Chapter 63:

They were standing in a large, circular room. Everything in here was black including the floor and ceiling — identical, unmarked, handle-less 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 so that it looked as though there was dark water underfoot.

"Someone shut the door," Harry muttered. Neville obeyed and they were thrown into a dense darkness, with the blue flames being the only light, dancing ghostly over the walls and their reflections across the floor.

Alicia went to move straight for the door Harry had always dragged her towards, directly opposite the entrance, but as the door had closed, the room suddenly gave a great rumble. The candles began to move sideways and the circular room was rotating.

Hermione grabbed Harry's arm and Alicia watched the doors while trying to remember which one was the door they needed to make this quick and easy. But they were all the exact same. She didn't know which door was the exit nor which door was the correct one to move through.

"What was that about?" whispered Ron fearfully.

"I think it was to stop us knowing which door we came in from," said Ginny in a hushed voice.

And it seemed the most likely answer.

Alicia simply pulled out her wand and the tip illuminated, reflecting all around her and off the faces around her, the shiny black room lighting up as though a dozen lights were lit instead of just one.

"How're we going to get back out?" said Neville uncomfortably.

"Well, that doesn't matter now," said Harry forcefully "We won't need to get out till we've found Sirius —"

"Don't go calling for him, though!" Hermione said urgently, but Harry had never needed her advice less; his instinct was to keep as quiet as possible for the time being.

"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 from 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."

Harry took the first door to try, he pressed his hand against the cool, shining surface and it opened as he raised his wand ready to strike.

After the darkness of the first room, the lamps hanging low on golden chains from this ceiling gave the impression that this long rectangular room was much brighter, though there were no glittering, shimmering lights such as Harry and Alicia had seen in the dreams. The place was quite empty except for a few desks and, in the very middle of the room, an enormous glass tank of deep-green water, big enough for all of them to swim in, which contained a number of pearly white objects that were drifting around lazily in the liquid.

"What're those things?" whispered Ron.

"Dunno," said Harry.

"Are they fish?" breathed Ginny.

"Aquavirius maggots!" said Luna excitedly. "Dad said the Ministry were breeding —"

"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?"

Alicia looked around the room but stood in the doorway, the last thing they needed was to loose the door they went through and have to start from the beginning again.

"Let's get out of here," said Harry as he joined Hermione by the brain tank and gazed into it. "This isn't right, we need to try another door —"

"There are doors here too," said Ron, pointing around the walls.

"We don't need to waste our time looking." Alicia believed and she stepped aside, indicating for them to rejoin her.

"In my dream I went through that dark room into the second one," he 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 was there 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. "Okay, let's try this one —"

Again he strode directly at the door facing him and pushed it open, his wand still raised, the others at his heels.

This room was larger than the last, dimly lit and rectangular, and the centre of it was sunken, forming a great stone pit some twenty feet below them. They were standing on the topmost tier of what seemed to be stone benches running all around the room and descending in steep steps like an amphitheater, or the courtroom in which Harry had been tried by the Wizengamot. Instead of a chained chair, however, there was a raised stone dais in the centre of the lowered floor, and upon this dais stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked, and crumbling that it seemed amazing that the thing was still standing. Unsupported by any surrounding wall, the archway was hung with a tattered black curtain or veil which, despite the complete stillness of the cold surrounding air, was fluttering very slightly as though it had just been touched.

"Who's there?" said Harry, jumping down onto the bench below. There was no answering voice, but the veil continued to flutter and sway.

"Careful!" whispered Hermione.

Alicia stared at it with immense interest. She had abandoned her position in the doorway, which remained open, and followed Harry towards the archway. It was much taller when the two reached the bottom compared to standing above with the others.

Despite there being no breeze however, the curtain swayed gently again, like people were moving past it.

"Sirius?" Harry spoke again, but much more quietly now that he was nearer.

But when Harry pulled back the vail, there was nothing, an empty archway in which the other side of the vail could be seen. Alicia could feel like it was not an empty archway though, there was something about it.

