The Department of Mysteries

Arthur was able to mount his Thestral because it had one of its legs placed for him to step on it and place himself on its back. He lodged his knees behind the wing joints, which made him feel secure.

He then looked at the others. Mike mounted his already and Neville heaved himself over the back of another Thestral, attempting to swing one short leg over the creature's back.

Luna was already in place, sitting side saddle and adjusting her skirt as though this was an everyday occurrence for her. David, Chrys and Mary, though, stood motionless on the spot.

"What?" Arthur asked.

"How do we get on?" David asked. "We can't see them, remember?"

"Oh, it's easy." Luna said, sliding obligingly from her Thestral and marched over to them. "Come here…."

She pulled them over to the other Thestrals that stood and one by one, managed to help them onto the backs of their mounts. All of them looked very nervous as she helped them.

"You all ready?" Arthur asked and they all nodded.

"Okay, then…" He said, looking down at the back of his Thestral's glossy black head and swallowed. "Ministry of Magic, visitor's entrance, London."

For a moment, his Thestral didn't do anything until, with a sweeping movement that nearly unseated him, the wings on either side extended; the horse crouched slowly before rocketing upwards so fast and steeply that Arthur clenched his arms and legs tightly around the horse so that he didn't slide backwards over its bony rump.

He closed his eyes and pressed his face down into the horse's neck as they burst through the topmost branches of the trees and soared out into a blood red sunset.

Arthur never thought he'd move this fast: the Thestral streaked over the castle, its wide wings hardly beating; the cooling air slapped Arthur's face; eyes screwed up against the rushing wind, he looked behind him and saw his six fellows soaring along behind him, each bent as low as possible into the necks of their Thestrals to protect themselves from his slipstream.

They were over the Hogwarts grounds, they then passed Hogsmeade; Arthur could see various mountains and gullies below them.

As daylight faded away, Arthur saw small groups of lights as they passed over various villages, then a winding road on which a single car was making its way home through the hills….

"THIS IS INSANE!" He barely heard David yell from behind him, imagining what it must be like to speed along at this height on a creature that was invisible to him.

Twilight now fell: the sky turned into a light, dusky purple that was littered with tiny silver stars, and soon only the lights of Muggle towns gave them all any clue of how far from the ground they were, or even how fast they were travelling.

Arthur's arms were wrapped tightly around his horse's neck, willing it to go faster.

He didn't know how time passed since seeing Sirius lying on the floor in the Department of Mysteries. He didn't know how much longer Sirius could resist Voldemort. He just had to get there to make sure he didn't do as Voldemort ordered or die.

They kept on flying through the gathering darkness; Arthur's face now felt stiff and cold, his legs numb from gripping the Thestral's sides tightly, but he didn't dare to shift his position in case he'd slip and fall to his death. He also became deaf from the thundering rush of air in his ears, his mouth also dry and frozen from the cold night wind. He now lost all sense of how far they've come; his faith was entirely in the creature beneath him, still streaking purposefully through the night, barely flapping its wings as it sped onwards.

Suddenly, the Thestral's head pointed towards the ground and he slid forwards a few inches along its neck.

They were finally descending. He could've sworn he heard a shriek behind him, meaning the others were shocked by the change in direction, like him.

Now bright orange lights grew larger and rounder on all sides; they could see the tops of buildings, streams of headlights like luminous insect eyes, squares of pale yellow that were windows.

Then, quite suddenly, they hurtled towards the pavement; Arthur gripped the Thestral with every ounce of strength he had left and braced for a sudden impact, but the horse touched the dark ground as lightly as a shadow and Arthur finally slid from its back, looking around at the street where the overflowing skip still stood a short way from the vandalised telephone box, both drained of colour in the flat orange glare from the streetlights.

Mike and David landed a short way off and the former toppled immediately from his Thestral onto the pavement.

"I'm not doing that again." David said as he struggled to his feet. Mike strokedhis Thestral before he helped David around them since they're invisible to him.

Both Chrys and Mary touched down on either side of them: both sliding off their mounts more gracefully compared to David, though they had similar expressions of relief to be on firm ground; Neville jumped down, shaking; and Luna dismounted smoothly.

"Where do we go from here, then?" She asked Arthur in a politely interested voice; like this was all an interesting day trip.

"This way." He said, giving his Thestral a grateful pat, leading the way to the battered telephone box and opened the door. "Will you come on?" He urged impatiently to the others because they hesitated.

Mike went in instantly, then David and Mary marched in obediently while Chrys, Neville and Luna squashed themselves in after them; Arthur made one glance back at the Thestrals, who foraged for scraps of rotten food inside the skip, before forcing himself into the box after Luna.

