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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Out of the corner of her eye, Arabella saw Harry go down. Concerned, she, Ron, and Hermione knelt down to his level, shortly joined by Olivia and Faustus.

"Harry?" Faustus questioned, confused as to why the boy was on the ground.

"It's Sirius," was all Harry said, looking only at Faustus.

Faustus went pale for a moment before helping Harry to his feet and out of the courtyard, away from all the cheering students. "Did you see him?"

"Yes. Faustus, Voldemort has him. In the Department of Mysteries."

Ron and Arabella winced at the name.

"The Department of Mysteries? Wh-" Olivia asked, visibly confused.

"That's where the weapon is," Faustus quickly explained to her.

"You mean the one the Order is trying to keep from Voldemort?"

"Yes!" Harry cried. "We need to go! We need to save him!"

Faustus nodded and the two boys walked off in a hurry. After exchanging concerned looks, the others followed.

"Okay, hold on, we need to talk about this!" Olivia called after them, jogging to catch up with them.

"What's there to talk about, Olivia?" Faustus retorted.

"A number of things! If you'd just slow down a bit, I might be able to name one!"

"We won't be slowing down, but you can go ahead."

"Well, first off, Harry, are you sure of what you saw?"

"Yes. It's just like with Mr. Weasley," Harry said. "It's the same door I've been dreaming about for months, and I couldn't remember where I'd seen it before. Sirius said Voldemort was after something. Something he didn't have the last time, and it's in the Department of Mysteries."

"Harry, Faustus, please, just listen!" Hermione pleaded with him. Reluctantly, he and Faustus both stopped in their tracks and turned to face her. "What if Voldemort meant for you to see this? What if he's only hurting Sirius because he's trying to get to you?"

"What if he is? We're supposed to just let him die?"

"She didn't mean it like that, Harry," Arabella said. "Of course we want to help Sirius."

"Well, then, what's the issue here?"

"The issue is," Olivia spoke up again, "what if Voldemort is only showing you things that he knows will get you away from Hogwarts so he can hurt you? Who's to say that if you can see into his mind that he can't see into yours?"

"That was the whole point of the Occlumency lessons," Faustus said, referring to the lessons Harry was receiving from Professor Snape for a time to learn how to close his mind from these dreams from Voldemort. "He's got it under control now, right, Harry?"

"Clearly not if he's just had another vision!" The older girl's Scottish accent was becoming thicker as she spoke, a clear sign that she was getting angry; Arabella recognized the tone from Quidditch practice. "What if he's made this up and Sirius is completely fine? And we go there and Sirius isn't there but Voldemort's waiting for us and wipes us all out one by one?"

"He's the only family I've got left," Harry said. "If there's a chance he's going to die, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop it, whether you guys will come with me or not."

There was a moment of silence as these words resonated within the others.

"What do we do?" Ron asked.

"We'll have to use the Floo network," Harry said, resuming his fast-walk.

"Umbridge has the chimneys under surveillance," Hermione pointed out.

"Not all of them."

"Right, Umbridge won't have her own fireplace watched, will she?" Arabella supposed.

"And how do you all suppose we get into the headmistress's office without being caught?" Olivia asked, sounding thoroughly done with the lot of them.

"We'll need a few lookouts, obviously," Faustus said.

"I'm on it," Arabella said before running off.

She had her mind made up with who would be the most helpful in this situation before she even found them.

"Hey," she said in a casual voice, slipping into the stream of students heading back from the courtyard.

"There you are," Ginny said. "We were wondering where you'd run off to."

"Yeah, about that... we need your help." Then, spotting Luna walking next to Evelyn and clearly listening in to the conversation, "We could use you, too, Luna."

"With what?" she asked in her dreamy, unconcerned voice.

"I'll explain as much as I can on the way. Come on."

And with that, they all slipped back out of the crowd, having no idea they were being watched.

"So," Arabella began, leading the way back to the second floor corridor where Umbridge's office was, "Harry's had another vision; he's seen Sirius being tortured by You-Know-Who for the weapon. He and the others are using Umbridge's office to use the Floo network to see if Sirius is at Headquarters or not, and that's where we all come in. We have to make sure no one, not a single soul, walks through that corridor while they're using her office."

"But how do we convince people not to?" Evelyn asked. "They're not likely to listen to us if we just say 'hey, you can't use this corridor.'"

"We could tell them it's infested with Nargles," Luna suggested.

Arabella couldn't help but just stare at Luna for a moment, wondering what the hell a Nargle was. Ginny and Evelyn, very accustomed to Nargles coming up often in conversation with Luna, seemed completely unfazed by it.

"Fred and George were planning on letting off a load of Garroting Gas before they left," Ginny said. "We could say that."

"Right," Arabella said. "Yeah, that's believable. All right," they had arrived at the second floor corridor, "Luna and Evelyn, you stay here at this end, and Ginny and I will keep lookout at the other end. Remember, someone let off a load of Garroting Gas and no one is to walk through this corridor until it's cleared."

"And if someone does so anyway? Or if we're discovered by Umbridge or the Inquisitorial Squad?" Evelyn asked.

"'Weasley Is Our King,'" Ginny said, thinking fast. "Very loud so that the others in the office will hear us. They'll know something's up when they hear that coming from us."

"The Slytherin version or the Gryffindor version?" Luna asked.

"Either one, Luna," they all told her.

[word count: 1058]
[written: 8/24/20]
[published: 8/25/20]