01239 The Reason

 

At the second-floor landing Neville left them with a curt nod and a flick of his sword hand, and strode away down the opposite corridor to hunt for Professor McGonagall.

Harry kept hold of Filch's other arm for one more flight.

Between the two of them he and Ron lugged Filch up with his head lolling on his chest and his heels scraping the stone, until they reached the fourth floor, and Ron could shoulder the weight alone.

Then Harry let go, spun and flew back down the staircases three steps at a time, bound for the exchange delegation's rooms on the third floor, and for Hermione.

"Wait for me in the hospital wing, Ron! I'll bring her as fast as I can!"

His shout went ricocheting up and down the stairwell, and the portraits lining the walls, wrenched out of their dreams, woke up scowling and grumbled at his retreating back!

Filch had been attacked, and Harry did not harbour the smallest doubt about who had done it.

Nor, he was certain, was it only Filch that had been taken. Whatever had lain hidden in that rough niche in the wall was gone, and with it, almost beyond question, Professor Watson's staff.

It was all unfolding exactly as he had dreaded. Malfoy had simply waited until Professor Watson was away from the castle, and now, with the one person he feared out of reach, he was working to carry the staff out beyond the walls of Hogwarts.

But how?

Harry dashed past a gallery lined with tall arched openings on each side, and as he went by he threw glance after hurried glance out across the dark grounds toward the school gates.

Filch was the castle's caretaker. Every key to its doors and to the school gates hung from his belt, and nothing would have been simpler than to lift them off him while he lay senseless. Malfoy might already have strolled out through the gate with his prize under his cloak.

The thought made Harry even more anxious.

Wizards were taught to Apparate only in their sixth year, and Malfoy, like Harry himself, could not do it yet. That meant that, even if he had slipped out of the school, he could not have gone far.

Unless, of course, someone was waiting for him just beyond the grounds, some servant of Voldemort lurking in the dark, ready to take whatever he carried and take it away.

Harry took the next flight in great leaping steps and swung round into a new corridor.

And where would Malfoy go, then?

That was much harder to guess, since it hung wholly on what Voldemort had told him to do.

Hogwarts at the dead of night looked far older and more worn than it ever did by day.

The stone of the walls was cold and rough under the torchlight, the iron torch-brackets were furred green with verdigris, the flagstones had been trodden into shallow dishes by seven centuries of passing feet, and every brick of the old castle seemed to breathe out an ancient, damp air, that smelt of rain and candle-wax and dust.

Perhaps the chill, wet air had settled in tiny beads on his lenses, as by the time Harry reached the corridor where the delegation's rooms lay, he was blinking hard, and he ran on toward the far end of the passage, where the walls were lined with flickering torches.

Something was wrong.

Harry tore the glasses off his nose without breaking his dash and scrubbed the lenses hard on his sleeve. It made no difference at all.

It was not only that the torches along the walls had started to double. Even the corridor itself, with half its length still ahead of him, was beginning to bend and ripple, as if it had been drawn on the surface of a pond and somebody had dropped a pebble in.

Behind him, a door creaked open, and a gust of warm, bright laughter spilled out into the cold passage. Harry heard it, and could not turn to see it, since the whole world had begun softly to turn upside down.

"You're the one who's improved the fastest, Roya—"

Hermione was glowing as she reached out and ruffled Roya's hair. She had one hand on the door that stood between its two tall spruces in their tubs, and she pushed it wide with her shoulder.

"I'd say with perfect confidence that your wand-work is already as good as a Hogwarts second-year's. Probably better than some of them!"

"Don't believe a word of the praise yet, Roya. You haven't got to know Hermione."

Ginny's grin split her face, and she lowered her voice to a whisper.

"What it means is that you've got a very long way still to go."

Thud!

The heavy sound, like a sack of potatoes dropped from a window, brought all three girls up short in the doorway, with their laughter cut off in mid-breath. They turned together toward the far end of the corridor, and in the next instant the silence was shattered by wild, frightened cries.

Harry faintly heard someone calling his name, but the sound was as distant as if it came from beyond a veil of dreams.

Patches of light and shade swayed in front of his eyes, and he couldn't even tell what shape they were meant to be.

My glasses, he thought dimly. They must have come off when I went down.

That was the thought that rose in his drifting mind. But then clearer pictures rushed into his sight and sound came with them.

