We May Never Pass This Way
And there was a look of mingled fear and surprise on Sirius's wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind and then fell back into place...
The memories hit him, so fast and so hard that he doubled over from all of the pain. The first image he could make out was the weakest, a mere shadow in his mind, so blurry and made of shapes that he was barely sure it had been real.
His uncle taking him and his brother by the hand on a beach (had they been to a beach?); kneeling at the sieve;Alphard's seaside kitchen at twelve;and then a different scene, being pulled up by his arm as he stood with his brother in a ballroom; then his mother's pasty white face; and then pain, pain, painas his mother gave him Crucio, staring stonily down at him as he screamed himself hoarse, in the lounge, his father's hands tightening into fists, if Sirius could see him, he was watching his son convulse on the ground.
And then more pain, pain, painas Sirius felt it, his brother, who he hadn't thought about in years, cried. There were more memories filtering through now, of a place he didn't know but he remembered, he remembered a pub, and a storm in the 1960s, coming to see Alphard when he was about eight, and of some local muggles- what had that man said? Something about a place where the spirit world comes close. How Skye was a thinplace. He and Reg were there in the winter, and he could still see the mist and ice swirling around them, and the sucking glops of mud, and the invisible lighthouse. He remembered the cold and rain and wind in Azkaban, of being trapped in the North Sea. He recalled looking for stones with Alphard, not so far away.
And then he hissed, because he was now standing in soppy, wet, freezing mud. Water was pooling around his shins, and Sirius nearly stumbled. He squinted around. He felt so disoriented he felt like he could almost be back there, swimming to shore as Padfoot, but he was human,he was standing in mud.Where would all the mud have come from, then? He could still see the mist and ice swirling around him, and the thick mud, it was like wet cement.
He compared what he was feeling right now to where he had been, and with how little he could see; he was hunched against an incredibly bitter wind, with mud dragging him down. And he couldn't see. Everything was like ice in the black.
Is this the other side of the veil?
He was hearing faint screams somewhere around him in the darkness, he swam toward it, swam toward the noise, but grew confused when it fell silent; when he broke the surface, he couldn't tell whose voice it was, or even if it was a combination of voices. Could it be?
Someone was calling for him, pleading for him. But could he see them?
Where am I? Scotland?
He could make out the cold rocks of Salmadair, a lighter grey in the general black. Only how he knew it was Salmadair he couldn't, it was just a guess. If it was true, he was hearing voices, the voices must be on Salmadair, he just had to reach them and they would all get back to the mainland. At this point, he couldn't tell whether he was hunched against the gales or escaping from Azkaban.
The voices, though, they had fallen silent. Gazing into the chains of rain, he thought that he could have actually made out a figure- maybe two figures, an adult and a child. Both of them could have been hunched against the ferocious wind, like he was. But why would an adult and a child be out here, walking across these dreadful muds, in the storm, in pre-dawn darkness?
He tried to get to them. The cold dripped down his neck; the mist and rain grew denser as he waded out onto the gaping, endless mudflats. Where the hell am I? He looked to his left, and saw more black shapes. Boats, perhaps. But then the wind howled, in the firs, and it sounded like someone was screaming, maybe a dog was howling. He swore he saw a smear of movement, just one figure, rather small, moving in the greyness. Then the movement stopped. And it was gone. And it gave him an idea.
Sirius tried to transform. He could have better vision as a dog, here, in the mudflats of the isles, but he couldn't find the strength. He searched for a wand, but couldn't find one in his pockets- and he listened as the wind howled once more. No, no, no...
Sirius Sirius Sirius.
Carried on the wind.
Sirius.
Someone was calling to him, like before. Only this time, he could hear enough to make out his name. He strained to see something, anything, in the darkness. The mist was whirling in places, like flaws in ice.
"Hello?" He shouted himself hoarse; at least he thought he had, because whatever sound that had just come out of him did not sound like him at all. "HELLO?"
He was shouting into the void. But he still heard the voice.
Sirius.
"I'm here!" He tried again, "I'm still here!"
He only dared made noise because of the veil- he'd fallen through.