"Whoever is nearest to the receiver, dial six two four four two!" He then said.

David did it, his arm being 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.

"Arthur Pendergast, David Merlon, Chrysanthemum Ranger, Mary Merlon, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Michael McGonagall… we're here to save someone unless your Ministry can do it first!" Arthur said.

"Thank you." The cool female voice said. "Visitors, please take the badges and attach them to the front of your robes."

Over half a dozen badges slid out of the metal chute where returned coins normally appeared. Chrys scooped them up and handed them mutely to Arthur over Mary's head; he glanced at the topmost one: Arthur Pendergast, Rescue Mission.

"Visitors to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wands for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium."

"ALRIGHT!" Arthur said loudly as his scar gave another throb. "Can we get a move on, please?"

The floor of the telephone box now shuddered and the pavement rose up past the glass windows; the Thestrals slid out of sight; blackness now closed over their heads and then with a dull grinding noise they all sank down into the depths of the Ministry of Magic.

A chink of soft light hit their feet and, widening, rose up to their bodies.

Arthur bent his knees and held his wand as ready as he could in the cramped conditions he was in, peering through the glass to see if anyone was waiting for them in the Atrium, yet it seemed completely empty.

The light was dimmer than it was during the day; there were no fires burning under the mantlepieces set into chimneys, the lift smoothly slid to a halt.

"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening." The woman's voice said.

The door of the telephone box opened up; Arthur 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.

"Let's go." Arthur said quietly and all seven of them sprinted off down towards the fountain, Arthur being in the lead. They then carried on towards the desk where the watchwizard who weighed Arthur's wand sat, which was now deserted.

The fact that a security person wasn't around wasn't a good sign and his feeling of foreboding grew as they walked through the golden gates to the lifts.

He pressed the nearest 'down' button and a lift clattered into sight immediately, the golden grilles sliding apart with a great echoing clanking and they all dashed inside it.

Arthur slammed the number nine button; the grilles closed with a bang and the lift descended, jangling and rattling.

With the lack of people and noises, it was clear how noisy these lifts are. Any security person could hear, yet when the lift halted, the cool female voice said "Department of Mysteries" and the grilles opened up.

Everyone stepped out into the corridor where nothing moved but the nearest torches, flickering in the rush of air from the lift.

Arthur turned towards the plain black door. After many months of dreaming it and seeing it once with his own eyes, he was here at last.

"Come on." He whispered, leading the way down the corridor. Luna was right behind him, gazing around with her mouth slightly open.

"Listen…" Arthur then said, stopping again within six feet of the door. "...we don't know what's on the other side of that door… so be careful and don't touch anything, got it?"

Everyone nodded and Arthur took a deep breath before he faced the door.

He walked up to it and it swung open, letting him and the others in over the threshold.

They now stood in a large, circular room. Everything was black including the floor and ceiling; identical, unmarked, handless black doors were set at intervals around the black walls, interspersed with branches of candles whose flames burned blue; their cool, shimmering light reflection in the shining marble floor, which made them feel like they were standing over dark water.

"Shut the door." Arthur muttered to whoever.

However, when Neville obeyed, he regretted giving the order.

Without the light from the torchlit corridor behind them, the place became so dark that for a moment, all they could see were the shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly reflections in the floor.

In the dream, Arthur walked across this room to the door that was immediately opposite and walked on.

Yet there were a dozen doors here. Just as he gazed at the doors opposite him, trying to decide which is the right one, there was a great rumbling and the candles all moved sideways, meaning the circular wall was rotating.

For a few seconds, the blue flames around them blurred, resembling neon lines as the wall sped around; then, just as suddenly as it started, the rumbling stopped and everything was stationary again.

"What the hell was all that about?" David asked in shock.

"It's like it was trying to stop us from knowing which door we came from." Mike said.

And he was right, because Arthur couldn't identify which was the exit door since all of them looked exactly the same.

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

"It doesn't matter right now." Arthur said, blinking to get rid of the blue lines from his vision, clutching his wand tightly. "We only need to get out once we've found Sirius -"

"But don't go calling out for him." Chrys said urgently.

"I know that, I'm not dumb," Arthur snapped back.

"Well, which door do we go through?" Mike asked.

"We'll just have to try a few doors until we go the right way." Arthur replied.

He then marched straight to the door that faced him, the others following close behind him, pressed his left hand against the cool, shining surface, raised his wand ready and pushed the door open, swinging open easily.

After the darkness of the first room, the laps that hung low on golden chains from the ceiling gave the impression that this long rectangular room was much brighter than it was, though there were no glass balls like in the dream.

