it did not object, but twisted its head around, fangs bared, and attempted to continue its eager licking of harry's robes. neville had heaved himself over the back of the next thestral and was now attempting to swing one short leg over the creature's back. luna was already in place, sitting sidesaddle and adjusting her robes as though she did this every day. elara, ron, hermione, and ginny, however, were still standing motionless on the spot, openmouthed and staring.

"what?" said harry.

"i'm not riding on one of those," said elara faintly. "i — i can't — heights — "

"how're we supposed to get on?" said ron, his tone matching elara's. "when we can't see the things?"

"oh it's easy," said luna, sliding obligingly from her thestral and marching over to him, hermione, and ginny. "come here. . . ."

"lara, d'you wanna ride with me?" said harry, sliding off the horse.

"c'mon lara, you can to this. . . . for sirius. . . . take a deep breath," she murmured to herself. "remember who the fuck you are."

elara inched forward until harry took her hand and pulled her over to the threstral. he helped her boost up before clumsily climbing back on the undead horse. he wasn't up two seconds before elara wrapped her arms around harrowers tightly and pressed her forehead into his back.

"this is mad," ron said faintly, moving his free hand gingerly up and down his horse's neck. "mad . . . if i could just see it —"

"you'd better hope it stays invisible," said harry darkly. "we all ready, then?"

"when i said i wanted something interesting to do," said elara sourly, "i did not mean rebelling against the government as irresponsible teenagers."

"that means we're ready," said hermione, translating for everyone.

"okay . . . ministry of magic, visitors' entrance, london, then," said harry uncertainly. "er . . . if you know . . . where to go . . ."

for a moment the thestral did nothing at all. then, with a sweeping movement that nearly unseated elara (followed thereafter by a yelp), the wings on either side extended, the horse crouched slowly and then rocketed upward so fast and so steeply that elara had to clench her legs tightly around the horse to avoid sliding backward over its bony rump. she closed her eyes and buried her face deeper into harry's backside as they burst through the topmost branches of the trees and soared out into a bloodred sunset.

elara did not think she had ever moved so fast: the thestral streaked over the castle, its wide wings hardly beating. the cooling air was souring around elara; her eyes screwed up against the desire to look down. she focused on harry's warmth. she focused of how she was elara lestrange tonks, and this was totally out of character for her.

they were over the hogwarts grounds, they had passed hogsmeade.

"this is bizarre!" elara heard ron yell from somewhere behind her, and she imagined how it must feel to be speeding along at this height with no visible means of support. . . .

twilight fell: the sky turned to a light, dusky purple littered with tiny silver stars, and soon it was only the lights of muggle towns that gave them any clue of how far from the ground they were or how very fast they were traveling. elara's arms were wrapped tightly around harry's waist as she willed the threstral to go even faster. how much time had elapsed since she had seen sirius dying? how much longer would he be able to resist voldemort?

on they flew through the gathering darkness; elara's face felt stiff and cold, her legs numb from gripping the thestral's sides so tightly, but she did not dare shift positions lest she slip. . . . she was deaf from the thundering in her ears and her mouth was dry and frozen from the rush of cold night air. she had lost all sense of how far they had come; all her faith was in the beast below her, still streaking purposefully through the night, barely flapping its wings as it sped ever onward

elara's stomach gave a jolt. the thestral's head was suddenly pointing toward the ground and she had actually slid forward a few inches along its back.

"i really don't like this — i really, really don't like this," muttered elara repeatedly.

they were descending at last. the bright orange lights were growing larger and rounder on all sides. they could see the tops of buildings, streams of headlights like luminous insect eyes, squares of pale yellow that were windows. quite suddenly, it seemed, they were hurtling toward the pavement. elara gripped the thestral with every last ounce of her strength, braced for a sudden impact, but the horse touched the dark ground as lightly as a shadow and elara slid from his back, looking around at the street where the overflowing dumpster still stood a short way from the vandalized telephone box, both drained of color in the flat orange glare of the streetlights.

"excuse me while i vomit," said elara, as she stumbled over to a trash can.

ron landed a short way away and toppled immediately off his thestral onto the pavement.

"never again," he said, struggling to his feet. he made as though to stride away from his thestral, but, unable to see it, collided with its hindquarters and almost fell over again. "never, ever again . . . that was the worst —"

hermione and ginny touched down on either side of him. both slid off their mounts a little more gracefully than ron, though with similar expressions of relief at being back on firm ground. Neville jumped down, shaking, but luna dismounted smoothly.

"is lara okay?" said ginny worriedly, peering over at the trash can elara had her head in.

elara gave a weak thumbs up before pulling her head out, "i'm great."

