CHAPTER 20

The Voice From the Veil


Harry Apparated into the Ministry of Magic and found himself immediately surrounded by dozens of Aurors. A few of the more excitable ones shouted and drew their wands on him, but they relaxed a moment later, encouraged by the disapproving looks of their peers. As they went back to their business, Harry realized the Aurors were standing in four queues leading to nearby fireplaces. He'd timed his arrival perfectly. All the Aurors were headed to Gringott's.

"Pardon me, sir," one of the older Aurors said, catching Harry's attention, "but now is not the best time to visit the Ministry. Perhaps you could return tomorrow morning."

Harry bowed politely in greeting, but shook his head. "I am afraid I cannot," he replied, trying to mimic the formal and almost condescending tone Josef always used in such situations. "I am on an official errand to the Department of International Magical Cooperation."

"An official errand, eh?" the Auror replied with a frown. "What sort of official errand?"

"I am delivering a message from the Ministry of the Wizards of Romania," Harry replied stiffly. This news earned him a scowl from the Auror.

"Romania, is it?" he growled. "That's all the more reason for you to come back tomorrow. That name alone is enough to put most wizards here on edge. I can't have you lurking about all night and I don't have any spare wizards to keep an eye on you. I suggest you find yourself a nice inn and return tomorrow morning."

Harry stiffened and returned a stony glare. "I am an official emissary for the Ministry of Romania, and my business is with the British Liaison to Romania. Under the Official Communication Agreement of 1807, you may not keep me from my errand."

"I don't care what some old piece of parchment says," the Auror growled. "I have orders to clear this room. Nobody comes in or out. Not tonight. Serious trouble is brewing, and it'll be my head if I disobey my orders."

"It will be your head if you do not," Harry replied sternly. "My orders come from your Minister. I know the trouble you speak of, and that is precisely why am I here."

Most of the Aurors had already left, but one of the last paused to shout some advice to the one in front of Harry. "Do what he says, Marshall! The last Auror that stood up to him was sacked on the spot."

Harry smiled lightly and spoke slowly. "I am going to the Department of International Magical Cooperation. I appreciate your concern for my safety. I will notify your Minister of your commendable... tenacity."

The last Auror queuing for the fireplaces disappeared in a whirl of green fire, leaving Harry and the wizard named Marshall standing alone in the center of the Hall. At the far end, the security wizard sat at his desk while another Auror stood in the center of the security gate and watched him carefully.

"Come on, then," the Auror grumbled, "but you're checking in just like any other guest, and I'm telling the guards on Level Five that you're not to leave without an escort. You're business is there, and you've no reason to be wandering anywhere else."

Harry nodded and followed the Auror to the security desk. Just as he'd expected, the wizard there asked for his wand, and wrote down its characteristics. Before he could impale it on the spike, the Auror snatched it from his hands.

"Just a moment," he said with a sour smile. He looked down at the slip and read it aloud: "Thirteen inches. Dragon Heartstring core. In use for ten years." With a suspicious glance, he kneeled down and lifted a gigantic book up onto the desk.

"Your name?" he asked sharply.

In a bored voice, Harry answered: "Josef Kantos."

The Auror paged through the large book, running his finger along the columns of names and wands, until it finally stopped. He stood completely still for a moment. Without looking up, he called out to his partner, "MacCauleigh! Wand out!"

The second Auror at the gate pulled his wand and trained it on Harry, while the first stared at him with narrowed eyes. "This book here says that Josef Kantos' wand has been in use for only nine years. So who are you?"

Harry forced himself to remain calm. There had always been a chance of this happening. "I am Josef Kantos, and my wand was in use for nine years when that entry was made."

"It was only nine days ago," said the Auror. "That's quite a coincidence, isn't it?"

"Indeed," Harry answered coolly, "but it is a coincidence which has happened nine times before. If you have doubts about my identity, may I suggest a more reliable method to resolve our dispute?"

The Auror raised an eyebrow. "I'm listening."

Harry stepped forward until he was only inches from the other wizard. "Lock me up," he growled. "Throw me in Azkaban Prison. If you are correct, then you will have put me where I justly belong. If I am correct, then by nightfall tomorrow, I will be here and you will be the one in Azkaban."

The Auror's lip twitched as he glared at Harry. "There will be no need for that," he said.

"Then give me my wand and let me pass!" barked Harry.

With begrudging obedience, the Auror handed Harry the wand and stepped aside. As Harry pocketed the wand, he heard a wavering voice call out from behind him.

"MacCauleigh! See that Mister Kantos reaches Level Five without any further disturbances." The second Auror quickly put his wand away and dashed to open the gate for Harry.


Once they reached Level Five, they found another Auror guarding the lifts. Harry's escort told the new Auror just what Marshall had said in the Entrance Hall. He wasn't to leave the level without an Auror escorting him. He pointed Harry down the hallway that led to the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and then stepped back into the lift and disappeared.

The remaining Auror regarded him suspiciously but said nothing, so Harry decided to ignore him as well. He cautiously walked in the direction he'd been pointed, hoping that it would be obvious where he was supposed to go. Ginny had told him how to find her office, but she'd left out the directions for finding the Department itself. Luckily, the Department found him.

"How come I'm not surprised to see you here?" a voice echoed down the hallway. Harry spun around and found someone following him. It took him a moment to recognize the man as Ferdinand Harrington. He continued talking as he walked toward Harry.

"The Auror guarding the Entrance Hall —Marshall I believe— said you were coming up. He also said that you told him that Scrimgeour sent for you. Now, you might have been completely within your rights to threaten him with Azkaban, but you need to be a bit more wary when you lie about working for Scrimgeour. He's a proud wizard and he doesn't like feeling manipulated, especially when it's the truth."

Harry didn't know just how to respond. How well did Josef and Harrington know each other? Had he made some horrible mistake? Could Harrington be a member of the Brotherhood, now? There was only one thing Harry could do: play along.

"It was the truth, from one point of view," he replied hesitantly. "If your Minister knew I was coming, he would have ordered them to let me pass. The order was implicit. I simply failed to mention that."

"I wonder how many other things you've failed to mention," Harrington commented enigmatically. He stopped right in front of Harry. "Are you here to make things better or worse?"

"What do you mean?"

Harrington slipped his hands into his pockets. "Scrimgeour didn't send for you. In fact, no one other than the goblins, the Aurors and a few Ministry officials know what is currently going on in Diagon Alley. But you do, don't you?" He didn't wait for Harry to respond. "You know what is happening; you knew just when it would begin. My question is: Are you here to tell us why it's happening, or to keep us from learning what you already know?"

"I assure you," Harry began to explain, "whatever is happening at Diagon Alley poses no threat to the British Ministry."

"From one point of view, perhaps," Harrington scoffed. "From my point of view, it poses a very real threat to my Ministry, my Department, and my employees —especially Miss Weasley." The old wizard stepped closer to Harry and dropped his voice. "Why are you using her? Why not someone in the Department of Mysteries? What does she know that is worth so much to you? You and your Ministry were interfering with her career before it even started. Why?"

Harry forced himself to answer as Josef would: "We see great potential in Ginny Weasley."

"Potential for what? Betrayal? A tragic death? Who do you really work for? Grigore Tarus? The Romanian Ministry? Or the Brotherhood of the Sacred Balance? Which one is Ginny helping? Does she even know?"

"I guarantee you," Harry said seriously, "nothing is more important to me than Ginny's safety."

Harrington gave him a dubious look. "I'll judge that based on your actions, not your words. I know Tarus is up to something, so is this Brotherhood, and I think you're part of it, too. Whatever is happening in Romania, you make sure it stays in Romania, Kantos. If you are only here to do your job, then do it and leave. I won't let you drag an innocent girl into this. Tarus and Reynard have gathered plenty of power already. If they want more, tell them to find someone else to use as their puppet."

After a moment of tense silence, Harrington stepped back and began walking off. "Come on," he called out. "The Aurors said they didn't want anyone wandering about through the corridors. They're worried that this business at Diagon Alley is just a diversion for an attack on the Ministry. I've unlocked Ginny's office. You can wait for her there."

Harry was glad that the confrontation was over, and that Harrington was showing him the way to the Department. It was much closer than Harry had expected. As they rounded another corner, Harry saw a large desk that must belong to the receptionist.

"Ferdinand?" a witch's voice called out. "Were you talking to someone?"

Standing just around the next corner was a young witch staring at them from behind a mess of brown hair. Harrington paused for a second, then answered. "Yes, Evelyn. Josef has returned. He needs to speak with Ginny, of course, and it seems he'll be waiting here for her to arrive."

Harry thought he noticed a slight change in her expression, but it melted away an instant later. "Sounds exciting," she commented.

Harrington ignored her and gave Harry a slight bow. "I'm afraid that I spent most of the day trying to prove that Ginny wasn't trying to kill you and your Minister. There are mountains of things I must look through. I'm sorry we cannot chat any longer. Perhaps tomorrow morning, after you speak with Miss Weasley?" he asked with a smile.

"Perhaps," Harry replied kindly.

"Very well. Evelyn, would you see Mister Kantos to Ginny's office?" He waited for a small nod from Evelyn before turning and opening a large wooden door. He stepped through it, and closed it sharply, leaving Harry alone with Evelyn.