"Let's go," called Hermione from halfway up the stone steps. "This isn't right, Harry, come on, let's go…"

She sounded scared, much more scared than she had in the room where the brains swam. Alicia simply stared at the archway and then grabbed Harry's hand to stop him, she could feel his desire to move closer.

"We shouldn't mess with what we don't know…" she said quietly though still watching the archway.

"Alicia, come on!" Hermione said worried.

Still neither of them moved.

"Harry, let's go, okay?" said Hermione more forcefully.

"Okay," he said, but he did not move. Alicia eyes widened over so slightly in surprise, for she could have sworn she'd just heard faint whispering, murmuring noises coming from the other side of the veil.

"What are you saying?" he said very loudly, so that the words echoed all around the surrounding stone benches.

"Nobody's talking, Harry!" said Hermione, now moving over to him.

"Someone's whispering behind there," he said, moving out of her reach and continuing to frown at the veil. "Is that you, Ron?"

"I'm here, mate," said Ron, appearing around the side of the archway.

"Can't anyone else hear it?" Harry demanded, for the whispering and murmuring was becoming louder; without really meaning to put it there, he found his foot was on the dais.

"I can hear it." Alicia whispered "But… what they're saying I can't make out…" she looked intrigued and confused.

"I can hear them too," breathed Luna, joining them around the side of the archway and gazing at the swaying veil. "There are people in there!"

"What do you mean, 'in there'?" demanded Hermione, jumping down from the bottom step and sounding much angrier than the occasion warranted. "There isn't any 'in there,' it's just an archway, there's no room for anybody to be there — Harry, stop it, come away —"

She grabbed his arm and pulled, but he resisted.

"Harry, we are supposed to be here for Sirius!" she said in a high-pitched, strained voice.

"Sirius," Harry repeated, still gazing, mesmerised, at the continuously swaying veil. "Yeah…"

Alicia snapped and turned immediately from the vail.

"Everyone stop looking at it. God, it's hypnotising." she realised as she shook her head and she too grabbed Harry to pull him away. He finally took several steps back from the dais and turned away from the Vail.

"Let's go," he said.

"That's what I've been trying to — well, come on, then!" said Hermione, and she led the way back around the dais. On the other side, Ginny and Neville were staring, apparently entranced, at the veil too. Without speaking, Hermione took hold of Ginny's arm, Ron Neville's, and they marched them firmly back to the lowest stone bench and clambered all the way back up to the door.

"What d'you reckon that arch was?" Harry asked Hermione as they regained the dark circular room.

"I don't know, but whatever it was, it was dangerous," she said firmly, again inscribing a fiery cross upon the door.

Once more the wall spun and became still again. Harry approached a door at random and pushed. It did not move.

"What's wrong?" said Hermione.

"It's… locked…" said Harry, throwing his weight at the door, but it did not budge.

"This is it, then, isn't it?" said Ron excitedly, joining Harry in the attempt to force the door open. "Bound to be!"

"Yeah of course the one we want is locked." Alicia said annoyed.

"Get out of the way!" said Hermione sharply. She pointed her wand at the place where a lock would have been on an ordinary door and said, "Alohomora!"

Nothing happened.

"Sirius's knife!" said Harry, and he pulled it out from inside his robes and slid it into the crack between the door and the wall. The others all watched eagerly as he ran it from top to bottom, withdrew it, and then flung his shoulder again at the door. It remained as firmly shut as ever. What was more, when Harry looked down at the knife, he saw that the blade had melted.

"Right, we're leaving that room," said Hermione decisively.

"But what if that's the one?" said Ron, staring at it with a mixture of apprehension and longing.

"It can't be, Harry could get through all the doors in his dream," said Hermione, marking the door with another fiery cross as Harry replaced the now-useless handle of Sirius's knife in his pocket.

"You know what could be in there?" said Luna eagerly, as the wall started to spin yet again.

"Something blibbering, no doubt," said Hermione under her breath, and Neville gave a nervous little laugh.

The wall slid back to a halt and Alicia picked a door this time, Harry leaning close over her shoulder with anticipation.

"This is it!" Harry said at once as Alicia smirked slightly.