The place was empty except for a few desks and, in the very middle of the room, a large glass tank of a deep green liquid big enough for all of them to swim in; there were a number of pearly white objects drifting around lazily in it.

"What are those things?" David whispered.

"I have no idea." Arthur said.

"They're definitely not fish." Mary said.

"Aquavirius Maggots!" Luna said excitedly. "Dad said the Ministry were breeding -"

"No." Chrys said, sounding disgusted and horrified. "They're brains."

"Brains?"

Arthur moved up to the tank and he could see there would be no mistaking them at close quarters. Glimmering eerily, they drifted in and out of sight in the depths of the green liquid, looking like slimy cauliflowers.

"Let's get out of here, this isn't the right room." Arthur said.

"There's doors here." David pointed around the walls, making Arthur worried since this place seemed to be much bigger than expected.

"Let's just go back to the circular room and try another door." He said.

They all hurried back into the dark circular room, the ghostly shapes of the brains now swimming before Arthur's eyes instead of the blue candle flames.

"Hold on!" Chrys said sharply as Luna made to close the door of the brain room behind them. "Flagrate!"

She drew with her wand in midair, a fiery 'X' appearing on the door.

No sooner had the door clicked shut that the rumbling was heard and the wall revolved very fast, now with a great red gold blur among the faint blue and, when all became still, the fiery cross still burned, showing the door that they tried already.

"Good idea." Arthur said. "Come on."

He strode directly to the door facing him and pushed it open, his wand raised and the others at his heels.

This room was much larger than the previous, dimly lit and rectangular, and in the centre of it was sunken, which formed a stone pit twenty feet deep.

They all stood on the topmost tier of what looked like stone benches that ran all around the room and descended in steep steps like an amphitheatre, or the courtroom where Arthu was tried by the Wizengamot.

But instead of a chained chair, there was a raised stone dias in the centre of the pit, on which was a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked and crumbling that Arthur was shocked that it was still standing. Unsupported by any surrounding wall, the archway had a tattered black curtain or veil hanging from it, which, despite the stillness of the cold air, was fluttering very slightly like it had just been touched.

"Hello?" Arthur called out, jumping down onto the bench below. There wasn't any answer, but the veil just continued to flutter and sway.

"Careful!" Mike whispered.

Arthur scrambled down the benches one by one until he reached the bottom of the pit. His footsteps echoed loudly as he slowly walked to the dias.

The pointed archway looked much taller from where he now stood compared to when he looked down on it from above.

The veil still swayed gently, like someone had passed through it.

He stayed his ground as there was something about the archway that made him on edge. It was like someone stood right behind the veil on the other side of the archway. Yet he knew that there was no one there.

"Arthur, we need to go." Chrys said from halfway up the stone steps, sounding scared, even more so than the brain room.

Arthur then heard faint whispering and murmuring from the other side of the veil. It unnerved him so much that he walked back, wanting to distance himself from it.

"I'm hearing voices!" He told the others loudly, his words echoing around the stone benches.

"What are you talking about, I'm not hearing anything." Chrys said, moving over to him.

"They're coming from the veil." Arthur pointed at the archway like it was some kind of freak.

"There's nothing." David said, appearing around the side of the archway.

"Can no one else hear the voices?" Arthur asked.

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

"It's just an archway, we have to leave this room now!" Chrys said, getting angry.

It seemed that Luna, as well as Mike, Neville and Mary were staring at the archway, transfixed.

Chrys took hold of Mary's arm and David grabbed Neville's while Arthur grabbed Mike's, all marching them firmly back to the lowest stone bench and clambered up to the door.

"What the hell was up with that archway?" David asked as they got back to the dark circular room.

"I have no idea, but it seems to be dangerous." Chrys said as she inscribed a fiery cross on the door.

Once more, the wall spun until it became still again. Arthur approached another door at random and pushed, only for it to not move.

"What's wrong?" Mike asked.

"This door's locked." Arthur said, throwing his weight at it, but it still wouldn't budge.

"Then this must be it." David said, helping Arthur out.

"Get out of the way!" Chrys said sharply. She pointed her wand where the lock would be on an ordinary door and said "Alohomora!"

Nothing happened.

"Sirius' knife!" Arthur said.

He pulled it out and slid it into the crack between the door and the wall. Everyone watched eagerly as he ran it from top to bottom, withdrew it and flung his shoulder at the door.

Yet it remained firmly shut. And Arthur was shocked when he looked down at his knife to see that the blade was melted.

"Yeah, we're leaving that room." Chrys said decisively as Arthur placed the now useless handle of Sirius' knife in his pocket.

"You know what could be in there?" Luna asked eagerly as the wall spun again.

