Chapter 34 – Unveiled

Ron stood outside in the corridor that led to the Department of mysteries, covered under the invisibility cloak, shivering silently. The corridor had not been very warm to begin with, but Ron had the feeling that it was getting colder. Probably only his imagination. Ever since Snape and Remus had come running down the corridor, both looking positively murderous, Ron had been thinking about the possible consequences of their nightly excursion. Snape had said that Harry was lucky to be still alive, and at the thought alone, Ron felt shivers run down his spine. Harry had told him that what he planned was dangerous, but so far Ron had pushed that thought into the background. They had always gotten away, Harry had come out of the most dire situations before. Merlin, he had faced You-Know-Who more than once and had managed to come back alive every time.

Ron only hoped that his friend would manage to come out of this alive, as well. Somehow, he saw it as a good sign that Snape and Remus had not yet come back out of the Death Chamber. If there was some sort of emergency, if Harry needed to go to the hospital or…or worse, surely the two would have come back by now. But nothing had moved in the corridor since the door had closed behind Remus.

There were other thoughts worrying him, as well. Mostly, he was afraid to hear what his parents would have to say once all this was over. He was sure that neither his mother nor his father would be able to stay angry with Harry for long. They never were, his mother had too much of a soft spot for Harry. Ron on the other hand would very well feel the full force of Molly Weasley's wrath. Merlin, his mother was going to kill him for sure. Professor Snape would skin him for his part in the plan, and then his mother would finish him off.

With bated breath, Ron waited for something, anything, to happen that would take the nerve-wracking tension away. The more time passed, the more convinced he got that something had gone wrong. But what? Harry had sounded so sure that his plan would work out, but what if he had not considered something? What if he had overlooked something, and now things had gotten horribly wrong? Ron would not forgive himself if something unforeseen had happened, and Hermione would be his constant reminder of it. He was sure that she had been the one to tell Professor Lupin about their plan.

Maybe twenty minutes after the Professors had vanished he heard steps on the corridor again. This time it was Professor Dumbledore who came into view, with Kingsley Shacklebolt and another man Ron didn't know hurrying along next to him. The three of them didn't look excited either, but compared with the anger he had been confronted with earlier, Ron still felt relieved to see them. Dumbledore went straight towards him, even though Ron was still covered by the invisibility cloak. Ron quickly pulled it away, causing both Kingsley and the stranger to look slightly startled at his sudden appearance. Dumbledore, however, didn't seem the least fazed by Ron's shift of visibility.

"Mr. Weasley", Dumbledore said as he reached him. "Where did they go to?"

Ron pointed down the corridor. "Down there. The Death Chamber, around fifteen minutes ago."

Dumbledore nodded and the three men immediately started running down the corridor again. Nobody told him what to do, but this time Ron was fed up with standing around and waiting, so he followed them. Nobody protested, but then again Ron guessed that nobody was really noticing him. They went into the circular chamber, but before Ron could even point out the small X that marked the correct door, Dumbledore had pulled his wand out and had circled it around his head, muttering a string of words which Ron didn't understand. The chamber started to rotate around them, and Ron was quite surprised to find that the door straight in front of them was the right one, the one he had marked as the entrance to the Death Chamber.

Kingsley and the stranger pulled out their wands, then Kingsley opened the door and they went into the Death Chamber. Ron felt as if he had never been here before. The whole experience form the day Sirius had died lay only a couple of months back, but it seemed too surreal to Ron, like a bad and bizarre dream, not like something that had really happened to him. They entered the chamber, and Ron saw how Kingsley and the stranger suddenly ran down the stairs at a dead speed. Even Dumbledore was hurrying faster than Ron would have thought possible for a man of his age. He only saw the reason for their sudden hurry when he stepped further into the chamber. Professor Lupin and Harry were lying in front of the first row of stone benches, unmoving. Harry was lying on is side, curled up in a foetal position while Remus was lying face down, as if he had collapsed from a kneeling position. There was no trace of Professor Snape in the room, yet Ron was sure that he had gone in and not come out since. But what was most worrisome was that the stone archway which had previously dominated the chamber, the archway through which Sirius had fallen, was gone. There was a chalk circle and what could once have been a pentagram on the floor, and in the light of the torches which Dumbledore had conjured up around the chamber, Ron saw extinguished candles standing along the line. But inside the circle where the archway should have been there was only a pile of stones and debris. Abut ten feet away from the circle the old tattered veil was lying on top of another pile of debris. Ron ran after the three adults. The stranger was the first to reach Remus and Harry. He fell to his knees beside the two, gently turned Remus over and reached for a pulse. After a couple of seconds he did the same with Harry. Ron ran up to where Dumbledore and Kingsley were standing and felt his heart give some funny jolts in his chest which he knew were not caused by the running. Finally the stranger sank back on his heels and looked up at Dumbledore.

