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Black shapes were emerging out of thin air all around them, blocking their way left and right; eyes glinted through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at their hearts. Ginny gave a gasp of horror.
"Where's Remus and Sirius?" Harry asked immediately, holding his wand out in return.
The group of teens closed in tightly together. Iris could practically sense the fear radiating off of them.
"It's time you learned the difference between reality and dreams, Potter—" Lucius smirked. "You saw what the Dark Lord wanted you to see. Now give. That. To me... No one needs to get hurt," said Malfoy coolly.
It was Harry's turn to laugh.
"Yeah, right!" he said. "I give you this — prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a female Death Eater shrieked, "Accio Proph —"
Iris was ready for her. She shouted "Protego!" before the woman had finished her spell, and though the glass sphere slipped to the tips of Harry's fingers he managed to cling on to it.
"Oh, she knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter," she said, her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood. "Very well, then —"
"NO!" Lucius Malfoy roared at the woman. "If you smash it — !"
Iris's mind was racing. The Death Eaters wanted the prophecy. Iris knew she couldn't let them get it, but her first priority was her friends. She just wanted to get them all out of this alive, make sure that none of them paid a terrible price for her stupidity...
The woman stepped forward, away from her fellows, and pulled off her hood. Azkaban had hollowed Bellatrix Lestrange's face, making it gaunt and skull-like, but it was alive with a feverish, fanatical glow.
Iris could feel Neville's arm pressed against hers; he was shaking.
"How come Voldemort wants it?"
Several of the Death Eaters let out low hisses.
"You dare speak his name?" whispered Bellatrix.
"Yeah," said Harry, maintaining his tight grip on the glass ball, expecting another attempt to bewitch it from him. "Yeah, I've got no problem saying Vol —"
"How dare you besmirch his name— YOU FILTHY HALF-BLOOD," Bellatrix shrieked.
Iris grabbed the back of Harry's jacket as a warning to stop testing them.
Lucius sharply commanded the witch to calm down before answering Harry's question, "As those who died trying to acquire it for the Dark Lord learned— prophecies can only be retrieved by those about whom they are made."
Iris knew they had to get out of there. She easily snaked her way into each of her friends' minds, whispering to them: When I say, attack.
"Haven't you ever wondered why the Dark Lord tried to kill you and your sister as infants?" Lucius asked seductively, "The reason for the connection between you now? The secret... of your scar? You hold the answer in your hands. Come— let me show it to you..."
Harry looked down at the glowing orb and hesitated. He put on a show, "I've been waiting fourteen years... I guess I can wait a little longer."
"NOW—!!" Iris yelled.
Six different voices around her bellowed "STUPEFY!" Seven curses flew in seven different directions and several of the shelves opposite them exploded as they hit. The towering structure swayed as a hundred glass spheres burst apart, pearly-white figures unfurled into the air and floated there, their voices echoing from who knew what long-dead past amid the torrent of crashing glass and splintered wood now raining down upon the floor —
"RUN!" Harry yelled, and as the shelves swayed precariously and more glass spheres began to pour from above, Iris seized a handful of her brother's robes and dragged him forward, one arm over her head as chunks of shelf and shards of glass thundered down upon them. A Death Eater lunged forward through the cloud of dust and Harry elbowed him hard in the masked face. They were all yelling, there were cries of pain, thunderous crashes as the shelves collapsed upon themselves, weirdly echoing fragments of the Seers unleashed from their spheres —
Iris found the way ahead clear and saw Ron, Ginny, and Luna sprint past her, their arms over their heads. Something heavy slammed into her side but she ignored the pain; a hand caught her by the shoulder; she heard Hermione shout "Stupefy!" and the hand released her at once.
They were at the end of row ninety-seven; Iris shoved Harry to the right and they began to sprint in earnest. She could hear footsteps right behind them and Hermione's voice urging Neville on.
Iris could see a door up ahead, and she and Harry pelted through it, the prophecy still clutched tight and safe in his hand, waited for the others to hurtle over the threshold before slamming the door behind them —
"Colloportus!" gasped Hermione and the door sealed itself with an odd squelching noise.
