The Hall of Prophecies was an enormous room, filled with shelves from the floor to the high ceiling. These shelves held hundreds if not thousands of glass orbs—each about the size of an apple and with a cloudy swirl of information within them. They were prophecies, and this room held centuries and centuries worth of them.
Albus saw Harry's eyes flick over them, curious.
"This is what we're here for," Cornelius said briskly, and stepped properly into the room.
"Prophecies?" Harry asked, sounding plausibly confused. "Do you mean— aren't prophecies a Divination thing? Predictions, or something?"
"Quite right," Cornelius said.
"Each of those orbs contains a prophecy," Albus said to Harry, as they followed after the Minister. "It's a recording of sorts… like a pensieve memory, or a muggle cassette." Harry nodded and reached out as if to touch one nearby, but Albus caught his arm.
Harry froze.
"It is madness to touch a prophecy that is not yours," he murmured, releasing Harry's arm. Harry looked at him with wide eyes.
"Not yours…" Harry said, more loudly than Albus thought he might have normally. "Is that what I'm here for then, Minister? A prophecy that's mine?"
Cornelius gave Albus a chagrined look, but his expression had smoothed out by the time he turned to face Harry.
"Right again," Cornelius said, and then reached out to wrap an arm around Harry's shoulders… or rather, reached up; Harry was several inches taller than the Minister. Cornelius steered Harry down an aisle. "There's no easy way to tell you this, Harry, but there was a prophecy made about you and… You Know Who."
"Voldemort?" Harry asked, and used Cornelius' twitch to twist out of the hold. "What does it say?"
"I don't know." At this, Cornelius shot Albus a nasty look. "That's why we're here. You'll be able to remove the prophecy and play it for us."
"What if it's bad?" Harry asked. "My Divination professor usually predicts my death, and she's usually wrong—" Albus smiled a little to himself, then realised Harry likely wasn't making a joke at Sybill's expense; Albus wasn't sure Harry knew who'd made his prophecy. "—but these must be more reliable, right?"
"They're made by true seers," Cornelius agreed. "So they're accurate, yes—"
"So what if it's bad?" Harry asked again. "Wouldn't we be better off not knowing?"
Serious as the subject matter was and though it wasn't particularly funny, Albus had to turn away for a moment to hide his amusement; bad or not, he'd never known Harry not to want to know something. When he turned back, Harry's eyes were on him and Albus had the feeling Harry knew exactly what he'd been thinking.
"No," Cornelius said, after a pause. "If you don't want to listen to it after you've retrieved it, that would be all right, but I must. You Know Who… he's a very real danger, Harry, and as the Minister, it's my job to do what I can to ensure we're protected from him. If you're going to be able to help with that, then I need to know so that we can help prepare and support you. And if that's not going to involve you—if, as you say, the prophecy predicts something… bad—then I need to know that too, so that I can take any steps I need to to make sure we're ready for that, and not compromised as a result." Albus' amusement vanished entirely. "You can understand that, surely?"
Harry's expression was very difficult to read, but Albus thought—or hoped—he was angry.
He ought to be.
"I think so—you want to hear the prophecy regardless of whether or not I want to, so that you can decide if I'm worth helping or if you're better doing your own thing and leaving me to die," Harry said, in a frighteningly level voice. "Have I got that right?"
"That's— an awfully dramatic way to put it," Cornelius mumbled, flipping his bowler in an uncomfortable way. "Not how I'd have said it at all. But we do need to know what it says—for better or for worse—so we can plan accordingly." Cornelius cleared his throat and drew himself up, tone cajoling: "You want us to succeed in this fight against He Who Must Not Be Named, don't you, Harry?"
Harry's jaw set and the Minister began to shrink under his stare.
Was this the plan, Albus wondered; trick the Minister into saying something as callous as he just had and then Harry refuse to collect the prophecy on the grounds of being upset or offended? It wouldn't be a permanent solution, but it would buy them time to come up with something else, perhaps. Or had Harry and Sirius come up with something else already? Albus did not believe—and he hoped he was right—that Harry intended to hand the prophecy over to the Ministry.
"How does this work?" Harry asked, turning to Albus, though his expression hadn't softened any. "I remove my prophecy, and then what? Will it play automatically?"
"Not until you tap it with your wand," Albus told him. Harry gave a short nod, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, whether Albus had given him the information he wanted or needed.
"And we won't do that here," Cornelius said, cheerful again now that it seemed Harry was on board. "We'll take it to one of the offices where we can have some privacy and then you can decide whether or not you want to stay to hear it."
