Mysteries in the Department

AN: I actually worked on this chapter and the previous and next chapter simultaneously. Sorry for taking so long to complete these, my muse went up and left for a while but now I've hit second... I mean third year I need something to do in my spare time that improves my writing skills. It's certainly better than trying to move Nematodes around from one agar plate to another.

Amelia Bones's apparition landed the two of them in the middle of a heavily guarded stone room. As the crack of landing sounded the four figures in red robes moved as one to pull their wands on the pair. Amelia Bones gave them an approving glance before simply saying "Peculiarities Parabolous".

"Amelia Bones, I hope you have some good news." The watcher behind the pair said "The whole Ministry was locked down the moment the Dark Mark appeared."

"Send a runner" Amelia shot back "The culprit got away. I want the entire wizarding world on alert. If...if he is back then this is the first engagement, if not I want whoever dares to use that foul mark brought to justice. Too many good lives were lost because of it for this to herald anything good."

The watchers in the room finally noticed Harry, standing huddled next to Amelia; his head-wings quite clearly visible.

The wand of the oldest Auror present rose and pointed straight at Harry as he asked "Do you know who, or rather what your companion is?"

"The who is private" Bones replied "And I am well aware that the individual following me has wings on his head. He is the reason I Apparated directly back here; I came to speak to the Department of Mysteries, although I will stop by to organize the DMLE afterwards. Grab another senior Auror and escort me down; I don't want any trouble in case we're intercepted." When it appeared that the senior Auror looked like he was about to protest Amelia added. "I'm sure they can handle the department for the fifteen or so minutes we'll be gone."

"You remember the last time you said that" The lead Auror grumbled "They still haven't got all the paperwork sorted out."

"Yes but that's just waiting on other departments to submit their reports and I don't think the Department of Mysteries will ever actually get around to writing up their stock of paperwork. They either seem to submit it before you request it or never submit it at all." And walked out of the room, beckoning Harry to follow.

It was evident from the Aurors bustling about that the room they had apperated to was deep in the heart of the DMLE and as such the protections it had were warranted. The fact that the junior most Auror on guard was in her mid thirties was a good indication of the seniority of the guard position. As a position of departmental pride the room did not, in point of fact exist on any of the blueprints and schematics of the building and was placed on a section of blank wall occupied by departmental notices.

The presence of Amelia and of the two aurors flanking them deterred everyone who glanced in their direction but wasn't quite enough to ward off the whispers and pointing from the senior aurors. The ones who started in her direction were quickly waved off

They reached the elevator and squeezed in with a man clutching several carved stone cubes in his outstretched hands and muttering under his breath. He started a bit when the elevator jerked downward and Amelia almost bumped into him. Harry moved to speak but Amelia shushed him and shook her head "Wait until we're in the Department of Mysteries, of course we'll probably set off half of the alarms trying to get in but they're the only ones who'll have the needed connections to figure out what happened. All the signs are pointing at Incubus but that's not possible given who your parents were. James did fool around a little in his youth but he settled down quite nicely when he met Lilly, and Lilly herself was besotted with James once she finally got past his rather abrupt manners."

The lift rattled to a stop on the lowest floor and the two aurors took up point positions, ready to herd anyone away who dared approach the group. However the lowest floor of the Ministry was devoid of life, the rough walls hewn out of the ancient rock of England pale and flickering as illuminated by the torches. At the very end of the hallway sat a door that dared anyone to even knock. As Amelia approached the door a silver plaque was visible on the door that read "Department of Mysteries".

Amelia bones leaned in close to the door and spoke firmly "Amelia Bones, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, accompanied by an apparent Incubus identified as Harry James Potter"

The door swung open without a sound to reveal a circular room with doors set against each other so that only a thin strip of stone between each door was visible. Amelia and Harry stepped through into the room, the two Aurors waiting outside as the door slowly swung closed. The instant that the door locked with an audible click the room seemed to expand as the doors and walls surged backwards, the thin strips of stone becoming long stretches of smooth rock, interspersed with archways that led off into the distance. The ceiling sprung up and away, revealing a star-studded night sky far far above the octagonal space.

While Amelia had put one hand on her wand holster she refrained from drawing her wand and instead was glancing around, looking for some reason for the sudden change in the unnerving but solid architecture.

From behind them came a rustling of cloth against cloth, sounding from a distance behind them, obviously intended to announce the approach of the figure.

"Be at ease Amelia Bones and Harry Potter, for no harm will come to you in this domain. Welcome to the true Department of Mysteries, and what used to be the Wizards' Council before it was moved to London and renamed. I am Tina of Shevan, clan of the three moons and the current steward for the Cubi of Europe."