"Where — where are the others?" gasped Harry.
Iris had thought that Ron, Luna, and Ginny had been ahead of them, that they would be waiting in this room, but she realised in horror that there was nobody there. In a moment of panic, Iris noticed they had gone through the wrong door altogether. Rather than the corridor they had first entered through, they were now in a room filled with dozens of desks and random junk. It was rather dark in the room, and there were large deep red curtains draped down the walls that seemed to swallow the light.
"They must have gone the wrong way!" whispered Hermione, terror in her face.
"Listen!" whispered Neville.
Footsteps and shouts echoed from behind the door they had just sealed. Harry put his ear close to the door to listen and heard Lucius Malfoy roar: "Leave Nott, leave him, I say, the Dark Lord will not care for Nott's injuries as much as losing that prophecy — Jugson, come back here, we need to organize! We'll split into pairs and search, and don't forget, be gentle with Potter until we've got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary."
"What do we do?" Hermione asked Harry, trembling from head to foot.
Iris heard something large and heavy collide with the door Hermione had charmed shut.
"Stand aside!" said a rough voice. "Alohomora!"
As the door flew open, Harry, Hermione, and Neville dived under desks. Iris, however, sunk back into the wall, hiding herself in the darkness behind one of the thick curtains. She watched as two death eaters burst into the room, looking around hurriedly.
"They might've run straight through to the hall," said one.
"Check under the desks," said the other.
Her pulse skyrocketed. If they looked under them, they would find the other three hiding. Wasting no time, Iris took a breath and then stepped out into the open, wand in hand.
"So," Iris said, cocking her head slightly, "Who wants to go first?"
Neither man bothered to answer, but simultaneously hurled curses at her. Iris threw up a shield with ease, blocking them before launching her own spell. She almost felt bad for the death eaters— they were nothing compared to Dumbledore's training, and truthfully, it did not take long for Iris to subdue them. A petrificus totalus jinx was too quick for one of them to avoid, and the other... Iris was keeping him busy just long enough for Harry to duck out from under the desk and send him flying into a wall.
They crept out of the office through a door on the opposite side of the room, and entered into a black hallway, which seemed completely deserted. But before they could make a decision as to which way to try, a door to their right sprang open and three people fell out of it.
"Ron!" croaked Harry, dashing toward them. "Ginny — are you all — ?"
"Behind us!" Ron yelled, "Run!"
They didn't need to be told twice. All seven of them sprinted down the corridor until they reached the door at the end, which Harry unceremoniously shoved open. Everyone went spilling through the opening one by one, each letting out a shriek as they felt the floor disappear form beneath their feet. Iris closed her eyes as she felt the falling sensation, bracing for impact. Fortunately, it never came. A strong gust of wind hit her in the face, stopping her in mid-air before ungracefully dropping them on the stone floor.
This room was larger than the last, dimly lit and rectangular, and the center of it was sunken, forming a great stone pit. There were what seemed to be stone benches running all around the room and descending in steep steps like an amphitheater, or the courtroom in which Harry had been tried by the Wizengamot. Instead of a chained chair, however, there was a raised stone dais in the center of the lowered floor, and upon this dais stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked, and crumbling that Iris was amazed the thing was still standing. Unsupported by any surrounding wall, the archway was hung with a tattered black curtain or veil which, despite the complete stillness of the cold surrounding air, was fluttering very slightly as though it had just been touched.
Something about the mysterious veil compelled her forward. She could have sworn there were whispers echoing throughout the room even though no one was talking. Iris stood, taking a few steps towards the archway.
"Careful!" whispered Hermione.
Iris' footsteps echoed loudly as she walked slowly toward the dais. The pointed archway looked much taller from where she stood now just in front of it. Still the veil swayed gently, as though somebody had just passed through it.
"Hello?" Iris whispered quietly.
She had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the veil on the other side of the archway. Gripping her wand very tightly, she edged around the dais, but there was nobody there. All that could be seen was the other side of the tattered black veil.