With that, Cornelius surged forward again, leading the way through the shelves until they reached row ninety-seven:
"Here we are," he said. "It'll be somewhere along—"
Harry strode past him with strange confidence and stopped, gazing at an orb and its tag.
"It's here," Harry said.
"Excellent," Cornelius said. "Now, if you take it down, carefully—"
"Wouldn't want to break it," Harry said, with an inflection in his voice that reminded Albus of James; it was serious, but promised mischief all the same.
"No," Cornelius agreed. "We'd have no choice but to listen to it here and it might be overheard, and I also expect the Unspeakables would be very upset indeed—"
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, stopping with his hand just above the orb.
"Well, prophecies can't be replaced—"
"No, about listening to it here," Harry said.
"Ah," Fudge said. "A prophecy plays when it's broken."
Something like dismay flitted over Harry's face but was gone again almost immediately; he turned to Albus, as if wanting confirmation.
"It's a failsafe," Albus said, wondering if Harry had intended to break it. "The prophecy will play only once, but the idea is that that might be enough to preserve the knowledge that would otherwise be lost, if the orb was damaged accidentally."
"Right," Harry said. He made no move to touch the prophecy now. "Seems like a bad idea. What if you needed to destroy it to protect it and didn't want it overheard?" He held eye contact with Albus and Albus was suddenly sure that was his plan… or had been.
"It's perfectly well protected," Cornelius said, oblivious. "No one but you, You Know Who, or the Keeper of the Hall of Prophecies can remove it from its shelf, and You Know Who certainly won't be getting in here."
"He wouldn't need to," Harry muttered. "He could just send someone in and have them knock it off the shelf and take notes."
Dumbledore smiled, amused:
"If that was their intent, it would be considered an attempt to remove the prophecy," he said, "and they would suffer the madness as surely as if they'd tried to hold it." Harry didn't look reassured. "Not to mention they'd likely knock over other prophecies, and the details of the one they wanted would be lost in all the noise."
Albus caught sight of something thoughtful in Harry's expression before he turned back to the shelf and closed his hand around the prophecy.
Cornelius sucked in a breath, a relieved and rather greedy expression on his face.
Harry lifted it off the shelf without fanfare and held it against his chest. Cornelius eyed it, and Albus thought he was going to volunteer to carry it, but then he seemed to think better of it.
"Shall we?" he said, and gestured them ahead to a different door than the one they'd entered through. Albus knew this one would take them directly back to the Entrance Chamber.
Cornelius—hovering at Harry's side—kept sending Albus triumphant looks.
Albus met each one with polite curiosity, and that seemed to somewhat diminish Cornelius' petty satisfaction, but he still seemed awfully pleased to have the prophecy within—literal—reach.
Albus tried to catch Harry's eye, wanting to offer help or information, or whatever Harry thought he might need, but Harry did not look at him, did not ask any questions, or give Albus any clues as to what he might be thinking; he did not ever take his eyes off the cloudy orb in his hand except, seemingly, to make sure he wasn't going to walk into anything.
"After you, Harry," Cornelius said, holding the door open for him. Harry stepped into the Entrance Chamber, Cornelius on his heels and Albus trailing in their wake. As soon as Albus had closed the door behind him, the doors rearranged themselves:
Cornelius twitched at that, as if caught by surprise, but Harry did not; he struck an oddly powerful figure standing there in the centre of the spinning doors, prophecy in hand and a determined look on his face.
This room and these doors work a little like a certain other Room, Albus had told him, for no reason other than that he'd thought Harry might find it interesting. If Albus was not wrong, however, Harry appeared to be trying to use that information. How, Albus couldn't say, so he cleared his own mind so as to not interfere with a stray thought or desire of his own.
The doors stopped spinning.
Cornelius strode forward to open one, Harry at his shoulder. Harry looked nervous now, perhaps wondering if his attempts to sway the Chamber had worked. Albus had no doubt it had; Harry possessed a formidable will when he chose to exert it, and Cornelius' could not hope to compete. The real concern was whether the Chamber would provide them with a doorway that was actually helpful. Albus rather liked the mystery and magic in the Department of Mysteries, enjoyed the chance for reflection and problem-solving, but even he could not deny that, right now, an obvious solution would be much more appropriate.
Cornelius muttered a curse under his breath: "That's the Mind Room, not the offices. Stand back, Harry." Cornelius backed up himself and shut the door, setting them all to spinning again.
