Alright, well, sorry about the really long delay on this chapter. I was having some trouble on making it all fit toghether right. And then school started on top of that. But, all things aside, it is finally here, and I really hope that everyone likes it. It is about the same length as chapter 7, so not too long. However, you can expect the chapters to get a little bigger here fairly soon. Both chapters 10 and 11 are going to be about the size of chapter 6 if not longer, so when we get there, I beg you all to be patient with me. On the plus side though, they should start getting easier to write when I get to chapter 10. Ok, I've talked enough, on to the story now.

Calida blinked and staggered forward to one of the doors. She wished that she had thought things through a bit more, but it was too late for that now. She made a mental note to start asking people for more details about the mysterious places they had been.

A loud noise from the other side of one of the doors jerked her thoughts back into place. That must have been the door she came though. Calida felt as if she had to drag her body into action. She shook her head, willing herself to believe that if she ignored the physical protests, she would be able to respond much better. She had one last comforting thought before she opened the door; all of the people following her were Aurors, and that meant they didn't know what lay ahead any better than she did.

She heard the door click shut behind her, and was enveloped by darkness as it did. There was a brief moment in which her feet felt solid ground; then, with a lurch of her stomach, the ground fell away and she was floating. It took several seconds of panicked thought to realize that the room must have been bewitched to remove gravity. No sooner than she had come to that realization, the room was illuminated with tiny stars shining all around her, as well as the sun and…eight planets. Calida wondered vaguely which planet was missing.

"Damn it, Dawlish. This is my department."

"Shut up, Williamson. I've dealt with more of them than you have."

"That doesn't mean you're any better at it."

Calida smiled. If they weren't working well together that gave her another advantage, and in her condition, she needed every advantage she could get. She took a deep breath. People worked here, so there must be a way out. And Lucius had told her all the rooms were connected, so that meant there had to be a doorway out, besides the one she had just came though.

Knowing how stupid she must look, she started flapping her arms trying to swim away. Then, mid arm wave, something hard hit her in the head. She looked at her hand, and realized she was still holding her wand. She could have hit herself again.

"Accio!" She was hoping that by trying to summon a stationary object, she would be pulled to it rather than it to her. With a jerk, she was pulled towards the wall. She sighed with relief and groped for a doorknob. She was thankful for having found it relatively quickly and wasted no time in opening the door and jumping through. She just had time to glance back and see an ensemble of Aurors fall into the room before the door shut.

Calida took a deep steadying breath. She was still rather light headed and it wasn't helping any. She dashed off through the room, not paying any attention to what was in it. It wasn't until she was half way across the room that a glimmer of gold caught her eye. She stopped dead in her tracks and turned slowly.

She couldn't see what was giving off the luminescent glow, but it was one of the most beautiful things that Calida had ever seen. She walked towards it several steps. It was a tiny golden light floating in a small crystal jar. Just looking at the light gave her a feeling of inexplicable happiness that brought tears to her eyes.

She shook her head quickly. It took some time for her to ignore the pain in her head that flared up at that motion, but she finally managed to ignore it and pull herself away from the light. She walked off in the direction of one of the doors, wiping the tears out of her eyes. It wasn't until she had the door open that she realized why the gold looked so familiar. It reminded her of the cup that was still sitting in her room at home, locked away under layers of spells.

Calida suddenly felt full of both dread and panic. The Ministry was still conducting raids as far as she knew. And her room wasn't invisible; it was just under immensely heavy protection. The Ministry was bound to notice that if they raided her house. Who was she kidding? If. There was no 'if' about it. Of course the Ministry was going to raid her house; her brother was a known Death Eater, and her parents had been suspected of Dark Activity for years. They were even cleared after the Dark Lord fell, and that was sure to cause an uproar at the Ministry, what with the number of people cleared in the past who were suddenly turning up as Death Eaters.

She sincerely doubted that the Ministry had a parselmouth working for them, but that didn't mean that they would hesitate to arrest her just for having that level of protection on her room.

She would have to move the cup. That was all there was to it. It couldn't stay at her house. Where was she going to put it though? She didn't know of anywhere that she could go. She didn't know of anywhere that would be safe enough. There weren't any other Death Eaters she knew of whose houses wouldn't be at high risk for raids. This wasn't good. She'd gone through this circle of thoughts before.

