It was as high as a church and full of nothing but towering shelves covered in small, dusty, glass orbs. They glimmered dully in the light issuing form more candle-brackets set at intervals along the shelves. Their flames were burning blue and the room was very cold.
Isabella strained her ears for voices, but heard nothing. Harry edged forwards and peered down one of the shadowy aisles.
"You said it was row ninety-seven," whispered Hermione.
"Yeah," Harry breathed, looking up at the end of the closest row. A tiny silver figure fifty-three glimmered there.
"We need to go right, I think," whispered Hermione, squinting to the next row. "Yes... that's fifty-four."
"Keep your wands ready," Harry said softly. They crept forwards, glancing behind them nervously. There were tiny, yellowing labels stuck beneath each of the glass orbs on the shelves. Isabella strained her ears growing more nervous as each silent second ticked by. If Sirius Black was being tortured, surely there would be some sound?
"Ninety-seven!" whispered Hermione. They stood grouped at the end of the row, gazing down the alley beside it.
"He's right down at the end," said Harry. "You can't see properly from here." And he led them between the towering rows of glass balls.
"He should be near here," whispered Harry expectantly. "Anywhere here... really close..."
"Harry?" said Hermione tentatively.
"Somewhere about... here..." he said. Isabella looked around the echoing, dusty silence.
"He might be..." Harry whispered hoarsely, looking down the next alley. "Or maybe..." He hurried to look down the one beyond that.
"Harry?" said Hermione again.
"What?" he snarled.
"I... I don't think Sirius is here." Nobody spoke, and Harry refused to meet their eyes. Harry ran up the rows, staring down them, and then ran back, searching.
"Harry?" Ron called.
"What?" Harry was still avoiding their eyes, and Isabella could not help but glare accusingly at him. "But, of course he isn't here! We are chasing dreams and shadows... dreams and shadows..." she thought, but then a vision of the archway flickered across her mind. She was glad she had come, if only to see that beautiful gateway.
"Have you seen this?" said Ron.
"What?" said Harry, but eagerly this time. He found Ron staring at one of the dusty glass spheres on the shelf.
"What?" Harry repeated glumly.
"It's - it's got your name on it," said Ron. He was pointing at one of the particularly dusty spheres.
"My name?" said Harry blankly, moving forward a little bit. He stared up at the yellowed label and read its spindly writing.
"What is it?" asked Ron, sounding unnerved. "What's your name doing down here?" He looked along at the other labels on that stretch of shelf. "I'm not here. None of the rest of us are here," Ron continued, sounding perplexed.
"Harry, I don't think you should touch it," said Hermione sharply as he stretched out his hand.
"Why not?" he said. "It's something to do with me, isn't it?"
"Don't, Harry," said Neville suddenly. His round face was shining slightly with sweat.
"It's got my name on," said Harry. His fingers closed around the dusty ball's surface and lifted it down from his shelf to stare at it. Nothing happened, so the others moved in closer to watch as Harry brushed the dust off it.
And then, from right behind them, a drawling voice spoke.
"Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."
Black shapes emerged from the darkness all around them, blocking their way left and right; eyes glinted through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at their hearts.
"To me, Potter," repeated Lucius Malfoy. Isabella recognized him, he had once invited them to dinner, but had been slightly irritated that the Petrrocis did not share his prejudice views. Malfoy held out his hand, palm up.
"To me," he said yet again.
"Where's Sirius?" Harry said. Several of the Death Eaters laughed; a harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures said triumphantly, "The Dark Lord always knows!"
"Always," echoed Malfoy softly. "Now, give me the prophecy, Potter."
"I want to know where Sirius is!"
"I want to know where Sirius is!" mimicked the woman. The Death Eaters closed in so that they were mere feet away.
"You've got him," said Harry. "He's here. I know he is."
"The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo," said the woman in a horrible, mock baby voice.
"Don't do anything," Harry muttered as his friends stirred slightly. "Not yet -" The woman screamed with laughter.
"You hear him? You hear him? Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!"
"Oh, you don't know Potter as I do, Bellatrix," said Malfoy softly. "He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. Now give me the prophesy, Potter."
"I know Sirius is here," said Harry. "I know you've got him!"
"Harry, Sirius isn't here!" Isabella shouted, pointing her wand shakily at the Death Eaters in front of her. "He never was! They just wanted you to think he was!"
"Very good," Malfoy said softly. "Miss... Petrroci, I believe? See Potter, you friend knows the difference between life and dreams. Now, give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."
"Go on, then," said Harry, raising his own wand to chest height. As he did so, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna followed suit. Isabella already had her wand raised. But the Death Eaters did not strike.
"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt," said Malfoy coolly.
