PHANTOM FIGURES | harry potter

89. out of the fire

     "I'm not going... I don't need the hospital wing... I don't want..."

     Harry was gibbering, trying to pull away from the examiner, who was looking at him with much concern, and bringing him to the entrance hall.

     Aspen knew they were nearly done with the exam now and found it very difficult to write down her thoughts. What had Harry seen? She thought he was learning to block his mind, but then again he never told them if he started up his lessons again; everyone had been distracted with O.W.L.s... Was something wrong? Is someone hurt? Mr. Weasley? Did it have to do with Dumbledore?

     Looking back, Aspen doesn't know how she completed the test with comprehensible answers for the graders. Her head was swarming with questions of what just happened. She hoped Harry didn't do anything he would regret after he left the hall, without his friends to stop him.

     The bell rang and there was the usual rumbling of students starting to flood out into the corridors around them. Aspen, Hermione, Jasmine, and Ron quickly joined together.

     "I don't know what happened, one minute he seemed alright, usual stress of exams, and then he was on the ground holding his scar," said Aspen, looking scared.

     The four of them pushed their way through the crowd exiting the Great Hall and ran up the marble staircase, where they ran into a terror-struck Harry who was going downstairs.

     "Harry!" said Aspen quickly, grabbing his arms to stop him from tumbling into them. "What happened? Are you okay?"

     "Where have you been?" demanded Ron.

     "Come with me," Harry said quickly. "Come on, I've got to tell you something..."

     He led them along the first-floor corridor, peering through doorways, and at last found an empty classroom into which he dived, closing the door behind his confused friends the moment they were inside and leaning against it, facing them.

     And then he said the words Aspen had been dreading. The words that had been in the back of her head since Christmas. Her stomach dropped and she felt like throwing up.

     "Voldemort's got Sirius."

     "What?"

     "How d'you -?"

     "Saw it. Just now. When I fell asleep in the exam."

     "But - but where? How?" said Hermione, her face white.

     "I dunno how," said Harry. "But I know exactly where. There's a room in the Department of Mysteries full of shelves covered in these little glass balls, and they're at the end of row ninety-seven... He's trying to use Sirius to get whatever it is he wants from in there... He's torturing him... Says he'll end by killing him..."

     Harry's voice was shaking, so were his knees. He moved over to a desk and sat down on it, trying to master himself.

     Aspen swallowed hard. What would they do? She didn't want to lose Sirius, he was the last bit of normal family on her paternal side.

     "How're we going to get there?" Harry asked.

     "Yeah, we can't Apparate," said Aspen, already on board. "And no Floo..."

     There was a moment's silence. Then Ron said, "G-Get there?"

     "Get to the Department of Mysteries, so we can rescue Sirius!" said Harry loudly.

     "But - Harry..." said Ron weakly.

     "What?" said Aspen and Harry together.

     "Guys," said Hermione in a rather frightened voice, "er... how... how did Voldemort get into the Ministry of Magic without anybody realising he was there?"