She stared at him for a moment, then began to walk away. After a few steps she paused and looked over her shoulder. "Are you coming?" she asked.

Harry quickly followed her. The directions Ginny had given him began to make sense. She led him past a large room filled with cubicles and down a short corridor lined with doors. When they reached the corner, Harry spotted a door with a golden nameplate on it: Evelyn Sibley.

Evelyn opened the door to her office and leaned against the frame. She lazily raised an arm and pointed down the corridor. "Weasley's office is that way. It's one of the doors on the left. I don't go down there much, but I'm sure—"

"I remember which one it is," Harry told her.

She stared at him for a moment. "Of course you do," she replied. "I, er... I've got some work to finish up, but I wonder if I might speak with you later. It's nothing serious, just a little curiosity. I figured that since the Aurors won't let us leave, that I might as well ask."

Harry smiled politely and nodded. "Of course," he replied. "I don't expect Ginny for quite a few hours." Evelyn backed into her office and closed the door, leaving Harry to stand in the corridor alone. He turned the corner and continued until he found a door with Ginny's name on it.

The door was unlocked just as Harrington had told him. Harry walked in and opted to leave the door open just a few inches. He found the idea of someone sneaking up on him more troubling than the lack of privacy.

For a few minutes he walked about the office just inspecting the things around him. He convinced himself that it was his survival instincts needing to catalog his surroundings in case he might suddenly find himself cornered. In reality, it was only the first symptoms of what would inevitably be hours of boredom. Josef had always been much more patient than he was. It didn't surprise Harry at all that everyone readily accepted that he would arrive hours before Ginny just to ensure that he saw her the minute she came in.

After a thorough inspection of the room, Harry felt confident that, in the event of an emergency, he would be completely vulnerable and hopelessly trapped. He pushed that thought from his mind and went about arranging more practical matters. He found a clock on the wall and noted the time.

Ginny would be arriving at six o'clock in the morning with the usual crowd of early-risers. They would report that she was already in the Ministry, thus allowing Hermione to arrive ten minutes later without being interrogated immediately. She would need ten minutes to send the memo. He and Ginny would need another five to get to the Department of Mysteries. The morning shift of guard wizards arrived at seven o'clock. That gave them only a half hour to get what they came for before the Ministry filled with well rested wizards, eager to catch anyone foolish enough to try to rob it.

Harry worked out the times he would need to take more Polyjuice Potion. He decided he didn't want to take any risks. He would drink it every fifty minutes, and he would put off taking the last dose as long as he could. It would be hard to explain Polyjuice Potion to the guards, and it looked like he'd need the full hour.

Harry examined the large bookcases along the wall. One of them was mostly empty, but the other was quickly filling with all sorts of old books about Romania and the history of Quidditch. Mixed in with them, he found a number of more troubling titles such as Masters of Malicious Magic: Dark Arts Sects Revisited, Cults of Carpathia and A Catalogue of Dark Magic Rituals. She must have been trying to research the Brotherhood.

Harry grabbed Masters of Malicious Magic and sat down in Ginny's desk. The book looked old, but the information in it was surprisingly current. It included a chapter on Grindelwald, and even Voldemort and the Death Eaters, though it still listed him as living and terrorizing Britain. It must have been written only a short time before his parents' deaths.

He flipped past the chapter. That was history. He needed information about the present. Of course, there was no chapter about the Brotherhood. They were much too secretive for that. Harry checked a number of other chapters for any information he might find. If they were mentioned in the chapter on Slavic warlocks, he would never find it. The chapter was huge, and seemed to be written in a rushed manner, as if the author himself had been daunted by the huge number of dark wizards worthy of mention. There were no mentions in the sections on Symbol Worship or Immortality Cults.

He was about to put it away, when he spotted something interesting. A number of the pages had the tips of their corners worn and turned down, as if someone had left the book open to that spot for quite some time. Harry found a particularly well worn spot, and opened the book to that page.

It was the center of a discussion of dark magicians in Egypt. He scanned the pages for minutes before finding the passage which Ginny had found so interesting.

Oral tradition of the local wizards occasionally mentions a very secretive cult centered around the Nile Valley. Hieroglyphics on the walls of wizards buried in the valley seem to confirm its existence. While some tombs have been discovered to be elaborate hoaxes, some wizards claim that the other tombs prove this cult to be the first dark arts sect in the world, predating even the Smoke Dragons of Central China.

While experts are undecided upon the truth of this claim, there seems to be little dispute over the current status of this cult. The last recorded sighting was over a thousand years ago, when it is suspected that all of the members died in a bloody battle over control of the area around Giza. Today, they are remembered only in the folklore of the area as grey-cloaked "tomb demons" who kill children who stray too close to the tombs of dark wizards.

He understood why it had caught Ginny's eye, but there really wasn't much of interest there. There were plenty of secretive groups and many of them wore cloaks. He found another area of worn corners and searched through the pages. This time, it was a little easier to find what he'd been looking for.

A large number of the tribes living in Macedonia gathered together into a loose confederation. No one tribe was given any more power than another, and they symbolized this relationship by the wearing of circular talismans hung from their necks. The talismans served as both a symbol of their promise to the other tribes, and the method for calling them together.

It is unknown just how the rings were used, but it has been said they would signal the members, alerting them to meet at a preordained location. This would often be a hilltop, cavern or other landform where they would sit in a wide circle, reinforcing the symbology and reminding them of their identification with the natural order. In later years they called themselves the Brotherhood of the Ring. Reports say they were all killed in the giant attack on Skopje in 1401.

That one was even less likely. While the name sounded similar and it might be easy to see some similarities, the Brotherhood of the Sacred Balance rarely gathered all of its members at the same time, and Harry had never seen them sit in circles. Of course, Ginny couldn't know any of that.

Perhaps that was why Ginny had so many of these books. There was a good chance that none of them contained any information about the Brotherhood. They were much more reclusive than any of the cults mentioned in the book he was reading. They had survived by extreme secrecy. As far as Harry could tell, no one outside the Brotherhood had known of them until Voldemort's death. That was when Grigore had become obsessed with him. Grigore had traded some of that secrecy for a chance to kill him, but he'd failed. Now it seemed there was little he wouldn't do to accomplish his goal.

Harry looked up at the clock. He'd only passed an hour of his time. It wasn't even late in the evening yet. With a sigh, he turned back to the book. Even if it was futile, it was better than reading the World Cup Committee reports.

Harry paged through the old book, looking for anything that might capture his interest for any period of time. As he paged through, his eyes stopped on one particular heading: The Lost Death Gates. Above the heading was a small picture of a sheet of dark cloth hanging over an arch.

There was one page of text, with an illustration on the facing page of a tall, dark castle floating on a turbulent body of water. Below it was a caption explaining that it was a castle that sat on an island in the Black Sea off Varna. Apparently it had been cursed by an old warlock when his attempt to become immortal failed spectacularly. Harry scanned the page looking for any information about the arches.

It's unknown exactly what went wrong with the incantation, but it seems that the curse was cast by Golakhov once he realized his failure. Some loyal subjects claim that he was trying to protect the other wizards in the castle from the backlash of the incantation. Others believe he was trying to selfishly ensure that no other wizard would find his scrolls and succeed where he had failed. Whatever the purpose, Golakhov turned all of the dark energy upon himself, binding it to his body and allowing it to consume him.

The resulting curse has trapped thousands of wizards and Muggles alike when they unwittingly step foot on the island. Once there, the dark magic of the curse corrupts and ultimately kills them, creating a veritable army of ghouls. After a thousand years of imprisonment, this army has grown so violent that local authorities have refused almost all requests to travel within sight of the island.

The last person to willingly set foot upon the island was a German wizard named Wilhelm Reichebaum. Bulgarian officials granted his request after he demonstrated a device he had created to ward off the ghouls of the island. Reichebaum was convinced that the castle held an unprotected Death Gate, and that this was the source of Golakhov's power. He claimed that by securing that gate the way the other gates had been, he might end the curse, freeing himself and the trapped spirits. Reichebaum left Varna on April 24, 1927. He was never seen again.

Ten years after his disappearance, investigators stumbled across a shocking revelation. As Golakhov had feared, Reichebaum had intended to finish the incantation Golakhov had begun. After being denied access to the known gates in London, Trieste, Tunis and Istanbul, he gave up and focused instead on finding lost or forgotten gates. Researchers reported that his notes had focused on two specific legends: the legend of Golakhov Castle and an ancient folktale about a Utopian citadel said to be in Hungary.Allegedly, they also included details on a ritual to use the gates to achieve immortality. Unfortunately, the scrolls perished in a fire before this could be verified.

Researchers from many countries agree that there are no more Death Gates to be found. They insist that the rumors of gates near Varna and Hungary are purely fiction. However, Reichebaum's notes included a very old illustration of a veiled arch, nearly identical to the arches found over the gates in London and Trieste. In the illustration (see next page) the wizards observing the gate appear to be wearing traditional Hungarian robes. The authenticity of this illustration has been hotly contested.

