RECAP:
‘Who’s Grawp?’ Luna asked interestedly.
‘Hagrid’s half brother,’ Ron answered, ‘Anyway, never mind that now. Harry, what did you find out in the fire?’
‘He’s not home. But I’m sure Sirius is still alive, but I can’t see how we’re going to get there to help him.’
‘We fly of course.’ Luna smiled, in the most matter-of-fact tone I have ever heard her say.
*43*
Hannah’s POV –
You landed somewhere in London, not very sure where, but you had some confidence that you would be able to find the ministry with out too much difficulty. It would be getting into the ministry without getting hurt too badly that was the most unappealing part. You got off the broom and let it fall to the floor. You looked into a near by window for a source to see your reflection, seeing a red-faced, bushy-haired girl looking back, twigs and leaves everywhere with the occasional bruise appearing too.
‘Great.’ You mumbled to yourself, removing some of the foliage from your hair and clothes and straightening out your jumper. ‘You did all this you know.’ You snapped at the motionless broom on the floor just a little way away from your feet.
You turned and looked down the empty street you had landed on, looking around for anything that could direct you or tell you where you were. You turned and looked up the building whose window you had been using for a mirror, ‘London Street.’ You said with a sigh, spotting the black and white plate halfway up the two story building. ‘Like that helps.’
You walked away from the road and the broom, and began to make your way along an a-joining road that seemed to actually lead somewhere, an occasional person walking across on the street at the end or a taxi driving by.
You walked along the empty street, old McDonald’s boxes and other litter scattered around, towards the street that seemed slightly more with the living – right in front of you.
You got to the end, and looked along the next street, it was hardly any better than the other two, and still no signs could be seen. You sighed and took a step forward, guessing that the world wouldn’t want you to find your way, and that you were going to have to walk the streets of London trying every fucking red telephone box you could find.
Ron’s POV –
‘You have to be bloody joking.’ I said looking towards my three friends who were sat in mid air, Ginny and Hermione either side of me with the same twisted expression as my own. ‘How are we supposed to get on? We can’t even see them and we are going to fly on them?’ I said my mouth held slightly open. Luna slid off the invisible horse like a slide and came towards us, taking me by the wrist and pulling me over to Neville, ‘Just put your hands here.’ She said guiding me so I could feel the horse, and lifted me up, guiding me behind Neville and showing me how to hold on. She then helped Ginny behind Harry, got on herself and then helped Hermione by pulling her up, Hermione’s face as white as mine about floating up so high on something I could see through.
‘Ok … Err… Ministry of Magic visitor’s entrance, London then… it you know where to go…’ said Harry looking down slightly, an unsure look upon his face. We waited a moment, and then Harry and Ginny shot up into the sky, with a squeal escaping Ginny’s lips, Luna and Hermione doing the same and then only seconds later I shot up too, slamming my eyes shut until we had leveled out.
‘Fuck me!’ I said looking down towards the ground, quickly snapping my head up and looking straight in front. Neville made small grunting noises of worry and I could hear Luna having a strange convocation with Hermione about Thestrals.
I don’t really think she was enjoying it.
Soon we all got a little used to it and evening began to set in, the cold rushing air making me shiver with cold. My hands growing increasingly stiff of holding on for so long and growing whiter by the minute.
By the time we got there, I had practically frozen into my position, I fell onto the floor realizing that one of my legs wouldn’t bend and neither of my arms nor hands were listening, meanwhile Harry was legging it off after thanking his Thestral. Neville was looking at his hand which looked as though it was unresponsive and Luna was thanking the Thestrals.
‘Never again.’ I said putting a hand out and trying to feel for the Thestral to pat it, but walking straight into it instead.
‘Where do we go from here then?’ Luna asked Harry in a pleasant voice, sounding as if we were sight seeing on holiday.
‘Over here.’ Harry called from where he had been walking off ahead. He walked over to a battered old red phone box and pushed us all inside.
‘Whoever’s nearest the receiver, dial six two four four two.’ I reached a stiff arm towards the receiver, pressed the metal buttons and turned to look for Harry, but just came very close to Neville’s face.
‘Welcome to the Ministry of Magic,’ a cool female voice rang around, ‘please state your name and business.’
‘Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood.’ Harry said all very quickly. ‘We’re here to save someone, unless your Ministry can do it first!’
‘Thank you.’ Said the voice as if what Harry had said was completely normal. ‘Visitors, please take your badges and attach them to yourselves somewhere visible.’ There was a clattering noise and half a dozen badges fell from a metal chute. I picked them up and started to hand them out.
Ron Weasley
Rescue Mission
Strange thing to put on a badge.
‘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.’ The voice rang out.
‘Fine, now can we move?’ Harry said hastily.
The telephone box floor made a shudder and we began to move down slowly.
Hannah’s POV –
Your feet ached, you were tired, bruised and scratched, and had been in at least seventy-five percent of the red telephone boxes in London, but at last, you heard the strange female voice ring into the telephone box.
‘Welcome to the Ministry of Magic, please state your name and business.’
‘Hannah Warren and ermm coming for a wander round to find out some things.’
‘Thank you. Please take your badge and attach it to your person in a visible place.’ There was a short clatter and a metal badge rattled down the chute.
Hannah Warren
Enquiry
You raised an eyebrow at the badge and pinned it to the front of your hoodie.
‘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.’
‘Right.’ you said looking around and out the broken window. The floor shuddered beneath your feet and you slowly began to descend, the outside pavement and road disappearing.
As light began to come into the booth, you got out your wand ready for anyone that would be there and perhaps attack you, but as the Atrium came into view, it was completely empty. Every other time you had been into the ministry, either with your Mother or Father, it had been so full that you had had to cling onto them so as not to get swept away by the vast crowd of busy wizards.