Shouting behind her suddenly brought her back to her senses. She couldn't keep doing this. If she kept letting her thoughts drift off like that she was going to be caught for sure. Then she realized, there was more than just yelling; there were loud bangs and screams. Something heavy hit one of the doors and Calida didn't waste another second before she opened the door and ran into the next room.

It was very quiet in this room. Judging by the many shelves of globes, she must be in the Hall of Prophecy. She crept down between the rows, wondering where the other doors must be. She had to find a way out, and the best that she could hope for was when she did get out, the way to the Atrium would be clear, or at least mostly clear.

There was a dark spot on the wall at the far end of the room. Hoping that it was a door, Calida made her way towards it. It was when she was almost to the door, for she could now clearly see it, that voices caught her ear. They were hushed, and sounded worried.

"Look, it's not that I don't care. There just isn't anything I can do."

"What do you mean 'there isn't anything you can do'?"

"We don't know who we can trust. They are everywhere, in every department. What do you expect me to do about it? If I tell someone; I'll be dead, my family will be dead, and whoever I tell, assuming that I actually manage to find someone on our side, will be dead."

This voice sounded very familiar, but Calida couldn't quite place it. Whoever these people were, they were obviously talking about the Death Eaters, and seemed completely unaware that there was one escaped from her trial.

The second voice got quieter still and Calida stepped forward a bit more to listen. "Do you think they know?"

"I don't know…they might. They brought in Owen for questioning, and I never would have suspected him."

"We'll be safe won't we, as long as they don't know?"

"I just can't say. We don't know what else they know; it might not be a problem for them. We don't know how many spies they have. Hell, everyone, in every department goes though a Secrecy Scan daily, and every one passes. Always. But no one can deny that some of the recent attacks prove they have inside workers."

"I wish we had Dumbledore back."

Calida heard the sadness in his voice and felt truly sorry for the man it belonged to. She could only imagine what it would be like to lose your strong point, your leader. He must have solved all their problems when they finally admitted he was right all along. She had to admit that her and Draco had worn identical smug smirks whenever they read about, or heard, some Ministry official or another denying the Dark Lord's return. Discovering that Dumbledore had been right the whole time, and then losing him, had to have come as a devastating blow.

She decided that she had heard enough. She stepped forward and slipped past them unnoticed. Calida thanked Merlin that they both had their backs to her. Then through the next door, there couldn't have been a bigger change. The last rooms had all had rather dim lighting, which was very easy on her eyes and seemed to prevent her headache from flaring up.

This room was brightly lit, and rows of stone benches led down to the central point of the room. There was a large stone dais in the center, a relatively good deal of distance away from the bottom-most row of seats. On that dais was a tattered black veil that hung in a stone archway.

Calida shivered. She may not have been a Death Eater for long, but she was more than a little familiar with the feel of death. Nevertheless, she walked towards it, drawn by some inexplicable force. The whole room felt abruptly different to her. When she looked around, everything seemed to hold a lost and forgotten beauty to it.

She raised her wand and gripped it tight. From here, she could see all the doors. And she knew that it would only be a matter of seconds before someone came though and found her. No sooner than she had completed that thought, a door to her right was flung open. Aurors flooded though and immediately started sending Stunning Spells in every direction.

She was ready. Years of private lessons with Professor Snape came flooding back to her. He had always expected the most from her. She was to have excellent reflexes, flexibility, and fast, powerful spell work. He had always been proud of how well she did, and now she was being put to a true test.

Calida dodged several spells and aimed her wand in the direction of the door. "Ectomis!" Blood spurted on the walls and she caught a glimpse of an arm flying across the room. It never ceased to amaze her how the Dark Arts often encompassed spells used by witches and wizards in everyday life, or in the case of this spell, medical procedures.

She was throwing out every spell that came to mind without thinking, and she was only dimly aware of the voices shouting "Stupefy!" and "Expelliarmus!" in return. The lights of the spells flashed in front of her eyes.

"Reducto!" She yelled. There was a piercing scream and everyone was covered in blood and bits of flesh. She felt that it may have been a bit dramatic, but she needed to prove that she wasn't to be messed with, and she thought it better to build up her reputation now than after a few years in Azkaban.

