Security at the Ministry should have been better; in no future Sapphire had shown him was there any kind of resistance from the Ministry, at least at first. A few cloaks and a decent story shouldn't have gotten them past the first gate, much less into the inner sanctum.
The Ministry was at war; it should have been protected better than Gringotts. Instead getting in was just as easy as Harry had foreseen.
Getting out was an entirely different matter. He'd seen that as well. The Ministry's greatest defense was probably the fact that it was a maze of departments and finding any one place wasn't easy. In two futures Harry had seen, they'd gotten lost.
They'd had to capture a Ministry employee and have Sirius use Veritaserum to find out where Steven was in the first future. They already knew where to go in the second future, but finding it wasn't easy.
Now they all knew exactly where to go, as well as what to expect when they got there.
Harry tried to imagine what it must have been like for Hermione and Steven, going through future after future all year to keep everyone safe. Only someone as obsessive as Hermione or as Loyal as Steven would even try it, especially as there was no guarantee that the futures they saw would be the one that actually occurred.
Still, he had to respect Sapphire's power. They'd gained valuable information from the Ministry employee without ever having to do anything to him. It was worlds away from anything he'd ever learned in Divination class.
They were in the lift which rattled and shook. Harry's stomach clenched as the doors finally opened.
In contrast to the times he'd been here before, when the halls had been filled with Wizarding humanity, now everything was quiet and still. The only sound was the crackle of nearby torches and the sounds of rustling robes from his companions.
No one had bothered to put on the masks yet, only the hoods. There was no one around to see them and Wizards didn't use security cameras.
Harry led the way; behind him all four gems, Sirius, Hermione and Dumbledore fanned out. They moved with the assurance of people who knew exactly where they were going.
They moved into a circular room of polished black stone. The moment the last of them entered and closed the door behind them, the room began to spin. It was designed to be confusing, and was part of the reason they'd gotten lost in two of the futures.
There were no problems now, though. They knew exactly which door to enter, and also which doors to return through.
They avoided the room with the floating brains. Harry slipped into another room, followed by Dumbledore. He moved straight to the one prophecy that only he could access and he smashed it on the floor.
Dumbledore did something with his wand to ensure that the prophecy could not be reconstructed. He'd already played the prophecy for Harry in a previous future, and there was no reason to go through it again.
The fact that Voldemort wanted to know what the prophecy said was more than enough reason to deny it to him. Even better, it would infuriate him. Part of the reason they were here was to force him to reveal the prophecy.
The other reason they were here was to kill Steven.
Everyone slipped on their masks. It might not be enough to fool anyone, especially once the gems started using their weapons, but they had to at least have plausible deniability.
They returned to the circular room, moving through another door. This led to a long hallway. Harry grimaced as he realized where they had to pass through.
The Veil whispered as it always did, calling seductively. Harry's lips tightened as he pushed forward as quickly as he could. The memory of what had happened...of what might happen to Sirius in one possible future still haunted him.
The Veil couldn't just lead to Steven's world; the voices were proof of that. It had to lead to multiple places, some of which were terrible and inhuman. Crossing that barrier had taken every bit of Steven's power, and Harry couldn't imagine what it would do to a human being.
He'd asked Steven once what he'd seen as he'd passed through the Veil. Steven had paled and become suddenly quiet. He admitted that he tried not to think of the things he'd seen, but they sometimes gave him nightmares.
They pushed through the room holding the Veil and found themselves moving through a different hallway at the end of which was a doorway which was warded against every form of magic known to Wizardkind. Dumbledore himself couldn't get through that door, although he probably simply would have gone through the surrounding walls.
Against Pearl's spear and Amethyst's whip it hadn't held up well at all. Harry suspected Muggle explosives would have worked just as well.
This time it was Peridot who stepped forward, her makeshift blaster pointed at the door. There was a high pitched whine and a moment later there was no door.
They all moved quickly; the guards would have heard the explosion. There hadn't been anything they could do to muffle the door; the wards on it prevented silencing charms from penetrating, and muffliato, which Sirius had taught them created a buzzing noise which would have alerted the aurors anyway.
Knowing how the enemy was likely to react made it easy.
Harry closed his eyes tightly as Dumbledore lifted his wand. Even through his eyelids the light that flashed seemed blinding, leaving spots. To the aurors inside it had to feel like looking into the sun.
Casting two quick stunners, Harry saw that the others were already done with their opponents. The Ministry hadn't assigned their best and brightest to guard duty, but they'd still assigned ten men to guard one small boy. It was a sign of the fear they had of nonhumans, and of Steven in particular.
They hadn't broken his wand yet. It was supposed to happen in the morning, an example of how the Ministry was going to treat other non-humans.
Harry grabbed Steven's wand from the table where it was being kept even as Amethyst flicked her whip at the heavy, metal door. They'd learned from experience that none of the guards had a key. The aurors had been specially chosen from those who had not had contact with him in the past and who had no current family members at Hogwarts.
It wasn't just Steven's physical strength the Ministry feared. It was his popularity. He was universally popular with the aurors who had been assigned to him when he'd first arrived in this universe through the Veil. He was seen by the families of many as having saved their children from either a Troll or a basilisk.
