Chapter 62:
Harry heaved himself onto a Thestral as well and Neville attempted the same as Luna sat in place like Alicia. Hermione, Ron and Ginny however were still in place, standing motionlessly on the spot, mouths open and staring. Alicia suddenly started to snicker. She just realised how strange it'd be for them, the four were sitting in mid air with nothing between their legs to them. She also realised it would be hard for them to mount when they couldn't see anything.
Harry didn't seem to notice this.
"What?" he said.
"How're we supposed to get on?" said Ron faintly. "When we can't see the things?"
"Oh it's easy," said Luna, sliding obligingly from her thestral and marching over to him, Hermione, and Ginny. "Come here…"
She pulled them over to the other thestrals standing around and one by one managed to help them onto the backs of their mounts. All three looked extremely nervous as she wound their hands into the horses' manes and told them to grip tightly before getting back onto her own steed.
"This is mad," Ron said faintly, moving his free hand gingerly up and down his horse's neck. "Mad… if I could just see it —"
"You'd better hope it stays invisible," said Harry darkly.
"Yeah we don't need anyone being granted the sight tonight." Alicia said frowning and Ron looked at them, suddenly nodding in agreement.
"We all ready, then?" Harry asked
They all nodded and he saw five pairs of knees tighten beneath their robes.
"Okay…" He looked down at the back of his thestral's glossy black head and then turned to Alicia. She sighed.
"Ministry of Magic, please, visitors' entrance, London." she instructed her thestral.
"Er… if you know… where to go…" Harry added
For a moment the thestrals did nothing at all. Harry looked at Alicia in time to see her thestral open it's wings on either side, crouch and she launched, rocketed into the air while laughing. Harry's Thestral did the same move so quickly it nearly unseated him. Alicia laughed as she clung on with her legs and hands tightly as to not be thrown backwards over the boney spine. When she felt brave enough she glanced backwards to find Harry had buried his head into his horse's silky mane.
They bursted through the top most trees and the blood-red sky of the sunset was exposed around them.
Alicia was exhilarated, even her broomstick did not move nearly as fast as the Thestral did and it brought adrenaline to her veins.
The thestrals streaked over the castle, wide wings hardly beating. The cooling air was slapping Alicia's face but she didn't want to close her eyes as it made them water. She glanced back as Harry finally opened his eyes and the other five were following the two, each of them bent as low as possible into the neck of their thestral to protect themselves from its slipstream.
They were over the Hogwarts grounds, they had passed Hogsmeade. Harry could see mountains and gullies below them. In the falling darkness Harry saw small collections of lights as they passed over more villages, then a winding road on which a single car was beetling its way home through the hills…
"This is bizarre!" Ron yelled from somewhere behind Alicia and she laughed, the sound getting carried or drowned by the rushing of the wind.
Twilight fell: The sky turned to a light, dusky purple littered with tiny silver stars, and soon it was only the lights of Muggle towns that gave them any clue of how far from the ground they were or how very fast they were traveling. Alicia kept her eyes on ahead of them, glancing around every now and then to see the ground and that everyone else was still following her. Harry had his arms wrapped tightly around his horse's neck. She didn't blame him, Alicia could feel the emotions and pain through the scar on her neck. It worried her, but so did what they were doing to reply to the vision with. She hoped they were doing the right thing.
On they flew through the gathering darkness; Everything was cold around them and Alicia felt it in her face, eyes and fingers, but she did nothing to change her position in fear of loosing her seat, even though her legs were getting sore and stiff. The thestral was flying so far so quickly she didn't know how far they'd gone, how far was left or even what time it was. She had faith that Hagrid was right about their sense of direction though, that the books and information were on their side and they'd reach the ministry quickly. Even if this whole thing worried her she hoped to whole hell that they were running into a trap and Sirius wasn't there. If he was he was going to be rather mad with them… well he'd be mad regardless but… And so would the entire order, running head long into danger without waiting or speaking to Snape without Umbridge around… for acting irrationally.
But this was Sirius and it wasn't their fault Snape, who hated them, was the only one left and that communication was…
Alicia suddenly felt so angry with herself! She's forgotten all about the mirror! Why did they waste all that time with Umbridge's office? How could she have let such trouble occur when it was so much easier!
She felt so annoyed that she didn't realise the Thestral was diving towards the ground until she slid forwards slightly towards it's neck. The tops of buildings came into sight. One of the girls shrieked behind and Alicia glanced back, tightening her hands as she did, but could see no sign of a falling body. Presumably they had received a shock from the change of position. Alicia clutched even tighter with her hands and leaned as close to the body of the horse as she still could, watching as the bright orange lights grew rounder and larger on all sides.
They could see the tops of buildings, streams of headlights like luminous insect eyes, squares of pale yellow that were windows. Quite suddenly, it seemed, they were hurtling toward the pavement. Alicia held on slightly worried they'd crash but the horse touched the dark ground as lightly as a shadow and, after releasing her grip, relaxing her stiff limps and flexing a little, she slid from the back of her thestral. She took a breath and then moved to pat and thank the animal as Harry was looking around at the street where a overflowing dumpster stood a short way from a vandalised telephone box, both drained of colour in the flat orange glare of the streetlights.
