DISCLAIMER: I OWN NEITHER HARRY POTTER NOR FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST!
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Harry got on the back of a Thestral as did Ed, Al, Winry, Neville, and Luna. The only ones who hadn't were Ron, Hermione, and Ginny and were all standing motionless on the spot, openmouthed and staring.
"Aren't you going to get on one or not?" Ed asked.
"We would if we could see the things," Ron replied.
"I'll help you," Luna offered, sliding obligingly from her Thestral and marching over to Ron, 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 commented faintly, moving his free hand gingerly up and down his horse's neck. "Mad…if I could just see it -"
"You had better hope it stays invisible, Ron," Al interrupted.
"Al is right," Harry agreed. "All ready, then?"
Harry looked down at the back of his Thestral's glossy black head and swallowed.
"Ministry of Magic, visitors' entrance, London, then," Harry told the Thestral. "Er…if you know…where to go…"
Ed snickered. Just then the Thestrals took off. Ed had to grab hold onto the Thestral in order not to slide off. He closed his eyes and put his face down into the horse's silky mane as they burst through the topmost branches of the trees and soared out into a blood-red sunset. They moved really fast. A few moments later, they were over the Hogwarts grounds, they had passed Hogsmeade. The mountains and gullies could be seen below them all. In the falling darkness small collections of lights could be seen 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 shouted.
"No shit!" Ed agreed.
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 fast they were traveling. After a few minutes, Ed's stomach gave a jolt. The Thestral's head was suddenly pointing toward the ground and he had actually slid forward a few inches along its neck. Soon, bright orange lights were growing larger and rounder on all sides. They could see the tops of building, streams of headlights like luminous insect eyes, squares of pale yellow that were windows. Quite suddenly, it seemed, they were hurtling toward the pavement. The Thestrals landed soft as shadows. Ed slid from the back, looking around at the street where the overflowing dumpster still stood a short way from the vandalized telephone box, both drained of color in the flat orange glare of the streetlights.
Everyone else landed and looked around. Ed looked at Harry.
"Where now?" Ed asked.
"The phone box," Harry answered, motioning toward the telephone box. "Come on."
He pat his Thestral gratefully and went over to the telephone box and got into the telephone box.
"You've got to be kidding," Ron commented as Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna got into the box. "We'll never fit all the way in there with Ed, Al, and Winry."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Winry asked, her hands on her hips.
"I think he means by the size of your breasts, Winry," Luna spoke up. "That's probably why Hermione and Ginny are so jealous of you, because you're the prettiest girl in the school and that you have the most handsome boy in the school. I'm not jealous though. I don't really go for blond boys."
Winry blinked.
"Er…thanks, Luna," Winry said.
"You're welcome," Luna chimed.
"All right, all right," Ed said. "Let's all cram into the torture box."
He pushed Ron, Al, and Winry into the box and squeezed in himself.
"Whoever's nearest the receiver, dial six two four four two!" Harry instructed.
Winry did as told and then a cool female voice sounded inside the box.
"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," the voice welcomed. "Please state your name and business."
"Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric, Winry Rockbell, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley," Ed stated quickly, "Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood. We're on a mission to save someone's ass."
"Thank you," the voice replied. "Visitors, please take the badges and attach them to the front of your robes."
Ed got the nine tokens from the slot and passed them around. Ed looked at the front of his badge.
EDWARD ELRIC
RESCUE MISSION
"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," the voice continued.
"Fantastic," Ed remarked. "Just move!"
The floor of the telephone box shuddered and the pavement rose up past the glass windows of the telephone box. Blackness closed over their heads, and with a dull grinding noise they sank down into the depths of the Ministry of Magic. As they descended, a chink of soft golden light hit their feet and, widening, rose up their bodies.
"Are you really jealous of me, Hermione, Ginny?" Winry asked.
"I don't think this is the best time to talk about it," Harry ground out through clenched teeth.
"Oh, hold on to your wand," Winry snapped. "I wasn't even talking to you!"
"How can we not be jealous, Winry?" Ginny asked. "All of the boys look at you even though you have Ed."
"I can't help that, Ginny," Winry reasoned. "Don't you have that Michael Corner guy?"
"I dumped him," Ginny revealed. "He was upset that Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup."
"That's ridiculous," Winry scowled. "You can't help it that you're a good Quidditch player. And Hermione, you shouldn't be jealous of me either."