"where do we go from here, then?" asked luna in a politely interested voice, as though this was all a rather interesting day-trip.

"over here," said harry. he held elara steady as he led the way quickly to the battered telephone box and opened the door. "come on!" he urged the others as they hesitated.

ron and ginny marched in obediently; hermione, neville, and luna squashed themselves in after them; elara took one glance back at the thestrals, now foraging for scraps of rotten food inside the dumpster, then forced herself into the box after luna, followed shortly by harry.

"whoever's nearest the receiver, dial six two four four two!" he 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, elara tonks, ron weasley, hermione granger," harry said very quickly, "ginny weasley, neville longbottom, luna lovegood . . . 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 harry over ginny's head; elara glanced at the topmost one.

rescue mission

"badass," murmured elara, "i'm never throwing this out."

"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. the scavenging thestrals were sliding out of sight, blackness closed over their heads, and with a dull grinding noise they sank down into the depths of the ministry of magic.

"not again," groaned elara as she latched onto luna for support.

a chink of soft golden light hit their feet and, widening, rose up their bodies. elara bent her knees and held her wand as ready as she 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 the 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.

"this is weird," said elara conversationally.

the door of the telephone box burst open; elara and harry toppled out of it, followed by 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, elara and harry in the lead, past the fountain, toward the desk where the security man who would have weighed their wands sat and which was now deserted.

elara felt sure that there ought to be a security person there, sure that their absence was an ominous sign, and her feeling of foreboding increased as they passed through the golden gates to the lifts. she pressed the nearest down 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. elara groaned again. she was sure that 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 again, they stepped out into the corridor where nothing was moving but the nearest torches, flickering in the rush of air from the lift.

elara turned toward the plain black door. after months and months of dreaming about it, she was here at last. . . . the nausea was gone. she felt like she was nearing a source of ancient power. the magic ran through her.

"let's go," she whispered, and she led the way down the corridor, harry right behind her, gazing around with his 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.

"oh, let them come," said elara impatiently. "we have a better chance with more people."

harry sighed. he turned to face the door and walked forward. just as it had in elara's dream, it swung open and she and harry marched forward, leading the others over the threshold.

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," muttered elara.

she 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 bunches of shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly reflections in the floor below.

in her dream, elara 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 she was gazing ahead at the doors opposite him, trying to decide which was the right one, there was a great rumbling noise and the candles began to move sideways. the circular wall was rotating.

hermione grabbed elara's arm as though frightened the floor might move too, but it did not. for a few seconds the blue flames around them were blurred to resemble neon lines as the wall sped around and then, quite as suddenly as it had started, the rumbling stopped and everything became stationary once again.

elara's eyes had blue streaks burned into them; it was all she could see.

"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.

"fantastic," said elara irritably. "i bet you there's a minotaur waiting through one of those doors."

meanwhile, the door through which they needed to proceed could be any of the dozen surrounding them.

"how're we going to get back out?" said neville uncomfortably.

"well, that doesn't matter now," said elara forcefully, blinking to try and erase the blue lines from her vision, and clutching her wand tighter than ever. "we won't need to get out till we've found sirius —"

"don't go calling for him, though!" hermione said urgently, but elara had never needed her advice less; her instinct was to keep as quiet as possible for the time being.

"where do we go, then, harry, lara?" ron asked.

"i don't —" harry began. he 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. "lara and 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, elara raised her wand, ready to strike the moment it opened, and pushed. it swung open easily.

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 such as elara had seen in her visions. 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."

"jesus fucking christ, this is weird," muttered elara, turning away from the tank.

"you okay, lara? do you need to sit down?" asked hermione worriedly, moving over to where she was standing.

"i'm not a delicate fucking flower, so shove it," said elara angrily. she paused and took a deep breath. "sorry — i'm sorry, i'm scared. i'm sorry."

"it's all right," said hermione faintly. "i am too."

the brains were glimmering eerily they drifted in and out of sight in the depths of the green water, looking something like slimy cauliflowers.

"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. elara's heart sank; how big was this place?

"in my vision i went through that dark room into the second one," she said. "i think we should go back and try from there."

so they hurried back into the dark, circular room; the ghostly shapes of the brains were now swimming before elara'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.

"you're a genius, 'mione," said elara. "okay, let's try this one —"

again she strode directly at the door facing her and pushed it open, her wand still raised, the others at her heels.

this room was larger than the last, dimly lit and rectangular, and the center of it was sunken, forming a great stone pit some twenty feet below them. 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 amphitheater, 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 center of the lowered floor, and upon this dais stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked, and crumbling that elara 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.

"who's there?" said harry, jumping down onto the bench below. there was no answering voice, but the veil continued to flutter and sway.

"careful!" whispered hermione.