"I'm not going anywhere!" snarled Harry as sparks crackled from between his fingers and Professor Tofty let go of him with a yelp, staring at his hand that was slightly red and uncharacteristically warm. The rest of the students stopped writing and stared at both of them, "I'm fine!"
The wizened wizard nodded carefully, recalling what he had read about Harry Potter in both the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler and quickly came to the conclusion that if either one was right, there was a good chance that he could get hexed, "Exam stress makes its self felt in many ways," said the old wizard sympathetically as he pat Harry shakily on the shoulder, "Now, a cooling drink of water, and perhaps you will be ready to return to the Great Hall? The examination is nearly over, but you may be able to round off your last answer nicely?"
"No!" said Harry, "I've done all I can with that."
"Very well, very well," said the old wizard gently, "I shall go and collect your examination paper and I suggest…" Professor Tofty stopped himself from suggesting a nice lie down and vanished back in to the Great Hall.
In the intervening moments, much of the student traffic had resumed, not that Harry gave a damn, "Dobby! Winky! Find Fleur! Now!" his elves appeared only for an instant before vanishing, leaving several people wonder if Harry was talking to himself or thin air. That was the moment that Rowena chose to interrupt his near frantic thoughts.
"Harry, a single Goblin approaches the Castle, and he's in a rush" said Rowena.
Moments later the Goblin burst through the door, and there was moment as the two stared at each other. It was not Marinshka or Griphook, but one of the Goblins who had played instructor to his honor guard during the summer holidays the previous year, "Blaghrast Diedom Kursh Senward." Harry bowed to the Goblin who paused long enough to take a breath, bow and return the greeting in kind before getting directly to the heart of the matter.
"Ursh-kai," he said formally, "I bring word from Griphook Thaz-Dom, who sends his apologies for not coming in person. We only learned of the attack scant minutes ago…"
There was a sudden pop and Dobby stood before him. The elf was shaking, and that Harry knew, was not a good thing.
"She's been taken," he said quietly, "Fleur… she's been taken."
The Goblin and the House Elf stared at each other for a fraction of an instant and the nodded at the same time. "Fleur was having lunch with her human colleagues when Death Eaters, in full war gear stormed the Leaky Cauldron. All three of her colleagues were killed, as well as the Cauldron's proprietor. She was able to kill one of her assailants, whom we have positively identified as Alecto Carrow."
"Winky!" interrupted Dobby, "She is trying to find Mistress Delacour, trying to apparate to her!"
A thousand different warring emotions and thoughts slammed their way through his mind in those few minutes as he tried to figure out what to do. He suddenly realized that he was feeling helpless, overwhelmed even. He just, didn't know where to start. Kursh simply stood and waited, completely indifferent to the stares he was getting from the students, and Dobby did likewise, but in his case it was more a case of pretending than actual indifference.
The seconds ticked by and he found himself getting increasingly frustrated as he pivoted on one foot and slammed his fist in to the wall, "Hey! That hurts!" said Rowena. Harry blinked, "Listen to me, Harry. Please, take a moment, calm yourself, and then go from there." Calm was one thing, but where to go from there was what worried him, "Start by tackling parts of the problem you can see, and work your way to the rest." She advised.
Griphook had told him something similar, what felt like a lifetime ago. He turned "Kursh, what action is Gringotts taking?"
"We have lodged a report with the DMLE, filed formal protest with the Ministry of Magic for their failure to protect four of our Rhuba… human employees," the goblin quick corrected himself, "We have deployed two tracker teams to attempt to locate her but the wards around Diagon Alley complicate the search and everything seems to lead back to the Ministry of Magic. The ministry is of course denying us entry in to the building…"
He glanced at his watch as the doors to the Great Hall swung open and students began to file out, most of them chattering and laughing, unaware of the unfolding crisis. But then, why would they? How could they know?
Winky appeared with a pop, and promptly collapsed. Burns covered her arms and part of her face, and her uniform was more than slightly singed: it was ruined. That stopped the students as she hit the floor with barely a sound. Harry was the first to move as he conjured a white sheet to cover, infused in with basic cooling and numbing charms and the carefully lowered the sheet, ensuring that it levitated over her without actually touching. "Enervate," he whispered, bringing her back to consciousness. She tensed and managed to bite back a cry of pain, when she saw Harry.
"Mysteries Department, Ministry of Magic," she croaked as another wave of pain washed through her form.
"Thank you Winky," he said almost as quietly, "Thank you. Now sleep." He commanded, and she nodded off almost instantly due to a sleeping charm. "Dobby, get her to Madame Pomfrey, and then report back to me." He turned to the Goblin, "I presume there is nothing that Gringotts can do?"
