"Whoever's nearest the receiver, dial six two four four two!" Harry said.

Ron did it, his arm bent bizarrely to reach the dial. As it whirred back into place the cool female voice sounded inside the box, "Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."

"Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger," Harry said very quickly, "Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Erin Mckinnon. . . We're here to save someone, unless your Ministry can do it first!"

"Thank you," said the cool female voice. "Visitors, please take the badges and attach them to the front of your robes."

Seven badges slid out of the metal chute where returned coins usually appeared. Hermione scooped them up and handed them mutely to Erin over Ginny's head; she glanced at the topmost one.

"Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium."

"Fine!" Harry said loudly. "Now can we move?"

The floor of the telephone box shuddered and the pavement rose up past the glass windows of the telephone box. Blackness closed over their heads, and with a dull grinding noise they sank down into the depths of the Ministry of Magic.

A chink of soft golden light hit their feet and, widening, rose up their bodies. Harry bent his knees and held his wand as ready as he could in such cramped conditions, peering through the glass to see whether anybody was waiting for them in the Atrium, but it seemed to be completely empty. The light was dimmer than it had been by day. There were no fires burning under the mantelpieces set into there walls, but he saw as the lift slid smoothly to a halt that golden symbols continued to twist sinuously in the dark blue ceiling.

"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening," said the woman's voice.

The door of the telephone box burst open; Harry toppled out of it, followed by Erin, Neville and Luna. 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 centaur's arrow, the tip of the goblin's hat, and the house-elf's ears continued to gush into the surrounding pool.

"Come on," said Harry quietly and the seven of them sprinted off down the hall, Harry in the lead, past the fountain, toward the desk where the security man who had weighed Harry's wand had sat and which was now deserted.

Harry turned toward the plain black door.

"Let's go," he whispered, and he led the way down the corridor, Luna right behind him, gazing around with her mouth slightly open.

"Okay, listen," said Harry, stopping again within six feet of the door. "Maybe . . . maybe a couple of people should stay here as a - as a lookout, and -"

"And how're we going to let you know something's coming?" asked Ginny, her eyebrows raised. "You could be miles away."

"We're coming with you, Harry," said Neville.

"Let's get on with it," said Ron firmly.

Harry seemed he wanted to argue but decided not to say a thing.

They were standing in a large, circular room. Everything in here was black including the floor and ceiling — identical, unmarked, handle-less 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 so that it looked as though there was dark water underfoot.

“Someone shut the door,” Harry muttered.

The place became so dark that for a moment the only things they could see were the bunches of shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly reflections in the floor below.

“What was that about?” whispered Ron fearfully.

“I think it was to stop us knowing which door we came in from,” said Ginny in a hushed voice.

“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 Sirius —”

“Don’t go calling for him, though!” Hermione said urgently.

“Where do we go, then, Harry?” Ron asked.

“I don’t —” Harry began and swallowed. “In the dreams I went through the door at the end of the corridor from the lifts into a dark room — that’s this one — and then I went through another door into a room that kind of . . . glitters. We should try a few doors,” he said hastily. “I’ll know the right way when I see it. C’mon.”

He 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. It swung open easily.

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 water, big enough for all of them to swim in, which contained a number of pearly white objects that were drifting around lazily in the liquid.

“What’re those things?” whispered Ron.

“Dunno,” said Harry.

“Are they fish?” breathed Ginny.

“Aquavirius maggots!” said Luna excitedly. “Dad said the Ministry were breeding —”

“No,” said Hermione. She sounded odd. She moved forward to look through the side of the tank. “They’re brains.”

“Brains?”

"Oh, so that's where mine went," joked Erin. Ginny couldn't help but to snort loudly beside her.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Harry. “This isn’t right, we need to try another door —”

“There are doors here too,” said Ron, pointing around the walls.

“In my dream I went through that dark room into the second one,” Harry said. “I think we should go back and try from there.”

They hurried back into the dark, circular room; the ghostly shapes of the brains were now swimming before Harry’s eyes instead of the blue candle flames.

“Wait!” said Hermione sharply, as Luna made to close the door of the brain room behind them. “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, but now there was a great red-gold blur in amongst the faint blue, and when all became still again, the fiery cross still burned, showing the door they had already tried.

“Good thinking,” said Harry. “Okay, let’s 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.

“Who’s there?” said Harry, jumping down onto the bench below.

“Careful!” whispered Hermione.

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 toward the dais.

“Sirius?” Harry spoke again, but much more quietly now that he was nearer.

"We should go," said Erin. "I don't like this."

Hermione nodded. “Let’s go,” she called. “This isn’t right, Harry, come on, let’s go. . . .”

She sounded scared, much more scared than she had in the room where the brains swam.

“Harry, let’s go, okay?” said Hermione more forcefully.

“Okay.” Harry did not move. “What are you saying?” he said very loudly, so that the words echoed all around the surrounding stone benches.

“Nobody’s talking, Harry!” said Hermione, now moving over to him.

“Someone’s whispering behind there,” he said, moving out of her reach and continuing to frown at the veil. “Is that you, Ron?”

“I’m here, mate,” said Ron, appearing around the side of the archway.

“Can’t anyone else hear it?” Harry demanded.

“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!”

“What do you mean, ‘in there’?” demanded Hermione, jumping down from the bottom step and sounding much angrier than the occasion warranted. “There isn’t any ‘in there,’ it’s just an archway, there’s no room for anybody to be there — Harry, stop it, come away —” She grabbed his arm and pulled, but he resisted.

