It was a shabby phone booth, with all the glass missing, and it looked as if it had been out of repair for a long time — yet whenever Muggles passed by, they unconsciously steered clear, and their eyes never glanced in its direction.
It was the Muggle-Repelling Charm.
When he stepped inside, Dumbledore followed, picking up the phone and fiddling with the dial on the old rotary.
As the dial whirred back into place, a woman's cold voice echoed inside the booth, but it wasn't coming from the receiver Dumbledore was holding; the voice was loud and clear, as if an invisible woman was standing right next to them.
"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and purpose."
"Albus Dumbledore," Dumbledore said softly, "here with Harry Potter, to participate in the trial of Peter Pettigrew."
"Thank you," said the woman's cold voice. "Visitor, please take your badge and pin it to the front of your clothing."
Ringing, clattering...
Just like the sound of a cash register, Harry saw something slide out of the metal chute usually used for coins.
He picked it up: it was a square silver badge with the words: Harry Potter, Jury.
He pinned the badge to the front of his uniform shirt as the woman's voice sounded again.
"Visitor to the Ministry, you need to proceed to security for a check and register your wand at the end of the atrium."
The floor of the phone booth suddenly began to tremble, as if they were descending slowly in an elevator.
The pavement outside the phone booth window rose higher and higher until they were in complete darkness overhead.
After about a minute, a thin beam of golden light shone on his feet, then gradually widened over his body, and finally shone straight onto his face.
"I think the process of entering the Ministry of Magic should be improved," Harry said to Dumbledore. "At least it wasn't this complicated in the past."
"I believe you're right, Harry," Dumbledore agreed with Harry.
As his voice fell, the woman's voice echoed again.
"The Ministry of Magic hopes you have a pleasant day."
Then, the door of the phone booth suddenly opened, and Harry followed Dumbledore out.
They stood at one end of a long, dazzlingly splendid hall, with a polished dark wooden floor.
The peacock blue ceiling was embedded with gleaming golden symbols, moving and changing constantly, like a giant high-altitude bulletin board.
The walls were all inlaid with shiny dark wooden panels, with many gilded fireplaces set into the wood.
Every few seconds, with a soft pop, a wizard would suddenly appear from one of the fireplaces on the left. Meanwhile, on the right, several people queued up in front of each fireplace, waiting to leave.
In the middle of the atrium stood a fountain: a group of pure gold statues taller than life-size rose from a circular pool.
The tallest of them was a noble-looking wizard, raising his wand and pointing it skyward.
Surrounding him were a beautiful witch, a centaur, a fairy, and a house-elf.
The centaur, fairy, and house-elf all looked up at the two wizards with unbounded admiration.
Jets of bright water shot from the wizard's wand tip, the centaur's arrow, the fairy's hat point, and the house-elf's two ears.
"It looks harmonious, doesn't it?" Harry said to Dumbledore, referring to the Magic Brothers Fountain Sculpture.
"An illusion, nothing more," Dumbledore said softly, not bothering to conceal his voice, seemingly not caring if anyone heard. "I never believed a statue could represent the Magic World. You must understand, centaurs and fairies both think they're far superior to wizards. How could they possibly look up at wizards with admiration?"
"Is that so?" Harry shrugged indifferently, the fairies seemed quite reverent when they looked at him.
Let's say, it's because not enough have been slain.
Having experienced the fairy rebellions, Harry was always wary of these non-human creatures; he'd seen too many villages razed to the ground due to fairy ravages...
"Let's go, let's proceed with the process," Dumbledore said to Harry.
The two of them walked over to a desk on the left, with a sign next to it that read 'Security Check.' Sitting beneath it was a wizard wearing a peacock blue robe, with a scruffily shaved beard.
As they approached, he looked up, putting down the Prophet Daily he was holding.
"Principal Dumbledore," the wizard said, "welcome."
"I've brought a guest here to accompany the trial of Peter Pettigrew," Professor Dumbledore said. "He is Harry Potter."
"Harry Potter?"
The wizard, who had been quite sleepy, opened his eyes wide upon hearing Harry's name.
"Harry Potter?" he repeated, nodding, "Alright — you may proceed."
"No security check?" Harry asked curiously.
"I don't think there's anything worth checking in a third-year student's possession," the wizard said to him. "Alright — you can go on."
"Thank you, Eric," Dumbledore nodded with a smile.
After Harry left, the wizard wiped his eyes.
"Oh, poor child..."
The affair with Peter Pettigrew had already spread throughout the Ministry; of course, he knew about it — in fact, everyone in the Ministry knew about it.