If the odds of Cornelius' desire to know the prophecy winning against Harry's desire for him not to had been poor before, him succeeding now was an impossibility. Firstly because, having succeeded, Harry would now be confident in making a request of the Chamber, and secondly because, now that he knew where Harry wanted to go (or where the Department of Mysteries believed Harry's solution lay), Albus was now focused on the Mind Room, too.
"I— No," Cornelius muttered, opening and closing the door again. Albus began to hum under his breath, and Harry shot him a small, amused look. Albus winked.
"This is you, isn't it?" Cornelius demanded, rounding on Albus after his fourth try. "Controlling the doors and wasting our time—"
"I have no need of the Mind Room," Albus said. "I have a rather impressive mind of my own, after all. Perhaps the Department believes you would benefit from thinking more deeply, Cornelius, or perhaps there is something in there that Harry needs to see. This Department acts in mysterious ways, after all—"
"The only thing he needs to see right now is the prophecy," Cornelius snapped, slamming the door shut. After the doors had shuffled again, he pushed one open seemingly at random, and let out a frustrated sound that made Harry cough.
Leaving the door to the Mind Room open, Cornelius marched over to the one beside it and pushed that open.
"Ah-AH!" Both doors slammed shut and the room shuffled itself again. "Right," Cornelius muttered, pushing a door open. It was, predictably, the Mind Room. "Right. Right, Headmaster, through you go. If it's not you causing this, we'll see you soon."
"Harry?" Albus asked. "I'm here as your protector, so I will not leave if you do not wish it." He did not think there was any harm in it; with Harry in control, the Department would direct them to the Mind Room and they would be reunited very shortly. If they took more than the time taken for the room to shuffle and a door to be opened, Albus could simply move back through the door and find them; he was confident enough in his ability to use the Department—and Harry's, for that matter—that he did not believe Cornelius could get Harry far before Albus caught up with them again.
"He'll be able to meet us at the offices," Cornelius said to Harry.
Harry gave Albus what seemed to be a genuinely uncertain look, then glanced at the door.
"Okay."
With a nod, Albus strode into the Mind Room and the door clicked shut behind him. He was unprepared for the prickle of worry that followed. It did not come from instinct or any genuine feeling of foreboding or wrongness—it was irrational and unnecessary, and yet, there all the same. He pushed it down, turning his attention on the Mind Room instead:
It was a long, rectangular room, with many doors along either side wall and another door on the wall opposite him. One corner of the room was taken up by a large, well-like structure that Albus knew to be a pensieve, and the walls around it were covered in cabinets that contained phials of every memory the Unspeakables had ever been able to get their hands on. Some were of historic significance, others had been provided as evidence of guilt or innocence, others held knowledge or experiences, and some were trivial memories, but all contributed to the Department's work understanding the human mind and thoughts within it. The other corner held a brewing station and shelves of bottles—stimulants, depressants, hormones, hallucinogens, poisons, and all manner of other things—that could affect the mind.
One side of the room was covered in a large, web-like dreamcatcher, glimmering with glowing beads that were bright orange or pale blue in colour, and each about the size of a marble—dreams, and nightmares. The other side held a series of tanks filled with pale green fluid, and that looked to hold brains. And they were brains, in a sense, though not natural ones—real brains didn't have tentacles like that, even if the tentacles were made of thought and not necessarily physical. Albus had never been able to get a straight answer about whether they were existing brains that had been reanimated or warped by magic, or whether they were entirely a creation of the Department of Mysteries, but they existed to teach Occlumency, or to be subjects for those practicing Legillimency or possession. They were a rather brutal and unforgiving teaching method, but there was no denying they were effective if the practitioner had no interest in finesse. They seemed to have noticed Albus, tentacles swaying in his direction, though they remained submerged.
One of the far corners held a bust wearing a dainty silver headpiece that was believed to be a replica of Rowena Ravenclaw's lost diadem, and the other far corner held a glass orb so large Albus would struggle to wrap his arms around it. It was perfectly transparent; no fog swirled within it as it did in the prophecy orb, and was so crystal clear that it did not even distort the light passing through it. It was an Obliviation Orb, and Albus had never liked its empty clarity, nor did he like what it could do.
Anything in this room could be Harry's solution, or nothing in it could be; perhaps Harry would try to have Cornelius touch the Obliviation Orb, or perhaps he himself would don the diadem and ask for a solution. Perhaps he'd take a potion to help him convince Cornelius to leave it be, or perhaps he'd try to have Cornelius take something.
