Chapter 25: Chapter 25
The golden grilles of the lift rattled open, and the female voice announced "Department of Mysteries."
Sarah wrapped and arm around Harry's shoulders and asked "You okay?"
"Yeah," replied Harry with a nod, though he did not sound too sure of himself. His identity was once again concealed by a series of glamour charms.
"Come on," said Madam Bones as she exited the lift "the sooner we get this done the better things will be."
They stepped out into the corridor, the walls of which were completely bare, and contained no windows. At the far end of the corridor, however, there was a plane black door. To the left of them there was an opening that led to a narrow set of steps which led to the old courtrooms. The last time Harry had exited the Ministry lift on this level, he had continued on down those stairs in order to get to his hearing. This time though, he was led straight past them. Today they would be going through the plain black door at the far end.
As he got nearer to the door, Harry felt his scar prickle, causing him to wince.
"What's wrong?" asked Sarah, having noticed.
Harry shook his head and replied "Nothing. It's nothing."
That was a lie of course, he was not alright, and Sarah seemed to sense that, but said nothing more.
The closer they got to the door, the more the pain in his scar increased. He brought his hand up to rub it. It felt like he had a migraine.
"Harry what's the matter?" asked Sarah again.
"My scar," replied Harry, deciding to tell the truth this time "It feels like it's going to split my head in two."
"That might be the Horcrux," said Madam Bones in a low voice "If that thing is strong enough to attack you in your mind, then it might be able to sense what it is we are planning to do today and is trying to stop you from going through with it."
Sarah reached for the satchel that hung from her left shoulder and opened it. From within she took out a small corked vial that contained a liquid that was a light blue in colour.
"Here," she said as she handed it to Harry "It's a potion for mild pain relief and it should take the edge off. Drink it all in one go."
Doing his best to ignore the pain in his scar, Harry used his thumb to pop the cork out of the vial and then tipped the contents into his mouth before swallowing the lot.
The taste was not too bad, and within moments he could feel the pain lessening. It still hurt, but he was no longer being debilitated by it.
"Feel better?" asked Sarah as she took the empty vial from him and put it back into her satchel.
Harry blew out a breath nodded and then replied "Yeah. Let's do this."
Again as they moved closer to the plain black door at the end of the corridor Harry could feel the pain coming from his scar increasing. Thankfully though the pain relief potion was enough to allow him to continue on.
On the other side of the door they found themselves standing in a large circular room. The walls, the floor and the ceiling of this room were all black in colour, and the thirteen doors that stood at intervals around the room were all black as well, and each was identical to the last. Not one of them had a handle. On the walls between each of these doors there hung candles which burned with blue flames.
Now safely within the Department of Mysteries, Sarah waved her wand a few times to remove the glamour charms that his Harry's identity.
Immediately opposite them, one of the doors opened and through it came Cyrus Greengrass and the Unspeakable who had tested Harry's scar before, Algernon Croaker.
"Welcome, Harry Potter," said Croaker "To the Department of Mysteries."
"Thank you for allowing me to come here," replied Harry, knowing how secretive the Unspeakables were. He shook hands with both men.
"I trust that everything is prepared?" asked Madam Bones.
Croaker nodded and replied "Everything is in place. We have set aside a room in which to carry out the exorcism ritual. The required runes have been marked out. All that is left is to add a few finishing touches, for which we will require young Mr Potter's presence."
"Okay," said Harry "well, lead on."
Croaker looked up and said in a loud voice "Ritual Rooms."
The circular wall of the room began to turn anticlockwise slowly. It stopped a moment later, and one of the doors swung open.
Croaker took the lead, and the group followed on behind. Beyond the door was another corridor that seemed to go on for miles. Indeed the other end was not visible, even though the corridor did not turn at all.
In the walls on either side of the corridor there were more black doors. These looked almost as identical to each other as the ones in the circular room, but there was one significant difference to each door. They were numbered with small, golden roman numerals. Doors marked with odd numbers, such as one, three and five were located along the left wall, and the doors opposite them on the right wall were even numbered, two, four, six and so on.
"These rooms are where we carry out certain rituals," explained Croaker "Sometimes the only way to remove a dark enchantment from something is through a ritual. We hope to combine that practice with the ritual used to expel poltergeists from buildings in order to remove the Horcrux from you, Mr Potter."
Harry frowned, not entirely liking the sound of that "So this will be an experimental procedure? You've never actually done this before?"
"Unfortunately yes, this will be experimental," replied Croaker "Please understand though, Mr Potter, Horcruxes are very rare things indeed as very few people are prepared to live with the consequences of making one, and there certainly has never been a recorded instance of a living thing being a Horcrux. This is entirely new territory in a very poorly studied field. We aim to do the best that we can with what little we have."
Harry still was not entirely convinced by that, but he wanted the damned piece of his enemy gone, and so far this from the Unspeakables was the best option to be offered up.
The group came to a stop by a door marked with the roman numerals XLII.
Beyond the door they found a relatively small room, in which there were three other unspeakables. On the floor there were five small rocks, each one carved with a series of runes the meanings of which Harry did not even begin to comprehend, as he had not taken the option to study runes at school. Each of these five stones was joined to all the others by lines carved into the floor. These lines formed the image of a five-point star surrounded by a pentagon.
"The first thing that we are going to need from you, Mr Potter," said Croaker, who did not seem to feel it necessary to introduce his co-workers "is for you to add several drops of your blood to each rune on each rune stone."
At Harry's nod of understanding Croaker produced a knife and used it to place a cut onto the palm of Harry's hand.
Madam Bones shifted slightly but said nothing. Strictly speaking the use of blood in magic was forbidden by the Ministry, but the Unspeakables were exempt from many of the usual rules. And if it was going to help them to get one step closer to ridding the world of Lord Voldemort once and for all, then who was she to stand in the way?
Croaker led Harry to each rune stone in turn and allowed three drops of Harry's blood to drip onto each rune. Each rune stone contained ten runes engraved upon it.
Once every rune on each rune stone had received enough blood, the rune stone in question would glow an eerie red colour for a moment before reverting back to normal.
Once all five rune stones had been made to glow in this manner, Croaker used his wand to heal the cut on Harry's palm.
One of the other Unspeakables approached, holding a tray upon which sat two small bottles of clear liquid, and a small white cloth that appeared to be made from the fur of a puffskein.
"Next," said Croaker "we will need to expose the scar to two of the purest substances known to exist, the tears of a unicorn and the tears of a phoenix. This should help reduce the hold the soul fragment has."
He took the cloth and wetted it with the unicorn tears. He then wiped the wet patch of the cloth in several small circles over the point on Harry's forehead when the scar resided.
Harry felt the area begin to tingle pleasantly, and the pain being emitted from the scar lessened even more than it had as a result of taking Sarah's potion.
Croaker turned the cloth in his hand and wetted another part of it with phoenix tears. He then performed the same actions as before, gently rubbing the tears into the area of the scar. Harry found the pain coming from the scar to be lessening still.
Croaker set the cloth back on the tray and the Unspeakable holding it stepped away and set the tray down on top of a small table which was standing in the corner of the room.
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