Lazuli - Harry Potter Fan Fiction (Draco Malfoy)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

"Department of Mysteries" the tannoy announces.

It had taken us around 2 hours to reach London, a time that was full of apprehension and nervousness as we tried to save our energy whilst simultaneously not falling off the thestrals and to our death. According to Luna, thestrals have a unique ability to fly home, so they'll be able to get back to Hogwarts without any issues and we won't have to worry about terrifying any muggles who've just so happened to have seen someone die.

We climbed off the thestrals in a back alleyway, the dark and dangerous setting of the muggle area causing me to keep my wand raised warily. Harry led us quickly towards a bright red telephone booth that was sitting casually in the corner. "This is the only entrance I know that doesn't use the Floo network" he explained as we all tried to cram into the tiny confined space. It soon became evident that we'd have to make two trips. Harry, Ron, Ginny and Neville go first, squeezing into the space and breathing tightly in. Harry passed Hermione some strange muggle money (as she's muggle-born and neither Luna nor I would have a clue what to do with it) and we watched from outside as he fumbled around in the machine, slotting the golden coin that Hermione explained is called a 'pound' into the hole and tapping some numbers into the keypad. The booth murmured into life and suddenly sunk towards into the ground, taking our friends with it.

The three of us waited impatiently in the cold night, shivering despite the fact that it's June. I'd only been to London a few times before, and always with my parents. We never strayed this far into the muggle areas, remaining at either Kings Cross to catch the Hogwarts train, Diagon Alley or the Leaky Cauldron. Of course 12 Grimmauld Place was in London too, but we never left the house there so that didn't really count. Compared to the quiet, magical evenings in the grounds of Hogwarts, central London is a pandemonium of bustling noises, never silent and never resting. Car alarms hollered a few streets away, cats screeched and squealed, the muggle music belonging to a distant party thumping into the night, it's bass booming and unmissable. The neighbours must be getting annoyed by now, I thought. All around us, these muggles went about their regular business, completely unaware of our world and the torture that one of our friends was enduring in the Department of Mysteries.

As soon as the booth came back up for the rest of us, we climbed into the booth with no difficulty, all three of us being slim. Luna and I breathed a sigh of relief to return to something familiar and magic whilst Hermione concentrated on entering the money into the slot and typing a sequence of numbers that Harry had told her into the keypad. I noticed that the numbers - 62442 - spelled out the word 'magic' in the letters that were also on each key.

As the booth shuddered and begun it's descent, I clung to the sides nervously. Despite my calmness with flying, I've always hadn't going down and the feeling of falling makes me shiver.

We reached the floor thankfully soon, where Harry and the others were waiting. The moment that we left the telephone box and entered the majestic interior of the Ministry of Magic's main foyer, we began our race and I was amazed by the extravagance of everything. Cornelius Fudge may be a delusional liar, but he sure knows how to decorate a place.

The Ministry is empty at this time of night, so we had no difficulty in finding the elevator and all clambering inside. The journey to the Department of Mysteries on Level 9 was completely silent as we all began to prepare ourselves for what lay ahead. Some of us where relying on the encouragement of the others to get us through it, others were relying truly on their own magical ability and the quiet confidence that they'd put up a good fight against any death eaters that did attack. But I just stood in the back left corner, twirling Draco's locket around my fingers as I had always done when in deep thought the first time we'd been together. Knowing that I had the locket tight around my neck, and that Draco had given it to me never failed to provide me with a secret strength. Perhaps that's the secret of the powerful magic that's rumoured to be locked inside it.