"Yeah, right!" Harry laughed humorlessly. "I give you this - prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"
The female Death Eater shrieked: "Accio proph-"
"Protego!" Harry shouted, prepared. Isabella saw the glass ball buck slightly in his hand, but he managed to cling to it.
"Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter," she said. "Very well, then -"
"I TOLD YOU,NO!" Lucius Malfoy roared at the woman. "If you smash it -!" The woman stepped forward, away from her fellows, and pulled off her hood. Isabella recognized Bellatrix Lestrange from the pictures of the Azakaban breakout.
"You need more persuasion?" she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "Very well - take the smallest one," she ordered the Death Eater beside her. "Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I'll do it."
Isabella moved to her left so that her shoulder was brushing Ron's. Ginny was now behind them, blocked from the Death Eater's view.
"You'll have to smash this if you want to attack any of us," Harry told Bellatrix, standing directly in front of Ginny. "I don't think your boss will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?" Isabella could no longer see Bellatrix, but the silence told her everything.
"So," said Harry. "What kind of prophecy are we talking about, anyway?" His voice carried the distinct casual tone of someone who wants to keep talking. Isabella's mind raced. She might be able to turn her opponents into frogs, but who knew if they could turn themselves back? And then they would really be in trouble.
"What kind of prophecy?" repeated Bellatrix. "You jest Potter."
"Nope, not jesting," said Harry. "How come Voldemort wants it?" Several of the Death Eaters let out low hisses.
"You dare speak his name?" whispered Bellatrix. "STUPEF-"
"NO!"
There was a flash of red light, but Malfoy deflected the spell and caused hers to hit one of the shelves and several of the glass orbs there were shattered.
Two figures, pearly-white as ghosts, fluid as smoke, unfurled themselves from the fragments of glass at Isabella's feet. Each began to speak, their voices vying with each other, so that only fragments of what they were saying could be heard over Malfoy and Bellatrix's shouts.
"... at the solstice will come a new..." said the figure of an old, bearded man.
"DO NOT ATTACK! WE NEED THE PROPHECY!" bawled Mafloy.
"He dared - he dares -" shrieked Bellatrix incoherently. "He stands there - flithy half-blood -"
"... and none will come after..." said the figure of a young woman. The two figures that had burst from the shattered spheres melted into thin air.
"You haven't told me what's so special about this prophecy I'm supposed to be handing over," Harry said.
"Do not play games with us, Potter," said Malfoy.
"I'm not playing games," said Harry, a little distractedly, or so it seemed to Isabella.
"Dumbledore never told you the reason you bear that scar was hidden in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries?" Malfoy sneered.
"I - what?" said Harry. "What about my scar?"
"Can this be?" said Malfoy, sounding maliciously delighted; some of the Death Eaters were laughing again. "Dumbledore never told you? Well, this explains why you didn't come earlier, Potter, the Dark Lord wondered why you didn't come running when he showed you the place where it was hidden in your dreams. He thought natural curiosity would make you want to hear the exact wording..."
"Did he?" said Harry. "So he wanted me to come and get it, did he? Why?"
"Why?" Malfoy repeated with a malicious sneer. "Because the only people who are permitted to retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, Potter, as those about whom it was made -"
"Smash shells." Isabella heard Luna whisper in her ear. She froze, puzzled. Luna was very odd, but what on earth was she talking about? Shells...? Isabella's eyes flickered to the glass fragments at her feet and realized what Luna was telling her.
"- haven't you ever wondered why the Dark Lord tried to kill you as a baby?" Malfoy was asked Harry. Isabella used the cover of Harry's reply to lean closer to Ron and hiss under her breath.
"Smash shelves." She didn't look at Ron, terrified of bringing attention to her whispered message.
"Get it himself?" shrieked Bellatrix, over a cackle of mad laughter at something Harry had said. "The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?"
Isabella remembered in a flash that she had read that Bellatrix was Sirius Black's cousin. She readjusted her aim so that while she appeared to be aiming at on of the Death Eater's faces, she was actually focusing on the shelf behind him.
"So he's got you doing his dirty work for him, has he?" said Harry. "like he tried to get Sturgis to steal it - and Bode?" Isabella had no idea what Harry was talking about, but evidently Malfoy did.
"Very good, Potter, very good..." he said slowly. "But the Dark Lord knows you are not unintell-"
"NOW!" yelled Harry. Isabella shouted, "Reducto!" and shot her curse at the shelf, which exploded when hit; the towering structure swaying as a hundred glass spheres burst apart, pearly-white figures unfurled into the air and floated there, their voices echoing amid the torrent of crashing glass and splintered wood now raining down upon the floor.