Chapter 18 - The Department of Mysteries
Now he and Ron had made things up, Harry was finding life at Hogwarts bearable again.
He and the other members of the DA were also very much enjoying following Sirius' advice on ideas for havoc to wreak in the castle too.
Harry was quite sure the scars on the back of his hand from his detentions with Umbridge would never fade now, but he could get his own back in the only way he knew how. Excellent practical jokes.
Dumbledore's Army had spent one enjoyable practice session brainstorming ideas on the chalkboard the room provided them with. Funnily enough they also arrived to find the room filled with shelves upon shelves of dungbombs, stink pellets and so many other items of chaos it made Fred and George Weasley quite dewy eyed to look at it.
Deciding a good idea would be to take away her one remaining aid - Filch, they inscribed a love letter from him which they posted under her office door. Her shriek as she read it could be heard from all the way down the corridor.
All DADA classes were now being interrupted by users of Fred and George's skiving snackboxes. It had become something of a tradition for one student to turn and wink at the others before the whole class surreptitiously munched on the puking pastilles or nosebleed nougat which would inevitably end the class very rapidly.
Hermione was heard to complain about this once or twice, especially with their OWLs mere weeks away, but as Harry and Ron reminded her, all they ever did in Umbridge's lessons was read from the textbook anyway.
"It's the perfect time for a practical joke!" Sirius had insisted as Harry reported that they were taking a break from pranking Umbridge while the students revised. "All that studying. It's not good for you, Harry."
Fred and George ended up doing the honours. Their mayhem, consisting of their entire collection of invented fireworks, a magical swamp that took up a whole corridor and all of Hagrid's nifflers, caused Umbridge so much… umbrage, that she wrote to the Ministry to demand their expulsion.
Though he and Ron both knew Mrs Weasley wouldn't be happy, the twins had taken it in their stride, leaving with, quite literally, a bang (or several dozen).
"And now for that flaming, pestilential, pilfering poltergeist!" Umbridge was heard to roar.
Peeves, however, proved quite impossible to remove. He delighted in making Umbridge's life a misery quite as much as Harry and the others. He would burst through the chalkboards in her classes, nearly giving her countless heart attacks, whack her with his walking sticks or else throw bits of chalk at her. And when he was bored of this he would float along on his back behind her, blowing loud raspberries every time she opened her mouth to speak.
Finally, one day in early June, she'd had enough.
It had been little Dennis Creevey who'd sounded the alarm. He'd noticed her sneaking downstairs after curfew with a suitcase and had rushed at once to tell everyone.
Before too long, most of the castle was in the entrance hall wishing her a thoroughly sarcastic 'farewell'. The teachers and heads of houses did very little to restrain their students. By the time she finally left she was dripping in the contents of about a hundred dungbombs and had been hit by several fanged frisbees.
An article in the Daily Prophet appeared the next day: Hogwarts High Inquisitor Dolores Umbridge resigns following argument with Dumbledore.
However while this might have tarnished Dumbledore's reputation even more a few months back, now, as so many students had told their families exactly what Umbridge was like, it probably just did him a favour.
"What a brilliant end to the year." Ron said grinning broadly as they sat in their next DADA class in which their reading from the textbook was being supervised by Filch.
"It's not over yet. We've got our exams next week!" Hermione hissed back.
"Yeah, but Umbridge has gone!"
Harry had to admit he was thoroughly on Ron's side, but he certainly wasn't taking the upcoming exams lightly either.
"Don't listen to Sirius." Remus told him firmly during one of their chats in the fire. "He doesn't think anything worth learning can be learnt in a book, but he's just wrong. And I didn't learn that in a book!"
"How am I going to remember everything?!" Harry had asked him frantically.
"Let me give you a few tips…"
Of course having Remus give him advice for his DADA exam had been immensely helpful, since the man had taught the subject two years ago at Hogwarts.
After a few 'study sessions' with him, a group of other students came over to join them by the fire too, and soon, Remus found himself giving lessons.
"It's quite simple." The man's head said to the dozen or so students sitting around the Gryffindor common room fire. "You have to really visualise it. Magic is all about imagination. See it being done and you're halfway to doing it!"
"Thanks, Professor Lupin." The students told him, to which Remus had insisted, for what was surely the thousandth time, that he wasn't a professor anymore.
"He should apply for the job again now Umbridge has gone." Ron said that night in the dorm.
"No he shouldn't!" Hermione said. "That job's jinxed."
"And it didn't exactly work out brilliantly for him last time." Harry added.
"Oh come on. The parents would take a werewolf teaching their kids over a hag like Umbridge any day!"
"The sad thing is Ron, that's not true."
To Harry's immense relief, his DADA exam went just as well as both Sirius and Remus promised him it would. He was quite sure he'd failed divination, but he didn't really care about that, and the others hadn't gone too badly either.
And then, at long last, it was time for his last exam - history of magic.
Quite frankly he just wanted the whole thing to be over. He was tired, the great hall was too hot and the exam paper desperately dul.
He just didn't care which goblin rebellion he was suppose to be writing about or which European politician had said what to who.
His eyes blurred as he tried to focus them on the exam paper again. 'Compare and contrast…' oh what did that even mean?!
And then he was moving. He was travelling down the same stone corridor he'd been seeing in his mind for months now. But this time the door that remained so stubbornly closed burst open. He was in the department of mysteries and what was that up ahead of him…?
"You'll have to kill me."
Harry gasped as Sirius looked up, his face gaunt and his eyes full of pain.
"Undoubtedly I shall Black." Said Lord Voldemort. "But until then we have hours ahead of us. And no one to hear you scream…"
And he raised his wand again. But as he brought it down, Sirius wasn't the only one screaming.
"Harry!"