"They're alive."

Dumbledore sighed in relief.

"Good. Kingsley, could you take care that they are brought to St. Mungo's, and quickly? Mr. Lupin, I want you to come with me."

Ron's head snapped up and he stared at the stranger. Mr. Lupin? Harry had told him that he had met Remus' brother at Grimmauld Place, but Ron had never seen the man before, nor had he known about his existence before Harry had told him about it. So this was Remus' brother. Well, once Ron knew where he had to put the man, a certain family resemblance between the two could not be denied, though it was anything but obvious.

Before Ron had even finished his musings, Lupin got up and followed Dumbledore over towards the chalk circle. Ron didn't know what he was supposed to do, he was worried about Harry but he was also curious as to what Professor Dumbledore wanted and where Snape was. But it seemed as if the adults had forgotten about his presence in the room altogether, if they had noticed it in the first place, so he silently followed the two men. Lupin followed Dumbledore over to the veil on the floor and turned to the side with a raised eyebrow.

"What now?"

"Severus. I'm worried about him."

Lupin didn't look particularly worried about Snape to Ron, but then again he had to say that he wasn't, either. Lupin looked at Dumbledore for another moment, then down at the veil in front of him. Ron had to admit that if that was a pile of debris lying under the veil, it was the most strangely shaped pile of debris he had ever seen. For a moment, nobody did anything, the three of them only stared down at the veil, all of them thinking along the same lines while nobody dared to voice their thoughts aloud. All three of them wanted to unveil what was lying on the ground underneath the fabric, but it was as if none of them dared to make the first move. Suddenly, Lupin bent down and pulled the old and torn fabric away.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Ron's hand flew up to his mouth and he suppressed a scream. Lupin visibly paled, only Dumbledore showed no sign of shock on the outside. On the floor at their feet, Snape was lying, unconscious or worse. In front of him, as if Snape had dragged him from behind, lay Sirius. Ron simply could not understand how that had happened, but Sirius was lying here, in front of him. Right where he had vanished nine weeks ago. Everybody had said Sirius was dead, but seemingly Harry had been right. At least Sirius didn't look like somebody who had been dead for over two months. On the other hand, he didn't particularly look very alive, either. From where he was standing, Ron could not discern whether either Snape or Sirius were still breathing.

This time it was Dumbledore who knelt down next to the two men, and Ron was sure that when he stretched out his hand to feel Snape's pulse, his fingers were shaking slightly. But nobody said anything until Dumbledore had felt for Sirius' pulse as well.

"What in the name of all that's good…"

Kingsley had stepped up from behind and was now staring down at the two prone men on the floor, his eyes huge and his mouth slightly opened, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Is that Sirius? But how?"

Dumbledore turned around slightly, still kneeling on the floor.
"The healers are on their way?"

"Yes, they should be here in a couple of minutes."

Dumbledore nodded and got up to his feet again.

"Good. Severus needs immediate medical attendance, and I'd daresay Sirius as well."

Kingsley stared at the two men on the ground in what could only be described as utter shock and disbelief.

"Then…they're alive? Sirius is alive?"

Dumbledore nodded again as he shed his outer robe and gently spread it over Snape. Much to everybody's surprise, he pulled out his wand and waved it at the scene of destruction behind them. The debris that had once been the archway remained, but Dumbledore vanished the chalk-circles, the pentagram and the candles. Ron thought that it gave the chamber the impression that the archway had simply combusted for unknown reasons. At least all the traces of what Harry had done here were vanished now, leaving only the collapsed stone of the archway.

Dumbledore pocketed his wand again, then he turned towards Kingsley.

"Yes, they are alive."

"How?", Kingsley repeated himself.

"It's a long story, Kingsley. Sirius was never really dead, but we thought that there was no way to bring him back. Obviously, we were wrong."

He quickly got up from the floor and clapped his hands. "All right, the healers should be here soon, and I'd daresay that my arrival at the Ministry and my hurrying to the Department of Mysteries has also not gone unnoticed. I'd rather bring Severus back to Hogwarts before anybody sees him here. That would only lead to uncomfortable questions. Kingsley, Mr. Lupin, could you take care that the others are brought to St. Mungo's safely, and that the Ministry stays clear off Sirius for a while? I'll have a word with the Minister first thing tomorrow, but I need to take care of Severus first."

Kingsley and Lupin nodded, and Dumbledore quickly pulled a folded handkerchief out of his pocket, closed Snape's hand around it while he held on to a corner. He pointed his wand at it, and with a last nod at Kingsley and Lupin transformed the handkerchief into a portkey and the two men vanished.