There were several minutes of chaos in which she was never quite certain as to who was firing what spells. She had slipped into one of her oldest lessons with Professor Snape. He had taught her, for 7 years, to sense the magic and use it to her advantage. He had worked her until she became so efficient that she often didn't use her sense of sight when she was doing it. She had never had trouble with it while Snape had been teaching her, but that was in a one-on-one setting, not outnumbered like this.

Feeling blinded and overwhelmed by the magic in the room, she stumbled and fell to the ground. Her vision returned almost immediately from the force of the impact. She looked around and saw, to her horror, that there were now at least fifty people in the room.

Calida scrambled to her feet, shooting spells in every direction, at every movement she saw.

"Anarespiris! Reducto! Ectomis! Incendio!"

A moment of terrified gasping from nearby assured her that the spells had hit someone. But they were closing in on her; she was done for.

She saw the stone dais and jumped up onto it, ignoring the screams. She was panicking; she was too young to die, and she definitely didn't want to die like this. Calida couldn't remember ever being this scared before. She was sure it was all over, that they would hit her at any moment now. She was vulnerable, and she knew it.

As if they could hear her thoughts, she felt a Localized Freezing Charm hit her legs. They froze and she felt herself falling. It felt like everything was moving in slow motion. All the voices sounded slurred and distant. She heard a rushing sound and saw the edge of the stone archway; then the darkest black she had ever seen.

Thump-thump… thump-thump.

He heart was beating loudly in her ears.

Thump-thump…thump-thump.

She felt numb and disconnected, unsure of what emotion she should be feeling, yet, at the same time, as if someone else were feeling it. She felt a hand close on her wrist and fear welled up inside her. She clung desperately to the hand that was holding her. Another hand grabbed her other wrist. Confused and unsure which way would continue to take her through the veil, she held tightly to both hands, feeling horror in their touch. She felt like she was in a sort of eternal see-saw; being pulled first one way and then back the other. And then it was all over.

In a flash of light she saw the stone room again and felt the floor beneath her. She looked to her right, her eyes sliding in and out of focus. She just barely had time to register that there was a man lying beside her before everything went black once more.

Calida moaned and tried to open her eyes. She was in a bright room it seemed, and there was something soft underneath her. She was confused and hurt everywhere, and there were voices echoing distantly. Apparently she wasn't dead, and this definitely didn't feel like Azkaban, it was much too soft and bright.

It had been two weeks since she had lain in an actual bed, and she smiled, remembering what it felt like to be properly comfortable again. She opened her eyes just a bit to see where she was but the light burned. She closed her eyes again and moaned in frustration.

"Sounds like somebody's awake."

"Shut up," she mumbled thickly.

"What's that?"

"Shut up," she said again.

This statement was met by laughter.

"Oh come on Cali, you don't really think I'm going to listen to you, do you?"

She squinted up to see who she was actually talking to.

"Atabulus," she smiled.

"Oh sure, now she gets it. I think she hit her head harder than you guys thought."

Calida tried to sit up to see who else was in the room, but fell back onto the bed. Atabulus simply sat there looking smug. She sighed. It irritated her to know how much glee he got when other people had to depend on him for their answers.

"Fine," she said. "Who else is here?"

"Lucius, Bella, and McNair," he answered promptly. The funny thing was, he never held answers over a person's head once he had been asked a direct question.

"Where are mom and dad?"

"Working, of course. You know they would be here if they weren't." Here. Calida had forgotten she didn't know where she was. "You're in St. Mungo's," her brother supplied for her.

"What do you mean I'm in St. Mungo's?" she snapped at him.

"Quiet," he hissed back softly. "I know what you're thinking, but no one knew what else to do for you. This is a private room and we only unlock it after everyone is in glamour." Calida propped up her pillow and sat back against it, feeling immensely relieved.

"So…what exactly did happen anyway? It's all just a big blur to me."

Everyone in the room shifted slightly, and Atabulus smiled at her.

"Well," he looked at Lucius who nodded and muttered a spell under his breath. "So, a bunch of us were hanging out waiting on some others to get back from a couple of errands. Next thing we know, we're getting a message from one of our Ministry spies. It said some crazy girl ran our in the middle of her trial."

"Hey, I did not run out in the middle. It was already over when I ran out," she said stiffly. Atabulus laughed again.

" We don't care when you ran out, the message came that you did. And not only that, but it said things weren't looking good. So, those of us who didn't have anything special to do at the time being, decided it wouldn't look good to let one of our own suffer like that."

