Hagrid, Keeper of Secrets

"No need to look. With something this serious happening, how could Dumbledore not know?" Silvan said.

In fact, the moment Silvan saw today's Daily Prophet, he knew Dumbledore must have gone to the Ministry of Magic.

Otherwise, the newspaper would not merely have reported that Minister for Magic Rufus Scrimgeour had died in battle. It would have said that the Ministry of Magic had been massacred by Voldemort, with countless employees dead or wounded.

"What I'm more curious about is this." Silvan pointed at a certain spot in the newspaper.

"Dumbledore stopped Voldemort on the sixth floor. Why there?"

"Exactly." Hermione said. "Voldemort must have had a reason for going to the sixth floor of the Ministry, but we don't know what it was, and the newspaper didn't say."

"The sixth floor of the Ministry?" Harry thought carefully.

He was trying to recall what the voice announcing each floor had said when he had last ridden the lift to the sixth floor of the Ministry.

Whenever the Ministry lift passed a floor, a voice told the people inside which offices were on that level.

But no matter how hard Harry tried, he could only remember that the Department of Mysteries was on the lowest level and that Mr. Weasley's office was on the second floor.

He had never been to the sixth floor, and he had never paid attention to it while in the lift.

So they all turned to Ron at once.

"I don't know either," Ron said. "But I can write to Percy. He'll definitely know—Percy's practically a walking map of the Ministry. He knows that place better than he knows his own bedroom."

By the time they had finished eating and were preparing to head to class, Dumbledore still had not returned. Even McGonagall was unusually late.