According to the Ministry official they'd interrogated in a future that now would no longer happen, the Ministry was paranoid about Aurors turning on them in Steven's favor, and so they'd taken every precaution they could.
It seemed ironic to Harry that some of Voldemort's servants were treated as being less dangerous than one half-human child.
Amethyst called out a warning, and then flicked her energy whip. The door exploded inward.
Steven was inside, waiting for them. He'd already freed himself from the wall; apparently his bubble or maybe his shield was strong enough to slice through metal chains heavy enough to hold a giant.
He still looked a little pale. Despite Wizard healing methods, he probably still had some pain from the wound in his side.
Harry wondered if he could heal himself. Probably not; it would have been one of the first things he would have tried.
"Hey," Steven said.
He didn't seem surprised to see robed figures standing over him; most likely he'd recognized Amethyst's voice.
Sirius pointed his wand and a moment later the shackles fell away from Steven.
Harry tensed and turned. He'd been through this scenario in three possible futures, and he knew what was coming next.
The wall of the cell exploded; Voldemort's followers had been waiting for them to come for Steven.
It was a confined space, which meant it was harder to dodge spells and easier to be caught in the backlash of a spell cast at the person nearby. It should have been an easy slaughter for Voldemort's crew, shooting fish in a barrel.
Instead, Peridot threw a round metallic object into the middle of Voldemort's group, who suddenly realized that they were in a space that was almost as confined as Harry's group was.
The sudden explosion changed the course of the battle.
Harry lashed out at Bellatrix with a cutting spell; she'd killed Sirius in at least three futures and he wasn't going to let it happen again.
She'd been one of the few death eaters quick enough to shield herself from the explosion, and she managed to shield herself from Harry's spell as well. Sirius lashed out at her as well.
Barty Crouch junior licked his lips and sent an Avada Kadavra hissing toward Hermione, but Steven was there, and his shield deflected the spell upward.
Dumbledore and Voldemort were already trading spells. A jet of fire from Voldemort's wand was splashing off Dumbledore's shield, but the reflected heat was making Harry's face burn, even through the mask. The stonework on the floor between them was bubbling and hissing. Harry knew they had to get out of the enclosed space or they would soon all be in danger.
The one place he didn't want to go was back to the room with the Veil, but they didn't have much choice. He heard a rumbling sound, and a piece of stone from the ceiling almost hit him.
Amethyst and Pearl were moving forward suddenly. He knew them by their heights more than anything, as well as the way they moved.
Peridot was firing her rifle ruthlessly into any Death Eater who showed signs of reviving.
The heat from the fire was growing worse, and it was now that Sapphire floated forward. She gestured, and a thick coating of ice suddenly covered the floor and walls of the Death Eater side of the room. The remaining Death Eaters were suddenly slipping and falling, and where the ice impacted the molten rock, there was a sudden hissing sound.
The room was suddenly filled with thick, cloying steam, obscuring everyone's vision.
"Let's move," Harry shouted.
A moment later, they were retreating back into the guardroom even as Voldemort was transfiguring a bridge over the molten stone in the center of the room.
Voldemort pushed forward, as did Bellatrix and Barty Crouch Junior. Two other Death Eaters had managed to remain standing despite the grenade, which had rendered fifteen of the lesser Death Eaters unconscious or worse.
These were the fastest and most deadly of Voldemort's followers, and despite Pearl and Amethyst's power, they managed to survive.
Harry stepped backward, an uneasy feeling as they entered the chill of the chamber holding the Veil. This was the place where Sirius had died time after time. From the pale expression on his face he knew it as well from his own glimpses into the future.
They spread out as they entered the chamber.
Harry grimaced as he heard the footsteps coming from behind them. The Ministry Aurors were coming, and they weren't likely to take sides. They'd start attacking everyone, which was just the distraction Voldemort's people needed.
"Steven!" he heard Hermione say. She threw his wand, which went flying through the air.
He plucked it out of the air even as Pearl hurled her spear, not at Voldemort or any of his people, but at the archway above them. With a groan, the archway collapsed, dropping tons of stone on Voldemort and his most powerful followers.
"Expecto Patronus!" Steven shouted.
Light flared in the room, and a moment later Lion was there. He bowed, and the gems dove for his mane, disappearing inside, followed by Steven. Steven kept only his face sticking out in a way that was creepy and disturbing to Harry.
That left Harry, Hermione, Sirius and Dumbledore to crowd onto Lion's back. It was crowded, and Lion struggled to stand with all of them.
Harry could see the pile of rubble moving. Voldemort had been fast enough to shield at least himself from the falling rubble, and he was still coming.
The sounds of footsteps racing from the other direction told him that the Ministry was coming as well. Anti-apparation wards were presumably up; Sirius had told him once that it was standard procedure for the Ministry when dealing with Wizards.
Lion finally stood. He roared, and a gateway appeared before them. Anti-apparation wards apparently didn't affect him any more than they affected house elves.
A moment before the Aurors entered the room they were gone.