Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. No really, I don't.

Notes: This story has been floating around in my head since forever so I'm just gonna put it right here. This chapter and the next have too much from the books that it irks me; I really want to get out of the JK-verse, I really do.

Prologue

It was the last evening at Hogwarts and the end of the year feast was due to start soon. Yet harry could not muster up the will to care and continued to slowly pack, making sure to take all the time in world. The warm June weather seeped his energy out, making the process all the more sluggish. Dumbledore would likely give a speech about Voldemort, a speech harry could do without; the last thing harry needed was attention, especially after the fiasco at the ministry. It wasn't that he knew darker times lay ahead, that Voldemort would actively raise his armies and terrorize wizarding Britain. It was Sirius's eyes looking right at him as he fell, fell through the veil, fell out of this life, out of his life. His one chance at a normal family, at coming home for the summers. The image of his eyes, a twisted fear encompassing them as the veil took him remained vibrant in his mind. He knew it then, that he would die. It was times like these he wanted to be around people, for distraction; but then he would feel unsettled, wanting once more to be alone.

Harry squashed a pair of socks into his trunk, as if he could stamp out the image in his mind by doing so.

Chink!

Chink? Did he break something? He bent down and shuffled some robes out of the way to discover a badly wrapped package in his trunk. He stared at it as if it was the most bizarre thing in world, trying to jog his memory as to what it was. Realization quickly dawned and he pulled it out. A fat thread of anxiety looped around his chest, leaving a quick trail for sorrow to permeate through. Sitting softly on the bed, he tried to ignore this feeling as he opened Sirius's present. The crinkle and crackle of the paper hacked through the silence in dorm.

A small, square mirror surfaced from the paper. Gazing into it, he saw his misty reflection, broken now. Seven years of bad luck. He turned the dirty, old mirror over and found a scribbled message from Sirius.

This is a two-way mirror, I've got the other one of the pair. If you need to speak to me, just say my name into it; you'll appear in my mirror and I'll be able to talk in yours. James and I used to use them when we were in separate detentions.

Harry's heart thudded against his chest, marveled at the possibility of talking to Sirius again. The mirror of Erised had shown his dead parents, surely this mirror could do it too. Before he thought better of it he whispered, "Sirius." His green eyes continued to stare back at him. Not wanting his hope to dissipate he said it again, clear and loud enough for every dark corner of the dorm to hear, "Sirius Black!" His loud voice made the silence seem stronger, furthering a feeling of claustrophobic loneliness. The mirror continued to show his frustrated face, now reflecting the onset of misery. He quickly looked away.

A small voice reminded him: Sirius didn't have his mirror when he fell through the veil, so he couldn't answer him. But the small voice didn't stop there. If Harry hadn't been so angry, so stubbornly set on ignoring Sirius, he could have discovered the mirror earlier. Then he could have spoken to Sirius directly. Then Harry wouldn't have gone to the ministry. Sirius wouldn't have died.

In a bout of anger, he hurled the already cracked mirror back into his trunk, where several more chinks, accompanied by cracks, ensued. Anger still had a powerful grip on him; it possessed him to continue hurling his things into the trunk, to squash out the images of Sirius falling back into the veil. Clothes, books, his cloak, those socks, all went flying into the trunk. When he had enough of flinging he kicked his trunk close and fell back onto the bed, throat constricted. His body slouched as the raw emotions seeped out of him.

A glint by his trunk caught his eye, and looking closer, he found it was the piece of the mirror. Annoyed by haunting mirror he stooped over to pick it up ready to fling it away too, when he stopped. Why was he trying to throw this away? Wasn't this one of the last things Sirius left him? Something nagged at back of his mind. He remembered the voices, whispers more like, when he stood near the veil. There was something in there, Luna had said it too. And suddenly he realized something else. He quickly pocketed the piece of the mirror and bolted out of the dorm, raced down stairs, and clumsily avoiding some walls, hitting others, as he sprinted out of the Gryffindor common room with fat lady's admonishment of ' The feast is about to start, you know, you're cutting it very fine!' trailing behind him. Like a demon hell-bent on destruction, Harry surged through Hogwarts trying to find a ghost, any ghost. Just when you needed one, they all decide to hide. He skidded to a halt outside the charms classroom. Panting and heaving, he recalled that they were all probably at the feast and he would have to wait until after the feast to talk to one.