‘The Ministry wishes you a pleasant evening.’ The voice came as you came to a halt.
‘Err… Cheers.’ You said stepping out into the vast space and looked around. You began walking down the main hallway towards the elevators, but still no one appeared. You were slightly relieved by that fact, as so far the presence of anything magical had done you harm in some way, but the obvious large change was making you worried about what was waiting, as this strange comforting aloneness was probably not going to be around forever.
At the end of the hall there was five elevator gates, one on the right side was open and an empty lift was sat patiently waiting. You walked down and stopped about a foot away from the edge of the lift, looking around you and peering all around the elevator to see if anything was abnormal. With caution, you stepped into the lift and stood looking at the buttons. Level nine wasn’t it? God it was so long ago, I mean sure you had been in the lift only a little while ago when you had re-lived your memories, but that wasn’t going to be a great amount of help. Might as well try it. With one eye closed, you pressed down on the nine button and the ring around it glowed with a golden colour.
‘Level nine, department of Mysteries.’ The woman’s voice said to the elevator. You sighed and relaxed slightly. The golden gates closed and you heard a click, suddenly the lift shot backwards, throwing you to the floor, then it dropped, so fast that you left the ground until it stopped and you hit the floor again with a hard thud. Then it shot forward making you slide to the back wall of the elevator and hit your head on the wall, it doing the same thing when it came to a stop. The gold gates opened slowly.
‘Department of Mysteries.’ You got up and clambered out of the lift.
‘Well that was pleasant.’ You said rubbing your head and making sure your wand was still in once piece. You looked up and straight ahead, first, the big black door straight ahead, you started towards the door, checking down the corridors that you passed for anything or anyone, but still no one was around. As you came upon the door it swung open for you, circular spinning room, the North West door, remember to close your eyes... Before stepping inside, you made sure to lean in slightly and check it out, nothing was there, but you still didn’t have a good feeling about going into this room, something was bound to be different and painful. You closed the door behind you and stood in the middle of the room, as expected, it all went dark, due the unnatural tint the world had anyway, and the blue flames that lined the doors were hardly visible at all. As expected (although you had expected something unpleasant to happen in the middle), the walls started to shift. You slammed your eyes shut and listened to the whirling of the walls, all the time wanting to open them to make sure something wasn’t going to creep up on you.
You heard the walls come to a slow and them click back into place, one eye at a time you opened your eyes.
‘Right, onwards we go.’ You moved towards your door and stepped through it.
Ron POV –
Light began to expand from our feet upwards until we had full view of the Atrium. Surprisingly – no one was there. It was completely empty. Everything was deathly quite and no one around.
‘The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening.’
The door opened and Harry fell out, closely followed by Neville and Luna. The only noise in the Atrium was the water coming out of the golden fountain and the sound of ourselves echoing slightly around the vast room.
‘Come on,’ Harry said quietly getting himself up, we all jogged down the hall following Harry. I was split between being happy that no one was around, and being terrified by why it was. We walked towards the lifts and Harry pressed a down button which then glowed with a green ring around it. As soon as he had pressed it a lift came out of the darkness towards us, the golden gates rattled apart loudly to let us in and we all jumped inside. Harry pressed the nine button as soon as Luna has stepped into the lift and the grills began to close with louder clattering.
‘I like this elevator music.’ Luna said, and we all smiled nervously at her, Harry hadn’t seemed to of heard her, which I was sort of thankful for as I didn’t really want Harry to snap again.
‘Department of Mysteries.’ The voice said again, and the grills slid open to let us out. We all stepped out into the cold black tiled corridor, which was just as empty as the atrium.
‘Let’s go.’ Harry whispered and made off towards a dark black shiny door. Luna followed first, mouth agape looking around the place as we walked. ‘Ok, listen,’ Harry said, stopping again six feet away from the door. ‘Maybe … maybe a couple of people should stay here as – as a lookout, and –‘
‘And how are we going to let you know if something’s coming?’ Ginny asked in an annoyed tone.
‘We’re coming with you Harry.’ Neville said.
‘Let’s just get on with it.’ I said firmly hoping to stop Harry from trying to leave us all behind. After all we’d learnt in the DA, none of us were going to prepared to let him go off on his own, we’d come this far.
Harry turned to face the door and walked towards it, it swung open for him and he marched straight in, the rest of us following quickly.
We were stood in a large circular room, covered with doors. Everything in there was black, including the ceiling and floor, everything was identical, the roof and floor the same, every door the same too. The only thing that we could see was blue flames on the walls, and our reflections in the shiny surfaces and the outlines of the doors from the light from the corridor.
‘Someone shut the door.’ Harry asked, and Neville – who was the last in – closed it. Immediately it became so dark that no one could see anything but the flames. Harry stood looking around at the doors, but as he did, there was a rumbling and a clink and the wall began to rotate. The blue flames blurred into a mass of blue lines, and then it came to a stop and clinked back into place. My eyes were blurry with the left over blue light fading in front of my eyes.
‘What was that about?’ I asked blinking trying to get rid of the memory imprinted in my vision.
‘I think it was to stop us knowing which door we came through.’ Ginny said in a hushed tone.
‘How are we going to get back out?’ Neville asked uncomfortably.
‘Well, that doesn’t matter right now,’ Harry said blinking the same as I had, ‘we won’t need to get back out until we’ve found Sirius.’
‘Don’t shout for him or anything though.’ Hermione quickly, speaking for the first time in a while.
‘Where do we go now then Harry?’ I asked.
‘I don’t –‘ Harry began and then paused, ‘in the dreams, I went through the door at the end of the corridor from the lifts into another dark room – that’s this one – and then I went into a room that sort of… glittered. We should try a few doors. I’ll know the right way when I see it, come on.’