"Hmph," Hermione huffed. "I'm not."
"Don't lie, Hermione," Ginny snapped. "You're a horrible liar. Just the other day, you were telling me that you wished you could beat Winry at the O.W.L. exams."
Hermione turned red in embarrassment. Then to Harry's relief, the lift slid smoothly to a halt in the completely empty Atrium. There were no fires burning under the mantle pieces set into the walls, but the golden symbols continued to twist sinuously in the dark blue ceiling.
"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening," the cool voice bade.
The door of the telephone box burst open; everyone nearly fell out of it. 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 the wizard, the point of the centaur's arrow, the tip of the goblin's hat, and house-elf's ears continued to gush into the surrounding pool.
"Come on," Harry urged quietly and the nine of them sprinted off down the hall, Harry in the lead, past the fountain, toward the deserted security desk.
"There should be a guard there," Al commented. "They always have a guard patrolling the Amestrian Military bases."
"We aren't Amestris anymore, little brother," Ed commented.
They rushed towards the nearest lift. A few moments later, they were all in the lift going downwards to the ninth floor.
"These lifts are noisier than the ones in Amestris," Winry commented.
"You have lifts back in Amestris?" Hermione asked.
"Of course we do," Winry answered. "We're not uncivilized, you know."
"I didn't say you were, Winry," Hermione snapped.
"Can you two give it a rest?!" Harry snapped. "We're here to save Sirius, not to argue of who's cuter or smarter or who's more civilized!"
Ed pulled Winry close to him and rubbed her head. Winry smiled at Ed.
"Are you sure you're all right, Edward?" Winry asked.
"I'm fine," Ed reassured.
"I can Apparate you to Hogsmeade if you like and take -" Winry started.
"I said I'm fine, Winry," Ed urged. "My heart is stronger than you give it credit for. Besides, I do not want my promise to be broken again."
"What promise is that?" Ron asked.
"None of your business!" Ed snapped at Ron.
Harry rolled his eyes. How he wished that Ed, Al, and Winry had not come along. Don't get him wrong; he liked the trio, but he just didn't want any arguments on the way to saving Sirius. Just then, the cool voice announced that they had gotten to the Department of Mysteries. The grilles slid open, and they all stepped out into the corridor where nothing was moving but the nearest torches, flickering in the rush of air from the lift.
Harry turned toward the plain black door. After months and months of dreaming about it, he was here at last…
"Let's go," Harry whispered.
He led the way down the corridor.
"Okay, listen," Harry proposed, stopping again within six feet of the door. "Maybe… maybe a couple of people should stay here as a - as a lookout, and -"
"Brilliant plan," Ed remarked, clapping slowly as if he was congratulating the world's biggest idiot. "There's just one problem, genius."
"Yeah, and what's that?" Harry asked.
"How do you propose we get in contact with you if something is coming, O Genius One?" Ed asked, sarcastically.
"Ed has a point," Al inputted. "You could be miles away. We're coming with you."
Harry scowled and turned to face the door and walked forward. Just as it had in his dream, it swung open and he marched over the threshold, the others at his heels.
"Nice place," Ed muttered.
They were standing in a large, circular room. Everything was black including the ceiling and floor. 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 shut the door. The place 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 below.
"Nice call," Ed remarked.
"Shut up!" Hermione snapped.
Ed flipped her the bird. Al rolled his eyes as he could see what Ed had done.
"You vulgar prat!" Hermione snapped.
"Get over it," Ed replied.
Harry looked around, ignoring the bickering, and saw that there were around a dozen doors here. Just as he was gazing ahead at the doors opposite him, trying to decide which was the right one, there was a great rumbling noise and the candles began to move sideways. The circular wall was rotating. Hermione grabbed Harry's arm as though frightened the floor might move too, but it did not. Winry scowled and rolled her eyes.
'Baby,' Winry thought.
For a few seconds the blue flames around them were blurred to resemble neon lines as the wall sped around and then, quite as suddenly as it had started, the rumbling stopped and everything became stationary once again.
"What was that about?" Ron whispered fearfully.
"I think it was to stop us knowing which door we came in from," Ginny whispered back.
"How are we going to get back out?" Neville asked uncomfortably.
"That doesn't matter now," Harry answered. "We won't need to get out till we've found Sirius -"
"Don't go calling out for him, though!" Hermione needlessly pointed out.
"He's not an idiot," Ed hissed.