As his hope began vanish for a second time that day, it rekindled once more when he saw a translucent somebody drifting across the end of the corridor.

'Hey - hey Nick! NICK!' The ghost stuck its head back out of the wall, revealing the extravagantly plumed hat and dangerously wobbling head of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, the Gryffindor ghost.

'Good evening, ' he said, withdrawing the rest of his body from the solid stone and smiling at Harry 'So I am not the only one who is late, then? Though, ' he sighed, 'in a rather different sense, of course,' he ended wistfully.

'Nick, can I ask you something?' A most peculiar expression stole over Nearly Headless Nick's face as he inserted a finger in the stiff ruff at his neck and tugged it a little straighter, apparently to give himself thinking time. He desisted only when his partially severed neck seemed about to give way completely.

'Er - now, Harry?' said Nick, looking discomfited. 'Can't it wait until after the feast?

'No - Nick - please, ' said Harry, 'I really need to talk to you. Can we go in here?' Harry opened the door of the nearest classroom and Nearly Headless Nick sighed, trailing behind.

'Oh, very well, ' he said, looking resigned. 'I can't pretend I haven't been expecting it.' Harry was holding the door open for him, but he drifted through the wall instead.

'Expecting what?' Harry asked, as he closed the door and went over to lean against a desk.

'You to come and find me, ' said Nick, now gliding over to the window and looking out at the darkening grounds. 'It happens, sometimes, when somebody has suffered a loss." The castle seemed to cool off with setting sun.

'Well, ' said Harry, refusing to be deflected. 'You were right, I've - I've come to find you.' Nick said nothing, so harry continued to fill the silence. 'It's -' he was finding this more awkward than he had anticipated, 'It's just - you're dead. But you're still here, aren't you?'Nick sighed and continued to gaze out at the grounds. 'That's right, isn't it?' Harry urged him. 'You died, but I'm talking to you; you can walk around Hogwarts and everything, can't you?' So why isn't Sirius went left unsaid.

'Yes, ' said Nearly Headless Nick quietly, 'I walk and talk, yes.

'So, you came back, didn't you?' said Harry urgently. 'People can come back, right? As ghosts. They don't have to disappear completely. Well?' he added impatiently, when Nick continued to remain speechless.

Nearly Headless Nick hesitated, then said, 'Not everyone can come back as a ghost."

'What d'you mean?' interjected Harry quickly.

'Only- only wizards.'

'Oh, ' said Harry, and he almost laughed with relief. 'Well, that's okay then; the person I'm asking about is a wizard. So he can come back, right?' Nick turned away from the window and looked mournfully at Harry.

'He won't come back.'

'Who?'

'Sinus Black, ' said Nick.

'But you did!' Harry practically shouted. "You came back -you're dead and you didn't disappear-"

'Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where their living selves once trod, ' said Nick miserably. 'But very few wizards choose that path.'

'Why not?' said Harry. 'Anyway - it doesn't matter - Sirius won't care if it's unusual, he'll come back, I know he will!' And so strong was his belief, Harry actually turned his head to check the door, sure, for a split second, that he was going to see Sirius, pearly-white and transparent but beaming, walking through it towards him.

'He will not come back, ' repeated Nick. 'He will have- gone on.'

'What d'you mean, "gone on"?' said Harry quickly, 'Gone on where? Listen - what happens when you die, anyway? Where do you go? Why doesn't everyone come back? Why isn't this place full of ghosts?Why -?"

'I cannot answer, ' said Nick.

