Isabella's stomach jolted and she could hear herself shriek as she suddenly felt herself plummeting. It was only the feel of sliding a few inches forward on something that convinced Isabella the Threstral had not vanished from beneath her. But she kept her eyes tightly shut as the ground hurtled up to meet her.
And without warning they came to a light stop. Isabella's dark eyes flew open in surprise and she found herself hovering few feet above the ground. They had landed. Isabella slipped off the Thestral and could have kissed the pavement. She refrained, seeing Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny already standing nearby. Neville jumped down from his perch, shaking, and Luna dismounted smoothly.
"Where do we go from here, then?" Luna asked Harry in a politely interested voice, as though this was a rather interesting day-trip.
"Over here," he said. He gave the air next to him a quick, grateful pat, then led the way quickly to a battered telephone box and opened the door. "Come on!" he urged the rest of them, as they hesitated. Ron and Ginny marched in obediently, as did Isabella. It was a much tighter squeeze than the visitors' entrance for the Italian Ministry, which was hidden behind the Trevi Fountain in Rome, but Hermione, Neville, and Luna squashed themselves in after them. Harry took one glance toward the street, then forced himself in the box after Luna.
"Whoever's nearest the receiver, dial six two four four two!" he said. Isabella did it, her arm bent strangely over Ginny's head to reach the dial; as it whirred back into place a cool female voice sounded inside the box.
"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."
"Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger," Harry said very quickly. "Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Bella O'Reagan... we're here to save someone, unless your Ministry can do it first!"
"Thank you," said the cool female voice. "Visitors, please take the badges and attach them to the front of your robes." Seven badges slid out of the metal shoot. Isabella scooped them up and examined them. To her surprise, one of them had her full name written on it, Isabella Petrroci O'Reagan, Rescue Mission. She pocketed hers and handed the rest to Harry.
"Visitors to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wands for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium."
"Fine!" said Harry loudly. "Now can we move?" The floor of the telephone box shuddered and the pavement rose up past its glass windows; blackness closed over their heads and with a dull grinding noise they sank down into the depths of the Ministry of Magic.
A chink of soft golden light hit Isabella's tennis shoes and, widening, rose up her body to illuminate the entire telephone box. Harry ducked down, apparently trying to see better.
Isabella looked over the Atrium with a critical glance. She had been here with her mother and father when Antonia Petrroci was welcomed, and had found it ornate for the sake of being ornate, rather than the simple marble columns of the Italian Ministry. The large golden fountain was particularly ungraceful and awkward, with a witch, a wizard, a goblin, a house-elf, and a centaur instead of the beautiful statue of Hecate, goddess of magic, surrounded by her jewel-studded dragon attendants.
"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening," said the woman's voice. The door of the telephone box burst open; Harry, Neville, and Luna toppled out. The only sound in the Atrium was the steady rush of water from the golden fountain.
"Come on," said Harry quietly and the seven of them sprinted off down the hall, Harry in the lead, past the fountain towards a desk labeled 'Security'. Isabella felt a small twinge of foreboding that the desk was deserted.
They passed through the golden gates to the lifts and Harry punched the nearest 'down' button. A lift clattered into sight almost immediately, the golden grilles slid apart with a great, echoing clanking and they dashed inside. Harry stabbed the number nine button; the grilles closed with a bang and the lift began to descend, jangling and rattling.
"Department of Mysteries," the cool female voice said, and the grilles slid open. They stepped out in a corridor where nothing was moving but the nearest torches, flickering in the rush of air from the lift. Isabella looked over the dark walls tiled with smooth blocks and was reminded, with a chill, of the catacombs beneath Rome.
"Let's go," Harry whispered, and he led the way down the corridor.
"OK, listen," said Harry stopping again within six feet of the door. "Maybe... maybe a couple of people should stay here as a - as a lookout, and -"
"And how're we supposed to let you know something's coming?" asked Ginny, her eyebrows raised. "You could be miles away."
"We're coming with you, Harry," said Neville.
"Let's get on with it," said Ron firmly. Harry hesitated, then turned to face a plain, unadorned black door. It swung open and he marched over the threshold, the others at his heels.
They were standing in a large, circular room. Everything in here was black, including the floor and ceiling; identical, unmarked, handleless black doors were set at intervals all around the black walls, interspersed with branches of candles whose flames burned blue; their cool, shimmering light reflected in the shining marble floor made it look as though there were dark water underfoot.
"Someone shut the door," Harry muttered. Neville obeyed, and the room became so dark that for a moment the only things they could see were the bunches of shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly reflections in the floor. There was a great rumbling noise and the candles began to move sideways. The circular wall was rotating.
Isabella grabbed Neville and Luna's arms in case the floor might move, too, but it did not. For a few seconds the blue flames around them were blurred into lines as the wall sped around; then, quite as suddenly as it had started, the rumbling stopped and everything became stationary once again.
"What was that about?" whispered Ron fearfully.
"Which door did we come in through?" Isabella asked, looking over her shoulder at the door behind her. Every one of the black doors looked exactly the same.
"How're we going to get back out?" said Neville uncomfortably.
"Well, that doesn't matter now," said Harry forcefully, blinking rapidly. "We won't need to get out till we've found Sirius -"
"Where do we go, then, Harry?" Ron asked.
"I don't -" Harry began. He swallowed. "In the dreams I went through the door at the end of the corridor form the lifts into a dark room - that's this one - and then I went through another door into a room that kind of... glitters. We should try a few doors," he said hastily. "I'll know the right way when I see it. C'mon." Isabella wanted to shout that Harry wasn't dreaming now, that this was real, but she bit her tongue and followed him to one of the doors. She raised her wand, prepared to strike the moment the door opened.
Harry pushed and the door swung open easily. This long, rectangular room was lit by lamps hanging low on golden chains from the ceiling. The place was quite empty except a few desks and, in the very middle of the room, an enormous glass tank of deep green liquid, big enough for half a dozen men to swim in; a number of pearly-white objects were drifting lazily in it.
"What're those things?" whispered Ron.
"Dunno," said Harry.
"Are their fish?" breathed Ginny.
"Aquavirius Maggots!" said Luna excitedly. "Dad said the Ministry were breeding -"
"Luna!" Isabella hissed. "Now's not the time for Aquavarius-"
"No," said Hermione. She sounded odd. She moved forward to look through the side of the tank. "They're brains."
"Brains?"
"Yes... I wonder what they're doing with them?" Harry joined her at the tank, but the rest of them hung back. Isabella felt ill and she turned her face away from the eerily glimmering things.
"Let's get out of here," said Harry. "This isn't right, we need to try another door."
"There are doors here, too," said Isabella, pointing around the walls.
"In my dream I went through that dark room into the second one," Harry said. "I think we should go back and try from there." So they hurried back into the dark, circular room.
"Wait!"said Hermione sharply, as Luna made to close the door of the brain room behind them. "Flagrate!" She drew with her wand in midair and a fiery 'X' appeared on the door. No sooner had the door clicked shut behind them than there was a great rumbling, and once again the wall began to revolve very fast, but now there was a great red-gold blur in amongst the faint blue and, when all became still again, the fiery cross still burned, showing the door they had already tried.
"Good thinking," said Harry. "OK, let's try this one -" He strode directly at the door facing him and pushed it open, his wand still raised.