As Tina spoke both Harry and Amelia were stupefied, having never even heard of the clan or the position she claimed to represent. Amelia was especially quizzical of the proclamation, being passably familiar with the European power structure she should have heard of the clan. Then again as far as the official documents were concerned the Cubi were to be left to their own devices, neither aided or hindered in their schemes. The few times that Cubi were brought in for questioning it was always handled by the department of Mysteries and an official report submitted, although it was often a few months before the heavily censored report cleared the department of Mysteries.

Amelia ended up using the formal greeting that was contained somewhere within the massive pile of briefings that the head of any department was subject to. "Ancient watcher, I in return grant the considerations that you have set forth, neither myself or anyone acting in my name will bring harm to yourself or those you are responsible for."

"That is acceptable" Tina responded in a slightly formal tone of voice before beckoning the pair to follow her. "We should probably discuss this over a nice cup of tea now that we've gotten all the formalities over with. No sense to stand on ceremony any more than needed."

At that Amelia stood slightly gawping "But all the stories, all the documents. They all pointed to the Cubi as a race bound by formality."

"Well yes, we find that people tend to relax around us quite a bit more if they think all the ceremonies and the rituals for dealing with our kind actually help, some of our thinkers had quite a bit of fun designing them." Tina cooly replied "We have to find something to keep ourselves entertained, the last time one of us decided to throw a party I believe your people called it the Roaring Twenties." Tina sighed and looked a little wistful "And then things went dark, World War Two was the worst fighting I've seen since the Cubi race got dumped on this planet. Still better than the alternative though."

"Yes, well, while this history lesson might turn out to be fascinating some other time" Amelia started, trying to come to grips with the depth of history that the Cubi race casually displayed "Right now we need to focus on the…" Amelia trailed off as they passed one of the rooms, which appeared to look into a giant library from a point high in one of the walls, the bookshelves stacking at least four stories high and stretching off into the far distance. "...No, I refuse to be sidetracked by anything, we are here to discuss the matter of Harry Potter as a member of the Cubi race. Tina, he has the signature of a clan-mark, the spells all confirmed it; the head-wings could have been a clever prank or a bit of magic gone wrong. That at least was clear in the archives. I received a message via time-turner on the way here with the information sent back five hours from now that confirms it."

Tina whistled "Damn, that's serious magic to involve in something like this. Also ensures that we're not just going to disappear with him. We are still going to do those tests to ensure the closed-time loop is valid, but now we're going to run through those quickly and skip right over to tearing down the glamour covering his true form."

Harry just stood there and looked puzzled. "I do hope that you're going to explain everything to me at some point."

"We'll explain things on the way to the ritual room, I think it should still be set up to remove all outside magical influences, we haven't used it in a few decades but the few reagents required should still be good" Tina explained before walking over to the library and yelling "Fyodor, meet us in the old ritual room, bring the literature on null-magic spaces just in case this is one of the tricky ones."

A distant shout came back, a deep baritone that carried easily across the library "Give me a few minutes, I need to grab them from the stacks"

"Now then, unless you want to go through the ritual naked we should swing by the supply closet and pick up some robes, the ones you have on contain way too much magic to survive the rituals but we keep a supply of clothing made with entirely mundane materials just in case"

"You said you were going to explain, but all that does is raise more questions." Harry stated sarcastically. "I've had a rather eventful night, what with the Death Eaters and the hiding, and then finding out that apparently my parents weren't who I thought they were. Hell my parents weren't even human if this is the truth."

Tina sighed and reached over, putting one hand down comfortingly on Harry's shoulder "I'm sorry you had to learn about it this way, these revelations are never easy. I dread to think how much of a shock the Cubi culture will be when you decide to learn more about it. Right now stripping away the glamour hiding your true form is going to be the most helpful thing we can do to try and determine who your parents are. Although it might be quicker to ask you if there happens to be a mysterious glowy mark somewhere on your body."

That one threw Harry completely for a loop "Glowy mark?"

"Do they teach you nothing at that school of yours? Last time I bothered to check Cubi were rather firmly on the syllabus for second year."

Harry grimaced "Don't remind me, second year we had Gilderoy Lockhart, man was a literal fraud. Professor Lupin tried to play catch-up in the third year but by that point it was already too late."

"Perhaps it is time to send a teacher to Hogwarts" Tina mused "I mean, if you're going to continue attending then that's a given. Someone is going to need to guide you through the sudden growth of your powers, not to mention the inherent emotional instability of the Cubi race."

"Let's just get this over with, and then you can send your message back in time, and we can sit down and discuss this at length, preferably over a nice meal." Harry sighed "I'm tired and emotional and I want never to have heard of the Cubi race, but that's not going to change the fact that this happened. Take me to the ritual circle before I change my mind. Amelia, I'm counting on you to make sure that this is a good idea."