There was a sudden sound of splashing. Sirius would have jumped at the scare, but his feet were trapped in mud. It had suddenly occurred to him that he couldn't move, he absolutely couldn't move.
"Help me," he cried, unable to tell why this was feeling like such an out-of-body experience. His eyes felt strained, as if he'd been staring at something very bright for a very long time, even though he was in near darkness. And he was shaking like mad, perhaps worse than after his escape from Azkaban. Maybe I'm drunk and alone back at Grimmauld Place.I hope I'm drunk and alone at Grimmauld Place. But he'd fallen through? Why would he feel so cold, otherwise?
"Sirius?" A bright wand was suddenly in front of his face, an adult sounding from above him, "Sirius, thankMerlin."
Sirius squinted through the beam of light, as tight arms found themselves around him, unknown arms, unfamiliar arms, pulling him out of the thick mud.
It was a man's face. He blinked quickly, assuming that this was all a hallucination- but then became terrified, because if this wasn't...
His Uncle Alphard was standing in front of him, his wand-arm out in front of him, and there was a tiny boy on his back. His younger brother Regulus's pale, terrified face peered down at him, and as Sirius absorbed this information, he was frozen as he stared back at the both of them. This couldn't be real. It couldn'tbe real.
Alphard moved to take his hand as he turned around, hunched against the winds, but Sirius pulled his hand back. "N-no," He couldn't find anything else in him to stop him from crying, or gasping, or hyperventilating.
"Just a bit further, son," Alphard encouraged, "You can make it."
He didn't remember this. He hiccoughed and, shivering, stood his ground in the mud. He couldn't go with them. It wasn't Alphard, it wasn't his little brother, you died,he was alone and terrified in his bedroom in London, he fell through, but someone must have pulled him out, he was nowhere near the isles and their terrifying storms, this would not break him.
You died you died you died you died...
"Merlin, Sirius," His uncle's voice was cutting through in his panic, through the darkness, through the howling wind; then, he felt himself being lifted up in Alphard's arms, as his younger brother was dislodged from his back. He protested at first, breathing harder than before, sobbing and hiccoughing and burying his face into Alphard's shoulder as they moved through the thick bog.
I died I died I died I died I died...
After a while, Sirius felt his uncle begin to tire, breathing hard and grunting. He began to grow scared. He felt disassociated with this man he saw in his memories- and cried and cried, remembering Bellatrix's red light, the Dementors, and a man he didn't know but was sure he was his best friend. He was dead he was dead he was dead...
"You alright boys?" Alphard shouted, over the howling of the wind, and as he heard his little brother's voice- he sounded like a baby, a tiny child at this point, Sirius cried harder.
"Yeah," Regulus said, from his position in Alphard's arms- Sirius was on his back.
"Good," Alphard said quietly in return, Sirius almost couldn't hear it. "We're almost there, promise."
They were then almost blown sideways.
Regulus's face peered back at Sirius, scared. Sirius pressed his face into Alphard's cloak, begging for this to be over.
What had he done, to deserve this torture from his own mind? Had he lost it? They might have caught him, he might have been back in Azkaban. He had far worse memories than this. "Come on, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.
He closed his eyes. He could feel his uncle's lungs inflating more with every breath, but Alphard hadn't yet put him down in the mud. Sirius himself was shivering too, against him, and he was terrified because he was smaller than Uncle Alphard, small enough to fit on his back, when he knew that he wasn't. He had to be dead. Bellatrix must have killed him.
Oh, Harry...
He could transform. He could transform and be free of this, free of them, they wouldn't ever get to where they were going. He could, he could get back to Harry, get back to the battle, and... and...
Where were the others? If this was death, where were the others?
James? Lily? Why wouldn't they be here?
Why are Alphard and Regulus...I don't... I...
"Sirius, please," pleaded Alphard, as Sirius blinked, "Please, please stop crying, we're almost there, promise."
I died I died I died I died I died...
Only he couldn't stop, until...
The fog split open, only for a moment.
There. That was definitely the lighthouse that Sirius remembered from his childhood, remembered from coming here to visit Uncle Alphard when he was young. And it was not far away. They must have almost gotten around Salmadair. Once they made it to the causeway, it would be easier...
