Chapter 64:
Black shapes were emerging out of thin air 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. Ginny gave a gasp of horror as the others all turned around at the voice.
"To me, Potter," repeated the drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy as he held out his hand, palm up.
Alicia looked around, they were seriously outnumbered, not only that but even if they were confident in their spell work, these were Death Eaters and they were fifteen and fourteen year olds. Her brain began to work quickly and she glanced at the sphere in Harry's hand several times. They wanted it, she knew that, so they had to keep it.
"To me," said Malfoy yet again.
"Where's Sirius?" Harry said.
Several of the Death Eaters laughed. A harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Harry's left 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 to his left. She and her fellow Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Harry and the others, the light from their wands dazzling.
"You've got him," said Harry. "He's here. I know he is."
Alicia didn't understand why he continued to hang on this dead hope. Sirius wasn't here, he never had been. She knew it and she was trying very hard to remain calm and not get seriously annoyed at Harry's ignorance and haste.
"The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo," said the woman in a horrible, mock-baby voice. Harry felt Ron stir beside him.
"Don't do anything," he muttered. "Not yet —"
The woman who had mimicked him let out a raucous scream of 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 prophecy, Potter."
"I know Sirius is here," said Harry, Alicia however could feel his panic rising. "I know you've got him!"
More of the Death Eaters laughed, though the woman still laughed loudest of all.
"It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter. You really should have listened to your sister, she does seem to have her head screwed on better than you." said Malfoy. "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, the five wands of Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Luna rose on either side of him. Alicia's was already pointed at Mafloy, but she'd changed it for Bellatrix who was starting to rise the anger within her.
But the Death Eaters did not strike.
"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt," said Malfoy coolly.
"When you make a bluff you should really hold up to it." Alicia said simply. They weren't going to hurt them, they wanted the fragile glass in Harry's hand, if it was broken…
It was Harry's turn to laugh.
"Yeah, right!" he said. "I give you this — prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the female Death Eater shrieked, "Accio Proph —"
Harry was just ready for her. He shouted "Protego!" before she had finished her spell, and though the glass sphere slipped to the tips of his fingers he managed to cling on to it.
"Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter," she said, her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood. "Very well, then —"
"I TOLD YOU, NO!" Lucius Malfoy roared at the woman. "If you smash it — !"
Yes this was exactly what they needed. They were outnumbered by the Death Eaters, but they wouldn't touch them, if the Death Eater's failed, they were in a lot more trouble.
So all we need to do is keep this sphere from them. Alicia knew. We need to get everyone out. Alicia thought and she and Harry shared a look.
Well I don't want it. Harry admitted
No. Because we don't know what it is.
I can't have them paying for my stupidity. I'm sorry. I should have listened.
Yes you should have, but let's worry about that once we're away from here. Alicia decided
The woman stepped forward, away from her fellows, and pulled off her hood. Azkaban had hollowed Bellatrix Lestrange's face, making it gaunt and skull-like, but it was alive with a feverish, fanatical glow.
"You need more persuasion?" she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "Very well — take the smallest one," she ordered the Death Eaters beside her. "Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I'll do it."
Harry felt the others close in around Ginny. He and Alicia had their arms against one another as they both stepped sideways so that she was right behind them. Harry held the prophecy up to his chest in prime position.
"You'll have to smash this if you want to attack any of us," he told Bellatrix. "I don't think your boss will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?"
She did not move; she merely stared at him, the tip of her tongue moistening her thin mouth.
"So," said Harry, "what kind of prophecy are we talking about anyway?"
We need to keep them talking. Harry thought
And then what? We're still surrounded and they know a lot more than we do. Alicia replied as she glanced around.
"What kind of prophecy?" repeated Bellatrix, the grin fading from her face. "You jest, Harry Potter."
"Nope, not jesting," said Harry, his eyes flicking from Death Eater to Death Eater, looking for a weak link, a space through which they could escape. "How come Voldemort wants it?"
Several of the Death Eaters let out low hisses.
"You dare speak his name?" whispered Bellatrix.
"Yeah," said Harry, maintaining his tight grip on the glass ball, expecting another attempt to bewitch it from him. "Yeah, I've got no problem saying Vol —"
"Shut your mouth!" Bellatrix shrieked. "You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood's tongue, you dare —"
"And yet you so called pureblood are scared to speak the name yourself." Alicia cut her off "It is nothing but a name, nothing more than a word."