Calida snorted and rolled her eyes. She knew Atabulus was the one who led them all to go get her, and he didn't do it to make himself look good.

"We rounded up a few people to go with us and wandered into the Ministry in a timely fashion. We all get there and what do we find? Forty-something Aurors trying to kill my baby sister. We took out a bunch of them before they even realized that we were there, you should have seen them.

"They were all running around like idiots firing spells off at each other because they thought their buddies were the ones attacking them. Then we hear someone scream that they got her cornered in the Death Chamber. Well, we arrive just in time to be splattered with the brains of someone who obviously didn't have much of them to begin with, since he went after my sister," he smiled at the other three people in the room.

Lucius rolled his eyes, McNair looked completely uninterested, and Bella scowled.

"Right, so we were trying to fight them off, and dodge your spells at the same time-"

"Which we shouldn't have had to worry about at all," Bella cut in.

"Oh shut up Bella, you know it was amazing that she was still alive to get a spell off on anyone by that point, we can't blame her for not knowing we were on her side."

Bella opened her mouth to continue arguing but Atabulus started speaking again.

"Anyways," he said loudly. "We were doing really well until you went and jumped through the veil like an idiot."

"Hey," she said as she glared at him. "I didn't jump. In case you didn't notice, I got hit with a spell." Her brother just smiled and continued his story.

"I had screamed for you not to jump up there in the first place, but I figured you didn't hear me," he finished quickly as Calida started to open her mouth.

"So I told them to go get you down from there and hoped that you wouldn't kill them all for trying, maybe you would even realize we were on the same side. Three or four of them went to go get you, and that was when they hit you with the Freezing Charm. It was horrible really. It was like watching someone die in slow motion.

"Then Bella reached out and grabbed your hand, and somehow, her and McNair managed to pull you out. Only, you came out with someone else."

It took Calida a moment to register what her brother had just said, and then she recalled the man she saw lying next to her before she passed out.

"Who?" she asked quietly. "Who was he?"

"Sirius Black."

Bellatrix twitched involuntarily and everyone else remained silent. Calida looked around at everyone. She had always felt sorry for Sirius Black, no innocent man deserved to spend 12 years in the hands of the dementors. Her parents had even encouraged her to be glad that he had escaped. She knew he was supposedly on their side, but her parents actually seemed rather skeptical about that since the return of the Dark Lord. She wasn't entirely sure how to react. She did feel though, that he might be worth talking to, after all, he too had been a little too close to the veil for comfort.

"So, can I see him?" she asked her brother timidly.

"Of course you can," he said gently. "I'm sure the two of you have lots of things you want to talk about." Calida started to get up out of bed. "But, you are not leaving this room until we say so, young lady."

She spent the rest of that evening talking to various visitors, all wearing glamour, and having the Healers come in the room every hour to check up on her. She had been entered into the hospital under a false name, and was actually rather enjoying getting all the news of the latest injuries and casualties.

Lucius filled her in on how Ginny was doing; she was still just as feisty as ever, and was refusing to say anything that might be of any importance. Bella, on the other hand, just huffed and left the room the first time she was addressed; she never came back and Calida simply figured she had gone home to her husband.

Draco had also come by to visit her; he was thoroughly enjoying having Ginny as a houseguest it seemed. And of course, her mother and father had come as soon as they had gotten off from "work".

Her mother was all worried and kept insisting that the Healers didn't know what they were doing and had no business touching her daughter. Her father just said he was glad she was all right, and told her that he was proud she had tried so hard to return herself to the Dark Lord's service.

She enjoyed the company over the next couple hours, and was thrilled that she was going to get to talk to Sirius the next day. But there were two things she couldn't keep out of her mind. The most obvious was McNair. He never left the room for more than a few minutes at a time, and he never said anything. She couldn't help but wonder why he seemed to keep showing up at moments usually reserved for family and close friends. The second was the bigger problem; how soon could she get to the cup, and where could she put it when she did?

Well, I hope everyone can understand why I was so picky about this chapter now. Thank you for reading. And, as always, please review. I can't stress enough how big a help some of my reviews have been, they help me remember key details that I might have otherwise forgotten. So remember, this story may come from my mind, but if it gets full and you didn't say anything, you can't blame me for forgetting.