancing, diamond-sparkling light. As he followed Harry into the room, he saw clocks gleaming from every surface, large and small, grandfather and carriage, hanging in spaces between the bookcases or standing on desks ranging the length of the room, so that a busy, relentless ticking filled the place like thousands of minuscule, marching footsteps. The source of the dancing, diamond-bright light was a towering crystal bell jar that stood at the far end of the room.

"This way!" Harry said. He led the way down the narrow space between the lines of desks, heading, as he had done in his dream, for the source of the light, the crystal bell jar quite as tall as he was that stood on a desk and appeared to be full of a billowing, glittering wind.

"Oh, look!" Ginny said, as they 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 hummingbird emerged, which was carried to the very top of the jar, but as it fell on the draught its feathers became 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!" Harry said sharply, because Ginny 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 him past the bell jar to the only door behind it.

"This is it," Harry said again, and his heart was now pumping so hard and fast he felt it must interfere with his speech, "It's through here."

He glanced around at them all. They had their wands out and looked suddenly serious and anxious. He looked back at the door and pushed. It swung open. The room behind was as 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. Alex looked around, listening carefully, but there was no sign of anyone else around them.

"You said it was row ninety seven," Hermione whispered.

"Yeah," Harry 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," Hermione whispered, squinting to the next row. "Yes. That's fifty-four."

"Keep your wands ready," Harry said softly.

They crept forward, glancing behind them as they 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. They passed row eighty four. Eighty five. Alex strained his ears, but the only sound was their walking and their breathing. The room was so loud that it sounded like they were gasping for breath. He felt anxiety begin to itch in his chest and slipped his hand into Luna's, who gave it a supportive squeeze, Alex feeling himself begin to settle.

"Ninety seven!" Hermione whispered.

They stood grouped around the end of the row, gazing down the alley beside it. There was nobody there. Alex looked up the row, but it was equally deserted.

"He's right down at the end," Harry said. "You can't see properly from here."

He led them between the towering rows of glass balls, some of which glowed softly as they passed.

"He should be near here," Harry whispered. "Anywhere here...really close."

"Harry?" Hermione said tentatively.

"Somewhere about...here." he said.

They had reached the end of the row and emerged into more dim candlelight. There was nobody there. All was echoing, dusty silence. Alex swallowed hard. It was a trap. His wand grew suddenly very cold, and his chest compressed, Luna squeezing harder, instantly recognizing his anxiety.

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

"Harry?" Hermione said again.

"What?" he snarled.

"I...I don't think Sirius is here."

Nobody spoke. Harry did not look at any of them. He ran up the space at the end of the rows, staring down them. Empty aisle after empty aisle flickered past, Alex knew, without needing to see. Sirius was never here. Harry ran the other way, back past Alex and the others.

"Harry?" Ron called.

"What?" Harry asked irritably.

"Have you seen this?" Ron asked, staring at the labels for one of the globes.

"What?" Harry asked, but eagerly this time. He strode back to where they were all standing, a little way down row ninety seven, all of them staring at the label.

"What?" Harry repeated glumly.

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

Harry moved a little closer, squinting at the label.

"My name?" Harry asked blankly.

He stepped forwards. Not as tall as Ron, he had to crane his neck 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: "S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.

Dark Lord

and (?)Harry Potter"

Harry stared at it.

"What is it?" Ron asked, sounding unnerved. "What's your name doing down here?" He glanced along at the other labels on that stretch of shelf. "'I'm not here,' he said, sounding perplexed. "None of the rest of us are here."

"Harry, I don't think you should touch it," Hermione said sharply, as he stretched out his hand.

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

"Don't, Harry," Neville said suddenly.

Harry looked at him. Neville's round face was shining slightly with sweat. He looked as though he could not take much more suspense.

"It's got my name on it," Harry said.

"He's right, Harry," Alex said. "This was a trap. We need to leave without touching anything."

Harry closed his fingers around the dusty ball's surface and lifted it down from its shelf and stared at it. Nothing whatsoever happened. The others, minus Alex, moved in closer around Harry, gazing at the orb as he brushed it free of the clogging dust.

"Company," Alex warned, everyone spinning.

"Very good, Potter," a drawling voice spoke as its owner leveled their wand with Alex, who had his own trained on his face. "Now be a good boy and give that to me."

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