Author's notes – Ha ha I have finished my exams, will for seven weeks anyway, but until then I'm going to write as much as possible. I forgot to thank my beta reader last time, so I'll do that this time, thanks to theDreamer4 for beta reading for me. Lets face it I really need it.

Oh yes one more thing I have read to books, so please do not do a Hermione on me, I do know. All will be explained, so do not, I repeat do not jump down my throat, I know! I know!

-Chapter Sixteen-

The Death Chamber

They were talking about Sirius, about his death. They were discussing it as if it had been a mildly interesting Quidditch match. There were too many people in the room, too many voices. Hermione was looking at him in concern.

He had to get out, out of the room, out of himself. There were too many people pressing in around him, too many people speaking, their voices flowing into each other. Harry could no longer distinguish any particular person, nor could he understand what any of them were saying. He had to get out, out of his own thoughts. They were just confusing him.

Someone was coming towards him, asking him something, Ron maybe? He could not tell, he knew that voice, but he did not know who it was. Listening wasn't important. He had to get out! Out of the room. Out of the castle. His head ached.

Someone, maybe the same person, was pulling him. Making him stand.

Out, he had to get out! Where would he go? Sirius?

The room was gone in a swirl of colour and sound. The faces around him were blurring into one another, until he could only see a wash of colour. Slowly the scene before his eyes cleared and he saw where he was.

The Department of Mysteries. He was in the Department of Mysteries, in the room where Sirius had di- the room with the stone archway. He was standing at the top of the stone steps, looking down at the archway.

There was a gasp from beside him. He half turned to see Hermione standing next to him. She was staring in disbelief at the room around them.

Harry suddenly felt tired, very tired. His head hurt, the room seemed to be spinning around. He was too tired to care about anything or feel anymore. Hermione had been holding him up for the past few moments, but now she let go of his arm and started walking towards the nearest door.

Harry slipped down onto the floor; Hermione stopped, turned around and headed back.

"Harry, er- how did we get here?" she asked hesitatingly. Harry just shrugged; he neither knew, nor cared. It was only then that he noticed that Hermione was eyeing the room nervously. Realisation dawned on Harry, realisation of where they were and what it could mean. He too started to look around the room, looking for the cause of what had brought them here.

Harry could see nothing to account for their sudden appearance; the room was quite empty and there was no one in the room apart from themselves. However, that did not satisfy him; this could be some complex trick of Voldemort. He could hear footsteps and voices outside a door to his left. Harry scrambled to his feet; fearing the worst he drew his wand.

"...the door just keeps doing that," a male voice said, with a thick Scottish accent. "It's as if something were trying to force its way out-"

He was interrupted by a sharp female voice, "So what's in the next room?" She sounded almost bored.

"Oh yes," said the first voice, "the Death Chamber, a very interesting room; it contains the Archway." The door opened; a tall wizard stood in the doorway, talking to two people behind him. "No one is really sure about why it was made or who, for that matter, made-"

He stopped speaking abruptly as he caught sight of Harry and Hermione. Harry had his wand firmly clutched in his hand; next to him, Hermione was trembling slightly.

As the wizard took a pace forward, Harry could see him more clearly. He was very tall with dark hair, a good-natured almost boyish face, and he was dressed neatly in Muggle clothes. The two people behind him had come through the doorway. One was an elderly balding wizard, with what remained of his faded red hair forming ringlets at the back of his head. The other was a plumpish witch, wearing burgundy robes and a bored expression.

The ringleted wizard said, in a started voice, "What are you two doing here?"

Harry did not lower his wand, but he did relax his grip on it very slightly. Hermione answered, "We don't know; we don't even know how we got here, we were-" She was interrupted by the witch.

"How can you not know? You can't go somewhere and not know how you got there, and not even know why you are there." Harry was suddenly reminded of Umbridge, and if he had been capable of feeling anything, he would have found her extremely irritating.

"Well, that's how it happened," said Harry, taking even himself by surprise.

