"No one? How could that be?" Harry stared at the vast, empty room in disbelief.
"Could they have already found it and left?" Qiu asked tentatively.
"Surely not?" Harry said. "If that really happened, this thing is so important to Vol... I mean, to the Dark Lord. He cared so much about it before. If he really found it, he ought to have had a pretty strong Emotional Fluctuation. Shouldn't I feel something?"
Harry himself was not actually very sure of that.
Apart from today outside Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom, every other time he had seen through Voldemort's or the Demon Serpent's eyes, or felt something in the scar on his forehead, something unusual seemed to have happened.
Well, there had been one other exception: when he returned after Christmas and Azkaban was broken into. Voldemort's Emotional Fluctuation must have been particularly intense that time, which was why Harry had felt a slight aching itch in his forehead.
Voldemort seemed to have coveted this thing down in the Department of Mysteries for over a year. If he had found it, his Emotional Fluctuation ought to have been considerable too.
After realizing something was wrong, Harry had deliberately weakened his Occlumency. If Voldemort really experienced a strong Emotional Fluctuation, he ought to have sensed something as well.
But in fact, he had not.
From finding Hermione and telling her about it to flying all the way here, Harry had felt nothing unusual throughout the journey.
"Then could it really have just been an ordinary hallucination?" Ron asked tentatively, his expression turning somewhat awkward.
Harry's expression changed slightly. He could not actually be certain either. If that were true, their earlier actions-what they had done to Umbridge and the others, for instance-would have been rather outrageous.
Still, he did not think that was