He nodded his head in confirmation, "If we set foot in the Ministry building without permission it violates ancient treaties, and could start a war between our races." Harry had already known this fact – it was part of the answer to question seven on his history of magic exam.
"Send word to Griphook, tell him thank you." Harry said, "But this is something, I have to handle." But he was not going to handle it alone as Dobby reappeared moments after Kursh departed, "Send word to the Legion's allies to meet at the ministry of magic, battle ready." Dobby was gone in the blink of an eye.
Harry looked down at the ring on his finger and toyed with it. Was this a good idea? Was it going to come back to haunt him? He wasn't sure but whichever way he turned, whichever choice he made, there was no going back. With a thought, he sent the message, and walked towards the Great Hall.
The examiners were walking out of the Great Hall. Harry pushed between them and they stopped to stare at him in surprise, shocked at the disrespect shown to the by a student. Any student. Even Harry Potter. Professor Marchbanks would have objected, if it were not for the sudden influx of students that made their way past the quartet and strode in. Drawn from the ranks of the students sitting their OWLs and NEWTs, he couldn't believe that there were so many of them. To think they had started with less than a sixth of the school's students. It looked like he had about half the school in the Great Hall. He recalled that there were not enough Legion rings to go round.
He stepped out from behind the shadows cast by the door of the Great Hall, and he saw the gathered students. Whoever spotted him first tapped the person next to him and in scant seconds, he had their complete and undivided attention. He could feel the eyes of the examiners upon him, but he found that he didn't care what they thought as he addressed the students gathered before him, "Time is against me, against us," he said without preamble, then hesitated, wondering how to ask for their help, in this, in what was to come. "It is my hope, my… dream almost that you are gathered here because you believe that Voldemort has returned." A few of the students trembled at the mention of the dreaded name but there were no hysterics, something which pleased him greatly, "Voldemort, has taken Fleur Delacour."
There was that still, that quiet where a dropped pin would shatter glass, where the silence is but the prelude to the storm. He raised his wand, "I'm going to get her back. I will not let the Ministry stop me. I will not professors stand in my way. Yes it is probably a suicide mission. I need help… I can't do this on my own. I won't force you, I can't make you. I need volunteers."
Two hundred and thirty seven students were gathered in the Great Hall, listening, hanging on to his every word. Four examiners watched with bated breath, and had to rub their eyes in disbelief. They put one foot forward, and then as one, brought their other foot down. It took less than a second. It rang and echoed like the fist of God upon the gates of hell and Harry was stunned as two hundred and thirty seven students had all taken precisely one step forward. Six people however, took a second step forward. Somehow, those six did not surprise him in the least.
"Mr. Potter!" screeched Umbridge, "This attitude and behavior has gone on long enough. It seems you a problem perceiving the ministry's stance on –"
Harry raised his wand and a bolt of blue light slammed in to the headmistress of Hogwarts, "I don't have an attitude problem, you toad faced bitch!" she was flipped off her feet and suddenly found herself staring in to the emerald eyes that glowed with malice, upside down, "You have a perception problem," he said and flicked her in the nose. It was a gentle flick, but it still sent her flying head over heel from the Great Hall. Judging by the scream that was abruptly cut off by several crashes of metal in rapid succession, Umbridge had collided with several of the castles suits of armor.
"Brothers," he began,
"And sister!" piped up Ginny indignantly.
"And sister," agreed Harry, "With me. The rest of you, be vigilant, for I have no doubt junior Death Eaters walk the hallways of this castle." He said, then he paused for a moment, "And thank you, thank you all. Your support… means a great deal to me." He meant it from the bottom of his heart.
The seven of them strode out of the Great Hall, out of the castle and across the grounds to the gates. It was a balmy day, the sun had been shining and the air was warm as they crossed the threshold and they were beyond the wards of Hogwarts, "Hold out your rings," he ordered, and without hesitation he was staring at six bands of silver. A wave of his wand and a muttered incantation later, they were in motion, by Portkey to Potter Manor. He was seconds behind them and it only took the seven of them moments to don their armor, regroup and have their portkey's reset to take them to the Leaky Cauldron. They appeared in the middle of the room, and what was effectively an active crime scene. The aurors had processed it and then probably sealed the Leaky Cauldron per their standard operating procedure. With a wave of a wand, there was a fire blazing in the hearth and seven teenagers took turns to use, along with Floo powder to travel right in to the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic.
Somehow, he was unsurprised to see Moony and Blake, flanked by the Terror Twins, "Commander," said Fred.