The wizard with the boyish face spoke, "Who are you anyway?"

"Hermione Granger," Hermione said, her voice trembling slightly, "and-and Harry Potter." She pointed at Harry, "We're at Hogwarts," she added rather unnecessarily.

The two wizards exchanged a look, the ringleted one nodded and gestured at the witch. The wizard in the Muggle clothes seemed to understand for he moved towards the witch saying, "Madam Jenkins if you would like to come this way, we will continue with this tour later on."

Before she could begin to protest, the boyish faced wizard had propelled her out of the room, and closed the door behind her.

"Croaker, you stay here with- our er- young – guests, I will be back in a moment." The wizard with the ringlets left the room by a different door than he had entered by, leaving Harry and Hermione in the room alone, with the man called Croaker.

Harry was still tightly holding on to his wand, fearing that this was some sort of elaborate trap. His head ached, and he was confused.

"You can put your wand away, I'm not going to hurt you," Croaker said pleasantly. He had crossed the floor and was now sitting on the topmost step looking down at the archway.

"Excuse me, sir?" Hermione said politely, with only a faint quiver of nervousness in her voice. Croaker jumped slightly at being addressed as 'sir'. "But you don't know how we got here do you? I mean this is the Department of Mysteries?"

"Yes, yes it is, and no I don't have a clue how you got here- Hermione you said it was?" Croaker said, looking at Hermione with interest, who nodded. "So you're Harry Potter are you?" said Croaker turned to Harry, who still had his wand raised. He just shrugged, however; he did not like being stared at, and his head was still hurting.

"I won't bite, I promise. I don't make a habit of eating children however hungry I am," Croaker said pleasantly.

Harry smiled despite himself, "What is that thing?" he asked pointing at the archway, more out of trying to direct Croaker's thought away from himself than out of interest.

"Oh that," Croaker said turning to see what Harry was pointing at. "I guess you could call that the entrance to the Realm of the Dead. You can guess what happens if you walked through- not that anyone would do that, well of their own free will anyway."

Hermione seemed beside herself with interest. "Why would no one go through?"

"No, no you misunderstand me. Enough people have walked through," Croaker smiled humourlessly, and then laughed, a cold empty laugh. "They er- just didn't go through by choice. No one knows who made it, or why they did," he sighed. "All we know, or rather have been able to find out, is that when the Ministry of Magic was built the archway was taken from the centre of that stone circle, what's it called again? You know the one I mean, the one Muggles go to see in their thousands-"

"Stonehenge?" Hermione suggested.

"Yes, that's the place, Stonehenge," Croaker smiled happily at her. It seemed to Harry that Croaker did not often get the chance to talk to people very much.

"Anyway they moved the Archway from the centre of Stonehenge and put it here," he waved his hand at the pedestal. "It was used for executions until the dementors were discovered."

"What, people were executed by walking through the veil?" Harry said horrified. The wizarding world had a habit of doing that to him.

"Oh no," Croaker said, suddenly looking sicken to the core. "They didn't walk through, they were thrown through. No one, and I mean no one has walked through. There are many theories about what would happen if someone walked through. I remember one that says that the person who walks through will be granted a wish. That he would simply walk in, and the dearest wish of his heart would be granted. He would not die, but he would not come out the other side either." Croaker sighed. "Others say that he would just die, like those who went before him."

"But no one has tried it?" Harry said. It was only then that he realised that he had lowered his wand. "Despite everything?" Harry fell silent thinking.

"No one has. All those who have gone through went through by force." Croaker got to his feet, and pointed across the room to the opposite wall, where something gold gleamed. "Since there is no body, we keep a record of all those who have gone through, otherwise it's like they never existed."

Harry felt a mixture of horror and curiosity; he unconsciously half moved towards the other wall.

"That's horrible," Hermione began, but Harry cut her off. "What happens to their bodies?" he said quickly, before he stopped himself. He had to know, to understand, and here was someone who could tell how Sirius had died. This question had been on his mind since he had accepted that Sirius was dead. How had Sirius died? Why hadn't he just could out the other side?