"Let's go," called Hermione lowly. "This isn't right, Iris, come on, let's go..."
She sounded scared, yet Iris thought the archway had a kind of beauty about it, old though it was. The gently rippling veil intrigued her; she felt a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it.
"Iris, let's go, okay?" said Hermione more forcefully.
"Okay," she said, but she did not move. She had just heard something. There were faint whispering, murmuring noises coming from the other side of the veil.
"What are you saying?" she asked, the words echoing all around the surrounding stone benches.
"Nobody's talking, Iris!" said Hermione, now moving over to her.
"I hear it too," Harry said, coming up beside Iris, also staring at the veil in wonder.
Iris...
She jolted. Something— someone had just said her name from the other side, but all of her friends were standing behind her.
Hermione pleaded urgently, "It's just an empty archway! Please, they'll be here any—"
It was too late. A howling wind drew Iris' gaze upwards where high above ten plumes of thick black smoke were billowing toward them. The students all huddled together in an attempt to fight them off, but they were bombarded within seconds. Iris tried sending spells, but she couldn't see a thing, and then suddenly a hard harshly grabbed her by the throat and yanked her away.
When the smoke cleared, the death eaters were spread in a ring around the room, half of them holding Iris' friends at wandpoint. Iris herself was kept in a headlock just a few metres in front of Harry, who was left unrestrained. When he began speaking, Iris realised her captor was Lucius Malfoy.
"Did you actually believe... Were you really naive enough to think that children stood a chance against us?"
Harry looked helplessly at the others.
Malfoy held out his hand. "The prophecy."
Neville, who was being restrained by Bellatrix, his nose bleeding, yelled, "DON'T GIVE IT TO THEM, HARRY!" Bellatrix roughly twisted Neville's arm behind his back making him go silent.
Iris looked directly into Harry's eyes. He looked so scared, so unsure. She tried to project comfort through her own gaze, but she wasn't sure it was working.
Don't give it to him, she whispered in his mind.
"I'll make it easy for you, Potter. Give it to me now..." He moved his wand to Iris' temple, still keeping her tightly locked in his grip, "...or watch them die, starting with your sister."
Malfoy's arm was so tight around her throat she was actually starting to have some difficulty breathing, but even so, Iris shook her head at her brother.
When Harry still did not move to give him the prophecy, Lucius' glare deepened, "Very well, perhaps some motivation—" he loosened his grip on Iris for less than a second and then cried out, "Crucio!"
Iris screamed as it hit her. She had not missed the feeling of the curse on her whatsoever. It was a million times worse than she remembered, and it was made even worse because of the fact that Malfoy was still restraining her upright. There was no relief to be found in any way.
"Stop! Okay, stop!" she heard Harry cry.
The curse relented. Iris slumped at the alleviation. She wanted to tell her brother no, that she could take it, but her words failed her.
Beaten, Harry haltingly stepped forward and handed Malfoy the prophecy. Malfoy raised the glowing orb up to his face, illuminating his cruel smile. He released Iris and she tumbled clumsily to the floor, her body trying to get its strength back.
Malfoy looked around the room at the circle of death eaters and their captives. There was a beat of silence before his voice echoed throughout the chamber, "Kill them."
Gasps rang out and Iris heard her friends try to put up a struggle. Iris opened her eyes from her location on the floor to see Lucius' wand once again pointed at her. She watched him open his mouth to say the words, but suddenly something spectacular happened.
A bang rang out through the room along with a blinding flash of light.
A red jet of magic came flying out of nowhere, smacking straight into Malfoy's chest and sending him flying. As chaos broke around her, Iris sat up and turned to find Sirius standing just behind her, looking furious.
Iris' head was pretty cloudy from the torture, but she could have sworn she heard him say just before stunning Malfoy, "Get away from my daughter."
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Iris calling Sirius dad 🤝 Sirius calling Iris daughter
we love a full circle moment
next chapter will either be the last or second-to-last of this act !!!