"Moody and Tonks have alerted the Order, they should be here… soon," continued George.
"We don't have time to waste," said Harry, "Pattern Thimble with trackers. Advance." They moved. 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 centaurʹs arrow, the tip of the goblinʹs hat and the house‐elfʹs ears continued to gush into the surrounding pool.
"Colin, need you to hang back, lead the Order to us when they get here," instructed Harry.
"Are you kidding me?" asked Colin, "They're adults! They won't listen to me! Even if I was trying to tell them that their hair was on fire. "
"I'll stay," said Moony quietly, "They know, I'm close to Dumbledore, or I was…" he finished lamely.
Harry nodded, "Come on." said Harry quietly and the seven teens and one adult sprinted off down the hall, Harry in the lead, past the fountain towards the desk where the watchwizard who had weighed Harryʹs wand had sat for his trial, and which was now deserted.
Harry felt sure there ought to be a security person there, sure their absence was an ominous sign, and his feeling of foreboding increased as they passed through the golden gates to the lifts. He pressed the nearest ʹdownʹ button and a lift clattered into sight almost immediately, the golden grilles slid apart with a great, echoing clanking and they dashed inside. Harry stabbed the number nine button; the grilles closed with a bang and the lift began to descend, jangling and rattling. Harry had not realized how noisy the lifts were on the day he had come with Mr. Weasley; he was sure the din would raise every security person within the building, yet when the lift halted, the cool female voice said, "Department of Mysteries," and the grilles slid open. They stepped out into the corridor where nothing was moving but the nearest torches, flickering in the rush of air from the lift.
Harry turned towards the plain black door. After months and months of dreaming about it, he was here at last. Not that the thought was of any real comfort. He knew he was walking in to a trap. So did everyone else, but still, "I need a couple to stay here… watch our backs, and keep a line of retreat of open."
The twins nodded, "Understood." They chorused. Taking up positions along either wall, they vanished from view.
Harry had hoped more would stay. Not because he didn't trust them, but because he didn't want them getting hurt… or worse. But he also knew that they wouldn't stay behind unless he glued them to the spot with a permanent sticking charm. He turned to face the door and walked forwards… just as it had in his dream, it swung open and he marched over the threshold, the others at his heels. "Fine, but I tell you, I've got a bad feeling about this," said Harry darkly.
"Oh stop being such a pessimist," Ginny told him, smacking him on the back of the head, "Sure Voldemort's probably here somewhere, along with his Death Eaters and Merlin knows what else, but we can take them all in a fight." She said optimistically.
"Pessimists are what optimists call realists," replied Harry as they walked in to a large, circular room. Everything in here was black including the floor and ceiling; identical, unmarked black doors were set at intervals all around the black walls, interspersed with branches of candles whose flames burned blue; their cool, shimmering light reflected in the shining marble floor made it look as though there was dark water underfoot.
"Someone shut the door," Harry muttered.
He regretted giving this order the moment Neville had obeyed it. Without the long chink of light from the torch lit corridor behind them, the place became so dark that for a moment the only things they could see were the shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly reflections in the floor.
In his dream, Harry had always walked purposefully across this room to the door immediately opposite the entrance and walked on. But there were around a dozen doors here. Just as he was gazing ahead at the doors opposite him, there was a great rumbling noise and the candles began to move sideways. The circular wall was rotating.
For a few seconds, the blue flames around them were blurred to resemble neon lines as the wall sped around; then, quite as suddenly as it had started, the rumbling stopped and everything became stationary once again.
"What was that about?" whispered Colin nervously.
"I think it was to stop us knowing which door we came in through," said Ginny in a hushed voice.
Harry realized at once she was right: he could no sooner identify the exit door than locate an ant on the jet‐black floor; and the door through which they needed to proceed could be any one of the dozen surrounding them.
"How're we going to get back out?" said Neville uncomfortably.
"Well, that doesn't matter now," said Harry forcefully, "We won't need to get out till we've found Fleur."
"Where do we go, then, Harry?" Neville asked.
Harry marched straight at the door now facing him, the others following close behind him, set his left hand against its cool, shining surface, raised his wand ready to strike the moment it opened, and pushed.
After the darkness of the first room, the lamps hanging low on golden chains from this ceiling gave the impression that this long rectangular room was much brighter, though there were no glittering, shimmering lights as Harry had seen in his dreams. The place was quite empty except for a few desks and, in the very middle of the room, an enormous glass tank of deep green liquid, big enough for all of them to swim in; a number of pearly‐white objects were drifting around lazily in it.