“Harry, we are supposed to be here for Sirius!” she said in a high-pitched, strained voice.

"Erin!"

The blonde turned around. "Yeah?"

Everyone shot her a confused look.

She raised an eyebrow. "Did someone call me?"

Hermione looked around, everyone was shaking their head. Hermione glanced back at the Slytherin. "No one called you, Erin."

"But I heard. . ." Erin shook her head. "I must be going crazy."

"Erin!"

And then again. And again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Erin uncounciously neared the veil, the calls of her name got louder as she did.

Just as she almost touched it, someone grabbed her arm.

"What are you doing! Do you want to kill yourself?"

"No, Hermione, I don't."

“Let’s go,” Harry said.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to — well, come on, then!” said Hermione, and she led the way back around the dais.

“What d’you reckon that arch was?” Harry asked Hermione as they regained the dark circular room.

“I don’t know, but whatever it was, it was dangerous,” she said firmly, again inscribing a fiery cross upon the door.

Once more the wall spun and became still again. Harry approached a door at random and pushed. It did not move.

“What’s wrong?” said Hermione.

“It’s . . . locked . . .” said Harry, throwing his weight at the door, but it did not budge.

“This is it, then, isn’t it?” said Ron excitedly, joining Harry in the attempt to force the door open. “Bound to be!”

“Get out of the way!” said Hermione sharply. She pointed her wand at the place where a lock would have been on an ordinary door and said, “Alohomora!”

Nothing happened.

“Sirius’s knife!” said Harry, and he pulled it out from inside his robes and slid it into the crack between the door and the wall. The others all watched eagerly as he ran it from top to bottom, withdrew it, and then flung his shoulder again at the door. It remained as firmly shut as ever.

“Right, we’re leaving that room,” said Hermione decisively.

“But what if that’s the one?” said Ron, staring at it with a mixture of apprehension and longing.

“It can’t be, Harry could get through all the doors in his dream,” said Hermione, marking the door with another fiery cross.

“You know what could be in there?” said Luna eagerly, as the wall started to spin yet again.

“Something blibbering, no doubt,” said Hermione under her breath, and Neville gave a nervous little laugh as Erin slightly glared at her. She hated when people made fun of her Ravenclaw friend.

The wall slid back to a halt and Harry, with a feeling of increasing desperation, pushed the next door open.

“This is it!”

Harry led the way forward down the narrow space between the lines of the desks.

“Oh look!” said Ginny, as they drew nearer, pointing at the very heart of the bell jar.

Drifting along in the sparkling current inside was a tiny, jewel-bright egg. As it rose in the jar it cracked open and a hummingbird emerged, which was carried to the very top of the jar, but as it fell on the draft, its feathers became bedraggled and damp again, and by the time it had been borne back to the bottom of the jar it had been enclosed once more in its egg.

“Keep going!” said Harry sharply, because Ginny showed signs of wanting to stop and watch the egg’s progress back into a bird.

“You dawdled enough by that old arch!” she said crossly, but followed him past the bell jar to the only door behind it.

“This is it,” Harry said again. “It’s through here —” He glanced around at them all. They had their wands out and looked suddenly serious and anxious. He looked back at the door and pushed. It swung open.

They were there, they had found the 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.

“You said it was row ninety-seven,” whispered Hermione.

“Yeah,” breathed Harry, looking up at the end of the closest row.

Beneath the branch of blue-glowing candles protruding from it glimmered the silver figure 53.

“We need to go right, I think,” whispered Hermione, squinting to the next row. “Yes . . . that’s fifty-four. . . .”

“Keep your wands out,” Harry said softly.

“Ninety-seven!” whispered Hermione.

They stood grouped around the end of the row, gazing down the alley beside it. There was nobody there.

“He’s right down at the end,” said Harry, whose mouth had become slightly dry. “You can’t see properly from here. . . .”

And he led them forward, between the towering rows of glass balls, some of which glowed softly as they passed. . . .

“He should be near here,” whispered Harry “Anywhere here . . . really close . . .”

“Harry?” said Hermione tentatively.

“Somewhere about . . . here . . .” he said.

They had reached the end of the row and emerged into more dim candlelight.

There was nobody there at all. All was echoing, dusty silence.

“He might be . . .” Harry whispered hoarsely, peering down the alley next door. “Or maybe . . .” He hurried to look down the one beyond that.

“Harry?” said Hermione again.

“What?” he snarled.

"He's not here," Erin said for Hermione. She really wanted to say, "I told you!" But it was not the best time.

"Kreacher told me—"

"You talked to Kreacher? That Pure-blood supremacist elf? He hates us all—"

"He told me Sirius left and that he won't make it out alive from here!"

“Harry?” Ron called.

“What?”

“Have you seen this?”

“What?” said Harry, but eagerly this time.

“It’s — it’s got your name on,” said Ron.

Harry moved a little closer. Ron 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.

“My name?” said Harry blankly.

In spidery writing was written a date of some sixteen years previously, and below that:

Harry stared at it.

“What is it?” Ron asked, sounding unnerved. “What’s your name doing down here? I’m not here, none of the rest of us are here. . . .”

“Harry, I don’t think you should touch it,” said Hermione sharply, as he stretched out his hand.

“Why not?” he said. “It’s something to do with me, isn’t it?”

“Don’t, Harry,” said Neville suddenly.

“It’s got my name on,” reasoned Harry.

And suddenly, from behind them they heard; “Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me.”