Both knew it at once by the beautiful, dancing, diamond-sparkling light. Now looking at it properly, without the eagerness that filled her when following the dream, Alicia noticed clocks gleaming from every surface, large and small, grandfather and carriage, hanging in spaces between the bookcases or standing on desks ranging the length of the room, so that a busy, relentless ticking filled the place like thousands of minuscule, marching footsteps. The source of the dancing, diamond-bright light was a towering crystal bell jar that stood at the far end of the room.

"This way!"

He led the way forward down the narrow space between the lines of the desks, heading, as he had done in his dream, for the source of the light, the crystal bell jar quite as tall as he was that stood on a desk and appeared to be full of a billowing, glittering wind.

"Oh look!" said Ginny, as they drew nearer, pointing at the very heart of the bell jar.

Drifting along in the sparkling current inside was a tiny, jewel-bright egg. As it rose in the jar it cracked open and a hummingbird emerged, which was carried to the very top of the jar, but as it fell on the draft, its feathers became bedraggled and damp again, and by the time it had been borne back to the bottom of the jar it had been enclosed once more in its egg.

"Keep going!" said Harry sharply, because Ginny showed signs of wanting to stop and watch the egg's progress back into a bird.

Alicia however hadn't even stopped and was moving towards the next door. Behind it she knew were the spheres she predicted were full of memories of sorts.

"You dawdled enough by that old arch!" Ginny said crossly, but followed him past the bell jar to the only door behind it where they joined Alicia.

"This is it," Harry said again. "It's through here —"

Everyone had their wands out and Alicia felt more worried than she had upstairs. They'd either find Sirius or they wouldn't and they would have walked straight into a trap. Either that or the memory they witnessed was nothing more than a plan or desire that hadn't happened yet. She hoped that was it, that they'd find nothing, go upstairs to the fireplaces, go to Grimmauld Place and find Sirius because Kreacher had lied. No Death Eaters, no danger, no Voldemort, just an overreaction.

Alicia looked at Harry and he nodded to her before she pushed on the door and it swung open.

They were there, they had found the place: high as a church and full of nothing but towering shelves covered in small, dusty, glass orbs. They glimmered dully in the light issuing from more candle brackets set at intervals along the shelves. Like those in the circular room behind them, their flames were burning blue. The room was very cold.

Harry edged forward and peered down one of the shadowy aisles between two rows of shelves. He could not hear anything nor see the slightest sign of movement.

"You said it was row ninety-seven," whispered Hermione.

"Yeah," breathed Harry, looking up at the end of the closest row. Beneath the branch of blue-glowing candles protruding from it glimmered the silver figure 53.

"We need to go right, I think," whispered Hermione, squinting to the next row. "Yes… that's fifty-four…"

"Keep your wands out," Harry said softly.
They crept forward, staring behind them as they went on down the long alleys of shelves, the farther ends of which were in near total darkness. Tiny, yellowing labels had been stuck beneath each glass orb on the shelves, some of them had a weird, liquid glow; others were as dull and dark within as blown lightbulbs.

Alicia listened hard around her but she couldn't hear any talking nor could she hear anyone screaming. It was so quiet that if Sirius was being tortured she was sure the sound would bounce all over the room.

They passed row eighty-four… eighty-five…

There was the chance that Voldemort had heard them come in and the silence fell on purpose.

Or even more likely, no one was here. It had never been real.

"Ninety-seven!" whispered Hermione.

They stood grouped around the end of the row, gazing down the alley beside it. There was nobody there.

"He's right down at the end," said Harry, whose mouth had become slightly dry. "You can't see properly from here…"

And he led them forward, between the towering rows of glass balls, some of which glowed softly as they passed…

"He should be near here," whispered Harry, convinced that every step was going to bring the ragged form of Sirius into view upon the darkened floor. "Anywhere ahead… really close…"

"Harry?" said Hermione tentatively, but he did not want to respond. His mouth was very dry now.

"Somewhere about… here…" he said.

They had reached the end of the row and emerged into more dim candlelight. There was nobody there at all. All was echoing, dusty silence.

Alicia was silent as she looked around. There was not even a little sign of some struggle or that anyone had walked around here.