"Did you know he's a half-blood too?" said Harry recklessly. Hermione gave a little moan in his ear. "Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad was a Muggle — or has he been telling you lot he's pureblood?"
"STUPEF —"
"NO! "
A jet of red light had shot from the end of Bellatrix Lestrange's wand, but Malfoy had deflected it. His spell caused hers to hit the shelf a foot to the left of Harry and several of the glass orbs there shattered.
Two figures, pearly white as ghosts, fluid as smoke, unfurled themselves from the fragments of broken glass upon the floor and each began to speak. Their voices vied 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!"
"He dared — he dares —" shrieked Bellatrix incoherently. "— He stands there — filthy half-blood —"
"WAIT UNTIL WE'VE GOT THE PROPHECY!" bawled Malfoy.
"… and none will come after…" said the figure of a young woman. The two figures that had burst from the shattered spheres had melted into thin air. Nothing remained of them or their erstwhile homes but fragments of glass upon the floor.
Alicia stared at the ghostly figures and then to the sphere in Harry's hand.
Prophecies… it was a prediction of something to come. This one was to do with Harry and Voldemort… could it be able the future between the two and what was to come?
But it was covered in so much dust it seemed older… so then had it already happened or had it just been predicted years ago? Voldemort clearly knew about it, but he had not heard it? He wanted to know what his future was with Harry? Perhaps after failing to kill him several times already he figured he should hear the future…
Knowledge is power…
I've got an idea. Alicia looked at Harry. Those orbs… we can use them. We need to tell the others though… he believed and Alicia's eyes scanned the shelves before looking back at the broken ones.
She smirked ever so slightly and moved her hand backwards to Ginny behind her.
"You haven't told me what's so special about this prophecy I'm supposed to be handing over," Harry said, playing for time. Alicia felt his weight shift slightly. He moved his foot slowly sideways, feeling around for someone else's.
"Do not play games with us, Potter," said Malfoy.
"I'm not playing games," said Harry, half his mind on the conversation, half on his wandering foot. And then he found someone's toes and pressed down upon them. A sharp intake of breath behind him told him they were Hermione's.
"What?" she whispered.
"Dumbledore never told you that the reason you bear that scar was hidden in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries?" said Malfoy sneeringly. Alicia stopped and turned to Malfoy.
"I — what?" said Harry, and for a moment he quite forgot his plan. "What about my scar?"
"What?" whispered Hermione more urgently behind him.
"Can this be?" said Malfoy, sounding maliciously delighted; some of the Death Eaters were laughing again, and under cover of their laughter, Harry hissed to Hermione, moving his lips as little as possible, "Smash shelves —"
"Dumbledore never told you?" Malfoy repeated. "Well, this explains why you didn't come earlier, Potter, the Dark Lord wondered why —"
"— when I say go —"
"— 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.
Alicia was eyeing all the Death Eaters, she'd counted and calculated and knew exactly which points to point her wand at and the perfect spells to do so with.
Behind her she could feel rather than hear Hermione passing Harry's message to the others and he sought to keep talking, to distract the Death Eaters. "So he wanted me to come and get it, did he? Why?"
"Why?" Malfoy sounded incredulously delighted. "Because the only people who are permitted to retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, Potter, are those about whom it was made, as the Dark Lord discovered when he attempted to use others to steal it for him."
"And why did he want to steal a prophecy about me?"
"About both of you, Potter, about both of you… Haven't you ever wondered why the Dark Lord tried to kill you as a baby?"
So the Prophecy was about their futures, and Voldemort had heard some of it and then gone to kill Harry to stop it? Was Alicia and Harry the way they where, scarred, marked and alone within the world for so long, all because of this tiny ball in Harry's hand.
Alicia instantly wanted to smash it.
"Someone made a prophecy about Voldemort and me?" he said quietly, gazing at Lucius Malfoy. "And he's made me come and get it for him? Why couldn't he come and get it himself?"
Alicia felt this a stupid question. Why would Voldemort come to the Ministry when he could use the fact that the world didn't know he was back to his advantage?
"Get it himself?" shrieked Bellatrix on a cackle of mad laughter. "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?"
"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?"