Lupin stepped over to his brother and Harry again, while Kingsley knelt down next to Sirius and, still shaking his head, stretched out his hand and reached for a pulse. It seemed as if he still couldn't believe that it was truly Sirius lying there. Ron couldn't quite believe it himself.

Now with Dumbledore and Snape vanished, the healers on their way and everybody else being busy, Ron suddenly felt rather superfluous. There was nothing he had to do, nothing he could do for either Harry or one of the others, all he could do was remain silent and wait for the healers to arrive. Slowly, Ron went over to one of the stone benches. Harry's backpack was standing in front of it, the book, a knife and the parchments he had used lying strewn around it as if somebody had thrown the things there haphazardly. The book was the only thing that seemed to have been put down carefully. Ron sighed, bent down and started to collect the parchments, then he packed everything up into the backpack, put the invisibility cloak on top, and shouldered it.

Maybe five minutes later, the healers arrived. All that Ron remembered afterwards were a loud stream of exclamations and questions, people fussing all around the Death Chamber, stretchers being levitated and generally a large number of people crating chaos. A man in Ministry robes asked him a stream of questions, all too fast for Ron to keep up with, and he was endlessly thankful when Kingsley took his arm and pulled him away. Kingsley told the other man – probably another Auror – that he would talk to Ron later, then he guided him over to another corner in the Chamber where not so many people were crowding.

"Are you all right?", Kingsley asked Ron. Ron only nodded numbly. "Yes, I am. What about Harry and Professor Lupin? And Sirius?"

Kingsley shrugged. "They'll be brought to St. Mungo's now. Remus' brother is going with them. The two of us will go upstairs now and floo to Grimmauld Place from your father's office, then I'll go to St. Mungo's and see what's going on there."

Again, Ron nodded numbly, though the thought of facing his parents anytime soon did nothing to calm him any. But he had no chance to evade the confrontation, it might be better to get it over and done with while he was still slightly dazed by this day's experiences.

Kingsley took another tour around the Death Chamber to make sure that everything Dumbledore had ordered was taken care of. Ron saw him talking to Remus' brother for a few minutes. The conversation was too low for him to hear, but Janus Lupin nodded a few times, said something to Kingsley and then turned back towards Sirius, speaking rapidly with the two Aurors and three healers who were crowding around Harry's godfather. The Aurors seemingly didn't like what Janus had to say, but they didn't quite dare to disagree with Janus. Ron wondered slightly just how high up in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Remus' brother truly was. He'd have to ask his father if he knew anything. Later, when his father was done shouting and grounding him, of course.

Numbly, he followed Kingsley up the stone steps, through the circular chamber out in the corridor and towards the elevator. He was glad and not just a little relieved when the elevator doors closed and they were rising up again, away from the Department of Mysteries.

"Just how in Merlin's name did you and Potter manage to get down there in the first place?"

"Harry's invisibility cloak", Ron said. "We took a portkey to my father's office, then we snuck down into the Department of Mysteries."

Kingsley raised an eyebrow. "The cloak you had earlier? Quite a trick you pulled. Maybe the Ministry should think about enhancing its security measures."

"Well, the Department of Mysteries certainly should. I get the impression that everybody can walk in there whenever they please."

Kingsley made a sound in the back of his throat. "That was the reason why the Order was guarding it last year, to make sure nobody could get to the prophecy. It's the Unspeakables' responsibility to make sure the Department is guarded, and after those two incidents during the past months, I'm sure they'll be hearing about it."

Ron didn't particularly care about what was going to happen to the Department of Mysteries in the future. He hoped never to see the creepy place again in his life, no matter for what reason.

They left the elevator and walked through the Auror Headquarters towards the office of Ron's father.

"You snuck through here? Without anybody noticing?"

Ron shrugged. "It took a while, but yeah. Everyone was busy, we only needed to make sure that nobody ran into us."

Kingsley shook his head and guided Ron through the corridor between the single cubicles. Ron didn't' have a visitor's badge, but seemingly, Kingsley's presence made nobody question why an underage wizard was at the Ministry of Magic that late in the evening. Maybe they should really reconsider their security-measures. Without speaking another word, they reached the office Mr. Weasley shared with his colleague Perkins. Kingsley knocked, and as there was no answer from within, he opened the door and let himself and Ron in.

"All right, it should be safe to floo to Grimmauld Place from here. The password for the kitchen fireplace is Canterbury."

He handed Ron a pot with floo-powder which he took from the mantle and with a wave of his wand lightened a fire in the cold and empty fireplace.

"You go first, I'll come after you."

Ron nodded and threw the powder into the flames, then he stepped into the flames. He called out the destination and the password, and only a few moments later he stumbled out of the fireplace in the basement kitchen at No. 12, Grimmauld Place. He straightened up, stepped aside and brushed the soot from his clothes.