She wanted to sigh a sigh of relief, Sirius wasn't here. It wasn't real. He wasn't in trouble. But there was still the fact that Voldemort had coaxed them here, he had wanted something from this room, one of the silver orbs.

"He might be…" Harry whispered hoarsely, peering down the alley next door. "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. Harry did not look at any of them.

Alicia on the other hand had moved to the shelves and was looking along them, she began to read the pieces of parchment stuck under every orb. Some were so old the letters had faded and could not be read. As she moved along and read them, she realised they had names and dates on them.

Harry had taken to running up the space at the end of the rows, staring down them. Empty aisle after empty aisle flickered past. He ran the other way, back past his staring companions. There was no sign of Sirius anywhere, nor any hint of a struggle.

Ron moved over to see what Alicia was doing as she moved from row to row reading the parchment before he stopped. Alicia looked up, stretching and straining his neck as Ron nudged her and pointed to a Sphere.

"Harry?" Ron called.

"What?"

"Have you seen this?" said Ron.

"What?" said Harry, but eagerly this time and he strode back to where they were all standing, a little way down row ninety-seven, to find Alicia and Ron staring at one of the dusty glass spheres on the shelves.

"What?" Harry repeated glumly.

"It's — it's got your name on," said Ron.

Harry moved a little closer. Ron was pointing at one of the small glass spheres that glowed with a dull inner light, though it was very dusty and appeared not to have been touched for many years.

"My name?" said Harry blankly.

S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.

Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter

Alicia's eyes had hardened at the names and at the sphere. Her mind began to click despite the fact that she didn't know what the sphere was. She understood but didn't completely understand why.

Harry stared at it.

"What is it?" Ron asked, sounding unnerved. "What's your name doing down here?"

He glanced along at the other labels on that stretch of shelf.

"I'm not here," he said, sounding perplexed. "None of the rest of us are here… Not even Alicia."

"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. Harry looked around at him. Neville's round face was shining slightly with sweat. He looked as though he could not take much more suspense. Harry didn't listen and he reached some more but Alicia grabbed his wrist.

"No." she said. "We need to leave. Now." she decided strongly, and Harry looked at her to see her serious expression as she looked around, as though looking for someone.

"Why?"

"Harry, Sirius isn't here. It was a trick. Voldemort wants something in the Ministry, a weapon. Now a Weapon does not need to be something like a gun or a bomb." she explained "Voldemort has been thinking of this room and trying to enter it for months, that's why we've seen it. But he had to get you to grab it because he couldn't touch it." she reminded him and turned back to the sphere.

"This has got to be what he wants. Don't touch it, leave it. If he can't touch it than it's safe here. We need to get out of here now."

"It's got my name on," said Harry

"Harry, it also has his name on it! Do me this one favour, do not do what he clearly wants you to do." Alicia said still holding his wrist. "Walk away, while we still can. We've found out what he wants,"

"I want to know why."

"So do I but we know enough to question Sirius and Lupin, and even Dumbledore. Let's go." Alicia said

"You think they'll tell us?"

"I think we need to move on before something terrible happens. If Voldemort wanted us here than his Death Eaters probably are as well, waiting, watching. I don't know but the entire Ministry is empty. When does that happen? Voldemort wants something. If anything we have to do more than our best to keep it from him. No one's in trouble, there's no point in being here. Turn around, walk away." She said and she was loosing her patients, thinking he was being reckless and stupid. They should turn and leave while they still could, find the door out and leave it at that. Go back to Hogwarts or even take a fireplace to Grimmauld Place. Anything but be exactly where Voldemort wanted them to be.

She turned around to look through the shelves again and saw that Hermione was watching Harry, seeming to agree with Alicia, while Ginny also looked around with the black-haired girl.

"Harry!" Alicia turned around to see he'd picked the dusty ball up anyway.

She very quickly became very angry and frustrated at him. He never seemed to listen to her!

Alicia turned and, her hand tight around her wand, stared worried. Everything was wrong. Ginny moved in next to her as everyone else moved closer to Harry expectantly. Both looked up either end of the isle before Alicia's eyes widened and Ginny backed into her from behind.

"Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."