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IT was hard to stay still and control every fiber of my body as she entered the lift, smiling at us like how she did during our time at Hogwarts: a nasty sneer behind fake sweetness.
I was itching to do something — claw her hair, slap her across the face, anything — but I knew I had to refrain myself before I ruined the plan entirely, and Ella Stumpick's reputation.
"Ah, Mafalda!" she said. I tried not to wince; her voice was still the same. "Travers sent you, didn't he?"
"Y-yes," Hermione managed to squeak out.
"Good, you'll do perfectly well." She turned to me. "And Ella you're here too, excellent! That's the problem solved, Minister, if Mafalda can be spared for record-keeping we shall be able to start straight away. Ten people today and one of them the wife of a Ministry employee! Tut, tut. . .even here, in the heart of the Ministry! We'll go straight down, Mafalda, you'll find everything you need in the courtroom. Good morning, Albert, aren't you getting out?"
Hermione and I met Harry's gaze with panic, and a silent prayer for him to find the locket as quickly as possible. If I was hearing Umbridge correctly, there was a court hearing happening in a few minutes, and as a member of the Wizengamot, Ella — me — must have something to say.
The grilles closed as we descended down, Harry's determined yet nervous face was the last thing I saw before I exchanged a grim look with Hermione.
We descended a little more when the grilles finally opened into an all-too familiar stone hallway lit with torches to illuminate the black door ahead. The entrance to the Department of Mysteries. I had almost forgotten that the courtroom was right at this level; not beyond the door, thankfully, but through a doorway just to its left.
Umbridge was in the lead with Hermione and I trailing behind, our heels clicking against the stone floor with a satisfying sound. I focused on that rather than the unnecessary humming Umbridge was doing with her horrid voice.
As we went down the stairs leading to the courtroom, an unnatural chill suddenly crept over me. Clutching my tweed jacket tighter, I looked at Hermione and saw that she too was doing the same.
Every step down was like having a bucket of ice water being poured over me. Except, there was no water, but rather a thick fog that suddenly seemed to appear out of nowhere. My teeth started to chatter, and my fingertips started to feel numb, but worst of all was how I was feeling on the inside; as if a horrible clutch of sadness to the highest degree took over me, despair and hopelessness that whispered dark thoughts in my ear.
Something felt so depressingly familiar about it all, as if I had experienced it before. . .
My answer came when we reached the bottom of the stairs. Hermione let out a strangled sound and found my hand. The words died on my throat as I stared into the darkness in the passage outside the courtroom — and saw not darkness, but tall, mummified black hooded figures that personified darkness itself.