Harry carefully turned the page and found the mentioned illustration. He felt his blood run cold at the sight of it. It was a copy of what looked to be a painting. It didn't move, and it was printed in black ink only.

The painting itself was simple and undetailed. It depicted a wizard pointing his wand at a large stone arch. Harry recognized it immediately. It had the same cracked pillar as the arch under the Castle in Romania. However, unlike that arch, this one was without a veil or any other covering. Instead, it was filled with a hazy darkness, and in the center of it was an even darker cloud surrounding the figure of a snake hanging in a single wavy line. Beneath it, written in an antique script were four lines of text:

Across the endless wastes and timeless sands
I seek the primal source and final end
In my shadow, all life is without hope
In my light, only darkness will remain

Harry stared at the lines and read them to himself. He felt numb. The lines were troubling by themselves, but not nearly as troubling as the fact that he had heard them so many times before. They, and many other lines like them, had haunted his dreams for almost a year. Now, here they were, scrawled across a painting that claimed to be over four hundred years old.

He read them again. It wasn't some trick by Grigore. They had been real. He stared into the arch, and tried to imagine what it all meant. Why was there a snake in the arch? What did that mean? There must be some reason.

"Excuse me, were you... hissing at that book?"

Harry's head jerked up painfully. Evelyn was standing in the doorway and staring at him strangely. Harry quickly closed the book. "Er, no," he replied quickly. "I was simply whispering in my native tongue. I occasionally do that while I read. I have been told it can sound strange to others' ears."

Evelyn just nodded and kept staring at him. "What book do you have there?" she asked.

"It's nothing. I was merely passing the time."

"Oh, don't worry," she said. "I just thought it was one of mine. I forgot I had let Ginny borrow it. I'll let you finish with it, though."

"As I said, I was only passing the time," Harry repeated. "You may have it back. There are many other books here."

Evelyn walked forward and gently picked up the book. As she tucked it under her arm, she reached up to her face to brush aside a few tangled strands of hair and froze suddenly. "Oh my," she exclaimed. "I must look horrible! I didn't even think... You see, I spent the afternoon in Knockturn Alley trying to gather information on the Death Eaters and well, it's easier if you look like this... Oh. I feel so embarrassed."

She covered her face with her free hand and turned her back to Harry. "I'm so sorry," she apologized, sounding a little flustered. "I— I need to go freshen up. I'll be back a later, I promise." She quickly ran out of the office without giving Harry a chance to tell her that it didn't really matter.

Harry stared at the doorway for a moment. He didn't think he'd ever understand women. The office was only dimly lit; he could barely even tell that her hair had been messy. Of course, if the room had been as bright as a summer afternoon, he still wouldn't know why having messy hair should prevent her from asking her questions. Harry's hair had been messy every day of his life, and it hadn't ever stopped him.

He checked the clock and saw that it was time for another dose of Polyjuice Potion. The flask was in an interior pocket in his robes. It kept the viscous liquid just warm enough to maintain its stomach-turning flavor. He took a pair of quick gulps and then concentrated on not being sick.

When he recovered he turned back to Ginny's bookshelf and selected another book, A Catalogue of Dark Magic Rituals. Ginny had kept this book around, but after some time searching, he couldn't figure out why. Perhaps she was simply looking for the spells or ceremonies that had been mentioned in the other books.

Harry paged through the book lazily, but fairly quickly. While the authors had conscientiously decided to avoid giving the full details of the rituals, they had not felt any obligation to deny the reader accurate illustrations of the acts or results of the spells. Some of them were even more sickening than the taste of the Polyjuice Potion.

As he read about all sorts of horrible things, he wondered how many of them Grigore had tried. He'd always professed to have no desire for immortality, but he had to know about the history of the arches. He had to know how many other wizards had been convinced that they could use them to extend their life indefinitely, or to gain enough power to simply render death a pointless event in

Harry thought back to what Harrington had said in the corridor. He'd made it sound as though Grigore and Reynard were helping each other. Harrington couldn't know of the link between Grigore and the Brotherhood, but Hermione had been clear that Reynard knew much more about the Brotherhood than he had told anyone else.

A chilling thought hit Harry. What if Reynard had learned of the Brotherhood from Grigore? Grigore had always said it was important that he remain separate from the Brotherhood so long as he was the Romanian Minister. It allowed him to honestly deny involvement with them. Perhaps his motives were more selfish than it had appeared.

Harry's mind swam with the implications. What was Grigore trying to do? Was he going to betray the Brotherhood? Was that what Josef and Dragomir had sensed? What part, then, did Reynard play in all of this? Was he just another pawn, or had he been helping Grigore all this time?

"Are you alright?"

Harry looked up again and saw someone standing in the doorway. He recognized her voice before her face. It was Evelyn but she looked rather different. She was carrying a large, silvery platter which held a pair of cups and a single candle.

"You look tense," she said with a gentle voice. "Luckily, I brought some tea. It might help you relax."

Harry watched her as she walked toward him with the tray. The idea of something to wash the taste of Polyjuice Potion from his mouth sounded rather appealing. "I think some tea would be quite nice, thank you," he said in Josef's formal tone.

Evelyn smiled. "I hoped you'd say that." She walked into the room and sat down on the other side of Ginny's desk, placing the platter between them. The light from the candle shone off the pale skin of her face, making it appear to glow. Her formerly tangled hair was now hanging in a smooth, lustrous sheet which framed her face and curled playfully below her jaw. The candlelight reflected off it, adding golden highlights to its chocolate-brown color. The effect was quite striking. It was hard to believe that the exquisite woman before him was the same witch he'd seen when he left Harrington.

She looked up and Harry stared into her eyes for a moment. There were brown, like her hair, but darker. She noticed him staring and quickly dropped her eyes back down to the tea. "I had summoned two cups before I'd even thought of asking you," she said quickly, sounding almost nervous. "Maybe my Inner Eye told me you would want a cup."

"I'm afraid I do not believe in Divination," Harry commented flatly.

She smiled and let out a bubbly laugh as she nudged a cup toward Harry. "Don't worry," she whispered, "neither do I. When I was in school —at Hogwarts, of course— the Divination professor was this horrible old bat. She was right on occasion, but as my father says, if you throw enough rocks into the sky, you're bound to hit a dragon eventually."

Harry couldn't help but smile. Evelyn returned the smile and shook her head knowingly. "You've heard of her, haven't you? Sybill Trelawney? Ginny told you about her, didn't she?" Harry didn't know just what to say, so he simply smiled and nodded. Evelyn took a sip of her tea and then put the cup back on the platter. "That was what I was going to talk to you about."

"You wanted to ask me about Trelawney?"

"No, about Ginny," she replied with a sly look. "Is there some reason you want to avoid talking about her?"

"No," Harry answered quickly. "I can't reveal confidential information, of course, but you are free to ask whatever you like."

"Alright," Evelyn said shyly. "I hope you don't think I'm being intrusive. I don't mean anything by it. I'm just curious, you see. When Ginny first came here she was... a little unpleasant. Lately she's been much happier, despite everything that's going on. I think I first noticed it after she came back from Giza."

"Giza?" Harry asked. "Really?"

"Yes, that was the start of it," Evelyn answered. "She talks about you, you know —not to any of her friends— but she's asked me about you. She's mentioned you to Carmilla, and probably Mrs. Reading. And when she does, she looks more... alive, I guess. It's a nice change."

Harry stared at her, unsure of just what to think or say. "I, er— I guess that's nice to hear."

"Is it?" Evelyn replied with a smile. "You two have been spending quite a bit of time together, lately. If it's not too much to ask, how much of that was work?"

Harry tried not to look surprised. "I, er— I don't think I could really answer that."

"So it's not all work, is it then?" Evelyn said with a giggle. "I didn't think so." Harry was about to speak up, but she stopped him. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. I think it's great. She looked really happy after you left last Friday. I do have one question, though."

"Er, what is that?" he asked reluctantly.

"Some of the wizards she went to Hogwarts with said that she was really good at snogging. I guess I was curious if you had, well..." Evelyn smiled suggestively at him.

Harry felt very odd. He clutched his cup in one hand and stuffed his other hand in his pocket to keep from fidgeting. He couldn't decide if he should concentrate on finding some convincing response to what she said or ask her for more details.

After what felt like an eternity, her smile softened. She put her cup on the platter and reached for his hand. Harry tried to pull it out of her reach, but she caught it and wrapped both of her hands around his. The touch of them was warm and soft against his skin. He wanted to pull his arm away, but he couldn't force himself to wrench it from the gentle grip of her delicate fingers. Slowly, he felt his anxiety ebb away.

When she saw him relaxing, she flashed a warm smile. "I'm sorry," she said in a calming voice. "I've made you uncomfortable. I didn't mean to. I was only curious. It's none of my business. I'm happy for you, I really am. We can talk about something else, if you like."

She let go of his hand and the air in the room felt cold and harsh in comparison. He forced himself to reach for his cup again and drink some of the tea. He tried to keep his motions as smooth and fluid as possible. It was important that he not appear agitated or worried. That wouldn't look right. Josef was always in control of his emotions. Harry just needed to take control of his.