As if flying through a dream, his consciousness swiftly left Hogwarts' cold and ancient castle and appeared somewhere else.

He seemed to be lying on the floor there too, because his line of sight was very low.

Looking up, he found himself gazing at a lofty, imposing hall, where densely packed, gilded magical patterns asserted a kind of majesty amid the mystery.

It was the Ministry of Magic's Atrium.

It dawned on Harry: he had been here before, when he was put on trial.

Confusion followed at the same time.

Not the corridor and the black door that had been appearing in his dreams all these past few months, but the Ministry's Atrium?

"You're absolutely sure the Minister won't be back in tonight?"

Harry noticed that his view bobbed and swung from side to side, as if it were dodging the shoes of the wizards who kept flowing past in both directions.

Someone was speaking. Putting aside the puzzle of where his eyes were for the moment, Harry looked toward the voice.

The man seemed familiar.

It took a handful of seconds to place him. It was Amos Diggory, Cedric Diggory's father.

Harry had last met him at the Quidditch World Cup, on the night Professor Watson had fought the dark witch Cliodna, when he and Ron and Hermione had slipped onto the pitch to look for the lost wand and been caught red-handed.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Amos—"

The second speaker's voice carried a trace of impatience.

"The Minister and Mad-Eye are in Paris for the meeting, the last preparatory meeting before the joint task force is formally set up, and she has to go in person. If you ask me, if everything goes smoothly she might be back at her desk by Monday, and not before!"

"Oh, marvellous! Marvellous news!"

In the somewhat hollow Atrium, perhaps a few scattered Ministry employees on their way home were eavesdropping on the conversation as well.

When they heard that Minister Bones wouldn't be back on Saturday or Sunday, the eavesdroppers all brightened, and Amos even threw both hands in the air and cheered:

"A whole weekend with no overtime! The first one in months!"

Amos crowed, bursting with glee. He clapped the second speaker on the shoulder and made to leave by way of the fireplace.

But he had gone only a few steps when he turned round again, frowning curiously.

"Aren't you going, Sirius? You've been worn to the bone these past weeks, looking after the Minister's safety, haven't you? I'd wager she wanted you to have a proper rest at Remus's wedding, and that's why she didn't have you go along."

Sirius!

Two months he had gone without seeing that face, and Harry's heart brimmed with gladness… so much that he forgot what it meant to see Sirius in a situation like this.

"Oh, so Remus's wedding is common knowledge already, is it?"

Harry watched Sirius roll his eyes in resignation.

"Of course, I'm definitely going to Remus's wedding, but tonight I've still got one important job to do."

And with that, the two men who had been chatting idly in the middle of the Atrium went their separate ways.

An important job?

Harry could not help but wonder.

He followed Sirius toward the lift lobby, turning over and over in his mind what the job could be, and only when they went past the fountain did his thoughts waver, for a moment, to something else.

The great golden Fountain of Magical Brethren, which had dominated the hall for as long as Harry could remember, had been taken apart at some point, and in its place now stood the model of a city, half gleaming-modern and half classical, with slim towers, arched bridges and thousands of tiny windows lit from inside.

All proceeds from the fountain will go toward supporting construction of the New Magic City.

The old inscription had been changed as well.

Because Harry's viewpoint was so low, the words carved into the base of the sculpture fell directly across his line of sight, and he read them with a strange, dazed attention.

It was late, after all. On the Hogwarts side, it was already well after ten o'clock.

Yet Ministry employees heading home were still streaming past in an endless procession, and the row of lifts were all up on the floors above, picking up passengers.

Sirius waited quite a while before boarding a lift car that had just brought people down, then quickly pressed the button for his floor.

The lift went downward. Amid the rattle of chains, it arrived at its stop, and a cold, indifferent female voice sounded inside the car:

"Department of Mysteries."

The Department of Mysteries?

Harry knew almost nothing about that department, and the thought rose in his mind: what could Sirius possibly have to do down here?

The golden grilles rattled aside. Sirius let out a long, soft breath, rubbed wearily between his brows, and stepped out of the lift.

Harry meant to follow him. But the strange viewpoint was already moving of its own accord, gliding out of the lift in Sirius's wake as though it had been tugged along on a string.

The Department of Mysteries!

And as the corridor ahead came into view, with its smooth dark walls and its air of secrecy, and the black door waiting at its end, the bodiless Harry drew in a sharp breath and froze!

 

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