"Oh relax, the worst that could happen is that the ritual fails to pull all of the magic out of the area and we need to unravel the glamour by hand." Tina replied "Most people come out of the experience feeling more in control of their magic. You start hanging around for a few hundred years and you end up with all sorts of random enchantments and permanent transfigurations that could rely perfectly well on the ambient magic but insist on using your magical core as a power source. Snap up a dress one decade and before you know it you've lost track of it and the darn thing is still going somewhere in Aruba years later. It's a kind of house-cleaning for your magic."

"Yes, well, getting past that oddly specific example… We do find ourselves working under a rather strict time limit, perhaps it would be best to stick to business until we get this sorted out." Amelia Bones blinked a few times before adding under her breath "And now I know why we don't deal with Cubi on a daily basis."

"We can be serious when we want to be, in fact I think that us Cubi can be scarily serious when we want to be. You're far too young to remember our involvement in the war against Grindelwald. I remember when we stormed the gates of Nurmengard after his defeat; his followers retreating to the prison that their leader built. These Dark Lords of yours make for exceptional practice. Enough talk, we're finally here."

Sure enough the final doorway in the corridor opened up into a space far larger than the Hogwarts great hall. Perfectly circular and carved so that the floor sloped gently down into the center of the the room where a smaller circle was inlaid into the floor and surrounded by columns that formed various geometric figures with more sides the closer out the columns spread to the entryway. Perhaps the most striking part of the whole design was the fact that every square centimeter was filled with runes and inlaid in various metals, far above the ceiling formed a parabola. The whole scene was illuminated by great glowing crystals set at regular intervals along the outside of the walls causing the shadows of the columns to all point towards the center of the room. Within the room a serpentine figure slithered around from place to place, poking and prodding at some of the columns and occasionally consulting a large tome. As the three entered he looked up allowing for a better view of his form. While the figure had at first looked serpentine a second glance was enough to show that he was literally a snake colored a pale yellow and slithering along the floor with his body upright and supported by his tail. Two sets of purple wings sprouted from his back and head however his back wings were currently tucked away. Covering his body was a long thick robe of a jet black material with slits sliced into it to allow his wings to poke out. Carried beneath the tome was another bundle of roughly the same material except it was pure white.

Slithering over the new Incubus waved friendly to Tina, almost dropping the book and garment in his clumsiness. Speaking with a slight Russian accent as well as a slight lisp he tried to enunciate "Tina, this is the potential Cubi?" After a nod from her he handed Harry the robe and introduced himself as Fyodor, the head librarian and rune master of New SAIA, the academy for Cubi.

"Go, put that on, leave all your belongings and your wand in that chamber over there, if you are especially worried there are lockers where you can set the combination. Come back wearing that robe unless you'd like to do this in the nude. Some do so for other rituals, is powerful magic, some like to feel it fully."

"Err, no, I'll wear the robe" Harry managed before heading off to the locker room to get changed, closely followed by Amelia who waited at the entrance for his return. After a very short period he returned clad in the thick white robe, as he returned Amelia flicked her wand at him and was satisfied at the light green glow from the tip of it.

"Standard identity charm, make sure that you haven't been replaced. Standard procedure when dealing with shapeshifters."

Tina just nodded at that "Come on then, into the center of the circle with you, we need to personalize the ritual to you and we can't do that without an imprint of your magic."

With each circle of columns Harry crossed the air got dryer and the voices of the trio looking over the array got quieter. With the last three circles there was a physical barrier of sorts that yielded slowly to the touch before melding to his skin, allowing him and only him passage. The air at the very center smelled of ozone and citrus, although a quick glance around showed this latter to be coming from a selection of fruit on one of the small podiums that had been fresh cut with a small sign indicating that it was safe to eat without disrupting the ritual. A fairly comfortable chair and lectern with a small selection of reading material as well as a pamphlet detailing the musical choices available during the ritual. This got tossed aside after a quick glance and Harry sighed before flopping down into the chair (Helpfully designed by members of clan Abrin as the plaque read).

Harry only had enough time to vaguely wonder why everything happened to him before the first pulse of magic hit. Raw primal energy passing over and around and through him, and it met with his own magic and was changed by it. As soon as the pulse had hit it suddenly vanished, sucked away into the ground and dispersed among all the pylons. Another surge of magic came and then another, filling him to the brink with power and then draining back out until all the pylons were glowing a bright brilliant emerald green. Then the inbound connection was sealed off, all the power directed outwards, drawing every scrap of magic from within the circle, tugging on his reserves but never managing to leech a scrap from them. One by one all the invisible strings of power connecting him to the outside world were snipped. Each marked by a tingle of power turning inwards and coiling around his core. One particularly stubborn string of magic digging into his forehead was ejected violently from the inner circles where it was caught by a waiting crystalline sphere. Other pieces of internal enchantments flew off, mainly from places where pranks had taken place, each caught by a separate crystal sphere. Finally when the last prank was finished there was a tugging at the very fabric of his being, bits and pieces of skin flying apart, replaced by a fine black fur until the world just went away for a while.