Title:
Beneath the VeilAuthor: moi, MalfoysChick
Rating: PG (I like to swear)
***
Remus shuddered as he walked into the room of the Department of Mysteries. His last living friend had died here; falling through that archway. The black veil swayed and stirred, as if to mock him. Dumbledore had asked him here to help clean; in case they found any of Sirius's effects to bring back to Harry. Remus had snorted in doubt; but he had come anyway just out of curiousity.
Remus knew it was going to be a hard time, cleaning in here. Sirius was gone, he was dead, and now Remus would be spending time in this room that should be considered sacred. Sure, Sirius had been a bully towords Snape in school, but he had out-grown that by far, had become a better man with each passing year, even as he had suffered through Azkaban.
He walked up to the veil and stopped short before it, remembering how he had had to restrain Harry from pulling it to the side, how he had had to restrain Harry from seeing Sirius's... well, he supposed it would have been his ghost. No one knew for sure. Remus looked to the ground, and saw a glint of metal. Squatting down, he saw it was just a chip of steel that had probably been part of a large table or some such. He sighed and dropped it, looking again to the veil and the arch.
'I'm sorry, Padfoot,' he thought heavily before whispering it aloud. He placed his hand on the arch, looking at the carvings as he prepared to stand.. But wait. they were shaped like arrows.. pointing down.. Remus followed their path to the bottom of the arch, where he realize the stone column was sitting nearly an inch off the ground.
'Curious...' he thought. Shrugging, he pushed against the column to get up.. and it moved. It had literally moved a few inches farther away from Remus. Startled, Remus pushed it another foot forward.. and saw a boot-clad foot.
He could have jumped. Was that not Sirius's boot? Remus ran to the other column and pushed that back as well. It revealed another boot, and a few inches of leg, shrouded by black robes..
Remus could have screamed when he saw Sirius's wand laying next to the leg. Calming himself down, he took the ankles in his hands and dragged the body out.
Sirius's rough voice, slightly hoarse at the moment, filled the chamber: "You bloody WANKER! Didn't you even THINK to look BENEATH THE DAMN VEIL!?" The supposed corpse sat up, only to see Remus fall to the ground in a dead faint.
He sighed. "How the hell am I supposed to get some bloody food? And how am I going to explain this to Harry? 'Oh, Harry, sorry about the bloody scare. You know how you lose a Cheeto while sitting on the couch, and you always think to look in the couch, but never under it? Those bloody gits, well, hah! They just forgot to look beneath the veil, you see, so I'm just still bloody well alive.' I can see it now. The poor boy will die of shock."
***