Before Croaker could say anything, the ringleted wizard was back, this time alone. "Come on you two, this way," he said without preamble.

Croaker was shepherding him and Hermione out of the room, into a room that Harry had never seen before. It was clearly the main office of the Department of Mysteries. It was more cheerful than any of the other rooms that Harry had seen in the department, and looked more like the other departments in the Ministry. Croaker had a hand firmly on his back, and steered him through the rows of cubicles, to one with two desks in it, on the far side of the room. Harry noticed that several of the witches and wizards in the room were looking at them curiously.

Croaker stopped by one that was almost completely covered in piles of parchment, all of which looked official. The wizard with the ringlets sat down behind the desk, waving for Harry and Hermione also to take a seat.

Harry sat down on the edge of his chair, trying to pretend that he could not see the people craning their necks to get a good look at him.

"I have informed Professor Dumbledore that you are here," the wizard with ringlets told them, in his deep Scottish voice. "I must say that he seemed very concerned. He said that he would be here shortly."

Harry could think of nothing to say to this, so he remained silent. Hermione, too, seemed unable to think of anything to say in reply to that. Harry, whose mind was too full to be interested, was quite content just to sit and think.

Croaker was perched on the desk behind them, his legs swinging idly. The ringleted wizard was regarding the piles of parchment on his desk with great dislike. Gingerly he picked up a leaf of parchment, only to drop it back down onto his desk, with a look of disgust.

"That Madam Jenkins has completely altered the system," he observed to Croaker. "It's going to take a month to sort all this out."

"When you get that high up that's all you can do," Croaker said cheerfully, "make everyone else's lives miserable by changing the system when they've just got the hang of the last one."

The door opened, Dumbledore entered.

"Here they are you see Professor Dumbledore," the wizard with ringlets called across the room to him, "quite well and unharmed. Now maybe you can explain how they got here," he continued as Dumbledore reached them, "as they seem incapable of doing so themselves."

Dumbledore ignored him and walked over to Harry. "Are you alright Harry?" he asked, quietly bending low, so that only Harry could hear.

Harry was suddenly, and for no reason annoyed with Dumbledore. His head had started to ache again, and he could not bring himself to look Dumbledore in the eye, so he nodded mutely.

Dumbledore sighed, in what could only be relief; he stood up straight and for the first time looked at the wizard with ringlets.

"No, Morton I can't tell you how they came to be here." Dumbledore sounded more tired than Harry had ever heard him. Croaker had leaped to his feet and brought a chair forward for Dumbledore. "Thank you," he said, before sitting.

"Let me make sure I've got this right," Morton began slowly. "You don't know how these two left Hogwarts and got here?"

"That is correct," Dumbledore said. "Where did you find them?"

"In the Death Chamber," said Morton. Dumbledore looked sharply at Harry at that. Harry did not know why, but he suddenly felt guilty, although he did not know why he should.

"Yes, Croaker and I were just giving Madam Jenkins a guided tour of this department," Morton explained. "She has just taken over from Madam Umbridge as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. By the way, I saw Madam Bones on the way down and she asked me to tell you that Dolores Umbridge's trail will be held on the fifteen of November."

Harry sat stunned. That Umbridge was no longer Senior Undersecretary to the Minister was one thing, but that she was on trial was another. Harry was pulled back into reality by the realisation that Dumbledore was addressing him.

"Harry, what was the last thing you were doing before you arrived in the Ministry?" Dumbledore asked kindly.

Harry considered before answering, he had not asked permission to continue with the DA, but then again it was not illegal anymore, he looked at Hermione for help. Hermione just looked scared.

"Professor, we were just talking," Harry said, even Dumbledore could not find fault with that.

"Just the two of you?" Dumbledore said uncertainly, he was surveying Harry above his half-moon spectacles.