"What're those things?" whispered Colin.
"Dunno," said Harry.
"Are they fish?" breathed Ginny.
"Aquavirius Maggots?" said Luna with the ghost of a smile.
"No," said Colin. He moved forward studying the contents and recoiled suddenly, "They're brains."
"Brains?"
"Yes… I wonder what they're doing with them?"
Harry joined him at the tank. Sure enough, there could be no mistake now he saw them at close quarters. Glimmering eerily, they drifted in and out of sight in the depths of the green liquid, looking something like slimy cauliflowers.
"Letʹs get out of here," said Harry.
They hurried back into the dark, circular room; the ghostly shapes of the brains were now swimming before Harryʹs eyes instead of the blue candle flames.
"Wait!" said Luna, holding the door open for a moment, "Flagrate!" She drew with her wand in midair and a fiery "X" appeared on the door. No sooner had the door clicked shut behind them than there was a great rumbling, and once again the wall began to revolve very fast, when all became still again, the fiery cross still burned, showing the door they had already tried.
"Good thinking," said Harry. "OK, letʹs try this one ‐"
Again, he strode directly at the door facing him and pushed it open, his wand still raised, the others at his heels.
This room was larger than the last, dimly lit and rectangular, and the centre of it was sunken, forming a great stone pit some twenty feet deep. They were standing on the topmost tier of what seemed to be stone benches running all around the room and descending in steep steps like an amphitheatre, or the courtroom in which Harry had been tried by the Wizengamot. Instead of a chained chair, however, there was a raised stone dais in the centre of the pit, on which stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked and crumbling that Harry was amazed the thing was still standing. Unsupported by any surrounding wall, the archway was hung with a tattered black curtain or veil which, despite the complete stillness of the cold surrounding air, was fluttering very slightly as though it had just been touched.
"Contact forwards!" snapped Harry jumping down on to the bench below. There was no answering voice, but the veil continued to flutter and sway. Harry scrambled down the benches one by one until he reached the stone bottom of the sunken pit. His footsteps echoed loudly as he walked slowly towards the dais. The pointed archway looked much taller from where he now stood than it had when he'd been looking down on it from above. Still the veil swayed gently, as though somebody had just passed through it.
"Fleur?" Harry spoke again, but more quietly now that he was nearer.
He had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the veil on the other side of the archway. Gripping his wand very tightly, he edged around the dais, but there was nobody there; all that could be seen was the other side of the tattered black veil.
"Let's go," hissed Neville from halfway up the stone steps. "This isn't right, Harry, come on, let's go.ʹ" He sounded scared, much more scared than he had in the room where the brains swam, yet Harry thought the archway had a kind of beauty about it, old though it was. The gently rippling veil intrigued him; he felt a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it. He had just heard something, faint whispering, murmuring noises coming from the other side of the veil.
"What are you saying?" he said, his words echoed all around the stone benches. "Can't anyone else hear it?" Harry demanded, for the whispering and murmuring was becoming louder; without really meaning to put it there, he found his foot was on the dais.
"I can hear them too," breathed Luna, joining them around the side of the archway and gazing at the swaying veil, "There are people in there!"
Colin blinked, "Me… too, I can hear them."
"Whaddaya mean "in there"?" demanded Ginny, jumping down from the bottom step and sounding much angrier than the occasion warranted, "There isn't any ʺin there!ʺ It's just an archway, there's no room for anybody to be there. Harry, come on!" She grabbed his arm and pulled, but he resisted. "We're here for Fleur!"
"Fleur…" Harry said softly, and he snapped back to the present. He took several paces back from the dais and wrenched his eyes from the veil. Fleur, captured, tortured, god knows what else, "Let's go."
Ginny led them back, away from the dais, to Colin, halfway down the room, standing amongst the benches. "My parents… are in there," he whispered quietly as Ginny grabbed his arm and they clambered back up to the door. "What d'you reckon that arch was?"
"Something dangerous," said Ginny as Luna inscribed another fiery cross on the door. Once more, the wall spun and became still again. Harry approached another door at random and pushed. It did not move. Seemed, right somehow. Harry raised his wand, "Alohomora!" It refused to open. He shrugged. If it was locked it wasn't the right door, "Luna, tag it with a "L" then we try the next one."
The next door swung open and he knew it was the one: Beautiful, dancing, diamond‐sparkling light. Clocks gleamed from every surface, large and small, grandfather and carriage, hanging in spaces between the bookcases or standing on desks ranging the length of the room, so that a busy, relentless ticking filled the place like thousands of minuscule, marching footsteps. The source of the dancing, diamond‐bright light was a towering crystal bell jar that stood at the far end of the room. "Skirmish line! Advance!"