"Very good, Potter, very good…" said Malfoy slowly. "But the Dark Lord knows you are not unintell —"
"NOW!" yelled Harry.
Seven different voices bellowed "REDUCTO!" Seven curses flew in seven different directions and the shelves opposite them exploded as they hit. The towering structure swayed as a hundred glass spheres burst apart, pearly-white figures unfurled into the air and floated there, their voices echoing from who knew what long-dead past amid the torrent of crashing glass and splintered wood now raining down upon the floor —
"RUN!" Harry yelled, and as the shelves swayed precariously and more glass spheres began to pour from above. Alicia turned back down the isle in the direction of the door. She pointed her wand and several bursts of red lights flew to where she remembered Death Eaters to have been standing. She didn't bother to see if they'd hit and continued to run from the circling of black hooded figures. They were all yelling, there were cries of pain, thunderous crashes as the shelves collapsed upon themselves, weirdly echoing fragments of the Seers unleashed from their spheres —
The way ahead was clear, Harry had a handful of Hermione's robes in his hands and Ron, Ginny, and Luna sprint past them both as Alicia followed, their arms all over their heads. She ducked sideways down another isle as a Death Eater came launching out of the mess they'd made and ran parallel with Harry and Hermione who she could see through the shelf as the Death Eater instead caught Harry by the shoulder; he heard Hermione shout "Stupefy!" and the hand released him at once.
At the end of the isles the three turned right and sprinted in earnest. Neville was following them and Hermione was urging him on as he tried to keep up.
The door through which they had come was ajar straight ahead, the glittering light of the bell jar shining through it. Harry pelted through it first, followed by Hermione, Alicia and Neville, the prophecy still clutched tight and safe in his hand. Harry slammed the door shut behind them and Hermione pointed her wand at the door.
"Colloportus!" gasped Hermione and the door sealed itself with an odd squelching noise.
"Where — where are the others?" gasped Harry.
Alicia had sworn that the other three had ran past them during all the commotion and would have expected that Ron, Luna, and Ginny would be waiting in this room, but there was nobody there.
"They must have gone the wrong way!" whispered Hermione, terror in her face.
"Listen!" whispered Neville.
Footsteps and shouts echoed from behind the door they had just sealed. Harry put his ear close to the door to listen and heard Lucius Malfoy roar: "Leave Nott, leave him, I say, the Dark Lord will not care for Nott's injuries as much as losing that prophecy — Jugson, come back here, we need to organise! We'll split into pairs and search, and don't forget, be gentle with Potter until we've got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary — Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left, Crabbe, Rabastan, go right — Jugson, Dolohov, the door straight ahead — Macnair and Avery, through here — Rookwood, over there — Mulciber, come with me!"
"What do we do?" Hermione asked Harry, trembling from head to foot.
"The Ministry is huge, running around to find the others could get us lost but that could also let us loose the Death Eaters." Alicia thought quickly. "There are doors everywhere they'll come out somewhere." Harry nodded
"We shouldn't stand here waiting for them to find us, for a start," said Harry. "Let's get away from this door…"
They ran, quietly as they could, past the shimmering bell jar where the tiny egg was hatching and unhatching, toward the exit into the circular hallway at the far end of the room. They were almost there when something large and heavy collided with the door Hermione had charmed shut.
"Stand aside!" said a rough voice. "Alohomora!"
As the door flew open, Harry, Hermione, Alicia and Neville dived under desks. They could see the bottom of the two Death Eaters' robes drawing nearer, their feet moving rapidly.
"They might've run straight through to the hall," said the rough voice.
"Check under the desks," said another.
Alicia waited before she heard Harry shout.
"STUPEFY!"
A jet of red light hit the nearest Death Eater; he fell backward into a grandfather clock and knocked it over. The second Death Eater, however, had leapt aside to avoid Harry's spell and now pointed his own wand at Hermione, who had crawled out from under the desk to get a better aim.
"Avada —"
Alicia got to her feet quickly to see Harry launch himself across the floor and grabbed the Death Eater around the knees, causing him to topple and his aim to go awry. Neville overturned his desk in his anxiety to help; pointing his wand wildly at the struggling pair he cried, "EXPELLIARMUS !"
Both Harry's and the Death Eater's wands flew out of their hands and soared back toward the entrance to the Hall of Prophecy; both scrambled to their feet and charged after them, the Death Eater in front and Harry hot on his heels, Neville bringing up the rear, plainly horrorstruck at what he had done.