"Where do we go, then, Harry?" Ron asked.
"I don't -" Harry began, swallowing. "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. I'll know the right way when I see it. C'mon."
He marched straight at the door now facing him, the others following close behind him, set his left hand against its cool, shining surface, raised his wand, ready to strike the moment it opened, and pushed. It swung open easily. 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 had seen in his dreams. The place was quite empty except for a few desks and, in the very middle of the room, and 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 are those things?" Ron whispered.
"Hell if I know," Ed answered.
"Are they fish?" breathed Ginny.
"Aquavirius maggots!" Luna exclaimed. "Dad said the Ministry were breeding -"
"They're brains," Al interrupted.
"Brains?" Ed asked. "Yech!"
"I wonder what they're doing with them?" Hermione asked.
"Let's get out of here," Harry said. "This isn't right, we need to try another door."
"There are doors here too," Ron pointed out.
"In my dream I went through that dark room into the second one," Harry reminded. "I think we should go back and try from there."
They hurried back into the dark, circular room; the ghostly shapes of the brains were now swim mining before Harry's eyes instead of the blue candle flames.
Winry drew a large fiery X in midair with her wand on the door as Luna closed it. 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," Harry complimented. "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 center 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 amphitheatre, 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 center of the lowered floor, and upon this dais stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked, and crumbling that Harry was amazed 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?" Harry asked, jumping down onto the bench below.
"Careful!" Hermione cautioned.
Harry scrambled down the benches one by one until he reached the stone bottom of the sunken pit. His footsteps echoed loudly as he walked slowly toward the dais. The pointed archway looked much taller from where he stood now than when he had been looking down on it from above. Still the veil swayed gently, as though somebody had just passed through it. Ed and Winry were about to follow the others, but Al pulled them back.
"What is it, Al?" Ed asked.
"Don't go down there," Al whispered.
"Why not?" Winry asked.
"It's not safe," Al answered. "There's something wrong about it."
"Like what?" Ed asked. "You afraid it'll fall -"
"No," Al interrupted. "Something else…something more dangerous….something that the Ministry is too…"
"Too what?" Winry urged.
Al shook his head. Then Ed cupped his hands around his mouth.
"Get your asses over here!" Ed called. "We've got ourselves a dog to save!"
Harry blinked and looked up at Ed, Al, and Winry who were all standing by the door.
"Let's go," Harry said.
"That's what I've been trying to - well, come on, then!" Hermione said, flustered.
She led Harry, Ron, herself, Ginny, Luna, and Neville up to where Ed, Al, and Winry were. They all left the room and Winry marked the door before the circular room moved again.
"What d'you reckon that arch was?" Harry asked Hermione.
"It was something dangerous," Al answered for Hermione.
"You didn't even get near it!" Ginny pointed out.
"I didn't have to," Al retorted.
The room spun and became still. Harry approached a door at random and pushed. It did not move.
"What's wrong?" Hermione asked.
"I may be mistaken, but it looks like it's not opening," Ed remarked as Harry threw his weight at the door.
Hermione glared at Ed. Ed grinned and shrugged. Hermione blushed. Then she made Harry move so she could try unlocking it. It didn't work. Harry pulled out the knife Sirius had given to him for Christmas and slid it into the crack between the door and the wall. After Harry withdrew it, he tried opening the door again without any success. He looked at the knife and saw that the blade had melted.
"Well, we know that it isn't that room," Ed remarked, as Winry marked that door.
"What if it's the room?" Ron asked.
"If it was, then we would have been able to get into it," Winry pointed out.
"Oh," Ron said.
"Let me see your knife," Al said, holding his hand out.
"Why?" Harry asked, beginning to pocket it. "It's useless now."
"I can fix it," Al answered.
"There is no way to fix a -" Hermione started.
"Shut up, Hermione," Ginny snapped. "Just let Al try, Harry."
"Okay, but hurry," Harry relented, giving Al the knife. "We need to save Sirius."
Al took the knife and touched the place where the blade had melted off. There was a light blue flash and the blade reappeared. Al gave the knife back to Harry. Harry looked at it in shock.
"Thanks, Al," Harry said. "How did you do it?"
Al shrugged.
"Let's choose another door," Hermione sniffed.
Harry nodded, pocketing his knife. The room slid to a halt from moving, and Harry pushed the next door open.
"This is it!" Harry cried.