The door opened behind Albus and Harry and Cornelius walked through it. Harry appeared unhurt and quite calm, while Cornelius was red-faced and muttering under his breath:
"Ridiculous place… suppose we'll have to take the long way through…"
"The Mind Room, as I'm sure you've gathered," Albus said, trying now, to help Harry, who was staring around the room, prophecy still cradled against his chest.
"We have," Cornelius said, striding down the long room to a side door. "Here we are, Potter."
"I'm sure you recognise a pensieve—" Albus waved a hand, not sure what Harry needed—or thought he needed—but eager to help all the same. "—and these are substances that affect the mind—"
Harry frowned and made a beeline for one of the tanks:
"Are these… brains?" Harry asked. The brains bobbed up to the surface, tentacles writhing as he approached. Harry noticed the change in them, Albus was sure he had, because something in his expression changed, but he did not stop until he was leaning over the tank.
"Harry—"
But then the nearest brain breached the water, thought tendrils streaming to wrap around the arm holding the prophecy. Harry yelped as he was pulled toward the tank and the prophecy tipped from his hand into the green fluid within with a splash.
Cornelius made a startled sound and spun, drawing his wand.
Albus' was already in his hand but for a fleeting moment he debated taking action:
One the one hand, a brain like the one attaching itself to Harry could not be removed with a simple Relashio; destroying it was technically an option, but if it was in Harry's mind already, there was no knowing what damage that might do and so it was not an option Albus would consider. No, it needed to be physically torn free, which Albus understood to be an excruciating process—or it needed to be removed mentally.
In theory, Harry was capable of both, but Albus did not know how his Occlumency was progressing under Quirinus' tutelage. If he had some Occlumency ability, he would likely not appreciate Albus' mental invasion, even if it was well-intentioned. But if he needed the help and Albus did nothing…
In the end, what decided Albus was that he would invariably have to explain this series of events to Sirius.
"Legillimens," he said. Harry's mind twitched but then seemed to recognise Albus and settled, allowing him in without a struggle. Immediately Albus felt pain; the brain's presence was sharp, and not searching for anything in particular, but there and driving itself deeper. Harry's own mental presence seemed to be trying to contain it with limited success.
"Accio prophecy," Albus heard, though he couldn't have said whether it was through Harry's ears or his own, and then Harry's mind shifted, attention not on the brain for a moment, but on what was happening:
The prophecy—held by one of the other brains—twitched. For a moment nothing happened, and then it jerked free like a cork from a bottle, toward Cornelius, via the most direct route possible—
"No," Cornelius said, twitching his wand to cancel the spell. But it was too late; there was a soft crack and Harry held his breath, even as the brain's presence burrowed deeper.
A ghostly Sybill appeared in the fluid, but her words-the contents of the prophecy—were muffled and unintelligible in the water, and in the splashing of Harry trying to free himself from his brain's grip.
Harry himself—and Albus in his mind—felt a strange mix of startled triumph and relief that was swiftly followed by a pained sort of panic. Albus put up a wall of Occlumency and then pressed it forward, ejecting the brain's influence from Harry's mind and following in its wake as gently as he could.
The brain flopped back into the tank with a splash and Harry stumbled back out of reach, looking down at the thin red welts on his arm with a grimace.
"Are you all right?" Albus asked.
"Yeah," Harry said, trying to shake some of the fluid off with a shiver. Albus dried him with a wave of his wand. "Thanks." There was an inflection on the word that made Albus sure the thanks was not only for the drying charm. "What are they?"
"Creatures of the Department," Albus said, as the brains moved lazily around their tanks again. "Used for Legillimency and Occlumency training."
"No, no, no, no," Cornelius was muttering. He summoned the prophecy orb, now spiderwebbed by a fine crack, and with none of the fog inside it, and turned it over in his hands.
"Oh no," Harry said, not sounding overly upset.
"'Oh no'?" Cornelius repeated. "'Oh no'?! That's all you have to say for yourself, is it?"
"Do not put this on Harry, Cornelius," Albus said. "It was your summoning charm that did it—"
"Because he'd dropped it!" Cornelius said.
"I was being attacked," Harry said, frowning, and with a nicely injured tone. Albus smiled slightly and Cornelius noticed:
"Did you put him up to this, Dumbledore?!" he demanded. "Is this—"
"I had no part in this at all," Albus said honestly.
