A Marauder's Guide to Falling Forever

Chapter Twenty Seven

"Someone is going to try to steal it," she said quickly. She felt all eyes on her and she realized that she was going to have to make the choice whether to burden them with the second prophecy.

"Three people actually. And the prophecy is going to be fulfilled. I just don't know which way it's going to go."

"So what, are you somehow a seer now?" Sirius spoke for the first time since he was silenced by Albus.

"No," Marlene said. "Cassandra told me. I didn't understand it until now."

"Well she's wrong," Tom said. "One person, let alone three aren't going to be able to get the chance to try to take it. The only people allowed down there are Ministry officials."

"You already said that you suspect there are spies in the Ministry," Sirius reminded him. "And don't forget that Marlene and I were able to bypass security – "

"Not in my department," he insisted with anger. "I trust my coworkers implicitly. And for how the two of you managed to sneak your way in there. Don't expect that to happen again."

"But what if you're wrong? What if someone is working for Voldemort? Biding their time until they have the opportunity to try to steal it?" Marlene argued.

"Then they're going to get a huge dose of madness. Anyone that tries to take one off the shelf that shouldn't will go mad, remember? Pretty nasty really. And anyone that works in the department knows better than to touch them. Especially after last year when it happened to Augustus. We all got quite the nasty look at what happens when one does."

"Wait a minute," Marlene said quickly. Tom had mentioned this earlier, hadn't he? "Augustus touched one?"

"Yes, he accidentally bumped into the shelf and one fell to the ground. He caught it with his hands and went absolutely batty. He had to be sent to St. Mungos. He spent months there. Hasn't quite been right in the head ever since, I'm afraid."

"Rookwood...Rookwood..." she mulled it over out loud. She kept hearing that name, and every time it felt like she was missing some sort of important detail about it. His smiling face popped into her memory from the time she had visited Tom at the Ministry so many months ago. There was something familiar about his face...

"The spell damage unit!" she exclaimed loudly. "He was in the spell damage unit."

"Yes, that's right," he confirmed, looking perplexed. "I'm not sure why that's so exciting to you though."

"Because I was working in that unit when he was admitted," she said. "I saw him. I remember that vividly now."

She had been assisting Martha. His gnawed fingertips from where he had been devouring them in the corner, violent and mad. He had come in from the Ministry she said, some accident at work. But had it really been an accident?

"Do you think it was really an accident?" Marlene started pondering the possibilities. "What if he was the first attempt? What if he meant to touch it, not knowing that it was going to backfire?"

"I don't think Augustus is a spy Marlene – "

"But what if he is? What if Voldemort already knows that the prophecy exists and he sent Rookwood to get it?"

"I still don't think –"

"And what if he's learned now that the only way he can access it is either Voldemort has to take it, or the Keeper. If he knew that information then he would know that the Keeper would have to be coerced into taking it for him. So what if that's why Hephias disappeared? He knew that Rookwood was coming for him. He knew that the only way to keep the prophecy safe would be to disappear so that he could never have the opportunity to attempt it."

Everyone was silent. It all felt very crazy, yet somehow Marlene was certain it was true.

"Cassandra would have seen it coming. She would have warned him, and then he would have ran," she added when she was greeted with silence. "And she would have foreseen that I'd end up with the key somehow. Which is why –"

She stopped. She had nearly revealed the second prophecy.

"Why what?" James probed her. She had forgotten he and Lily were in the room.

"Which is why we need to find Hephias and figure that out. We need to find him fast, because if Augustus is a spy then Voldemort already knows about the prophecy and will be looking for him."

Then a second thought occurred to her. "Wait. Why are you guys here?" She was looking between Lily and James, and Frank and Alice. They hadn't been involved before so she was confused why all of a sudden they were privy to this information.

"Initially I did not wish to divulge the details of the prophecy until I knew for absolute certain with whom it was pertaining to. But given the circumstances..." Dumbledore trailed off, his eyes passing grimly between the four extra bodies in the room. "I suspect that either Harry or Neville is the child it speaks of. Of course we have no way of knowing for certain which one at the moment..."

"Born at the end of the seventh month," Marlene repeated the words of the prophecy. Both Harry and Neville were born at the end of July. Apparently Lily and James, and Alice and Frank had been filled in on this information. Their ashen, devastated faces came into clearer focus. She felt the wave of nausea overtake her like the ocean tide.

Then the room was silent.