"Get out of the way, Harry!" yelled Neville, clearly determined to repair the damage.
Harry flung himself sideways as Neville took aim again and shouted, "STUPEFY !"
The jet of red light flew right over the Death Eater's shoulder and hit a glass-fronted cabinet on the wall full of variously shaped hourglasses. The cabinet fell to the floor and burst apart, glass flying everywhere, then sprang back up onto the wall, fully mended, then fell down again, and shattered —
The Death Eater had snatched up his wand, which lay on the floor beside the glittering bell jar. Harry ducked down behind another desk as the man turned — his mask had slipped so that he could not see, he ripped it off with his free hand and shouted, "STUP —"
"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" Alicia shouted pointing her wand at the same time Hermione screamed. "STUPEFY!"
The two sets of light hit the Death Eater in the middle of his chest; he froze, his arm snapping to his side from its raised position, his wand fell to the floor with a clatter and he collapsed backward toward the bell jar. Harry expected to hear a clunk, for the man to hit solid glass and slide off the jar onto the floor, but instead, his head sank through the surface of the bell jar as though it was nothing but a soap bubble and he came to rest, sprawled on his back on the table, with his head lying inside the jar full of glittering wind.
"Good combo." Alicia mumbled to Hermione.
"Accio Wand!" cried Hermione. Harry's wand flew from a dark corner into her hand and she threw it to him.
"Thanks," he said, "right, let's get out of —"
"Look out!" said Neville, horrified, staring at the Death Eater's head in the bell jar.
All four of them raised their wands again, but none of them struck. They were all gazing, openmouthed, appalled, at what was happening to the man's head.
It was shrinking very fast, growing balder and balder, the black hair and stubble retracting into his skull, his cheeks smooth, his skull round and covered with a peachlike fuzz…
A baby's head now sat grotesquely on top of the thick, muscled neck of the Death Eater. But even as they watched, their mouths open, the head began to swell to its previous proportions again, thick black hair was sprouting from the pate and chin…
"It's time," said Hermione in an awestruck voice. "Time…"
"Reversing and replaying…" Alicia mumbled
The Death Eater shook his ugly head again, trying to clear it, as though the potion had revived and unfrozen him, but before he could pull himself together again, it began to shrink back to babyhood once more…
There was a shout from a room nearby, then a crash and a scream.
"RON?" Harry yelled, turning quickly from the monstrous transformation taking place before them. "GINNY? LUNA?"
"Harry!" Hermione screamed.
The Death Eater had pulled his head out of the bell jar. His appearance was utterly bizarre, his tiny baby's head bawling loudly while his thick arms flailed dangerously in all directions, narrowly missing Harry, who ducked. Harry raised his wand but to his amazement Hermione seized his arm.
"You can't hurt a baby!"
"It's not a baby!" Alicia disagreed
There was no time to argue the point. More footsteps were growing louder from the Hall of Prophecy they had just left and knew, too late, that he ought not to have shouted and given away their position.
"I say we go back to the stealth thing." Alicia decided and she was first to turn for the door, standing ajar at the end of the room, and leading back into the black hallway.
She was also first to freeze when she saw two more Death Eaters on the other side of it, Harry grabbed her arm and pulled her to the left, bursting into a small, dark cluttered office and slamming the door behind them.
"Collo —" began Hermione, but before she could complete the spell the door had burst open again and the two Death Eaters had come hurtling inside. With a cry of triumph, both yelled, "IMPEDIMENTA!"
Harry, Hermione, Alicia and Neville were all knocked backward off their feet. Neville was thrown over the desk and disappeared from view, Hermione smashed into a bookcase and was promptly deluged in a cascade of heavy books, Alicia hit a filing carbonate and then the wall before crashing to the floor and the back of Harry's head slammed into the stone wall behind him.
"WE'VE GOT HIM!" yelled the Death Eater nearest Harry, "IN AN OFFICE OFF —"
"Silencio!" cried Hermione, and the man's voice was extinguished. He continued to mouth through the hole in his mask, but no sound came out; he was thrust aside by his fellow.
"Petrificus Totalus!" shouted Harry, as the second Death Eater raised his wand. His arms and legs snapped together and he fell forward, facedown onto the rug at Harry's feet, stiff as a board and unable to move at all.
