Stepping out of the emerald flames of the fireplace into the vast, silent Atrium of the Ministry of Magic was like entering a grand, abandoned cathedral. The usual hustle and bustle of ministry workers was gone, replaced by an eerie, echoing quiet. The golden Fountain of Magical Brethren stood silent, its waters still. The late-night cleaning spells had left the polished black marble floors gleaming under the soft, magical light of the enchanted ceiling.
"It's... empty," Harry whispered, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silence.
"As expected," Ariana murmured, her eyes scanning every shadow, every alcove. "The Ministry is officially closed for the night. Our presence here is unsanctioned and unseen." She placed a calming hand on his arm. "Stay close. Follow my lead precisely. Midnight." The sleek Panther emerged from her shadow as if she had always been there.
Harry looked at the panther with the violet eyes and calmly turned to Ariana. "Has she always been here this entire time?"
Ariana walked forward "No, She tends to go off on her own. In fact I have no idea where she has been the entire year for that matter, but I can count on her to hear me when I need her." Ariana's confidence in her familiar was absolute.
They moved across the Atrium, their footsteps the only sound. Ariana walked not with the nervous tension of an intruder, but with the calm, purposeful stride of a commander inspecting her battlefield. Her senses were fully extended, a fine, invisible net of magical awareness spreading out from her. Midnight was also on full alert mode.
She could feel them.
They were faint presences, their magical signatures deliberately suppressed by powerful concealment charms, but they were there. Hidden in the alcoves, lurking in the dark, empty offices that lined the Atrium. The outer layer of the Death Eater trap. They were waiting for the fighting to spill out, to cut off any retreat. They did not know that Amelia Bones's Aurors were waiting in the shadows right behind them.
"They're already here," she whispered to Harry, who felt a jolt of fear. "All around us. Ignore them. They are not our target. Stick to the protocol."
They reached the lifts, descending into the deep, dark heart of the Ministry, to Level Nine. The lift doors opened onto a plain, black corridor, unremarkable save for a single, unadorned black door at the end. The Department of Mysteries.
The air here was different. It was cold, still, and hummed with a strange, ancient power, the accumulated magic of time, space, and thought itself. Ariana paused before the door, closing her eyes for a moment. She could feel the layers of the ambush, like concentric rings.
She could feel the faint, responding flickers of the magic settling into place in the surrounding rooms, a silent, invisible net tightening around their unsuspecting prey. The Ambush Team—Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Ginny—was in the circular room just beyond the entrance. The Order of the Phoenix was positioned in the Time Room and the Space Chamber. The board was set.
"Ready?" she asked Harry.
He nodded, his knuckles white on his wand.
She pushed the door open. They entered a circular room with its dozen identical black doors. Ariana didn't hesitate. She walked directly to the door that she knew led to the Hall of Prophecy and pushed it open.
They stepped into a vast, cold, and silent room, so large that their footsteps echoed endlessly. Row upon towering row of dusty glass shelves stretched up into the darkness, each shelf laden with thousands of small, glowing, milky-white glass orbs.
"Row ninety-seven," Harry whispered, remembering the vision.
Ariana guided him through the labyrinth of shelves, her senses on high alert. She could feel them now, the main force of the enemy, hidden amongst the towering shelves, their dark, hungry magic a palpable, oily presence in the air. There were at least ten of them.
They found row ninety-seven. And there, on a small, dusty shelf, was an orb with a yellowing label. It read:
S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.
Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter
"This is it," Harry breathed. "Take it," Ariana instructed, her voice a low command. "The moment you touch it, they will reveal themselves. Be ready."
Harry reached out a trembling hand and closed his fingers around the cool, smooth glass of the prophecy orb.
The moment he did, a voice, smooth and cold as a tombstone, echoed from the darkness. "Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."
Lucius Malfoy stepped out from behind a towering shelf, his long, blonde hair gleaming. He was flanked by a dozen other Death Eaters, their wands raised, their masked faces turning towards them. At the front, her eyes burning with a wild, fanatical light, was Bellatrix Lestrange.
"The little baby Potter," Bellatrix cooed, her voice a twisted mockery of affection. "Did he come to get his prophecy? Did he miss his mummy and daddy?"
Harry's hand tightened on the orb, his face contorting with rage. Midnight was also standing alert beside Ariana.
"Careful, Potter," Lucius drawled. "You wouldn't want to break it. It has your name on it, after all."
They began to advance, closing the circle, their wands all pointed at the two teenagers. The black cat, while a problem was underestimated as a simple beast. They thought they had them trapped, cornered, two children and a cat against a dozen of the Dark Lord's most powerful followers.
It was their final, fatal mistake.
Bellatrix raised her wand, a cruel smile on her face. "Cruc—"
She never finished the word.
The instant Ariana detected the shift in Bellatrix's magical intent, the first syllable of the Unforgivable Curse forming in her mind, she acted.
With a sharp, definitive snap of her fingers, two things happened simultaneously.
First, a massive, hemispherical shield of shimmering, solid silver light erupted around her and Harry, deflecting a dozen curses that slammed into it in a cacophony of screeching, sizzling noise.
Second, she raised her own wand and shouted a single, clear command that was not a spell, but a signal. "Tonitrus!" (Thunder).
A brilliant, silent flare of a silver shape of a Thunderbird erupted from her wand, soaring up into the high, dark ceiling of the Hall of Prophecy and exploding in a shower of incandescent sparks. It was the signal. Engage.
"Now!" she yelled at Harry. She grabbed his arm and cast a single, powerful, non-verbal charm. "Nebulus Maxima!"
A thick, roiling, impenetrable black fog instantly filled the entire chamber, plunging the room into absolute, disorienting darkness. The Death Eaters yelled in confusion and anger, their curses flying blind.
In the first second of that confusion, Ariana was already moving, pulling Harry with her, navigating by the perfect mental map she had already created. They sprinted from the center of the trap, back towards the door they had entered. Midnight running interference by casually using the shadows to slam the death eaters out of the way.
When the black fog finally began to clear a few seconds later, Ariana and Harry were gone from the kill zone.
And the Death Eaters were no longer the hunters.
They were surrounded.
The D.A. team burst from the entrance, stunning two Death Eaters from behind. From the aisles to their left and right, the Order of the Phoenix emerged, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin leading the charge, their faces grim masks of righteous fury. The trap had been reversed. The ambush had been sprung. The Battle of the Department of Mysteries had begun, not as a desperate skirmish, but as a coordinated, systematic annihilation.