"Er- no, there were more than two of us." Harry had to tell him, he would get it out of him one way or another. "It was the first meeting of the DA since last year." Harry could not look at Dumbledore as he said this; he found it much easier to tell his shoelaces.

There was complete and utter silence as he finished. Even the people in other cubicles had fallen silent. When he look at Dumbledore he could have sworn he saw a look of pride, but the next second it was gone, and he thought he must have been mistaken, for Dumbledore just looked surprised.

It was Dumbledore who broke the silence. "And what were you doing in this meeting?"

Harry looked at Hermione again for support; she was looking worriedly from Croaker to Morton and back again. Harry understood, so he phrased his answer carefully.

"We were just discussing what had happened at the end of last year," he said carefully.

Dumbledore was looking at him in concern again. "Then what?" he prompted gently.

"And then, and then I couldn't hear what they were saying or see them properly." Harry paused trying to remember. His head still hurt; though it had started to feel better, now it was getting worse again. "Someone came up to me. I couldn't see who it was; I think it must have been Hermione?" He looked at Hermione again.

She nodded and continued where he had left off. "Harry was shaking; he had fallen to the floor, and he was sitting there shaking." She paused, shooting Harry another worried glance. "I pulled him up, made him stand. I was going to take him to the hospital wing and then we were here," she finished dramatically.

"That still doesn't explain how they got here," Morton said looking worried. "Look Dumbledore, if we can't work out how they got here I'm going to have to report it. If we knew how they did it, we could make sure it doesn't happen again and then I won't have to report it. But-"

"Say no more," Dumbledore said, interrupting him. Dumbledore shot Harry a strange look. Harry had the strangest feeling that Dumbledore had just worked out how they had done it, and that he was trying to tell Harry not to correct him.

"Harry, could you describe what it felt like please?" Dumbledore was still looking at him oddly.

"Er- I don't really remember," he began, not sure what Dumbledore wanted him to say. "I wanted to get out, out of the castle," he paused; Dumbledore's expression now was one of pain. "Everything blurred into each other. It was a bit like using a portkey, only quicker."

Dumbledore was smiling at him now. "There I think I have it. How extraordinary." Morton was staring at him as if he had gone mad, as was Croaker.

"Harry Apparated here," he said with an air of pride.

"Professor Dumbledore," Hermione said very quietly and quickly. She seemed to think that if she corrected the Headmaster quickly it wouldn't be as bad. "You can't Apparate out of or in to Hogwarts."

"That is correct of course, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said smiling gently at her. "However, it just so happens, that particular ward was taken down just this morning. It didn't seem to be working quite right. You may have noticed a number of slightly odd things happening throughout the castle. I believed that ward was at fault, so I removed it and was in the process of putting it back when Mr Morton here contacted me."

Dumbledore got to his feet. "Thank you, gentlemen. If you will excuse us, I must get these two back to school, and put that ward up again." Without further ado, he had Harry firmly by the arm, as if scared of losing him, and he strode from the room forcing Harry before him, with Hermione following behind. They moved quickly through the ministry until the three of them were standing in the lift on their way up to the Atrium.

"Professor," Harry began, not sure how to ask what he wanted to know.

"Yes, Harry?" Dumbledore said kindly.

"How could I have Apparated? I don't know how to," Harry said, unable to put the question he really wanted an answer for into words.

"Not here; once we are back at Hogwarts," Dumbledore said quietly.

The lift stopped, the doors slid open and Dumbledore led the way across the Atrium. They walked past the security desk. Eric was sitting behind the desk reading the Daily Prophet; he looked up as they passed. At the Fountain of Magical Brethren, the stone figures had been removed, and all that was left was a simple pool.

Dumbledore guided them to a fireplace on the far wall. One wild floo ride later, Harry had emerged in Dumbledore's office. In the room sitting around the desk were McGonagall, Ron, Ginny, Neville and Luna. All of their heads turned as Harry scrambled out of the fireplace.