'You're dead, aren't you?' said Harry exasperatedly. 'Who can answer better than you?'

'I was afraid of death, ' said Nick softly. 'I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtn't to have; well, that is neither here nor there, in fact, I am neither here nor there.' He gave a small woeful chuckle. 'I know nothing of the secrets of death, Harry, for I chose my feeble imitation of life instead. I believe learned wizards study the matter in the Department of Mysteries -'

'Don't talk to me about that place!' said Harry fiercely recalling the damned veil.

'I am sorry not to have been more help, ' said Nick gently 'Well- well, do excuse me- the feast, you know.' And he left the room, leaving Harry there alone, gazing blankly at the wall through which Nick had disappeared. It was almost as though he had lost his godfather all over again in losing hope (for the third time) that he might be able to see or speak to him once more. He trudged slowly and miserably back up through the empty castle, wondering whether he would ever feel cheerful again. Outside, the sunlight had quietly dissipated and firelights now lit up the corridors.

As he turned a corner on his path back to the common room, he saw someone fastening a note to a board on the wall. A second glance showed him it was Luna. There were no good hiding places nearby, she was bound to have heard his footsteps, and in any case, Harry could hardly muster the energy to avoid anyone at the moment.

'Hello, ' said Luna vaguely, glancing around at him as she stepped back from the notice.

'How come you're not at the feast?' Harry asked.

'Well, I've lost most of my possessions, ' said Luna serenely. 'People take them and hide them, you know. But as it's the last night, I really do need them back, so I've been putting up signs." She gestured towards the notice board, upon which, sure enough, she had pinned a list of all her missing books and clothes, with a plea for their return.

An odd feeling rose in Harry; an emotion quite different from the anger and grief that had filled him since Sirius's death. It was a few moments before he realized that he was feeling sorry for Luna. 'How come people hide your stuff?' he asked her, frowning.

'Oh, well,' she shrugged. 'I think they think I'm a bit odd, you know. Some people call me "Loony" Lovegood, actually.'

Harry looked at her and the new feeling of pity intensified rather painfully. 'That's no reason for them to take your things, ' he said flatly. 'D'you want help finding them?'

'Oh, no, ' she said, smiling at him. 'They'll come back; they always do in the end. It was just that I wanted to pack tonight. Anyway, why aren't you at the feast?'

Not wanting to explain his little adventure, Harry shrugged. 'Just didn't feel like it.'

'No, ' said Luna, observing him with those oddly misty, protuberant eyes. 'I don't suppose you do. That man the Death Eaters killed was your godfather, wasn't he? Ginny told me. '

Harry nodded curtly, but found that for some reason he did not mind Luna talking about Sirius. He had just remembered that she, too, could see Thestrals. 'Have you-' he began. 'I mean, who- has anyone you known ever died?'

'Yes, ' said Luna simply, 'My mother. She was a quite extraordinary witch, you know, but she did like to experiment and one of her spells went rather badly wrong one day. I was nine.'

'I'm sorry' Harry mumbled.

'Yes, it was rather horrible, ' said Luna conversationally. 'I still feel very sad about it sometimes. But I've still got Dad. And anyway, it's not as though I'll never see Mum again, is it?'

'Er - isn't it?' said Harry uncertainly. She shook her head in disbelief.

'Oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didn't you?'

'You mean-'

'In that room with the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, that's all. You heard them.'

They looked at each other. Luna was smiling slightly. Harry did not know what to say, or to think, Luna believed so many extraordinary things, yet he had been sure he had heard voices behind the veil, too. 'Are you sure you don't want me to help you look for your stuff?' he said.

'Oh, no, ' said Luna. 'No, I think I'll just go down and have some pudding and wait for it all to turn up, it always does in the end. Well, have a nice holiday Harry'

'Yeah- yeah, you too. 'She walked away from him and, as he watched her go, he found that the terrible weight in his stomach- seemed to have lessened slightly. Right by corridor, there was an arched window overlooking the ground. As Harry stared right past it, he felt that nagging feeling again. The arched window looked a lot like the veil. They were just lurking out of sight, that's all. You heard them.

