Harry found himself spacing out again. He and Zabini were working together once more, and it was because he had come up with a plan for stealing the Time Turners without getting caught, and won the subsequent argument that they had at a general meeting. Obviously, the first thing to be brought up was the fact that they were trying to build a bridge with the Ministry, and with that came an owl effectively confirming the obvious. The Minister had received the demands of the DA, but nothing had happened; according to everyone with a family member who had ever served as a public official, at the very least there would have been a note of receipt, a polite way of turning down some request. The fact that there had been no response at all meant that they were not even considering it, which was to be expected.
"What they're expecting is that we're waiting around for a response," he had said to the planning group. It was just a few available for the current mission; everyone else was working on a new base to which everyone could migrate in the event that their current place were discovered. They were, of course, on guard, so the enemy had no way of taking them by surprise, and almost certainly smaller numbers. Even though a few of the Death Eaters were extremely dangerous on their own, especially, apparently, Rookwood, with the Time Stopper, as they had taken to calling it, the exit strategy was more of a precaution than anything else. Harry even slept under the cloak, which made it as unlikely as possible for anyone to try to kidnap him in his sleep.
The plan was decided quickly; it seemed that the moment after Blaise proved that it was possible, he ran it by a few people he knew would agree, most notably Susan, who was focused on selling the plan as a risk-free operation. She presented it neutrally, of course, but it was reasonably obvious that seizing power was what she wanted, with their proposal having been turned down. Harry still thought there had to be some limitation that they had not factored just yet, but then, perhaps the simple fact that they still needed to be tested was the problem. In a matter of hours, a team of six was readied and they were on their way. The magical government had not been inactive in their absence; Hit Wizards were crawling both sides of London, and to get in, they would have to get in the same way that he and Daphne had gotten out of Gringotts, which was why Neville was on the team, and up first. Getting far below ground by going through a business in Knockturn Alley that knew when not to ask questions, they knew that the Department was lower still, but it was a good start.
"There's loads of contraband down here," Ron muttered. "We should have figured this was a smuggler's hole."
"I did, actually," Ginny muttered. "I've been exploring this place every spare minute. No one monitors the other side of the Vanishing Cabinet and I figured we would need to know about this side."
No one disagreed about the usefulness of the operation, but it looked like her brother was less than sure about how she was going out on her own. Blaise left them, right on schedule, as they tunneled underground together. As long as they were moving together, creating a low-impact path as quietly as they could, there was no point in bringing anyone else; they could not get the process to go any faster because they would just be getting in each other's way. The plans had been discussed and they knew what their roles would be, as well as what was likely going on above them.
"We're cut off," Susan said, evaluating her own shielding. "They shouldn't be able to detect us down here, but we won't be able to receive support from outside, not even from Hermione."
"She's out of range anyway," Ron muttered. "It's better this way. The others can act like they're shocked when the Ministry denounces us. They won't suspect a thing."
Hours passed and they were deep under the surface, and in their estimation, under the Department as well; all the spells that they could detect before they arrived suggested that something serious was being protected; it was not a bunch of useless offices that controlled the thickness of cauldron bottoms or anything of that nature. They could hardly even classify, let alone understand most of the forms of protective magic that were being used on whatever was above them, but they had an ace in the hole, or at least that was the theory. Basically, the way magic worked, in all of its manifestations, the barrier was never going to stand up against every single thing that could be brought against it. Something that was static could not long resist the dynamic, however powerful and layered it might be.
Casting some advanced herbological charms on the ground and planting a seed before pouring water from a heavily enchanted spout, Neville had brought with him the quintessential representation of that living, growing magic to use against the shielding above them.
"This is the kind of persistence that works," he whispered to himself. Perhaps no one was listening. Perhaps no one knew what he meant. Either way no one responded, even as his words came true before their very eyes. Flickering lights of hidden spell-forms made visible and symbols floating from their places and fading away belied a successful first step to their invasion. Around the time that Susan was done making sure that the alarms were being interrupted, Blaise returned with his promised magical artefacts.
"Invisibility cloaks?" Ron asked. "How'd you get these?"
"It's easy to pick up five if you've already got one," he jabbed, tossing Harry's back to him. "I said the vendor was a fraud and that even a middle of the road cloak like my own could resist all known forms of detection, as well as summoning. Some demanded their money back and others just tossed theirs on the ground and walked away."
"How was there a highly convenient vendor anyway?" Ginny asked. "I've never seen one around here, not one that sold invisibility cloaks."
"Much of what's sold in Knockturn Alley is fraudulent; that much is true, but I posed as a business partner to a less reputable vendor and said that I was promoting a one-time event for potential buyers willing to shell out a fair bit of gold for the real thing. He just had to demonstrate that they were effective and the crowd would go for it."
"So that's what all those posters- they were your doing."