"Potter," McGonagall exclaimed, jumping to her feet, looking crosser than Harry had seen her in a long time. "Where have you been?"

Ginny also leaped to her feet, and ran across the room and engulfed him in a hug. Then, as if collecting herself, she pulled away embarrassed.

"I er-" Harry did not even know where to start explaining about what had happened, when he did not understand half of it himself. "The ministry," he finished lamely, Hermione stumbling out of the fire saving him from farther explanation.

"Miss Granger, are you alright," McGonagall asked helping Hermione to her feet. Ron was looking at Harry with something like amazement. Ginny was white as a ghost, Neville looked terrified and Luna was looking at him with mild interest.

"Yes Professor, I'm fine," Hermione said, dusting off her robes.

The fireplace was flooded with flames once more, as Dumbledore appeared; he smiled gently at Harry before turning to McGonagall. "No harm done."

"Professor Dumbledore, Potter said," McGonagall shot a look at Harry, "that they were at the ministry, but how could they hav-"

"That is quite correct, Minerva," Dumbledore sighed heavily. "Would you mind, some more seats?"

McGonagall drew her wand and waved it twice. Two more hard wooden chairs appeared out of mid-air, turning slowly before settling on the floor next to the others. There was an odd silence; the portraits in their frames were all moving around trying to get a good look at Dumbledore. The others, in particular Ron, were all shooting strange glances at Harry and Hermione.

"Sit," Dumbledore said kindly to them all; they all sat down. McGonagall was looking at Dumbledore, who had his eyes fitted on Harry. The rest were looking between Dumbledore and Harry. Harry had his eyes on no more interesting a thing than his shoelaces.

"Harry and Hermione were indeed at the Ministry of Magic. Harry Apparated there, taking Hermione with him," Dumbledore said slowly still looking at Harry.

McGonagall's eyes were huge, "but- but- he couldn't have-" she stammered.

Dumbledore continued calmly, "I took down the Apparation Ward just this morning, meaning to put it up again sometime this evening, but it seems that Harry beat me to it." Dumbledore smiled at Harry.

Harry's head was starting at ache again; he was confused. It made a certain amount of sense, the way Dumbledore told it, but for the fact that he did not know how to Apparate.

"Well, I think that is all," Dumbledore said smoothly. "Professor McGonagall, would you take these students back to their common rooms, and tell the other teachers to call off the search?"

McGonagall's lips were as thin as Harry could remember seeing in a long time. He got to his feet with the rest.

"No Harry, I'd like a word with you," said Dumbledore before Harry had reached the door. The others looked at him sadly as they left. McGonagall closed the door behind them.

"Now Harry, I think you'd like to ask me something?" Dumbledore said. There was no trace of a twinkle in the blue eyes behind the half-moon spectacles.

Harry sank into his chair again, thinking hard. Why had Dumbledore sent the others away? Somewhere above and behind him a clock chimed out the hour, eight o'clock. The meeting was only meant to be finishing at half past. Those two Slytherins were meant to be coming back after the meeting had finished. Had that really only been less than an hour ago? It felt like a lifetime ago.

"Professor," Harry said at last, "how could I have Apparated there? I don't know how to Apparate, even if the ward was down."

"I'm afraid that is not quite correct," said Dumbledore sighing. "I have not removed the ward. I was thinking about doing it, but I simply hadn't got round to it."

"But then, how?" Harry was more confused than ever.

"Do you remember what you were thinking about the moment before you left the castle?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry shook his head, and then stopped. "Sirius," he said quietly.

"Exactly, and you said that you were feeling trapped and wanted to get out," Dumbledore prompted. Harry could not remember saying all that, but he nodded. Dumbledore stood up, taking Harry by surprise; he took a dusty black book down from a shelf. He started wiping the dust off, as he sat down again.

Author's notes – Thank you to everyone who reviewed. And I repeat do not do a Hermione on me, I do know, there is a point to it and a reason why, I promise! You just have to wait for the next chapter.