Notes

Sirius must be just behind the curtain, he, Harry would pull him back out again...

As he reached the ground and sprinted toward the dais, Lupin moved to grab Harry. But Harry's fear for Sirius gave him a burst of sharp clarity that let him weave through Lupin's arms like quicksilver. He jumped into the tattered veil, leaving behind the chaos of the battle.

There was only a whisper of darkness before Harry stumbled through the Veil, his momentum sending him skidding across the stone floor. His tumble forward halted as he slammed into a sprawled figure.

Wincing, Harry leveraged himself to his knees and glanced around before his eyes lit upon the figure in front of him. “Sirius!”

It was indeed Sirius, and though he was unconscious, he also seemed unharmed. Harry took another moment to examine his surroundings, his heartbeat growing wilder with every second.

He was still in the same room in the Department of Mysteries.

It was also completely empty.

A heartbeat stretched out soundlessly in time. Close to panic, Harry pushed aside the mystery for later, and crawled closer to Sirius. Holding his wand in a tight-knuckled grip, he pointed it at the prone figure. “Ennervate.”

For a brief instant, Harry was terrified that his earlier assessment had been incorrect, that Sirius had been slain by Bellatrix’s last spell, or by his fall through the Veil.

But then he stirred, emitting a weak groan.

Relief flooded Harry, causing him to feel light-headed and weak. He watched as Sirius blinked and craned his head upward. “What the bloody fuck happened?”

Harry shrugged and looked around. The room was still empty, raised steps unblemished by spellfire. The gray expanse taunted him.

“Harry?” Sirius sounded more worried, now.

Harry stood up, brushing himself off. “I don't know, Sirius. Bellatrix hit you with some spell – probably just a stunner – and you fell through the archway. I jumped in after you, but I have no idea what happened.”

Expression growing suspicious, Sirius pushed himself to his feet. “Well, whatever happened, we need to get out of here. It isn't safe, even if there aren't any Death Eaters around.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, even as he glanced around again.

Sirius let out a harsh laugh and made a grand, sweeping gesture with his hand. “The Department of Mysteries, Harry. I doubt there's a single room down here that doesn't have something deadly in it. This room? The archway you say we fell through? That's the Veil. Nothing that goes in ever comes out again.”

“We came out of it,” Harry said. Something had changed, he had to admit, but they'd still come out in a recognizable location.

“Clearly,” Sirius spat. “Except now everyone's gone, and it looks like they'd never been here in the first place. How long was I out?”

“Not more than a few seconds before I revived you,” Harry snapped back, growing irritated by Sirius's tone. “But maybe we should get out of here?”

“Good idea,” Sirius muttered, and strode off toward the door. “Know the way?”

“Not really,” Harry replied, a bit nonplussed by Sirius's attitude. “I was a little preoccupied, trying to figure out where you were and all.”

“You don't say,” Sirius remarked, tone dry. They had reached the circular room of doors, which proceeded to entertain them with its characteristic spinning. “Whatever gave you the idea that I needed rescuing, anyways?”

“I saw Voldemort torturing you in the prophecy room,” Harry answered. Now that Sirius was safe by his side, he wondered how he'd fallen for the trick. Sirius wasn't exactly the most accessible person for Voldemort to kidnap, even if he was aiming for somebody that Harry cared about.

“I sneaked into Umbridge's office to Floo you,” Harry explained, “but you weren't at Grimmauld Place. I mean, I thought...”

Sirius had taken on a faraway look as the doors stopped rotating. Seeming to pick one at random, he opened it into the hallway to the lifts and walked out. Harry jogged after him.

“But I was at Grimmauld, Harry,” Sirius said as they walked. “I was upstairs – Buckbeak had injured himself, his leg needed tending to.”

Harry frowned. “But Kreacher said –” Then his eyes widened as Sirius's wand shot out a bright stream of red sparks, highlighting the sharp angles of his face in blood-lit shadows.

“Kreacher,” his godfather hissed, “will soon find his head hanging very near his ancestors. The mirror, Harry, the damned mirror, why didn't you use it?”

Mirror? Then Harry paused. As soon as he realized what Sirius was talking about, his anger roared its own battle cry. “The mirror? Well, maybe I would have remembered to use it, if you'd bloody well told me what it did!”

Then he noticed that the lift they were in was rising. “Maybe we should, uh, disguise ourselves? Before we walk out of the Ministry?”

Sirius just stared at him for a moment, the anger on his face wiped clean with blank incomprehension. Then his eyes lit up and he raised his wand and tapped his own head, followed by Harry's.

Harry felt as if Sirius had cracked an egg over him, cold trickling down his back. He shivered, then looked down. He had all but faded from view, a slight ripple in the air the only sign that anybody stood there.

The ripple next to him that was Sirius grunted. “Not the best, but it'll have to do until we figure out what's going on.”

Not as good as his invisibility cloak, Harry thought, but that wouldn't be able to cover both of them. “How did you know which door to choose to get out of there, anyways?”

There was a short pause, during which the only sound was the creaking of the lift as it made its slow ascent. Then, as he began to wonder if Sirius had heard the question, Harry heard a soft sigh.

“I can't answer that question, Harry.” His voice was as toneless as Harry had ever heard it, and it was a moment before he picked up on the subtle emphasis.

“You can't, or won't?” There was another pause following that question, and Harry wondered if perhaps he'd read a little much into the first answer.

“I can't answer that question, Harry.” This time, Sirius was quieter, almost whispering.

Perhaps he hadn't read enough into the first answer. Harry decided to leave it be, their escape being a rather more pressing matter than this strangely-quiet Sirius who had never talked about his job after leaving Hogwarts. Well then.

Harry cleared his throat, and almost choked when the lift doors opened and Sirius grabbed his arm without warning.

He stared. The Ministry was busy, wizards and witches in robes bustling about the Atrium as if they had been there the whole day. Harry was left with little time to wonder, however, as Sirius tugged on his arm and pulled him out of the lift.

Harry followed without complaint, wondering what was going on. He hadn't been keeping track of time, but he doubted that his expedition had taken so long that the next work day had started. Not to mention the invasion of Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries. They had managed to penetrate the Ministry unnoticed, but surely they wouldn't have all managed to escape.

Surely... Harry shook his head. They had reached the center of the Atrium, ducking and weaving between the crowd, and aside from a few minor bumps had passed by undetected. Sirius's grip tightened, and Harry heard a whisper. “Brace yourself.”

Harry had no time to voice a question before he was crushed into a small tube and pulled. His panic had no time time to surface, either, as Sirius had a firm grip on his arm and steered him further into the darkness of the alleyway they had appeared in.

“What's going on?” Harry whispered. The alley seemed familiar, and he had a faint memory of ducking into it once on a trip to Diagon Alley. But why would Sirius have apparated there? He was still a wanted fugitive, after all.