Emma Potter; Going to War

51: Department of fucking Mysteries [Pt.2]

"Brains?"

 "Yes . . . I wonder what they're doing with them?" 

Harry joined me at the tank.  Glimmering eerily theydrifted in and out of sight in the depths of the green water, lookingsomething like slimy cauliflowers. 

"Let's get out of here," said Harry. "This isn't right, we need to tryanother door —" 

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

 My heart sank; how big was this place?

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

 So we hurried back into the dark, circular room; the ghostlyshapes of the brains were now swimming before my eyes insteadof the blue candle flames.

 "Wait!" said Hermione sharply, as Luna made to close the door ofthe brain room behind them. "Flagrate!" 

She drew with her wand in midair and a fiery X appeared on thedoor. No sooner had the door clicked shut behind them than therewas a great rumbling, and once again the wall began to revolve veryfast, 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, showingthe door we 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 rest of us at his heels.

 This room was larger than the last, dimly lit and rectangular, and thecenter of it was sunken, forming a great stone pit some twenty feet below us. We were standing on the topmost tier of what seemed tobe stone benches running all around the room and descending in steepsteps like an amphitheater, or the courtroom in which Harry and I had beentried by the Wizengamot. 

Instead of a chained chair, however, there wasa raised stone dais in the center of the lowered floor, and upon this daisstood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked, and crumblingthat I was amazed the thing was still standing. 

Unsupported byany 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?"I said, jumping down onto the bench below.There was no answering voice, but the veil continued to flutter and sway. 

"Careful!" whispered Hermione.

 I scrambled down the benches one by one until I reached thestone bottom of the sunken pit. My footsteps echoed loudly as I walked slowly toward the dais. The pointed archway looked muchtaller from where I stood now than when I had been looking downon it from above. Still the veil swayed gently, as though somebody hadjust passed through it. 

"Sirius?" I spoke again, but much more quietly now that I was nearer. 

I had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing rightbehind the veil on the other side of the archway. Gripping my wandvery tightly, I edged around the dais, but there was nobody there. Allthat could be seen was the other side of the tattered black veil.

"Let's go," called Hermione from halfway up the stone steps. "Thisisn't right, Emma, come on, let's go. . . ." 

She sounded scared, much more scared than she had in the roomwhere the brains swam, yet I  thought the archway had a kind ofbeauty about it, old though it was. The gently rippling veil intrigued me; I felt a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walkthrough it.