Doing that would have been much easier once he got the picture of Ginny lying across her desk while kissing the wizard who he had once thought of as his friend. The same wizard who had betrayed him. The wizard who had put Ginny's life in danger by exposing her to the Brotherhood.

Harry heard a sharp crack, and jerked his hand away from his cup just as it split neatly into two pieces. It dropped onto Ginny's desk, splashing tea everywhere.

Evelyn frowned and covered her face with her hands. "Oh, this is my fault," she scolded herself. "Please accept my apology. I didn't know it was a stressful subject. It must be hard to do this while everything else is happening." She pulled out her wand and wiggled it at the spilled tea. Without saying a word, the largest pool leaped off the desk as if grabbed by a whirlwind. It spun around faster and faster, pulling other droplets off the desk into a spinning tornado of tea until it formed into a single ball of wildly spinning liquid.

"Evanesco!" she said sharply, and the ball disappeared with a flash.

Evelyn laughed softly. "I never got to use that when I was younger," she said with a smile. "My father always said it was a waste of my talents."

Harry looked at the two halves of the cup and pulled out his wand, feeling he should have been the one to clean up the mess his lack of control had created.

"Oh, don't worry about the cup," Evelyn reassured him. "I picked them up last year from some shady street vendor. They break all the time." She aimed her wand at the two halves of the cup, and smiled. With a puff of smoke, the two pieces became a pair of darkly colored birds, one with a bright red crest. They flew in circles around Harry for a few seconds before disappearing in simultaneous puffs of smoke. When he looked back down at the desk, Evelyn had already summoned another cup and was holding her wand to its rim. Harry watched as the cup slowly filled with a dark, richly colored liquid.

"I'm afraid my tea is never terribly sweet this way," she apologized. "I feel that too much sugar overpowers the flavor from the leaves, and that comes through into my magic."

"That's quite alright," he replied. "I've never really liked a lot sugar in my tea, either."

Evelyn smiled again. "So, we need something else to talk about. We could talk about politics, but I think that would be rather like a bird talking to a fish about how to dig a hole. Maybe something else. How about the prospects for the Quidditch World Cup, or that bastard Reynard and how he's squandering the best magical researchers in Europe?"


Ginny had Apparated into the Ministry at precisely six o'clock. She had been awake for hours before then, packing and repacking a bag of various magical supplies. Harry hadn't said exactly what he expected the Ministry to do to stop them, but he seemed to be taking it seriously. She hoped that no one would search it at the Ministry. There was no reason why they would. Harry had said that no one would stop her.

Harry had been wrong.

Ginny had spent at least five minutes arguing with the Aurors at the gate that she needed to enter. They had been ordered to call Reynard if she arrived, but no one was able to find him yet. They wanted to make her wait, and they were succeeding until she remembered the one thing that had always worked.

The older of the two Aurors had paled immediately at the mention of Romania. However, they'd still wasted valuable time, and by the time she'd found an open lift, Hermione had already Apparated into the Entrance Hall. She wouldn't have much time. If she ran into any more delays, it might upset their plans.

The lift ride was uneventful, and the walk to the department offices was disturbingly quiet. She turned the corner and found Carmilla writing in a large book. Ginny nodded as she walked her desk.

"Oh, Ginny!" Carmilla called out. "There's something I should tell you—"

"I know Josef is here," Ginny replied. "That's why I came in."

"No, that's not it—"

"I don't have time right now," Ginny said apologetically. "This is really very important." Ginny kept walking, hoping that whatever Carmilla needed to tell her was something useless and not some news about Aurors waiting in her office. She ignored her fears and just kept walking.

She turned the last corner and made her way to her office. A twinge of fear ran through her when she saw that the door was open. She stopped in the doorway and her blood ran icy cold at the scene before her. There were two people in her office, one speaking in a voice she faintly recognized.

"So, the Swiss Minister is sitting at one end of the table insisting that he's never seen any of the gold while Ferdinand was under the table wrestling with the Niffler!"

Harry —looking exactly like Josef— leaned back in Ginny's chair and laughed out loud.

"He had to lay there for an hour until the French Minister finally accepted it," the voice continued.

Ginny pushed the door open, and allowing it to strike the far wall. She stared at the laughing witch sitting opposite Harry, hoping it was just a hallucination. It couldn't be. It didn't make sense. It wasn't possible.

Evelyn and Harry turned to face Ginny simultaneously. They were both smiling, as if expecting Ginny to join in on the laughter at any moment. She felt no such desire.

"What— I—" she stammered. She felt her jaw clenching. She stared at Evelyn. She had fixed her hair. She'd put on nice robes. There was a silver platter on Ginny's desk with the remnants of a candle sitting in the center of it. She was even smiling. Ginny's eyes narrowed on Evelyn.

"What are you doing in my office?" she growled.

Evelyn's smile fell away, and was replaced with an expression of innocence. "Nothing, I swear," she replied. "I was just keeping your guest company. We were stuck here all night because of the attacks. I swear we didn't talk about Romania at all."

"Get out," Ginny ordered. Harry sat up and gave her a confused look.

"There's no reason to be upset, Ginny," Evelyn said sweetly. "We just talked. I'd never try to steal him from you."

"You'd never—" Ginny cried out, then choked on her rage. She felt her fists clenching and her nails digging painfully into her palms. "Evelyn, get out of here before I do something no one will be able to cure."

Evelyn frowned. "Alright. I suppose it has been a rough night," she said. She picked up the platter and smiled at Harry. "It was nice talking with you, Josef. Ginny's right. I should go. I'm sure you two have quite a bit of... business to attend to," she said with a sly smile. "Hopefully she'll be less tense after a bit of... talking."

Ginny felt her hand reach for her wand, and before Evelyn could turn around it was aimed at her chest. Harry shot out of his chair and leaped between Ginny and Evelyn.

"She's right," he told Ginny. "We have a lot to talk about, and this is no way to start the morning."

Evelyn smiled again and walked cheerfully out of the office, leaving Ginny to glare at her and fume in impotent anger. When she was gone, Ginny slammed the door sharply and glared at Harry.

"What were you doing with her?"

"I was being friendly," Harry replied. "Josef always acts personable and caring."

Ginny's posture didn't change. "Well he didn't seem think much of Evelyn. When he was here, he didn't say much to me, and barely anything to anyone else."

"He didn't say much?" Harry asked suspiciously. "You were in the same room for a couple hours and he didn't say much?"

Ginny felt a flash of anger. "A couple of hours? Who told you that, Harry?" she asked threateningly. "Was it your new friend, Evelyn? Did she let that slip out sometime last night?"

Ginny waited for Harry to respond, but he never got his chance. As he was staring at her, she heard something slide under her door. She turned just in time to see a piece of parchment folding itself back into a winged shape and flap eagerly toward her.

Ginny glared at Harry as she plucked the memo from the air, opened it and quickly read it. "I talked to Josef for a few minutes at most. I don't know why Evelyn thought we had been talking for hours. And while I'd love to fully explain just how delusional she is, we need to leave now. Hermione was stopped before she even got to her office. She's waiting for us already."

Ginny couldn't tell just how she felt as she and Harry walked back to the lifts. She was filled with an irrational anger at Evelyn for sitting in her office, and an unhealthy amount of annoyance at Harry for letting her. Evelyn had done it because she knew Ginny would be outraged. Yet, at the same time, she felt a paralyzing fear of what she knew they were about to attempt. The only thing that gave her the strength to walk was the knowledge that Harry would be by her side.

Harrington attempted to stop them, but Ginny deflected his questions and told him that she was working for Tarus at the moment. She nodded to Carmilla as she passed, and saw an apologetic look on the older witch's face. Ginny understood now. She had been trying to tell her that Evelyn was in her office causing trouble.

As they waited for the lift, Ginny could barely hold herself still. She felt like she was about to explode with twenty different emotions, and it was only made worse by the stoic look Harry had adopted. He had formulated a plan to rob the Ministry —the Department of Mysteries, of all places— and only minutes before they were supposed to leave, he was sitting in her office laughing at Evelyn's jokes? How did Evelyn even know jokes?

A lift nearby clattered open and Harry and Ginny quickly walked toward it. Much to Ginny's relief, it was empty. The moment the doors closed, she let out a frustrated sigh and continued glaring at Harry in disgust.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Is something—" she began to say before her anger stole her ability to speak. Unable to find any words to correctly express her feelings, she resorted to a much older form of communication. Without warning, she balled her hand into a fist and threw it into Harry's shoulder.

A sharp pain shot up her arm, followed by a dull throbbing in her fist. The pain felt somehow invigorating. It felt good to release some small bit of the aggression locked inside her chest.

"What was that for?" Harry shouted.

"How could you, Harry?"

Harry looked truly confused. "What did I do?" he asked.

"You let her in my office!" Ginny roared. "Do you have any idea how long she's going to gloat over that? She'll walk around talking about how she's such good friends with Josef. I mean she had tea with him by candlelight, and he's so much nicer than I am, and— Oh, my god," she said, interrupting herself. "Did you sleep with her?"

Harry's jaw dropped. "No!" he shouted. "What do you think I am? How could you even ask—"

"Not like that," Ginny stopped him. "Did you both sleep in my office? Is she going to say that she slept with Josef?"