"You're not unhappy about it, though," Cornelius said, and Albus shrugged. He held the prophecy in his fist and shook it at Harry. "We needed this, Potter! We needed to know what it said, and I didn't hear anything, so unless you did, then—"
"I didn't," Harry said, looking appropriately ashamed. ""I'm sorry, I—"
"You didn't even draw your wand! For Merlin's sake, it's a brain! You could have just pulled it off—"
"I couldn't do anything," Harry said.
"I've seen you fight dragons!" Cornelius cried, giving the prophecy another shake. "You've supposedly escaped You Know Who!"
"I—"
"You're a Seeker!" Cornelius howled. "You shouldn't have dropped it at all!"
"I couldn't draw my wand, or pull it off. Or catch the prophecy," Harry said. "It had my right arm, and, well…" Harry lifted his left arm and shook his sleeve back a little to reveal the stump where his left hand no longer was.
"—wasn't an accident; when I saw the tanks and the way the brains were reacting to us being there, I thought—"
"You thought you'd let an experimental magical creature you had no idea about attack you," Padfoot finished, pausing his pacing to glower at Harry.
Harry, sat on the couch in Grimmauld's library, a murtlap-soaked bandage from his healing kit wrapped around the welts on his arm, and Dumbledore sat beside him, shrugged. Padfoot pinched the bridge of his nose and waved at Harry to continue.
"It was a calculated risk," Harry insisted; Padfoot didn't seem to believe him. Or, rather, Padfoot didn't seem to believe that the calculations worked out. "Dumbledore was there, and the Unspeakables weren't that far away. I would've been all right." Padfoot rubbed a hand over his face and sighed in a very put upon way. "And I was out of time, so it was that or let Fudge have the prophecy."
"It wasn't that or give it to him," Padfoot said, with an incredulous laugh. "You could have just dropped it like we talked about—"
"The prophecy plays itself when it breaks," Harry said grimly.
"What?" Padfoot asked, aghast, looking between them. Dumbledore inclined his head and Padfoot let out a gusty breath. "Right. That complicates it." He was silent for a moment. "And you didn't consider the Veil—"
"I did, actually," Harry said. "But it might not've broken going through, and Voldemort knows it's possible to go through the Veil and come back, because you did." Padfoot grunted. "He might've tried to go after it."
"Might've been nice if he sent a few Death Eaters through to whatever's behind the Veil," Padfoot said. "And it'd be even nicer if they couldn't find their way back through…" Harry smiled a little and Padfoot sighed in a way that smelled of concession: "So the brains?"
"They were in a tank of this green stuff," Harry said. "I thought if I got it in there that would stop the sound."
"Ingenious in its simplicity," Dumbledore mused. Harry grinned.
"And you guessed Fudge would Summon it and that it would break?" Padfoot asked, sounding rather impressed.
"That was luck," Harry admitted and Padfoot snorted. "My plan was to 'miss' one of the brains with a hex and break it that way. Pretty sure that wouldn't have worked, in hindsight." He was certain, in fact; the brain had had his wand arm with surprising and painful strength so he doubted he'd have been able to get to his wand. He also wasn't sure he'd have been able to cast anything even if he'd had it; the brain's presence in his mind had been unexpected and a little overwhelming. "But it all worked out."
Fudge had not got any less furious as time drew on. It was mostly with Dumbledore, who he seemed to think had orchestrated the entire thing, and any anger he might have felt towards himself for being the one to Summon and break the prophecy had been directed at Dumbledore too. After revealing his missing hand, Harry had mostly been the subject of discomforted looks and blustering, begrudging apologies but he'd been able to smell Fudge's embarrassment and his suspicion and thought those would turn into anger over time.
It wasn't ideal—Harry didn't want the Ministry upset with him when they were on the same side. But he'd take anger over the fawning and expectation that would have followed Fudge learning the prophecy's content.
"It did, actually," Padfoot said, and there was something in his expression and tone that had Harry shaking off thoughts of the Minister and sitting straighter, curious. Padfoot's mouth quirked up: "We got Zabini."
Harry suddenly remembered why Padfoot had not been able to accompany him into the Department of Mysteries.
"It was a real tip then?" Dumbledore asked.
"It was," Padfoot said, scent satisfied. "There'll be a trial next week and I suspect she'll plead guilty—as a solicitor, she'd know that's her best option."
"Brilliant," Harry said.
"Quite," Dumbledore said, with a small smile. "I imagine whoever provided that information to get Cornelius a chance at the prophecy is feeling quite put out right about now." He was silent for a moment, then, conversationally, added, "I do so hope it was Lucius."