"Precisely. I did, in fact, promote the event. It was probably a bunch of thieves that were looking forward to buying the product and it was probably a bunch of cheats who were looking to sell. Since they agreed to a demonstration, though, they should at least make us invisible, for a time."
The strange, twisting plant returned to the earth with the same creaks and groans with which it had arisen, and the six of them crawled through the hole. They knew they were somewhere in the Department, but there was no way to be fussy about where; they had to find that out when they arrived. While they had decided not to use a distraction team this time, doubting that it would keep working if they used it too many times. They knew, however, that all Ministry employees received a notice about a press conference, and since many of them were going to be watching, whether from their offices or in person, they were not required to get anything done at the time.
Though they could not see each other, the six of them knew with practiced awareness, proprioception and some magical sense that Trelwney would have likened to an Inner Eye- that they were all in pairs, back to back, wands facing outward and ready for anything. Confident in their muffling charms, they had not expected anyone to have heard anything, and as a quick look around confirmed, no one had seen them either, at least not that they could tell. The room was not empty, but in its large and octagonal design, it seemed that in the annexes along the sides, the few employees walking around were not always in a position to see what was going on in another annex. They had not thought that they would come up in the center of any room, not when they started tunneling in as soon as they detected something, but their current position was something of an unexpected boon, not that anyone celebrated. There was still work to be done.
In the mere moments that had passed since they came through the floor, Ron had levitated the displaced floor tiles back into their positions as Ginny stunned an employee behind them, moving a floating gold ring out of the way. It would have been nice to bring someone who could perform a memory charm, but it was not going to matter as long as no one knew who was there. Harry cast a few detection charms, which had become something of a skill for him, and they proceeded silently to the next alcove, stunning the two targets there. While stunners normally produced spellfire in the form of a jet of red light, they were harder to see at close range, conveniently, there was red light coming from the ceiling, and when performed nonverbally, they could be reasonably confident that no one had noticed them. As they checked the slumped bodies of the hooded Unspeakables, removing their hoods to see the unknown faces of a witch and wizard, there was no expression of surprise.
It was not as if the security was terrible; it was the opposite. They were so good at keeping out intruders, even from their own institution, that there was no need to be on guard against the threat of an invasion, certainly not from below. They most likely thought that stepping up patrols in London, if they were aware of that and not so detached from the day-to-day, would not make it harder to see an attack coming, but that was pretty much the only possible result. Since Voldemort's return, almost all the effort to enforce or investigate anything fell on everyday people, and not on the obvious targets, allowing them to do whatever they wanted as long as they were careful. The trick was being just as careful.
In the center of the strange, octagonal room, there was a fountain, flowing with something that was certainly not water, and the alcove where they were had a four-poster bed in it. Ron was at a loss.
"Where the hell are we?" he asked at a whisper. "I know it's the Department of Mysteries, mate, but Merlin, it's not supposed to be a mystery what's going on here-" He shook his head.
"All the books on the shelf are about the same thing," Blaise observed, staring at the collection. "How passionate. It's enough to make me blush."
"The last alcove had books on marriage," Susan said. "I suppose this is what comes next."
"Get a move on," Harry muttered back, bringing them all together. "Let's get to the baby one before they start looking around." It was true that the enemy could do a general meeting or just need a book from another section, but he was uncomfortable; it was strange for something so... it did not seem to fit to have a library in a secret office. They were fortunate to not see anyone in the next section, which seemed to be devoted to pregnancy. Ginny whispered that she had half expected pickles and hot sauce- the section was decorated with a clock of nine segments, with a single, slow-moving hand.
"How many in total?" Neville asked. There were times he would get a little uncertain in the middle of an operation, but it was justifiable. They were, after all, surrounded by enemies.
"It's actually better if we let a few go," he whispered back. The group started moving again at a nearly silent incantation from Ron, who still had trouble with nonverbal spells, but had seen the value in spells that projected strange feelings. Hermione had told them about protective charms that made muggles feel like they had forgotten something at home, and immediately he had to know how to repurpose it so that something similar would work on wizards, specifically his own teammates. It was an excellent form of secret communication because there was no circumstance where two Unspeakables were going to look at each other and ask 'are you feeling slightly gull right about now?', even if they both were.
Two more targets dropped in an alcove that seemed dedicated to birth. They had crossed half the room and it seemed no one had seen the unconscious in other parts of the room, though the only thing to do was keep going. Taking it a bit faster because the chances of the employees seeing something suspicious were steadily growing, they split up and hit every other target, causing them all to drop, and then explored the room. Fortunately, it seemed that no alarms had gone off. Was it simply the downside of so much secrecy, that no one could come to help if something happened?
"Ugh," Ginny groaned, looking at a paper. "Well, this means they at least have to come in every day. That door can't be locked twenty-four seven." She held it up, showing a picture of Cornelius Fudge, a headline reading 'Ridiculous Demands Rejected'.