His uncle clambered, painfully, to the top of the rock, where the mist was even thicker. But now a real gleam of light showed them the way. The lighthouse was truly close: Alphard was almost running up the causeway, the mud had yielded to rocks and pebbles; the wind was still driving and the rain was still intense, but the beam of the lighthouse displayed the route, every ten seconds.
Up, up, up.
There. They were on the island. There were lights glimmering, in Alphard's cottage. In his bedroom? Or the living room, where Sirius and Regulus slept when they made it up here?
Alphard crouched against the wet to let Sirius down and sprinted up the once heathery path, and Sirius was now back on his own feet. He followed, not knowing what else to do.
The kitchen door of the cottage was open, flapping hysterically in the brutal wind. Why had Alphard left the door open? In this storm?
Sirius stepped over the threshold, half expecting something to happen as he entered the kitchen. The floor was wet, there was water everywhere. He was holding onto Alphard's wand, its light showed why: a huge gash in the dining-room ceiling, a great beam of timber protruding.
Regulus stood next to him, smaller but not much shorter. He looked horrified. Sirius couldn't quite believe that he was even there.
Alphard was shouting against the wind that boomed outside, shouting for someone, but who?
"Walburga! Orion! Walburga! It's me!" Sirius's heart dropped to his stomach as he anticipated who he might see next emerge out of the gloom.
Were all families forced to be reunited in death? Were his parents-
"Walburga! Orion!"
Nothing. No one answered. The house was empty. They had gone? Did that explain the two figures he'd maybe seen on the mudflats? An adult and a child? If there were three, excluding him, where could they have gone?
"Orion!" Alphard was still trying, still trying to find them. "Walburga!"
Again, nothing. What about the bedroom? That's where Sirius had seen the light. He watched as Alphard made that connection too, followed him in abject horror, the image or the ghost of his brother holding his hand, as he half-expected to see his father there, standing still, eyes flickering dangerously, waiting for them to return. Waiting for them to come home.
Alphard kicked open the bedroom door, and stared, from bed to chair, and from wall to wall. Sirius and Regulus were just behind him.
The room was empty. The light was on, and the bedding was disturbed. But whoever had been here had recently left.
The house was empty. They'd gone. And it made no sense.
Where am I? Sirius briefly wondered. Was he really dead? He hoped, rather, that this was all a hallucination. There were potions that created these kinds of visions, that much he knew. Maybe Snape had poisoned him. Maybe not.
"What do we do, Uncle Alphie? What do we do?" Regulus was crying. He couldn't be more than six, really, and pressed close to Sirius as the wind howled.
The winds could be reaching more than a hundred kilometres an hour out there. Sirius remembered that his Uncle Alphard didn't have a Floo, too paranoid. It was why he lived all the way up here. When Sirius and Regulus always came to visit him, they always Flooed to a nearby pub, across the loch. And Alphard was always there to greet him, with his dingy.
Sirius was just sad. This isn't real, he thought, dismayed. This isn't real.
Why would their parents be out here, anyway? He could recall maybe one instance where they bothered to visit with them, Sirius had been eight... was he supposed to be eight now, in this memory?
Alphard was searching the house, turning over things to look for clues. But then the wind became too much. Sirius heard a crashing noise, from the far side of the cottage.
"In here, boys," Alphard ushered them down the stairs and into the cellar- it was the only room without a window. He forced them down to the floor, so far, it wasn't wet, but Sirius worried it would be. He went back up the stairs to transfigure the wood door into metal, which would hopefully keep any debris out.
Sirius was shivering and his teeth were chattering. Alphard found a blanket on a shelf and, after shaking it somewhat away from them, wrapped it around the boys. Sirius all of a sudden felt very small, and not sure what to believe.
He remembered the storm, faintly, but he didn't remember ever getting lost on the mudflats. He remembered the storm, but he didn't remember his parents being there or getting lost halfway through.
Regulus had rested his head on his shoulder. Sirius's eyes were watery again as he fully took in his surroundings. He was in his Uncle Alphard's cellar, underground, hopefully safe from the storm. He would find out if he was really dead or hallucinating in a moment, but for now he could just sit here, huddled for warmth.