It was Ron and Hermione. He supposed it was a mark of how much they cared that they hadn't left the invigilator to sort him out alone.
He looked up at his friends, blinking sweat out of his eyes as he did so. "He's got Sirius. Voldemort's got Sirius."
"Now now, it's alright." The aged Professor Tofty said, hurrying over and helping Harry to his feet. "Come on, maybe a glass of water and a nice sit down somewhere quiet?"
"N-no." Harry said, fully aware that the entire hall was staring at him now. "No, I've finished the exam. I've written all I can."
"Me too." Hermione and Ron said together.
"We'll make sure he's alright, Professor." Hermione said, taking Harry by the arm and giving him a look of deep concern.
"Alright, what did you mean, Voldemort's got Sirius?" She said with a frown the moment they were out of the great hall.
"Exactly what I said!" Harry said, voice shaking slightly as he fought to remain calm. "He's in the department of mysteries. He… he was torturing him!"
"But Harry, how do you know this?!"
"Because I just saw it!"
"You dreamt it."
"They're not normal dreams! How do you explain Ron's dad?!"
Ron was looking very pale. "But Harry mate, how did Voldemort get into the ministry?"
"I dunno, do I?!" Harry roared in frustration. "The question is how are we going to get there?!"
"Harry." Hermione said, a hand on his arm and an expression on her face as though she were trying to explain something very simple to someone very obtuse. "Just think about this for a minute. Voldemort is possibly the most recognisable person in the country. Are you sure he's really got Sirius in the department of mysteries? Isn't this exactly the kind of thing Dumbledore wanted to stop you seeing?"
"Well I don't care." Harry said furiously. They were wasting time, standing here arguing about it. "I'm going to the ministry. Are you with me?"
"Yes of course we are, Harry." Hermione said impatiently. "But before we go, can't we just quickly check he's not actually at home?"
Though delaying even more was the very last thing Harry wanted to do, they made their way up to Gryffindor tower so they could call in on Grimmauld Place in the fireplace.
"Harry!" Ginny said from her seat by the fire. "Are you OK?"
There wasn't time to explain.
As he'd suspected, Sirius wasn't at home. But Kreacher was. Harry felt his stomach sink as the elf told him where Sirius had gone. To the department of mysteries.
He pulled his head out of the fire and turned back to Ron and Hermione. One of them had clearly told Ginny what was going on as she was looking ashen faced too.
"We have to go." She said on hearing his news. "And we have to ask Luna and Neville too."
Luna and Neville, Harry knew, were the two DA members who had taken the group the most seriously. They'd come to all the meetings and Harry knew that Ginny was right. They ought to be given the choice. Hadn't he also promised her as much once before?
Asking Luna turned out to be a very good idea. She suggested they take thestrals, which were faster than brooms, and could be attracted with raw meat from the forest.
Though reluctant to waste any more time, Harry had agreed they could go via the kitchens for some rare steak. Once in the forest, it didn't take long before they attracted the thestrals' attention.
"This is weird." Ron said, watching the meat which was slowly disappearing in front of him. "How are we meant to ride something that's invisible?"
"We just hold on very tight." Harry said.
And so, they all picked a thestral, Luna helping those who couldn't see them, and that's exactly what they did.
Harry could think of little but Sirius as they flew. Though he was sure Voldemort hadn't killed him yet (he'd surely feel it in his scar if he had) he wondered how long his godfather would be able to fight for. Harry knew he was brave, but could anyone really survive being tortured for that long. Look at what had happened to Neville's parents?
After what was a considerably shorter time than had they been on brooms, they touched down at the visitors' entrance to the ministry for magic.
Harry knew exactly what to do as he'd been here before with Sirius for his trial almost two years ago. They made their way down to the cool atrium of the ministry and Harry led the others to where he was sure Sirius was being held by Voldemort. They encountered no one else. It was past working hours now.
"It's through here." He told the others, hurrying down corridor after corridor. "Er, not here…"
They had entered a very peculiar room with a stone dais on which a veil was fluttering as if in a gentle wind.
Harry couldn't help himself. He edged nearer to the thing.
"What is it?" Ginny asked him, moving closer too.
"Do you hear that?" He said, turning to face her.
He was sure he wasn't imagining it. There was whispering from behind it.
Ginny frowned at him. "There's nothing there, Harry."
"Yes there is!" He insisted, something, and he wasn't sure exactly what, keeping him transfixed to the place.
"I can hear them too." Luna said dreamily, coming over to join him.
"I don't know what you two are both talking about." Ginny said crossly. "But you're making absolutely no sense. Back me up here, Hermione!"
"Yes, I'm sure Sirius isn't behind this veil, Harry."
Sirius! It was as if something suddenly clicked back into place in his mind. "Come on!" He said and, ignoring the exasperated looks on Ginny and Hermione's faces, led the others into the next room.
It was a dark room, and there were shelves upon shelves of what looked like white orbs.
This was it! This was the room! They were almost here…
But it was quite empty…
"Sirius?" Harry called, his voice echoing around the room as he did so.
And then he heard Ron's voice, from a few aisles away. "Harry…"
"What is it?!" He hurried over to him. Was it a sign Sirius had been here?
"It's… got your name on it."
He was gesturing at one of the glass balls. And sure enough, so it did.
He reached out a hand to pick it up.
"I don't think you should touch that, Harry!" Hermione said warningly, but Harry ignored her. A part of him almost wanted something dramatic to happen. Something that would mean their journey down here hadn't just been a waste of time.
The glass ball felt warm to the touch, like it had been lying in the hot sun all day.
He looked curiously at it for a minute before a voice from behind made him jump and spin around.
"Very good, Potter." Came the cold drawl he recognised as belonging to Lucius Malfoy. "Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."
...
A/N: Not long before the next (and final!) chapter :)