‘The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening

‘The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant evening,’ said the woman's voice.

The door of the telephone box burst open; Harry toppled out of it, closely followed by Neville and Luna. The only sound in the Atrium was the steady rush of water from the golden fountain, where jets from the wands of the witch and wizard, the point of the centaur's arrow, the tip of the goblin's hat and the house-elf's ears continued to gush into the surrounding pool.

‘Come on, said Harry quietly and the six of them sprinted off down the hall, Harry in the lead, past the fountain towards the desk where the watchwizard who had weighed Harry's wand had sat, and which was now deserted.

Harry felt sure there ought to be a security person there, sure their absence was an ominous sign, and his feeling of foreboding increased as they passed through the golden gates to the lifts. He pressed the nearest ‘down’ button and a lift clattered into sight almost immediately, the golden grilles slid apart with a great, echoing clanking and they dashed inside. Harry stabbed the number nine button; the grilles closed with a bang and the lift began to descend, jangling and rattling. Harry had not realised how noisy the lifts were on the day he had come with Mr. Weasley; he was sure the din would raise every security person within the building, yet when the lilt halted, the cool female voice said, ‘Department of Mysteries,’ and the grilles slid open. They stepped out into the corridor where nothing was moving out but the nearest torches, flickering in the rush of air from the lift.

Harry turned towards the plain black door. After months and months of dreaming about it, he was here at last.

‘Let's go,’ he whispered, and he led the way down the corridor, Luna right behind him, gazing around with her mouth slightly open.

‘OK, listen,’ said Harry, stopping again within six feet of the door. ‘Maybe ... maybe a couple of people should stay here as a—as a lookout, and—’

‘And how're we going to let you know something's coming?’ asked Ginny, her eyebrows raised. ‘You could be miles away.’

‘We're coming with you, Harry,’ said Neville.

‘Let's get on with it,’ said Ron firmly.

Harry still did not want to take them all with him, but it seemed he had no choice. He turned to face the door and walked forwards ... just as it had in his dream, it swung open and he marched over the threshold, the others at his heels.

They were standing in a large, circular room. Everything in here was black including the floor and ceiling; identical, unmarked, handleless black doors were set at intervals all around the black walls, interspersed with branches of candles whose flames burned blue; their cool, shimmering light reflected in the shining marble floor made it look as though there was dark water underfoot.

‘Someone shut the door,’ Harry muttered.

He regretted giving this order the moment Neville had obeyed it. Without the long chink of light from the torchlit corridor behind them, the place became so dark that for a moment the only things they could see were the bunches of shivering blue flames on the walls and their ghostly reflections in the floor.

In his dream, Harry had always walked purposefully across this room to the door immediately opposite the entrance and walked on. But there were around a dozen doors here. Just as he was gazing ahead at the doors opposite him, trying to decide which was the right one, there was a great rumbling noise and the candles began to move sideways. The circular wall was rotating.

Hermione grabbed Harry's arm as though frightened the floor might move, too, but it did not. For a few seconds, the blue flames around them were blurred to resemble neon lines as the wall sped around; then, quite as suddenly as it had started, the rumbling stopped and everything became stationary once again.