"If she does, it'll be a lie," Harry replied defensively.

"That's not enough to stop her," Ginny grumbled in response.

"Well, er—" Harry stammered uncomfortably. "She does also seem to think that you and Josef are fond of each other, so—"

"Is that what she said?" Ginny interrupted as a fresh wave of fury passed through her. "How dare she—"

"Why is it that you two don't get along?" Harry asked.

"Why?" Ginny repeated as though he'd asked why mermaids don't wear trousers. "Do I have to give only one answer? Because she's wretched. Is that a good enough reason?"

"I think you're exaggerating a bit," Harry said in a low voice.

Ginny goggled at him. "Am I? Maybe I am," she said as she stepped right in front of him. "She's so much worse than 'wretched' can really convey. Evelyn Sibley is one of the most vile, miserable, hate-filled, selfish, and loathsome creatures to ever trouble this world."

He frowned and stared down at her. "Alright, I get the point. You don't like her." Ginny nearly choked. Harry ran his hand through Josef's hair. "Still, she knows about a lot of things—"

"—That's what she does." Ginny interjected, "She researches people."

"—Yes, and we could use somebody like that," Harry added. "She's really not as bad as you think, once you get to know her. I think we could trust her."

Ginny stared at Harry in complete silence for a moment, then the peace was broken by the gates drawing open noisily and revealing the Atrium level. A pair of witches stood and gazed at Ginny as she stared threateningly at Harry.

One of them finally made a move to walk into the lift, but Ginny held out a hand. "Pardon us," she apologized. "I'm transporting this wizard to the Department of Mysteries. He's clearly suffered a horrible head injury. He's mentally unstable and I couldn't vouch for your safety."

The two witches stared at her blankly, then took a couple steps back from the lift. The gates shut and Ginny shoved Harry with all her strength, succeeding in only putting him off balance for a moment.

"You want to trust Evelyn Sibley?" Ginny shouted. "The only thing I would trust her to do would be to poison us in our sleep, hack us to bits and sell our organs to some shady potions-maker in Scotland. I hear the scalp of a true red-headed witch fetches a handsome price, but you're the Great Harry Potter. I'm sure a Galleon wouldn't get more than a few strands of your hair, the Death Eaters would pay a fortune for your blood —but of course, they'd need all of it and you could probably sell it for more by the vial— and who knows how much someone would pay for your scar? Hell, even I'd pay sixty Galleons for some Powdered Potter Pancreas, but let's not count our Basilisks before they're hatched, eh Harry? Once we've got Evelyn on our side we'll know everything we need to know, and we'll be able to stop Tarus, and we'll be famous, and every child will have their own soft little bunny, and bloody hell, Harry, are you out of your mind?"

Just as she finished shouting the doors clattered open and a soothing voice filled the lift: Level Nine. The Department of Mysteries and Courtrooms One through Ten. The moment they stepped out of the lift, a pair of figures in dark robes were striding toward them.

"Ginevra Weasley?" one of them asked as he approached.

Ginny simply nodded. The other wizard drew his wand but kept it at his side. The first wizard stepped close enough that Harry could see his face. He was grizzled, and had a long scar running along one eyebrow and down the side of his face. He was obviously the one in charge. The other wizard was only there for protection.

"Reynard is happy that you agreed to speak with him," the leader said. "I'm afraid we weren't told you'd be bringing a guest." He looked at Harry disgustedly. "You won't be needing his protection. It's perfectly safe here."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll keep yourselves safe from her," Harry said testily. "I'm here to see that she is kept safe from you."

"Keep quiet, Kantos," the wizard snapped. "We know where your loyalties lie, and her safety isn't among your greatest concerns."

"Today, her safety is my only concern," Harry countered.

"You're in the Department of Mysteries, now. You're greatest concern should be for yourself," the wizard growled. Before Harry could say anything more, the wizard turned away to stare directly at Ginny. "When did you last speak with Grigore Tarus?"

Ginny didn't respond. Instead she turned to look at Harry. Was she supposed to answer? Harry had said that no one was going to be interrogated.

She got her answer a moment later, when Harry forced himself between Ginny and the older wizard. "No questions," he announced sharply. "She talks to Auguste Reynard or no one."

"He's busy," the wizard sneered. "Until he's ready, she'll talk to us."

"No," Harry commanded. "She talks to Reynard only, or I take her back to Romania." Ginny could almost feel the tension sparking between the two wizards. Of course, Harry could only bluff. There was nowhere for her to go. If they ran away now, they'd have to leave Hermione behind, and Ginny understood enough to know that Reynard couldn't be trusted any more than Tarus.

"You're not Tarus," the wizard growled. "Your orders don't mean anything."

"Neither do yours," retorted Harry. "She's here because she chose to be. Not even Reynard himself can compel her to speak about Minister Tarus or anything she's seen in Romania. I'm here to see that he doesn't force her to say more than she chooses."

The older wizard frowned and glared at them menacingly. "You think you're so smart, do you? You think that you're in charge here?" he asked as he gestured around them. He leaned closer to Ginny and dropped his voice. "How much longer do you think you'll be able to hide behind Tarus? His land is crumbling around him. Even his little cult is turning on him. You may have this one bent to your will—" he said with a nod toward Harry, "—but soon, even your pretty face and all the favors you're willing to give won't be enough to buy the protection you'll need. It's time to get yourself some new friends, while you can still sell your old ones for something more than a pair of socks."

Ginny stared into his eyes and felt oddly calm. "Get out of my way," she commanded. "I'm here to speak with Auguste Reynard, not some worthless henchman." All the anger and frustration she'd felt in the lift was gone, leaving only a cold determination to accomplish the task at hand. She would deal with Evelyn later.

She was beginning to understand why Harry had done all the things he had. There really was no one to trust. The more she got involved with him, the more she realized that everyone had turned on him. Everyone had turned on each other. They were all struggling for power and blaming their failure on Harry. And yet, somehow he was still fighting. Whatever it was he was trying to do, she was going to help him.

She shoved the wizard backward and began walking down the long hallway. She didn't turn back to look, but she knew that Harry was following close behind her. There was no sign of the other two wizards. She had expected them to follow them to Reynard's office, but they seemed content to simply stand at their post.

Perhaps their only job had been to try and rattle her. Perhaps they would have succeeded without Harry. He'd seemed so confident and relaxed as he stood his ground. He had been expecting it, she told herself, he knew exactly what Reynard was going to do. That was a reassuring thought. Harry was in control. She was confident that she would never see the inside of Reynard's office. Harry knew what he was doing. She just needed to keep walking and playing the part he had given her.

"Turn right," he whispered.

Ginny saw a large corridor split off the hallway to the right. A flight of stairs led down to a wider corridor lit by a series of torches. As they walked, Ginny spotted another doorway at the end of the corridor. It was guarded by another pair of robed wizards. This pair, however, said nothing to them. They simply nodded as Harry and Ginny approached, then pulled the heavy iron door open.

With a little more caution, Ginny entered yet another corridor. This one was quite unlike the others. The rest of the level had been only dimly lit, unadorned, and severe. This corridor felt more like some bizarre dungeon museum. Sparsely placed torches illuminated a collection of paintings and pedestals holding unnamed artifacts, but left much of the rest of the corridor in darkness.

"Reynard's office is the last door on the left," Harry whispered.

"Are we actually going there?" Ginny asked worriedly.

The answer was equally concerned: "I hope not. Just keep walking."

Ginny kept walking, but each step took a little more effort than the last. Clearly, Harry was waiting for something to happen, but she couldn't see what that might be.

"Psst!"

Ginny froze, less than twenty feet from the door to Reynard's office. She couldn't tell where the noise had come from, but whatever it was, Harry had heard it, too. Before they could even turn around, a pair of arms grabbed them and pulled them bodily into the shadows along the side of the corridor.

"What were you two doing?" Hermione hissed. "That's Reynard's office!"

"We know that," Harry whispered back. "I was waiting for you to stop us!"

In the darkness, Ginny could almost feel the frustration radiating off Hermione. "Harry, if you do anything like that again, I'll kill you. Come on. They're following you. We don't have much time before they figure out you two disappeared."

Hermione dashed across the corridor and led them through a darkened opening Ginny hadn't even seen. They turned a corner and suddenly the corridor was lit by another line of torches. Hermione picked up the pace, but Harry suddenly stopped.

"Wait," he called out. "Where are we going?"

Hermione whirled about to glare at him. "I'm going to the Vault Room, and you're following me to the Switching Chamber."

"Why?" Harry asked. "We'll wait for you in your office."

"Do you think they're completely daft, Harry?" she hissed. "There are a pair of guards standing outside my office. That's the last place you want to go."

"You go," he told her. "We'll take care of the guards."

"No, Harry. No more stupid risks," she scolded him. "I work here —for the moment. You'll do as I say." Hermione continued down the corridor.

"We're not getting out of here without a fight, Hermione."

Hermione spun about. "I know that," she said sharply, pointing toward the far end of the corridor. There was a plain black door flanked by torches. On the ground was a pair of formless dark shapes.

Suddenly, Ginny heard shouts from behind her, followed by the sound of boots running. Harry heard it, too and his head swiveled about, searching the corridor for something.