What exactly was behind the veil? Harry was so sure there was something there. Was Sirius there, were his parents there? Someone was whispering, that was for sure. Scratching subconsciously at an itch in his thigh, harry felt something in his pocket. He halted his glare to fiddle through his pocket; he found the piece of Sirius' mirror. Altogether, that faraway mindset that maybe, just maybe, Sirius could still be around whispered through his skull. He didn't feel like going back to common room anymore. He wanted to know more about the veil, what exactly was it?

That's a chipper idea and all, that voice reasoned, but where are you going to find this information if even Hermione didn't know anything? He hated how reasonable this voice seemed, almost reminiscent of Hermoine herself. A thought suddenly occurred to him. Dumbledore. He would know, right? But did he want to see Dumbledore; after all, he did go on a rampage not too many days ago. Would Dumbledore even want to see him? Harry decided he didn't like the track that thought went down, and that he might as well try to speak to the aged old professor if just to satiate his curiosity.

Not too long after his internal debate, Harry found himself camped out in front of statue guarding the headmaster's office. But now he was alone, with nothing to do, with his mind wandering around. Again and again, it'd stray into forbidden territory, and he'd stop it, yet as if his own mind was taunting him, it would drift closer and closer. His mind didn't want to seem to let go of Sirius. He felt he would go mad with waiting, start screaming for no reason just so he wouldn't have to keep remembering.

'If I did not know any better, I would think that wall had committed a most foul deed deserving of your wrath,' that certainly snapped Harry out of his thoughts. It took a moment for him to realize that Dumbledore was here, another to notice he'd spoken, and a final to figure that he was referring to how he was glaring at the wall. Dumbledore bore a small, sympathetic smile, but Harry found himself unable and unwilling to return it. 'I must remind you that it will be after hours in a little while. Now, with that aside, was there something you wished speak of?'Caught a bit off-guard, Harry hesitated, not sure how to start. Dumbledore seemed to understand; he motioned Harry to follow him up to his office.

After refusing all else but tea, just so he would have something to do with his hands, Harry decided he should cut to the chase. 'Sir, I-I was wondering about the veil,' Harry started and at the mention of the veil, Dumbledore's smile turned a tad sorrowful, which Harry decided to ignore and stared instead at his tea. 'When we came across it, Luna and I, we both heard whispering from the other side and I was so sure that there was someone there-speaking to us,' Harry paused to glance up at Dumbledore; his face hadn't changed. Harry continued, 'But Hermione and Ron couldn't hear them. It was almost as if the veil was alive and… well, I just wanted to know what exactly it was.'

Dumbledore sat back and proceeded to stroke his beard, seemingly thinking, not too different in mannerism as to how Nick had been lost in thought. 'From what I know, not much is known about the veil. The ones that do know are the unspeakables, as they are the ones that study it; but they aren't a very approachable lot,' he paused here to take sip of his tea. 'The veil is thought of as physical gateway between the living and the dead; those who have entered do not resurface,' he seemed to put a heavy emphasis on the last part. 'As to why primarily Miss Lovegood and yourself could hear whispering, I am sure you have an idea and your guess is as good as mine. You have both lost loved ones and the yearning to see your loved ones could pull you into the veil.'

'And those that fall through…?'

'They have gone on.' The sentence was heavy in utterance, but the look in Dumbledore's eyes gave a clear message; Sirius was dead and going through the veil wouldn't bring him back. Harry soon finished his tea, wished the professor a goodnight, and headed back to Gryffindor tower to pack. As for Dumbledore, he was left in a very uneasy state. He had this unfortunate, foreboding inkling that the matter with the veil would not end here. Thus, the aged man began his research on veil, so that in the event of the worst possibility, he would be better equipped to help the last Potter.