Ron landed a short way away and toppled immediately off his thestral onto the pavement.
"Never again," he said, struggling to his feet. He made as though to stride away from his thestral, but, unable to see it, collided with its hindquarters and almost fell over again. "Never, ever again… that was the worst —" Alicia snickered as she watched him, opening and closing her stiff fingers and checking that her wand was still in her pocket.
"That's just cause you can't see it." Alicia believed.
Hermione and Ginny touched down on either side of him. Both slid off their mounts a little more gracefully than Ron, though with similar expressions of relief at being back on firm ground. Neville jumped down, shaking, but Luna dismounted smoothly.
"Where do we go from here, then?" she asked Harry in a politely interested voice, as though this was all a rather interesting day-trip.
"Yeah where's the entrance? I missed that bit?" Alicia admitted looking around.
"Over here," Harry said. He gave his thestral a quick, grateful pat, then led the way quickly to the battered telephone box and opened the door. "Come on!" he urged the others as they hesitated.
Alicia looked confused and interested that the phone box seemed to be the entrance, but she moved over first, Ron and Ginny marching obediently behind her. Hermione, Neville, and Luna squashed themselves in after them; Harry took one glance back at the thestrals, now foraging for scraps of rotten food inside the dumpster, then forced himself into the box after Luna.
"Whoever's nearest the receiver, dial six two four four two!" he said. Ron did it, his arm bent bizarrely to reach the dial. As it whirred back into place the cool female voice sounded inside the box, "Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."
"Harry Potter, Alicia Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger," Harry said very quickly, "Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood… 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."
Half a dozen badges slid out of the metal chute where returned coins usually appeared. Hermione scooped them up and handed them mutely to Harry over Ginny's head; he glanced at the topmost one.
HARRY POTTER
rescue mission.
"Interesting." Alicia mumbled as she looked at hers before pinning it on oddly, moving amongst the tightness within the box.
"Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium."
"Fine!" Harry said loudly, as his and Alicia's scars gave another throb. "Now can we move?"
The floor of the telephone box shuddered and the pavement rose up past the glass windows of the telephone box. The scavenging thestrals were sliding out of sight, blackness closed over their heads, and with a dull grinding noise they sank down into the depths of the Ministry of Magic.
"So we're about to drop into that atrium right? Possibly full of people? What do we do if we're stopped?" Alicia asked a little worries, her brain thinking.
"We—" Harry began
"If you say fight our way through, I'm going to seriously curse you." Alicia warned. Harry said nothing.
A chink of soft golden light hit their feet and, widening, rose up their bodies. Harry bent his knees and held his wand as ready as he could in such cramped conditions, peering through the glass to see whether anybody was waiting for them in the Atrium, but it seemed to be completely empty.
"It's empty." he said.
"What?" Alicia asked "They don't have night workers?"
The light was dimmer than it had been by day. There were no fires burning under the mantelpieces set into the walls, but he saw as the lift slid smoothly to a halt that golden symbols continued to twist sinuously in the dark blue ceiling.
"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening," said the woman's voice.
The door of the telephone box burst open; Harry toppled out of it, followed by Neville and Luna. The only sound in the Atrium was the steady rush of water from the golden fountain, where jets from the wands of the witch and wizard, the point of the centaur's arrow, the tip of the goblin's hat, and the house-elf's ears continued to gush into the surrounding pool.
Alicia found it very strange that there was no one around. They were breaking into the Ministry, the Department of Mysteries to be exact, and it suddenly seemed way too easy… She began to worry, something was definitely not right, maybe Voldemort could be here seeing as how easy it was for them…
"Come on," said Harry quietly and the seven of them sprinted off down the hall, Harry in the lead, past the fountain, toward the desk where the security man who had weighed Harry's wand had sat and which was now deserted. This did not bring any relief to Alicia's worries, but worsened them. This was all an ominous sign…
She brought up the rear as she began to get more and more anxious as they passed the golden gates to the lifts. Harry hit the nearest down button and 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.
"Guys, something's very wrong." Alicia said, she didn't bother to whisper, the lift was very noisy already. "It should not be this easy to break into the Ministry let alone the Department of Mysteries."
"Maybe the Department of Mysteries will be guarded?" Ron offered.
"I don't know…" Alicia muttered
"If Voldemort wants Harry heres he's not going to let people stop him." Hermione thought
"No… but that does not bring me any comfort." Alicia whispered.
When the lift halted, the cool female voice said, "Department of Mysteries," and the grilles slid open again, they stepped out into the corridor where nothing was moving but the nearest torches, flickering in the rush of air from the lift.
The twins turned to the door, Alicia knew every detail of this corridor though having never set foot in it before. After months and months of dreaming about it, here they were…
The two shared a look and Harry nodded.
"Let's go," he whispered, and the two led the way down the corridor, Luna right behind them, gazing around with her mouth slightly open.
"Okay, 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 going 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.
"I know how you feel but there's no guards and to be honest, I don't think we should be splitting up." Alicia believed as she eyed the door. Harry looked at her but she just moved towards the door and, just like in their dream, it swung straight open, letting them through as Harry and the others followed her.