"They know," he announced. "Can we make it to your office without being seen?"

"Shut up about my office, Harry," Hermione said as she pulled him toward the far end of the corridor. "We're out of options. Run!"

The three of them turned and ran for the black door. As they got closer, Ginny saw what Hermione had pointed at earlier. The two shapes on the floor were guards. Hermione must have stunned or incapacitated them somehow. Seeing them there made Ginny realize just what was happening. It was real, now. She was attacking the Ministry.

Hermione yanked the door open and practically shoved Harry and Ginny through it. She jumped through after them and then slammed the door behind her. Ginny recognized the room: a circular room lined with unmarked doors. It had been three years since she'd been there. Almost immediately after Hermione shut the door, the room began to spin about, turning the walls into a continuous, blurring line of black doors. Only seconds later, the doors came to an abrupt —and dizzying— stop.

The doors were still black and unmarked. Nothing had changed, and they didn't even know where they had come from. That didn't seem to bother Hermione though. She was striding directly for one of the doors. Perhaps it didn't matter which door they went through. They only needed to escape.

Hermione wrenched the heavy door open and quickly stepped inside. From inside the room Ginny heard someone shout, "No one is allowed in this room except Mr. Reynard!" He was not prepared for Hermione's response.

"Stupefy!"

Hermione urgently motioned for Harry and Ginny to follow her into the room. It was dark and Ginny could barely see anything in the room beyond the unconscious wizard on the benches off to her right. The door behind her closed, cutting off the only source of light. Her eyes strained against the blackness until her head began to throb.

"Lumos!"

Hermione's wand began to glow faintly, casting enough light for Ginny to get a glimpse of her surroundings. There really wasn't much to see except rows of benches descending off toward the darkened center of the room. She heard a gasp of pain from behind her, and when she turned around, she found Harry doubled over in pain.

"Harry!" she shouted.

As she knelt down next to him, he collapsed onto the stairs. Ginny moved to grab him, but backed off as the light from Hermione's wand focused on him. The skin on his face was bubbling grotesquely and his jaw was clenched tightly. She lit her wand and turned to find Hermione.

"What's wrong with him?"

Hermione ran back up the stairs and stood between Harry and the door. "It's alright, Ginny!" she called out. "He'll be fine. It's my fault. I didn't even check. They must have put up wards against transfigurations. It's reacting to the Polyjuice Potion."

Ginny waited tensely as Harry's twitching slowed. After only a few seconds, he was lying on the steps, groaning and covering his face with his hands.

"You're alright," Hermione assured him. "You're just... you."

He pulled his hands away from his face, and Ginny saw that Hermione was right. Josef's face was gone, and it was replaced with Harry's. He was back to his normal appearance, but it seemed that he was still in pain.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Ginny asked. "Do you have any Polyjuice Potion left?"

"I had a few more hours, yeah," he said with a bitter smile, "but I destroyed it before you arrived. Didn't want to leave evidence." He slowly pushed himself back onto his feet. "Don't worry about that. Once she gets the talisman, it won't matter. I just wish I didn't have this bloody headache." He stared into the dark for a moment, and frowned as if he'd somehow spotted something.

"Where are we, Hermione?" he asked seriously.

Hermione frowned as well. "We're safe, Harry. This was the only place to hide. They only keep one guard here. The rest of the guards stay away."

"Why?" Ginny asked reluctantly.

"Because they're paranoid gits," she replied testily. "They think the room is cursed. Reynard puts only one guard here, because pairs of wizards kept fighting. I think they just can't get past their superstitions. But, you two are smarter than that, so it's the perfect place to hide."

"It's not perfect, Hermione," Harry growled as he rubbed his head. "It's not even close. We have to go somewhere else. Anywhere but here."

Hermione was about to respond when the room echoed with a soft rumble, like the sound of two distant stones grinding against each other. It stopped suddenly. In the new silence, they could hear echoes of two people running, and then the sharper noise of them turning a doorknob. Instinctively, all three of them pulled their wands and took aim at the doorway.

It never opened. There was the muffled noise of a door closing, and then nothing. Hermione stuffed her wand into her pocked and walked back to the door. "I have to go," she announced. "I need to get to the Vault Room before they spread the alarm."

"We're coming with you," Harry said. "We can't stay here."

"You can't come with me, either," Hermione snapped. "You'll be fine, Harry. Just ignore the voices. They can't hurt you unless you try to go after them. I hope it's not a mistake, but I'm going to trust Ginny to keep you from doing anything stupid. Frankly, if you're foolish enough to ignore both of us, then it'd be better for all of us if you got it over with."

Hermione opened the door and stepped out of the room. Harry ran up the stairs after her, but he couldn't reach her in time. The door slammed shut. He reached for the handle and tugged at it, but it seemed to be sealed shut. A second later, the faint grinding rumble returned. When it finally stopped, Harry turned the handle, but froze before opening the door. Slowly, he released the handle, and moved closer to the door.

Ginny stared at him in confusion. "What is it, Harry?"


Harry held his hand up, silencing Ginny. Pressing his ear against the door, he listened to the noises coming from the other side. He could hear voices. The throbbing in his head was growing, but he pushed it from his mind, and focused on whatever was happening on the other side of the door.

"That one!" shouted a muffled voice. "They went this way!"

"Forget about her!" another yelled. "He doesn't care about Granger. She's a diversion. It's the Weasley girl and the impostor he wants."

Harry listened as they argued and tried to count how many voices he heard. There were at least four of them —probably more— and they were already searching for Harry and Ginny. This had not been part of his plan. They weren't supposed to be looking for them until Hermione had gotten the talisman. They weren't supposed to know that he wasn't really Josef. There wasn't supposed to be so many of them, and he couldn't think with all these voices in his head.

"You two," a voice shouted from the other side of the door, "you stay here. You, come with me. Radford, take Whitherstone with you. We're going to check these doors —all of them."

Harry practically leaped away from the door. He spun around searching the darkness. "Come on," he told Ginny, "we need to get out of this room."

"And go where?" she asked. "We don't even know where we are."

"I know where we are," he replied. "Just follow me." Harry walked quickly along the wall, dragging Ginny behind him.

"Harry? Where are we?" she asked shakily. "There's something wrong about this room. I feel... odd."

"Just keep moving," he told her. Harry followed the wall until he found just what he was looking for: a second entrance. Harry tugged at the door, but it didn't budge. He pulled his wand out, and aimed it at the door. There was a flash of light, and he felt his feet leave the floor.

He heard Ginny scream, and then felt sharp pains in his back and shoulders as he landed on the stairs. He rolled halfway down the stone steps before finally coming to a stop. As Ginny ran down to his side, Harry heard the sound of a number of torches flaring to life.

As the room lit up, Harry found her standing over him, but her eyes were drawn to the sunken center of the room, not him. Harry knew what she was looking at. He could feel it. He could hear the voices whispering to him, and the same menacing growl that he'd heard in his dreams for nearly a year.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Ginny said flatly. "You knew the Veil was here. You can feel it, can't you? It's more than just voices, now."

Harry pushed himself into a sitting position. Ginny was cautiously walking down the steps toward the arch and veil in the center of the room. "How come this one is different?" she asked as she stopped at the bottom level. "I can barely hear it. It's like a whispering in the back of my mind. I didn't even notice before. I thought it was—"

She spun about quickly and glared at Harry. "I thought it was just the start of a headache. That's why your head hurt. Why do you feel it stronger than I do?"

"I don't know, Ginny," he said with obvious frustration, "and we don't really have time to talk about it. At any moment, a pair of wizards are going to burst through that door. The other door was sealed. I'm sure they all are."

"Just a pair of them?" Ginny asked. "I think we can handle a pair of wizards."

"If we attack them, it will only bring more wizards," he said. "We need to find a place to hide."

Ginny's jaw dropped in disbelief. "Take a look around, Harry! We're in a empty room! There's nowhere to hide!"

She had a point, he thought to himself. The room was rectangular, with plain walls a high ceiling. Like the room under Tarus's castle, the center was sunken like an amphitheater. Torches high on the walls bathed the entire room in light, giving them no shadows in which to hide. No other exits to run to. He needed to think of something, but the voices and whispers inside his head seemed to get louder every second.

"We need, er—" Harry stammered. "We need to find... something." He reached up to run his hand through his hair and realized that his scar was warm. He blinked his eyes and tried to get them to focus, but instead of making things clearer, it made the room spin about him. He lost his balance and dropped back onto the stairs.

"Harry!" Ginny cried out. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing..." he mumbled as he crawled back up the steps and away from the arch. "I just— We need to think..."

Ginny ran up the stairs after him. She caught him halfway to the locked door, and tapped her wand to the tip of his head. There was a brief, refreshing moment where his skin felt cool and damp, but it passed quickly, leaving Harry feeling hot and dry. Ginny aimed her wand at him again, and he saw a flash of light. For a moment, he thought whatever she'd done had worked, but her expression suggested that it had not.

"No Disillusionment. No invisibility," she said with obvious frustration. "I don't know what to do, Harry. Can we put out the torches?"

