The Other Black Book 5

Chapter 33 - The Department of Mysteries

Harry climbed onto a thestral. Not that Aurora could see it, but as he was now sitting in midair, his hands holding onto invisible hair... Neville and Luna each climbed onto one as well, but Aurora, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were standing beside each other, staring around the clearing. The one licking Aurora had stopped, but she did not know how close it was to her.

"What?" Harry said.

"How're we supposed to get on?" said Ron faintly. "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. . . ."

She pulled them over to the other thestrals standing around and one by one managed to help them onto the backs of their mounts. It was an extremely strange sensation, to be sitting on what felt like an extremely solid horse's back, and yet be unable to see it. Luna helped Aurora and the others grip their steeds' manes, and then got back onto her own.

"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?"

Everyone all nodded and Aurora tightened her knees against the thestral's back.

"Okay . . ." Harry looked down at his thestral and swallowed. "Ministry of Magic, visitors' entrance, London, then," he said uncertainly. "Er . . . if you know . . . where to go . . ."

Aurora took his lead and told her thestral the same destination.

For a moment her thestral did nothing at all. Then, with a movement that nearly unseated her, Aurora assumed the horse had sprouted wings, and it crouched slowly then rocketed upward so fast and so steeply that Aurora had to clench her arms and legs tightly around the horse to avoid sliding backward. She closed her eyes and put her face down into the horse's silky mane as they burst through the topmost branches of the trees and soared out into a bloodred sunset.

Aurora did not think she had ever moved so fast: The thestral streaked over the castle, the wings hardly beating (she could feel its movement now). The cooling air was slapping Aurora's face; eyes screwed up against the rushing wind, she looked around and saw the other five fellows soaring along behind her, each of them bent as low as possible into the neck of their thestral to protect themselves from its slipstream, while Harry soared at the front of the pack.

They were over the Hogwarts grounds, they had passed Hogsmeade. Aurora could see mountains and gullies below them. In the falling darkness Aurora saw small collections of lights as they passed over more villages, then a winding road on which a single car was beetling its way home through the hills. . . .

"This is bizarre!" Aurora heard Ron yell from somewhere behind him, and silently agreed.

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. Aurora's arms were wrapped tightly around her horse's neck (she could feel where it was) as she willed it to go even faster.

On they flew through the gathering darkness; Aurora'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 hse slip. . . . He 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 invisible beast below him, still streaking purposefully through the night, barely flapping its wings as it sped ever onward. . . .