A Marauder's Guide to Falling Forever

Chapter Thirty One

She was too late.

The atrium was in disarray. Auror's were trying to maintain some semblancy of order by grouping people together. Marlene caught sight of Peter near the Welcome Witch and called out to him, "Peter!" His head rolled to the side at the sound of his name being called, and watched with a stony expression as Marlene hurried towards him. "What's going on?"

"You haven't heard yet?" Peter sounded surprised.

"No," she said, her voice and body beginning to shake. "Heard what?"

"Tom's been taken to St. Mungo's. Some sort of accident in the department. Came up the lift cursing people." He pointed his finger around and she noticed for the first time that the chaos was centered around witches and wizards being attended to by medi-wizards, some minor and others being prepared for transport back to St. Mungos.

Her heart nearly stopped. "When did this happen?"

"Oh, maybe twenty minutes ago. Aurors had a hard time taking him out. It was like he had a death wish or something."

Marlene felt her stomach recoil. "An accident in his department? What sort of accident?"

"Don't know. They don't talk about what goes on in there. But I heard some other people talking right before you got here that something similar happened last year," Peter replied, sounding disinterested. Obviously that information held no relevance to him.

"Rookwood," she uttered under her breath.

"Sorry, what?" Peter asked sharply. "What did – "

"Nothing. Never mind, Peter." Then she was racing towards the fire place, pushing through the crowd. She ignored the protests of others already in line waiting to travel, even bypassing those enroute to St.Mungos themselves. Faintly in the background she could hear someone calling out her name, and she didn't stop to figure out if it was Peter or Sirius. Probably Sirius. He knew where she had been planning to go. But whoever it was didn't matter in the moment.

Grabbing a handful of floo powder she tossed it into the fire and a rupture of emerald flames flickered to life, engulfing her body as she flew into the hearth. "St. Mungos!" she cried out, and the atrium dissolved away.

The familiar stark white lobby of the hospital greeted her. Dizzy and faint with tension, Marlene scrambled from the chute and started lunging towards the direction of the staircase.

"Wait one minute!" A commanding voice bellowed somewhere behind her when she tried to push through the security screening. "You need to go through security first."

"My godfather!" she cried out. "He just came in. Spell damage. I need to get up there!"

"Not without security." He sounded annoyed. Marlene thrust her wand at him and he probed her body with the same magical devices the Ministry used for entrance. He seemed to go agonizingly slow, which only propelled her irritation. She snatched her wand back before he had even properly pulled the probe away and then she was pushing past him again, rushing into the lower mezzanine.

Marlene's feet didn't move fast enough, and she stumbled and tripped going up the marbled steps of the spiralling staircase more than once. Each step felt heavier and heavier as though she were being weighted down with bricks, her lungs struggling to inhale enough oxygen to keep her body going.

Her mind was racing faster than her feet trying to piece it all together. Tom had touched an orb. It wasn't an accident. He knew not to touch it and yet he had done it anyways, which meant that someone on the inside had suspected him somehow of being the new Keeper.

Flashing through her mind was Cassandra's prophecy. Thrice will seek what belongs to the fourth. That was two attempts at the prophecy now, and one more attempt would be made to obtain it.