Marauder's Daughter (Eventual Tom Riddle X OC)

Chapter 60: Department of Mysteries

I was glad that Dad has brought me here to the Ministry twice before, otherwise I wouldn't know where to go. I mean sure, I knew enough to go to the 9th level, and I remember something in the stories about a brain room and a circular room with rotating doors, but just trying to navigate the large building with no one in it was beyond me. 

It was late in the evening now, Harry got the vision at around 6, and it took about two hours for the other Aurors to be in place and ready, so there are no regular workers here anymore. I did feel the presence of someone else in the Atrium, but it was likely just someone watching me, either a good guy or a bad guy, but either way they kept their presence hidden so I didn't call them out. I'm supposed to be Harry right now, and he wouldn't know how to sense people without magic, that's only a learned skill from experience.

I made my way through the elevators and towards the Department of Mysteries swiftly. I made glowing X marks on the doors in the circular room to mark which ones I opened, and when I found the right one, I walked into the hall of glowing orbs. I took a rock out of my pocket that I had grabbed earlier and did a complex transfiguration on it, and also added an alchemic element on the inside of it so to the naked eye it looked exactly like one of the other orbs in the room. I had to wait until I could see the prophecies myself that way I could make a decoy, knowing I would need one soon. I walked along the aisles until I found Harry's name on a prophecy orb, and looked around at my surroundings.

"Remus!" I called out, playing the distressed boy well. "Remus, where are you!?"

"Not here, I'm afraid." Lucius Malfoy says, stepping out of the shadows from where I already knew he was. I sensed over a dozen others nearby me as well, but wanted them to come out and do their monologue while waiting for my que to trap them. 

I took in Lucius's appearance, he looked tired, and had a nasty scar running through his mouth and cheek that gave him a permanent grimace. The scar was of course curtesy of me, and I turned to him and suppressed a smirk as I faced him.

"Where is he?" I asked, keeping character.

"Not a clue." He responds with a short, clipped tone. "He was never here."

"It was a trap." I breathe out at him, and the other Death Eater's all approach me then. I summon and raise a blade up, not wanting them to disarm my wand from me just yet, but knowing that my blades are currently, in their eyes at least, Harry's trademark. "Why? Why get me here?"

"Take the prophecy and hand it to me, and there will be no need for you to be hurt." He says, a hint of desperation in his tone as he raises his wand. I look deep into his eyes then, and see he honestly looks like he doesn't want to be here right now. He looks thin, scared, and exhausted. "Take it now, Potter." He threatens out again when I don't respond.

"Why do I have to take it? What will happen to me?" I ask 'fearfully'.

"Only those who the prophecy are about may retrieve them. Now pick it up and hand it to me." He holds his hand out, but Bellatrix steps forward, her patience lost at the niceties.

"Bring it here, Potter!" Bellatrix shrieks at me, and then cackles breathily as I glare at her, already hating her to her very core. "The Dark Lord will reward me well for bringing him your head, and he'll reward me even better for bringing you to him alive."

"Why can't he just-" I start to complain, but Bellatrix cuts me off with a torture curse.

"Crucio!" She screams out, and since I'm at point blank range, I don't have time to dodge it. Pain, relentless and endless pain shoots through me for a long moment before Lucius makes her stop.