Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [5]

⚡️ Chapter 73 ⚡️

Before they could get out of the Brain Room, Ron caught their attention back and pointed around along the walls, "There are doors here too," Vega gave them all a weary look, too tense to even imagine what door held what beyond it. She was, if anything, a bit relieved that if they were to run into anyone, it would be a Ministry employee.

"In my dream I went through that dark room into the second one," Harry told him as they walked back out to the dark, circular room. "I think we should go back and try from there,"

"Wait!" Hermione said sharply, as Luna made to close the door of the brain room behind them. "Flagrate!" She drew with her wand in mid-air 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," Harry said. "Okay, let's try this one –"

Again, Harry strode directly at the door facing him and pushed it open, Vega followed behind him with others, her wand raised in case they were suddenly attacked.

This room was larger than the last, dimly lit and rectangular, and the centre 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 amphitheatre, 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 centre of the lowered floor, and upon this dais stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked, and crumbling that Vega 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?" Harry said and Vega frowned when he jumped down onto the bench below. There was no answering voice, but the veil continued to flutter and sway.

"Careful!" Hermione whispered. "Vega –"

"I'll keep an eye out," Vega assured as she followed behind Harry, who was scrambling down the benches one by one until they reached the bottom of the sunken pit. "Harry, stop making so much noise – we don't want too much attention,"

Their footsteps echoed loudly as they walked slowly toward the dais. The pointed archway looked much taller from where they stood now than when they had been looking down on it from above. Still the veil swayed gently, as though somebody had just passed through it. Vega felt a very strange feeling in the coil of her stomach at it.

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

"Harry, what are you doing?" Vega asked, grabbing his arm before he could walk over through the veil. "You can't touch anything here,"

"Wait, Vega, Vega, do you hear it?" Harry asked, and Vega gave him a strange look. "Just come here, closer, and listen quietly,"

Vega swallowed and did as he had asked – she had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the veil on the other side of the archway. She held onto her wand and slowly edged around the dais, but there was nobody there.

All that could be seen was the other side of the tattered black veil.

"Let's go," Hermione called from halfway up the stone steps. "This isn't right, Vega – Harry, come on, let's go..." She sounded scared, much more scared than she had in the room where the brains swam and Vega could faintly understand.