The hall of prophecy was in chaos. Shelves toppling onto shelves had created a deadly domino effect with bits of broken glass flying everywhere. The air was filled with shouts of Death Eaters and Dumbledore's Army members alike, but they could not compete with the thousands of broken prophecies relaying the words of prophesiers long since dead. It was an effective diversion.

Harry quickly fled into the closest door he could find, and suddenly he was back in the room filled with time magic. He turned and saw two huge Death Eaters barreling towards him. They were nearly upon him when—

"Colloportus!" gasped Hermione and the door sealed itself with an odd squelching noise.

"Where—where are the others?" gasped Harry.

He had thought that Ron, Luna, and Ginny had been ahead of them, that they would be waiting in this room, but there was nobody there.

"They must have gone the wrong way!" whispered Hermione, terror in her face.

"Listen!" whispered Neville.

Footsteps and shouts echoed from behind the door they had just sealed. Harry put his hear close to the door to listen and heard Lucius Malfoy roar: "Leave Nott, leave him, I say, the Dark Lord will not care for Nott's injuries as much as losing that prophecy—Jugson, come back here, we need to organize! We'll split into pairs and search, and don't forget, be gentle with Potter until we've got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary—Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left, Crabbe, Rabastan, go right—Macnair and Avery, through here—Rookwood, over there—Mulciber, come with me!"

"What do we do?" Hermione asked Harry, trembling from head to foot.

"Well, we don't stand here waiting for them to find us, for a start," said Harry. "Let's get away from this door…"

They ran, quietly as they could, past the shimmering bell jar where the tiny egg was hatching and unhatching, toward the exit into the circular hallway at the far end of the room. They were almost there when Harry heard something large and heavy collide with the door Hermione had charmed shut.

"Stand aside!" said a rough voice. "Alohamora!"

As the door flew open, Harry, Hermione, and Neville dived under desks. They could see the bottom of two Death Eaters' robes drawing nearer, their feet moving rapidly.

"They might've run straight through to the hall," said the rough voice.

"Check under the desks," said another.

Harry saw the knees of the Death Eaters bend. Poking his wand out from under the desk he shouted, "STUPEFY!"

A jet of red light hit the nearest Death Eater; he fell backward into a grandfather clock and knocked it over. The second Death Eater, however, had leapt aside to avoid Harry's spell and now pointed his own wand at Hermione, who had crawled out from under the desk to get a better aim.

"Avada—"

Harry launched himself across the floor and grabbed the Death Eater around the knees, causing him to topple and his aim to go awry. Neville overturned his desk in his anxiety to help; pointing his wand wildly at the struggling pair he cried, "EXPELLIARMUS!"

Both Harry's and the Death Eater's wands flew out of their hands and soared back toward the entrance to the Hall of Prophecy; both scrambled to their feet and charged after them, the Death Eater in front and Harry hot on his heels, Neville bringing up the rear, plainly horrorstruck at what he had done.

The Death Eater snatched his wand off of the floor, and when Harry stooped to pick up his, the Death Eater gave him a shove and sent him tumbling into a glass-fronted cabinet on the wall filled with variously shaped hourglasses. The cabinet wobbled dangerously, and the glass door slowly opened.

"Harry!" yelled Neville, clearly determined to repair the damage.

Neville took aim again and shouted, "STUPIFY!"

The force of Neville's stunner lifted the Death Eater off his feet and slammed into the cabinet as well. Harry glanced upward and saw a large hourglass filled with deep purple sand falling towards his head. He tried to move out of the way, but the unconscious Death Eater in his lap stopped him. The glass hit him and shattered, spilling the sand all over him. In an instant, his vision swam, and it seemed as if he was watching the world on fast forward. He tried to clear his vision, but he succumbed to the pain and slipped out of consciousness.

Harry awoke with a start. His head throbbed, and pressing his fingers to it, he could feel blood. He was still sitting in the same position, but the desks that had been so recently overturned were neatly organized and rotten. Harry slowly got to his feet, clutching his aching head.

He touched a hand to one of the suddenly ancient desks and felt a layer of dust that made it seem that this room hadn't been used in decades.

"Ron!" yelled Harry, his voice echoing back at him. "Hermione! Neville! Luna!" Each name was met with more and more silence.

Harry stumbled out of the room and into the hallway leading to the rest of the Ministry. Here too he found evidence of abandonment. A box of quills, and a dust-filled box labeled "Spare Parchment." His footsteps echoed down the hallway, and a sense of dread began to creep over Harry.

All of a sudden, there were two other sets of footsteps echoing along with his. Harry gripped his wand tighter and listened for any clue as to who these two were.

"I swear to god, if this is another false alarm, I'm going to kill someone" a voice rang out, deep and gravelly.

"Ah, shove it Perez," another voice this time, equally gravelly but a higher pitch. "This is the easiest assignment ever. We get combat pay to do a security guard's job. Whoever this Potter guy is, the Illusive Man must want him bad."

As the two came into view, Harry noticed immediately that they seemed rather odd. Everything else he had seen in the past few minutes seemed old and decrepit, but these two soldiers were outfitted in gear Harry had never seen. Both were outfitted head to toe in armor, each with a matching orange, black, and grey logo. Their helmets obscured their faces, and made it look as if they were scowling at every person that looked their direction. The weapon they each held was some kind of gun that Harry had never seen in his life. It was as if they had stepped out of one of Dudley's space marine video games.

Harry suddenly found himself wishing he had his invisibility cloak. He couldn't shake the feeling that whoever these two were, their presence here was not good for him. Harry turned to run the other direction, and immediately tripped and fell over one of the rotten desks. Cursing his bad luck, Harry turned to find himself looking down the barrels of two very intimidating-looking weapons.

"Drop your wand," the gun on the left said, "and put your hands on your head."

Harry complied, with a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He felt cold, metal cuffs slap on to his wrists, and was jerked upwards by the guard who picked up his wand.

"I can't believe it," the guard behind him said as Harry was marched out of the Ministry. "I don't know how the Illusive Man gets his info. Looks like Teltin has another test subject."