"RONALD WEASLEY!"

Ron winced and turned towards the sound of the voice. His mother was standing only a few feet away from him, hands on her hips, eyes glaring furiously up at him from underneath her fiery red hair. Ron swallowed and tried to work his face into an innocent expression.

"Hello Mum."

"Hello Mum? HELLO MUM? Care to tell me where you have been? Or where Hermione is? You tell us that you're doing your homework, and suddenly the two of you are gone? We turned the whole house upside down, your father got bitten by a pixie because we even searched the attic! But you were gone! Can you imagine that we were worried sick that something had happened? Where have you been?"

Ron sighed and uncomfortably stepped from one foot to the other. At that moment, the fireplace activated again and Kingsley arrived in the basement kitchen. Molly looked from Ron to Kingsley and back again, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"Well? I'm waiting?"

Ron looked to Kingsley in search for help, but the Auror just shrugged.

"I don't know how it all started, I can't do the explaining for you."

Ron sighed and sank down in one of the kitchen chairs.

"Maybe you should call down Dad, then I don't have to tell it over and over again."

Molly made a grunting noise in the back of her throat, but she walked over towards the door and called for her husband. Then she sat down on the chair opposite of her son and crossed her arms in front of her chest again, glaring at Ron. It took maybe three or four minutes, then the kitchen door opened and Arthur Weasley stepped through.

"Yes, Molly?" His eyes fell on Ron, and with a relieved sigh he quickly stepped closer. "Ron, there you are! We've been worried about you. Where have you been?"

He put a hand on his son's shoulder, and with an increasing bad conscience Ron noticed the bandage that was wrapped around his father's hand, probably covering the pixie-bite.

"It's a longer story, maybe you ought to sit down."

Arthur frowned in obvious confusion, but he pulled up a chair and sat down next to his wife.

"Well?", Molly asked, her voice still annoyed.

Ron sighed. "Well. Harry wrote me a letter, saying that he needed my help with something, but he didn't say what. Then he called earlier today. He…he said he needed my help to get into the Ministry of Magic."

"What?"
Molly got up from her chair and leaned across the table towards her son, her eyebrows drawn together in a dangerous frown. Arthur was looking rather surprised, but at least not angry. Not yet.

"He said he needed to get into the Ministry without anybody noticing. He…I don't know how much Professor Dumbledore told you about what was going on with Remus, but it seemed that he was still somehow connected to Sirius. Professor Dumbledore and Remus wanted to break that connection. Harry thought he had an idea how to bring Sirius back, but for that he needed to get into the Department of Mysteries."

"And you helped him?", Arthur asked, now nearly as enraged as his wife was. "And how, if I may ask, did you manage that?"

"I…I might have taken that emergency portkey from your bedside table."

Arthur's face grew as red as his hair was, and a large vein began pulsing on his forehead. "My portkey", he brought out from between clenched teeth. Ron nodded.

"The portkey that was meant for emergencies."

Again, Ron nodded. "I thought this qualified as an emergency…"

"No, it definitely did not! I define what an emergency is, and I'm perfectly sure that this was not one! So, you stole my portkey. Then what happened?"
Ron told the story of how he and Hermione had gone to Hogwarts and then what had happened at the Ministry to Harry and him. There were quite a number of things he'd rather leave out, but he knew that sooner or later, his parents would get to know about it. So he told them all he thought they needed to know, and he tried not to get nervous from the way his father's expression darkened more and more. His mother looked rather shocked, and when he told that Snape had somehow managed to bring Sirius back, something unreadable crossed her face.

"Then Kingsley flooed here with me from your office. Hermione has to be at Hogwarts still, though I don't think that she's in the cupboard anymore."

He folded his shaking hands to hide how nervous he was and hesitantly looked up from his father to his mother. Arthur breathed in deeply a couple of times, then he looked up and met Ron's gaze.

"Go upstairs to your room. We'll talk about this later, right now I'm far too angry to deal with this any further."

Ron got up from his chair. "I know that it doesn't count for much, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you worried about me, but what I'm not sorry for is that I helped Harry. Because he was right, and it worked. It was good for Harry."

Very slowly, Arthur looked up at Ron. "We all care very much about Harry, Ron. You know that. He knows that. But if Harry really tried to do today what I think he did, then he was not right. He was lucky. There's a huge difference, and Harry has the tendency to forget that everybody's luck runs out at some point. I want neither him nor you to find that out the hard way, but obviously it is completely pointless to tell the two of you to be careful. And now go upstairs, please."

Ron wanted to respond something, but then he decided not to push his luck today, nodded and left the kitchen.