The wall came to a halt again and Arthur pushed the next door open.

"This is it!"

He knew immediately by the beautiful, dancing, diamond shaped sparkling light. As his eyes were getting accustomed to the glare, he saw various clocks gleaming from every surface, large and small, grandfather and carriage, hanging in spaces between bookcases or standing on desks ranging the length of the room, so that a busy and relentless ticking filled the room like thousands of marching footsteps from miniscule soldiers. The source of the dancing, diamond bright light was a towering crystal bell jar that stood at the far end of the room.

"Come on!"

Arthur's heart was pounding now that he was on the right track; he led the way down the narrow space between the lines of desks, heading, just like in the dream, for the source of the light, the crystal bell jar, which was tall as him, stood on a desk and seemed to be full of a billowing, glittering wind.

At the very heart of the bell jar, drifting along in the current was a tiny, jewel bright egg. As it rose in the jar, it cracked open and a hummingbird emerged from it, carried to the very top of the jar, but then it fell on the draught and its feathers were bedraggled and dap, then by the time it was borne back to the bottom of the jar, it was enclosed once more in its egg.

Arthur suspected that this room dealt with the subject of time, but he couldn't focus on that right now and went to the door behind the jar.

"Here we go." Arthur said, his heart pumping so hard and fast. "Just through here."

He glanced back at everyone and saw that they had their wands out and looked serious yet anxious.

He then pushed the door open.

And there they were, they found the place: high as a church and full of nothing but towering shelves covered in small, dusty glass orbs.

They all glimmered dully in the light from more candle brackets that were set at intervals along the shelves. And just like the ones in the circular room the flames were burning blue, yet the room was very cold.

Arthur moved forward and peered down one of the shadowy aisles between two rows of shelves. He wasn't able to hear or see anything at all.

"You said it was at row Ninety Seven?" Chrys whispered.

"Yeah." Arthur breathed, looking up at the end of the closest row, seeing that beneath the branch of blue glowing candles protruding from it was the glimmering figure of Fifty Three.

"We need to go right." Mike whispered, squinting at the next row. "This one's Fifty Four.

"Keep your wands ready." Arthur said softly.

They all crept forward, glancing all around them as they went down the long alleys of shelves, the further ends of which were in near darkness.

Tiny, yellowing labels were stuck beneath each of the glass orbs on the shelves. Some had a weird, liquid glow, others were as dull and dark within as blown light bulbs.

They now passed row Eighty Four… Eighty Five… Arthur listened hard for the slightest sound of movement.

"Ninety Seven!" Chrys whispered.

They all grouped around the end of the row, gazing down the alley beside it and there was no one there.

"He was right down at the end." Arthur said, his move now dry. He led them all between the towering rows of glass balls, some glowing softly as they passed….

When they reached where Sirius was in the dream, Arthur saw that he wasn't there.

His heart sank. He truly was lured here by Voldemort with a fake vision. It was all for nothing. His bottom lip was now trembling and his hand holding his wand shook.

"Arthur….?" Mike said, sounding concerned.

"He lured me here. That bastard lured me here!" Arthur hissed in fury.

"Arthur?" David said.

"What?" He spat.

"You need to look at this." David said.

Arthur walked up to where he was, seeing that David was staring at one of the dusty glass spheres on the shelf.

"What is it?" Arthur asked.

"This has your name on it."

Arthur frowned in shock as he craned his neck to look at the small glowing glass sphere that David was pointing at, which looked very dusty, like it hadn't been touched for many years. He then read the yellowish label that was affixed to the shelf right beneath it.

In spidery writing, there was a date written some sixteen years ago, and below that:

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

Dark Lord

and (?) Arthur Pendergast

Arthur looked at the initials and realised that the second set were Dumbledore's and based on the first and third letters on the first set, they must be Trelawney's.

He then remembered that prediction that she made in third year about Wormtail and how he'd help Voldemort come back to power. Arthur realised that this must've been another prediction she made, or a prophecy.

This must be what Voldemort is after.

"Arthur… I don't think you should touch it." Chrys said when he outstretched his hand.

"This is what Voldemort's after, I'd much rather have it be destroyed than have it wait here for Voldemort to come get it." Arthur retorted.

This silenced everyone as he reached out and closed his fingers around the dusty ball.

He expected something to happen, yet nothing did. If anything, it felt like it laid out in the sun for hours, as though the glow of light from within warmed it up.

Arthur lifted it from the shelf and stared at it.

Nothing happened at all as the others all moved in to take a look at it as Arthur brushed the dust off.

But then, from right behind them, a drawling voice spoke.

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

The Battle of the Department of Mysteries is about to begin.