Into the Flames
"My whole life flashed before my eyes…
…it was really boring": Babs the chicken, Chicken Run
A/N: The writing in Italics is a direct quote from JK's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Those words are all hers. the rest come from me, but sadly I don't own the characters or the Harry Potter world. If I did, Sirius wouldn't have fallen through the veil in the first place!
PROLOUGE
The second jet of light hit him squarely in the chest.
The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock.
Harry released Neville, although he was unaware of doing so. He was jumping down the steps again, pulling out his wand, as Dumbledore, too, turned towards the dais.
It seemed to take an age for Sirius to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch. Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his Godfather's wasted, once handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as if in high wind, then fell back into place.
Icy cold swept through his limbs as he fell through the barrier. He couldn't feel the pain Bellatrix's curse should have caused him. He couldn't take control of his body to jump back out from behind the veil. He just continued to fall.
"HARRY!" he yelled, "HARRY!"
Nobody answered him. And he knew at that point that nobody could hear him. There was nobody to help him now: Sirius was alone. And still falling helplessly into what appeared to be nothing. All that appeared before him, as the torn veil drew away from his vision, was darkness. There was nothing he could decipher but the impenetrable black before him. It bore down upon him without pity, without compassion.
He thought back to how he had gotten there; thought back throughout his life. His hatred of his family, His love of Hogwarts, his inseparable friends flashed through his mind. His mother's face floated in front of him, contorted with rage and disgust as he slammed the door of 12 Grimuald place for the last time. Her puce cheeks dissolved into the greying features of Remus Lupin, whose tired smile lit up his sallow face. Sirius regarded the four figures surrounding him; Harriet, Mary, Claire and Peter. Moony turned to the stout boy beside him, whose watery eyes crinkled in laughter as he looked at Sirius. Wormtail had been a traitor, but even in what Sirius assumed was death, he didn't hate him. No matter how much he wanted to. Regulus materialised. His features cold and distinguished yet vulnerable. His brother always was boy of contradictions, but Sirius had loved him.
Then came James, raven hair sticking up on end, hazel eyes twinkling behind his glasses. Lily stood beside him, Harry wrapped in her arms. The family, his family, grinned at him filling him with the love they had expressed do many times before. The Sirius became aware of a faint giggling; the chuckle of a wriggling infant with bright silvery eyes. He faintly remembered the child's tiny hands wrapping determinedly around his finger, the spur of joy as she gurgled her first words, her smell.
He drew his attention away from the baby, meeting a pair of familiar glowing eyes. They shone through the dark, their intense sapphire glare burning into his mind, into his heart, into his soul. They wretched at his memories, bringing back the pain he had buried, the emotions he had suppressed. He had let them down. Let them all down. He had killed them, abandoned them, and failed to protect them as he had promised. Harry. Brave, loving Harry was alone now. He had failed him, failed them all.
He closed his eyes tightly shut, desperately trying to block out the pain and guilt; trying to escape the eyes that he had missed for over a decade.
He free-falled downwards, faster and faster, surrounded by nothingness. And then THUMP. He hit a cold, stone floor with tremendous force. But he felt no more pain. His eyes remained shut determinedly. And he didn't open them again. He wouldn't for a long time. He just curled up, scrunching up his face, and waited: waited for his Hell to end.
Two blunt objects grabbed his shoulders, desperately gathering his robes. Sirius' eyes shot open immediately fear flashing across his face. He expected the darkness, the suffocating, intoxicating black that had suppressed him to come speeding back. But it didn't come. Light, the brightest, most radiant light illuminated everything. His surrounding's glowed, heat emitting from the blaze.
He squinted against the glare, desperate to see what had touched him. A robed figure stood behind him, their face shielded. Flashes of blue came into his vision, but disappeared as soon as they had appeared.
The hands on his shoulders, pale and small, dragged him along the rough ground. He didn't even try to struggle. He just closed his eyes, too tired, too grieved to bother worrying about his fate.
The figure strained to heave him up, pulling him out with them into the source of the light, out from under the ragged cloth that had held the infamous Black prisoner. The comforting warmth vanished as they staggered through the barrier, replaced by an intense chill that echoed through out the caverns of the department of mysteries.
The light was gone too. Cold, dark, dread was starting to creep up Sirius' legs, engulfing him in fear. He couldn't breath. His test was tight, too tight. He tried to gasp in air but his body refused to listen to his mind. Panic sped through him. He needed to breathe. He needed to survive. He needed to get to Harry.
Two lips pressed themselves against his; forcing air into his lungs; but Sirius didn't react. He just lay there, paralysed. He felt a hot tickling next to his ear and a voice pleading with him incoherently.
"Breath for me Padfoot" the voice urged, echoing through his memories. The face of its owner had haunted him for many years. He needed to see them. He needed to talk to them, to see if he had finally gone mad or if they were really alive. But he needed to breathe first. Come on! He ordered his body, Just breath!
He gasped, gulping in fresh clean oxygen greedily. Relief flooded through him: he was alive. But with the relief came agony. Pain stabbed his chest, shooting across his torso callously. He cringed, moaning in anguish. No matter how much he tried to ignore it, the torturous throbbing didn't subside.
It overcame him, making his head spin, his mind go fuzzy. He had to stay alive, he had to fight. He had to see her. But the darkness was creeping in, his breaths becoming ever more frantic. Fear gripped his soul as his chest ceased up in panic. He had no breath. No will power left. Just pain and loss. His frozen limbs lay contorted anguish. There was nothing he could do to hold on anymore. There was no way to keep going.
And then there was nothing.
A/N: I won't ask for reviews... yet :P
Who's saving him? How can he come back to life? Wel that'sfor me to know and you to wonder. Or you could just read it...