He felt only slightly dizzy after shaking his head. "I don't think so," he told her. "I think they light themselves. When they come in, they'll know someone is here. If we go back to the door, they should extinguish themselves. Of course, unless the guards are completely daft, they'll check on their mate over there." Harry nodded toward the guard lying near the other door.

"Then we've got to try leaving the way we came in," Ginny said. "If we're lucky, we can slip past them while they're checking some other room."

It would be nearly impossible to do that without giving the guards a chance to call for help. And even if they did, it wouldn't be long before the Brotherhood would show up. Of course, they were doomed for certain if they didn't do something, and 'nearly impossible' was still better than 'certain failure'.

Harry focused on the other door and walked quickly toward it. As he'd done before, he listened to the door, trying to see if he could hear anything that would help them guess when the two guards in the Switching Room were alone. He heard the low rumbling of the doors as they zoomed around the adjacent room. When it stopped he heard voices, and this time they were real, not just the echoes of the dead in his mind.

"They must have run off already," one voice said.

Another, the same voice which had given the orders earlier, seemed to disagree. "If they ran off, we'll find them eventually," he said, "but if they slip past us, we'll be skinned for sure. We're going to search the Hall of Prophecies again. You two check the Death Room."

"The Death Room?" squeaked a another voice. "Antonio's guarding it. They couldn't have gone in there."

"Check it," the leader barked. "I said we'd check them all, and we will. If he was sleeping on the job, then it'll be his neck and not mine. Wake the sluggard up and tell him to stay that way. After that, keep checking the rooms. They'll show up eventually." Harry heard the sound of a door open then close sharply, followed by the rumble of the spinning room.

Harry stepped away from the door, trying to ignore the buzzing in his mind long enough to think of something clever. When that failed, he did the only thing he could think of.

"Er, we've got a problem," he warned Ginny as the sound of the spinning room died off.

She narrowed her eyes. "What sort of problem?" she asked warily.

A series of sharp taps echoed through the room, followed by a muffled voice: "Antonio! Open up!"

"There's nothing to do now," he said defeatedly. "We've got to fight. I... I don't know how we're going to get Hermione out. I don't know if we can even get ourselves out. This is a disaster."

"Not yet it isn't," Ginny whispered. "The torches, do you think they would turn on for a stunned person?"

"I guess," he replied confusedly.

Ginny grabbed Harry's arm and pulled him over to the stunned guard. "Toss him farther down the stairs." Harry took a hold of the wizard's arm and heaved him onto the stairway. His body began rolling down the stairs, flopping about wildly.

A pair of booming echoes shook the room as the wizard outside pounded on the door. "You better not be sleeping you lazy bastard!" a voice shouted. "Wake up and open this door, now!"

Harry stared at the door. Surely the other guards were able to open the doors. After all, he had. It wouldn't be long before they realized that the guard wasn't coming to open the door.

"I don't see how that helped," Harry whispered with a nod toward the guard. "We're still stuck in an empty room with one working door."

"Come on," she said, dragging him back down the stairs. "There might be only one door, but this room isn't empty."

As they reached the bottom level, Harry heard the dreaded click as the door behind them unlocked. It was then that he realized what Ginny was going to do. "No, Ginny! I can't—"

"No time, Harry," she growled and pulled him around to the far side of the small dais, putting the arch and veil between them and the unlocked door. Ginny walked right up to the veil, pulling Harry with her. She stood between him and the veil and wrapped her arms around him. "Close your eyes," she whispered. "Don't move and don't make any noise."

Harry was frighteningly close to the arch, far closer than he'd ever been. He held Ginny tight. If he went through the veil, he would have to take her with him, and that thought was frightening enough to force him to control the urge to step through the archway. It didn't stop the voices, though.

The droning murmur of voices from the veil rose in a threatening crescendo. They sounded frightened and full of despair. They were trying to tell him that something horrible was about to happen. He could stop it. He must stop it.

"Antonio!" a voice echoed over the noise of the veil. It was clear enough for Harry to tell that it came from a young man. The guards were in the room. "Antonio! Wake up you lazy git! We've got intruders lurking about!"

A second voice rang out over the first. "Use your eyes, you half-wit! Do you think he fell asleep on stone stairs? They got him. They must have come through here first, and turned back when then realized there was no way out," the voice said, adding, "I almost feel sorry for him."

"Almost?" the other wizard exclaimed. "He doesn't even have his wand out. They killed him and he never even had a chance to defend himself. They're a bunch of bloody cowards."

"He's not dead," the other voice echoed. "Look around you. The torches were lit before we opened the door. That means he's still alive. If they wanted to kill him, they wouldn't have left him there. They'd have tossed him through the veil."

"We need to wake him."

Harry heard one of the wizards jumping down the stairs, and he felt one of Ginny's hands reach down to fish her wand from her pocket. Slowly, Harry began searching for his.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," the wizard at the top of the stairs shouted. Harry froze, wondering if they had been spotted somehow. He felt a wave of relief pass over him when the other wizard stopped and shouted back at him.

"Why not?" he asked. "Maybe he can tell us where they went."

"There's nowhere for them to go! Every door but this one is broken. They don't lead anywhere. Even the most powerful Unlocking Charm would only get you a wall of stone," he explained. "What's Antonio going to say that could possibly help us? I'd bet my broom he wasn't even awake when they hit him."

"We should at least revive him!" the other wizard shouted. He began walking down the stairs again, and Harry took the opportunity to reach for his wand.

"Leave him! Trust me, it's not worth it," said the older wizard. "We have work to do, and if you're distracted by the whispers of dead wizards, you'll get us both killed."

Harry found his wand and gripped it tightly. The younger of the two wizards was much closer than Harry would have liked, and if he moved much closer to the arch, he would be able to see them. Harry aimed his wand behind Ginny's back and waited for anyone to appear around the post of the arch. There were only two of them. He should be able to disable them both with a single curse. He focused on the sound of the approaching wizard's feet and concentrated as much as he could.

Then something went wrong. He felt his wand hand tingling and his vision dimmed and blurred. A low, guttural growl echoed inside his head as pain exploded from his scar. He closed his eyes and tried to push the pain away, but it was impossible. It was coming from within him. In his mind, he could see the image of an impossibly dark shape walking toward him. It was speaking to him, and though he couldn't hear the words, he already knew what it was saying.

He felt both strong and terribly weak at the same time. His body felt as though it was coursing with electricity, yet the world felt like it was tipping and spinning around him. He struggled to stay on his feet.

"Harry! I can't hold you," Ginny whispered in his ear. "I need you to help me!" Harry wrapped both his arms around her and tried to force himself to relax. If he just held onto her, everything would be all right.

"Did you hear that?" the younger wizard called from the steps not far from the dais.

"No! I didn't," the older wizard replied. "And I don't want to."

"I thought I heard something... from..."

"Come away from there!" the older wizard ordered him. "It's the veil. The dead are speaking through it, and if you don't want to join them, you'd best keep your distance."

"Has it always done this?" the younger wizard asked dreamily. Harry clenched his jaw as he heard the wizard take a step toward the arch. He tried to get his wand ready, but as he did, his mind filled with a rhythmic hissing. The world around him seemed to melt away and he felt as though he was surrounded with an inky black fog.

Someone was shouting. His mind lazily remembered that there were two other wizards in the room. He felt his eyes open, but he couldn't understand exactly what he was seeing. The veil over the arch had changed. Instead of the impenetrable black cloth, it now seemed to be little more than a sheet of fine gauze, allowing him to see through to the other side. Everything around him was dark and blurry, but the view through the arch was crisp and almost unnaturally vibrant.

Harry stared through the arch in amazement, studying the two wizards on the other side. The wizard crouching by the stunned guard truly was young —perhaps only a few years older than Harry himself. He was staring at the arch with his wand out and a cautious, curious look on his face. Harry watched as he slowly stood up and took a step toward the arch.

"The voices..." he whispered, "... They're trying to say something. They sound troubled. Something is wrong... Someone is trapped in there..."

"No one is trapped in there," the older wizard called out. "They're all dead! This is the Death Room! You don't want to listen to them. I've spent a day guarding this place. I've heard what you're hearing and believe me, the last thing you want right now is to have those voices crawling around inside your skull."

The younger wizard ignored him. "They're trying to tell me something..."

He took another step forward, and Harry felt his arm extend, as though someone else had moved it for him. He watched passively as it pointed his wand at the wizard on the other side of the veil. A voice hissed inside his head: a Summoning Charm will do.

Suddenly the wizard was yanked off his feet, but he fell away from the veil, not toward it. A pair of arms were wrapped around him, and they were hauling him back to the stone stairway.

"We're not here to listen to voices," the older wizard shouted. "Come on, we've wasted enough time as it is. We need to go."

The older wizard slowly dragged the other wizard up the steps until they reached the highest level. He hauled the door open, and tossed the younger guard through the doorway and into the other room. A second later, he followed, letting the door slam shut behind him.

Before the echo of the door had died, Harry felt the ground lurch beneath him. He swayed dangerously close to the veil, then twisted away. For a brief second he felt lightheaded as the room spun around him, then it stopped abruptly. Harry slowly opened his eyes, but saw only darkness.