"Well done, Ha —"
But the Death Eater Hermione had just struck dumb made a sudden slashing movement with his wand, from which flew a streak of what looked like purple flame. It passed right across Hermione's chest; she gave a tiny "oh!" as though of surprise and then crumpled onto the floor where she lay motionless.
"HERMIONE!"
Alicia and Harry fell to their knees beside her as Neville crawled rapidly toward her from under the desk, his wand held up in front of him. The Death Eater kicked out hard at Neville's head as he emerged — his foot broke Neville's wand in two and connected with his face — Neville gave a howl of pain and recoiled, clutching his mouth and nose. Harry twisted around, his own wand held high, and saw that the Death Eater had ripped off his mask and was pointing his wand directly at Harry, who recognised the long, pale, twisted face from the Daily Prophet: Antonin Dolohov, the wizard who had murdered the Prewetts. Dolohov grinned.
With his free hand, he pointed from the prophecy still clutched in Harry's hand, to himself, then at Hermione.
The meaning was clear despite the fact that he couldn't speak.
"Like you won't kill us all the moment I hand it over anyway!" said Harry.
"Whaddever you do, Harry," said Neville fiercely from under the desk, lowering his hands to show a clearly broken nose and blood pouring down his mouth and chin, "don'd gib it to him!"
Then there was a crash outside the door, and Dolohov looked over his shoulder — the baby-headed Death Eater had appeared in the doorway, his head bawling, his great fists still flailing uncontrollably at everything around him.
Harry seized his chance: "PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!"
"STUPIFY!" Alicia stunned the baby Death Eater at the same time.
The spell hit Dolohov before he could block it, and he toppled forward across his comrade, both of them rigid as boards and unable to move an inch.
"Hermione," Harry said at once, shaking her. "Hermione, wake up…"
"Whaddid he do to her?" said Neville, crawling out from under the desk again to kneel at her other side, blood streaming from his rapidly swelling nose.
Alicia began to poke Hermione and check her over before glancing at Neville.
"I dunno…"
"Here Neville." Alicia pointed her wand and he looked at her "Episky!" the blood stopped there was a quick crack and Neville shouted out at the pain. "That'll fix your nose." she said before turning for Hermione and checking her over. Neville groped for Hermione's wrist.
"That's a pulse, Harry, I'm sure it is…"
"She's alive?"
"Yeah, I think so…"
"She is," Alicia said.
"Can you fix it?"
"Maybe but I don't know what he did to her, I've never seen a spell like that." she said. "We need to find the others and get out of here. It's likely a curse but we'd better hurry, and we're not leaving without everyone." Harry nodded in agreement before turning to Neville.
"Neville, we're not far from the exit," Harry whispered. "We're right next to that circular room… If we can just get you across it and find the right door before any more Death Eaters come, I'll bet you can get Hermione up the corridor and into the lift… Then you could find someone… Raise the alarm…"
"And what are you going to do?" said Neville, mopping the blood from his nose with his sleeve and frowning at Harry.
"We've got to find the others," said Harry as Alicia muttered a few spells, her wand pointed at Hermione.
"Well, I'll going to find them with you," said Neville firmly.
"But Hermione —"
"We'll take her with us," said Neville firmly. "I'll carry her — you're both better at fighting them than I am —"
He stood up and seized one of Hermione's arms, and Alicia, admitting defeat in being able to help Hermione, bent down to do the same, it probably wasn't good they left anyone alone. Neville glared at Harry, who hesitated before then helping them hoist Hermione's limp form over Neville's shoulders.
"Wait," said Harry, snatching up Hermione's wand from the floor and shoving it into Neville's hand, "you'd better take this…"
Neville kicked aside the broken fragments of his own wand as they walked slowly toward the door.
"My gran's going to kill me," said Neville thickly, "That was my dad's old wand…"
"I think you'll find she'll be very proud you put yourself into danger for your friends and to be honest, you need your own wand anyway." Alicia believed as she moved to the door. Harry nodded to her and she peaked out to look cautiously. It was silent and empty besides the baby headed Death Eater lying at the door frame.
Alicia nodded to Harry.
"Empty." she whispered and glanced at Neville. "Let's be quick and quiet. They may have heard the commotion." Harry nodded and they crept out of the office. The black hallways now seemed to be completely deserted.