Harryʹs heart was pumping frantically now that he knew they were on the right track; he led the way down the narrow space between the lines of desks, heading, as he had done in his dream, for the source of the light, the crystal bell jar quite as tall as he was that stood on a desk and appeared to be full of a billowing, glittering wind.
The pushed through, and found themselves in the right place: High as a church and full of nothing but towering shelves covered in small, dusty, glass orbs. They glimmered dully in the light issuing from more candle‐brackets set at intervals along the shelves. Like those in the circular room behind them, their flames were burning blue. The room was very cold.
Harry edged forward and peered down one of the shadowy aisles between two rows of shelves. He could not hear anything or see the slightest sign of movement."Wands ready," Harry said softly.
They crept forward, glancing behind them as they went on down the long alleys of shelves, the further ends of which were in near‐total darkness. Tiny, yellowing labels had been stuck beneath each glass orb on the shelves. Some of them had a weird, liquid glow; others were as dull and dark within as blown light bulbs. They passed row eighty‐four… eighty‐five… Harry was listening hard for the slightest sound or movement as they tracked through the massive Hall of Prophecy.
They cut down an aisle, just because Harry lead them that way, passing between towering rows of glass balls, some of which glowed softly as they passed. She was close, he could feel her presence. "Somewhere about… here…" he said.
They had reached the end of the row and emerged into more dim candlelight. There was nobody there. All was echoing, dusty silence. "She might be…" Harry whispered hoarsely, peering down the next row, "Or maybe…" He hurried to look down the one beyond that. Nobody spoke. Harry did not want to look at any of them. He felt sick. He did not understand why. She had to be here.
He ran up the space at the end of the rows, staring down them. Empty aisle after empty aisle flickered past. He ran the other way, back past his staring companions. There was no sign of Fleur anywhere, nor any hint of a struggle.
"Harry?" called Neville
"What?" He did not want to hear anyone tell him he had been stupid or suggest that they ought to go back to Hogwarts, but the heat was rising in his face and he felt as though he would like to skulk down here in the darkness for a long while before facing the brightness of the Atrium above and the othersʹ accusing stares…
"Have you seen this?"
"What?" said Harry, but eagerly this time ‐ it had to be a sign that Fleur had been there, a clue. He strode back to where they were all standing, a little way down row ninety‐seven, but found nothing except Neville staring at one of the dusty glass spheres on the shelf. "What?" he repeated.
"It's — it's got your name on,"
Harry moved a little closer. Neville was pointing at one of the small glass spheres that glowed with a dull inner light, though it was very dusty and appeared not to have been touched for many years.
ʹMy name?ʹ said Harry blankly. He stepped forwards and craned his neck to read the yellowish label affixed to the shelf right beneath the dusty glass ball. In spidery writing was written a date of some sixteen years previously, and below that:
S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.
Dark Lord and (?)Harry Potter
Harry stared at it.
"What is it? Neville asked, sounding unnerved. "What's your name doing down here?" He glanced along at the other labels on that stretch of shelf. "I'm not here," he said, sounding perplexed. "None of the rest of us are here."
"Harry, I don't think you should touch it," said Luna as he stretched out his hand.
"Why not?" he said. He knew exactly what it was, the other prophecy, the one Dumbledore knew and had kept hidden from him. "It's about me, and I have the right to know!"
"Don't, Harry," said Colin, "they're right."
He ignored them. All of them. They could never understand what it was to be him. He closed his fingers around the dusty ball's surface. He had expected it to feel cold, but it did not. On the contrary, it felt as though it had been lying in the sun for hours, as though the glow of light within was warming it. Expecting, even hoping, that something dramatic was going to happen, Harry lifted the glass ball down from its shelf and stared at it.
Nothing whatsoever happened. The others moved in closer around Harry, gazing at the orb as he brushed it free of the clogging dust. And then, from right behind them, a drawling voice spoke. "Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."
He couldn't see the face, but he recognized the trademark sneering drawl of a Malfoy. Malfoy senior in this case. His heart leapt in to his throat when he saw Fleur. He had a sudden horrifying flashback, to the night of the third task, to Hermione. To what the animal had done to her. She was weak, limp, bruised. Blood dripped from a number of small wounds. But the manacles on her wrists, glowed a faint blue: Magic suppression bangles.
Magic is a part of a Veela's lifeforce and such bangles, while only restricting a witch or wizards magic, drained the very life of those of magical blood. They were killing her, and not just her: His child