Groggily, he pushed himself onto his elbow. He was still on the dais, and just beyond his feet stood the arch. The stone which made the arch was glowing with a pale green light, highlighting the cracks and chips of thousands of years. The veil had been replaced with a shimmering surface that filled the arch and rippled like water.

His eyes peered into the black emptiness around him, but it was impossible to see anything. Only the arch and the stone dais existed. Everything else was shrouded in complete darkness. He was alone. Something had happened. Ginny was gone. His mind was suddenly filled with an all-consuming desire to find her.

"Ginny!" he shouted. "Where are—"

His voice was cut short with blazing stab of pain in his forehead. One of his hands instinctively reached for his scar. It felt hot, and slightly wet. He pulled his hand away and found it covered in blood.

"Ginny!" he called out again, and was answered with a blast of wind from the arch. It was hot and gritty. Harry stared into the arch again, afraid of what he might see.

Just on the other side of the rippling surface, stood the rough silhouette of a man wreathed in shadows. Harry stared at it, and it seemed as though it was staring back. Then the figure spoke. In his ears, he could hear only a harsh hissing sound, but the message echoed in his head:

"Bring her to me."

"Never!" he hissed in response.

Suddenly, the figure's arms snapped forward, striking the shimmering layer between him and Harry. It shook and rippled violently, but held. The figure stepped forward, pressing his face into the barrier. A new stream of sounds filled Harry's head. He pressed his hands to his ears, hoping to block them out, but it was no use.

Across the endless wastes and timeless sands
Born of atrocity and boundless pain
With vengeance, rage, and eternal hate
I come to claim what I have been denied

Harry tried shouting, but he couldn't. He couldn't move. He couldn't even think. All he could see was the arch and the dark figure on the other side, and all he could hear was the figure chanting to him in Parseltongue:

An end to life which never began
A start to an age which will see no end
A scar for a wound which long ago healed
A return of a gift never given

Harry felt the world collapsing in on him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered that he wasn't alone. It didn't matter, really. He might as well be. There was nothing he could do. He took another breath of dry air, and felt himself fall into oblivion.


"Harry, wake up!" Ginny cried. She heard the desperation in her voice as it echoed off the walls around her. The guards had only been gone for a few seconds, and she knew she was making far too much noise, but her fear of whatever was happening to Harry made such concerns seem rather petty. She leaned to her left to look at the door. It was still closed tightly.

Ginny turned back to Harry, grabbed his shoulders and shook him as hard as she could. It didn't work. His body felt hot and rigid. She pushed aside his hair and put her hand up to his forehead. It was shockingly hot, and the heat seemed to radiate from one place: his scar.

Her mind raced. Why would his scar be hurting? It only hurt when Voldemort was nearby, but he was dead. An image flashed in her mind of the arch in Romania, an image of Tom Riddle. Her eyes leaped to the veil, expecting it to be flapping wildly, but she found it wavering only slightly as if it had been caught by the draft of some passerby.

It didn't matter. Whatever was happening to Harry had to be caused by the veil. Ginny tried to remember what spell Tarus had cast to stop the visions in her head. Whatever it was, it had put a shield around the platform it stood on and Harry was still on that platform. Pulling with all her strength, she dragged Harry off the dais and onto the lower stone floor. She raised her wand to point directly at the arch.

"Occulo Anteroporus!" she shouted, but instead of a cylinder of purple light, she only sent a shot of red sparks at the arch. That wasn't right.

"Occulo Animo—"

Before she could finish, Harry's arm shot up and his hand clutched at her wrist. For one moment, she felt a burst of jubilation, but all happiness drained from her when she looked down into Harry's eyes. They were open, but bloodshot and filled with a glowing green light. As she stared into his face, his mouth began moving, emitting a rhythmic pattern of hissing noises.

He was speaking Parseltongue.

Ginny's heart pounded painfully inside her chest. Something was horribly wrong with Harry. He'd been just fine, and then she'd had the stupid idea of making him stand next to the arch. He knew it was a bad idea from the start. He'd told her not to do it. It was her fault. He'd been fine—

He'd been fine when he was farther from the veil.

Ginny wrenched her wrist from his grip and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. With him still staring into the ceiling and hissing incoherently, she dragged him farther away from the dais, and up as many stairs as she could. After making it a third of the way up the staircase, she had to stop. Her legs ached and her arms couldn't hold him any longer.

She pulled him off the stairs to lie next to one of the rows of benches. He'd stopped hissing —or talking— and his eyes were closed again. She watched his chest rising and falling, and felt the skin on his forehead. It was warm, but not hot. Whatever had been happening, it seemed to be reversing itself. She knelt down next to him and waited for more promising signs. After a minute of waiting, she began to wonder if he needed to be moved even farther from the veil. She crawled forward and began wondering how best to move him.

Suddenly, Harry's body spasmed violently. Ginny flinched and fell backward. In an instant, he was sitting up and had his wand pointed directly at her. Before Ginny could even understand what was happening, his mouth was opening to shout some spell.

Then he froze just as suddenly as he'd woken up. A look of fear and panic swept across his face, and he dropped his wand to the floor. For a moment his eyes gazed at her in shock, before he collapsed backward and stared into the ceiling again.

"What— What happened?" he asked hoarsely.

Ginny leaned forward and picked up his wand. "The veil, it— it did something to you. You were acting strangely. Then the guards left and you just passed out."

"That's all?" he asked. "How long was I out? How did I get up here?"

"It wasn't long. Not even a minute," she explained as she handed his wand back to him. "I had to drag you up here. Your eyes looked, er... different, and you were—" she paused, not sure just how she should describe it, "—you were talking, I guess."

The very idea seemed to frighten him. "I was talking? What did I say?"

"I don't know, Harry. You were speaking in Parseltongue."

Harry didn't say anything. He slowly pushed himself up to sit on the bench. Ginny waited for some sort of response, but Harry wasn't even paying attention to her. He was looking all around the room —everywhere but at the arch.

Ginny had waited long enough. "Harry, what happened?"

"You were right. It was the veil," he murmured. "You did the right thing."

"But, why did it happen?" she pressed. "I was standing closer to it than you were. I don't even remember hearing any voices." Ginny paused and looked back at the arch. She realized that she still couldn't. She'd heard them earlier, but it was much quieter now. She looked back down at Harry.

"Something is wrong, Harry," she said firmly. "Why didn't you tell Ron and Hermione about the Veil Room in Romania? I didn't ask before because I figured there had to be some reason. I think I just saw the reason. What did it do to you? Why does Tarus think it's so important? Does he want to use it to kill you? Why did it make you speak Parseltongue? Why does it affect you, but not me?"

Harry pushed off the bench and stood up on shaky legs. "Those are all really great questions, but I'm afraid we don't have any time to answer them." He walked past her and began climbing the stairs.

Ginny ran after him, leaping from bench to bench in an effort to catch up to him. At the highest level, he turned and began following the perimeter of the room. Ginny angled her path ahead of him, and leaped from the last bench onto the walkway in front of him.

"Stop, Harry," she ordered. "There's nowhere for us to go. We have to wait here for Hermione to come back. Until then, we've got nothing else to do. Now, what happened to you?" Harry tried to walk around her, but she moved in front of him again, and shoved him backward.

Harry glared at her. "We don't have time."

"Then talk fast."

"I didn't tell them because I was afraid that Reynard would question Hermione. Reynard doesn't know why it's important or he'd have sealed this off completely. As for Grigore, I'm pretty sure I know what he wants from the veil, and now I know how he plans on getting it. Now, if we want to have a shot at stopping him from making one of the biggest mistakes this world has seen, you need to get out of my way and follow behind me as closely as you can."

Ginny wasn't sure just how to respond. What did Harry think Tarus wanted? What could he get from a bunch of dead spirits? Before she could think of any more questions, she felt a pair of arms grab her by the waist and spin her around until she found herself on the other side of Harry. Without saying anything, he turned and continued walking toward the door.

"Harry, wait!" she called out. "What about Hermione? She's expecting to find us here!"

Harry reached the door and pulled out his wand. "That's why we don't have time to waste. We need to get back here before she does." He pulled a pair of Shield Cloaks from his bag and tossed one to Ginny. "Here, you'll need this —and your wand. This is going to be a little harder than I thought, so don't wait for me to tell you who to hex."

"Where are we going?"

Harry slipped his Shield Cloak over his purple robes, and stared back at Ginny.

"We have to fetch Voldemort's wand."


Author's Notes:

Everyone can thank QueenThayet for this release. Some really eager begging prompted me to put this one up now instead of slightly later. It was released a few days ago on WizardTales, and I've been working on the imminent release of Chatper 21, so just hold on a couple more days.

So, now that you've got this chapter, you should have quite a bit more information about what is going on. I'm curious what anyone thinks is actually happening. Partially out of a real desire to make sure that no one is straying too far from my expectations, and partially out of simple curiousity. So feel free to flood me with your guesses. People who email me are usually surprised with the amount of spare time I have. (This goes for you, too, n.a.o.: Though names might be, anonymous throw-away email accounts are not overrated)

If not, then just simply sit where you are and wait for the next chapter. It won't be long, I swear.