The Department of Mysteries

Only half of the friends are able to see the Thestrals, so many of them struggle to mount the strange animals. Ron is particularly nervous, but Luna helps them all get on. Then Harry leans down and whispers to his Thestral that he wants to go to “Ministry of Magic, visitor’s entrance, London.”

The Thestral pauses for a moment and then swoops into the air, and it is not long before the entire group of friends are soaring through the sky. The Thestrals move through the air faster than any other creature or broom that Harry has ridden.

After the group lands, they all cram into the old telephone booth that constitutes the visitor’s entrance, dial the number, and out pop badges that say “HARRY POTTER: Rescue Mission.” Even though Harry was asked to register his wand at the security desk, when the group descends into the Ministry of Magic and gets out of the phone booth, there is no one at the security desk at all. Harry takes this as a bad sign.

His eyes peeled for Sirius, Harry walks his friends down to the corridors of the Department of Mysteries. They are immediately greeted with a room of circular doors that spin and stop at will such that they are unable to figure out which door is the exit.

The group begins to try and open doors. The first door contains a large tank of green liquid with white slimy brains floating around inside. This is obviously not the right room, so the group retreats and Hermione marks the door they just tried with a magical “X.”

Harry suggests trying a second door from the circular room. The next door that they open contains a strange archway with a rippling veil. Harry moves toward the archway and hears whispering voices. No one else hears the whispering except for Luna Lovegood, who also moves toward the strange veil in the archway.

Hermione notices something amiss here and demands that Harry return to his original mission: to rescue Sirius. As they retreat to the circular room again and after Hermione marks the door, they choose yet another. They come upon a locked door that they try to open with Sirius’ special knife, but the knife is ruined in the process.

The final door they open reveals the corridor from Harry’s dream. Harry immediately begins walking down the corridor, excited finally to be here. As he enters the room with the glass spheres, Harry proceeds quickly to the row from his dream, Row 97. However, there is no one there and no sign of any trouble at all.

In his confusion, Harry notices that one of the glass spheres is marked with the names of “Dark Lord and Harry Potter.” Harry takes the glass ball from its resting place and the others move in closer to him as they hear an evil voice from behind demand the glass sphere from Harry.