"That's what why expected- and it's why we're here," he responded. "This must be some part of the Department, some office-"
"It's the Love Room," Susan said, having inspected the other four stages. "After the birth one that we saw it goes back around to the parent-child relationship, then friendship, and then courtship."
"I guess that tracks." the other witch took a breath. "It's a cycle that never ends. That's one of the only things they know about love."
"What do you know about it?" she asked, suddenly annoyed.
"Nothing. More than you. Take your pick and get offended."
"Ginny, don't talk like that on a mission. Susan, don't provoke her. This isn't the room where they keep the time turners."
"It's not?" Susan asks. "Isn't love full of regrets?"
"I mean, sure, but as strange as it sounds, I think love is what they're studying here, not time."
"It sounds like the kind of thing that you can't really study in a library, to be honest," Blaise said, reporting in after making sure everyone was unconscious. "You have to get some real-world experience."
As sure as he was that his friend was playing some game, he was right. Someone like Voldemort, who did not understand love, was not going to realize what it was from a book. Neville interrupted his thought process by telling him that the fluid flowing in the fountain was Amortentia; a love potion. Elsewhere Ron said that the floating golden rings they found in their point of access allowed the wearer to envision life if married to their current lover, and that the entry point had repaired itself. A new shield had taken the place of the ones they broke.
"They must have some way of diagnosing the problem and fixing it going forward," Susan said. "Even if there's such a spell, though, I wouldn't think that it works completely automatically. Someone in the Department is aware of a break-in."
"I think you're missing the point," Neville said. "We don't have a way out."
"That's not correct," Blaise said. "We can use the Time Turners."
"Well, even if we get them, are we going to be able to take them out with us?" Ginnny asked. "If we just reset time to yesterday, then this whole thing will have been a waste."
"Not really. We'll get to do it again."
"That's not how it works," Harry said. "I've actually done this before. The devices, if there are more than one, would let us go back to an earlier hour. Our younger selves would still be going in." He took a breath. "Let's assume there's only one. Whoever steals it is going to have to go back far enough to escape, and then bury it somewhere, and then leave us a letter explaining where to find it, before we ever left. It's important that only we can read this letter."
"Sure," Ron said. "If it were me, I'd put it at Privet Drive. No one who means you harm can get in."
"That's too early," he said, shaking his head. "Besides, it was really Blaise who believed in this mission, so he'd benefit the most from-"
"We can't still go there?" Ginny asked.
"Don't interrupt," Susan said.
"He's talking about giving me a letter, or the Time Turner itself, when I still lived there. There's no way I wouldn't open a letter to me, even if it said not to open it until a certain time. Besides that, giving me the letter would change the past, probably only slightly, but there are no guarantees. It'd be better to get it to Longbottom Manor, or the place where it was built."
"Will it matter?" Ron asked. "Once you snap back to the present, you'll remember where you put it."
"It's true that I'll snap back to the present, but that will be after the past was changed, so we have to count on our past selves finding that letter even with no information about it." He sighed a moment. "One more thing, for anyone who goes back. There are a lot of things that you might be tempted to change, but if Hermione were here, she'd never let me hear the end of it. We're pursuing a policy of minimal intervention. That's an order."
The door to the room was not simply locked, it was fundamentally unopenable. Several different spells had been tried and none of them worked. They knew without having to check that they could not simply apparate or use portkeys.
"How the hell do they get out of here?" Blaise asked, annoyed.
"It's almost certainly a trick," Susan said. "They have to have some way of getting out of here, but they call attention to the door, so it's what you check by default. Most likely, we've set off a hundred alarms already."
"We're wasting time here, then," Ron said. "We have to go loud. We're getting to the Time Turner one way or the other."
Breaking through the wall around the door, the group forced their way into what looked like a circular room with unmarked doors. He recognized the blue fire torches from his dreams as a conjured manticore charged through a wave of Amortentia washing over Unspeakables from the ground, going under the shields that the monster necessitated. They blasted open as many doors as they could and Harry could only eliminate one of them, which seemed to be dedicated to prophecy, and it was just like what he saw in his vision. His only thought was that Voldemort must have had some way of knowing what the place looked like if he had been able to make the dream look so close to reality. Had he read Rookwood's mind?
"Harry, through here- there's clocks everywhere!"
The desks that had been evenly spaced in the Love Room were all over the place in the Time Room, leaving only a winding path through. Glittering clocks, all in sync, ticked and tocked as they forced their way through. He could guess that everything in the room was of inestimable value, but he only knew about the Time Turners. There were several, probably mostly failed experiments, attempts to reverse-engineer the original- there was no way to improve upon the one Hermione had, most likely- He tried summoning it, but the charm failed right as enemies poured in from the other end of the room when they were barely holding them off from the circular room. Not aware of the deeper questions of how it all worked, he grabbed the one he recognized and used a Reductor Curse on the rest, destroying them and creating a distraction at the same time. Putting his wand to the dial, he willed it to turn, not thinking about anything else.