He was still shivering about twenty minutes later.
"Are you alright, Sirius?" Alphard asked him, concerned, from his beside them, on the opposite wall. He had found a blanket of his own.
Sirius looked at him in confusion and blinked. "F-fine."
"You look like you're feeling weak and shaky," Alphard frowned, "Where'd you leave your potion?"
Sirius frowned in confusion. His question of "What potion?" was drowned out by a large banging noise. Regulus flinched into his side, more rain poured down above the house.
"Did you leave it in the bedroom?" Alphard asked, his eyes moving to stare at the door to the above, "I can-"
Regulus was staring at him, too.
"Sorry, potion? What potion?" Sirius asked, a frown of his own on his face, "And... I g-guess?"
Alphard shook his head violently. "Your Blood Replenishing," He emphasized, "You must have left it somewhere. Honestly, you two are hopeless. I have some extra stored down here, but-"
His eyes flickered to the shelves, which looked like a scary mess of different bottles and potions- all except one, which was labelled with yellow. And then, it suddenly dawned on Sirius.
Alphard was already getting up and pouring some into a dusty cup. Sirius frowned, watching him, and reeled back when he came toward them with the cup. He half-expected him to go for Regulus, but as his uncle came toward him, Sirius's frown deepened. This was wrong.
"Wait- don't want-" Sirius said, attempting to get up, and as Alphard stopped, concerned, he shook his head wildly. "Don't need- Mmpf-"
"Sirius?" Alphard asked.
This isn't right. Why is Alphard trying to give me- but Regulus- it was Reg who-
"No," Sirius said, when Alphard attempted to approach him again, "No, I don't need- I'm fine, really!"
"Sirius," Alphard looked really concerned now. "Sirius, look at me."
Sirius didn't want to. "I-" He whispered, "I-"
"Listen to me," said Alphard, "Sirius, what's making you so afraid? Is it the storm?" At that, there was another crash from above- Sirius winced, but it wasn't just that. It was that his Uncle Alphard was trying to give him a potion, and he didn't understand what it was, because it didn't look anything like normal Blood Replenishing. In fact, it looked more like Reg's old potion from when he was ill... I'm not ill. Regulus and Alphard are- were, but...
He didn't feel ultimately in control of his body when he felt himself give a small nod.
"And I want you to tell me honestly. Do you feel ill anywhere?"
Sirius thought for a moment. "N-no," he said, in slight hesitation. "J-just cold."
Alphard nodded his head, but it didn't look like he quite believed him. "Do you mind if I-" He moved to roll up Sirius's sleeve, which was still sopping wet.
Sirius moved back. Alphard raised his hands, one of which still held the cup.
"I'm not going to give you anything. Not yet," Alphard promised, "But I just want to check to make sure you're not hiding anything."
Sirius immediately began to protest. "Why would I-"
Alphard unrolled his sleeve, and what Sirius saw there, beside an unusually tiny looking arm, was red. And it greatly shocked him. He looked at Alphard, who was examining the area around his elbow, in between his forearm and upper arm, with slight disappointment.
"Sirius..." He said, not really knowing what to say.
"I swear I didn't notice," Sirius said at once, his eyes wide. This... this looked bad. This looked exactly like Reg's disease, which he had to deal with his entire life, not Sirius. Sirius never had it. Ever. It was always Reg, always Reg.
"I... I swear," Sirius said again, but Alphard had already moved, had switched the cup for something else, was already wiping down his upper arm, giving him absolutely no time to prepare for a poke and- ow!
"Is Sirius going to be okay?" came Regulus's little voice from across the room, and Sirius turned to look at him, huddled in the blankets.
"I'll be fine, Reg," Sirius said, deciding to do whatever anyone told him from now on- maybe it would help him get out of this weird vision or state of limbo faster, because this couldn't be real. Where the hell am I?
"What about mum and dad?" Regulus asked again, and Sirius had no idea how to answer. He turned to his uncle, who was readying another syringe, having thrown the first one out. This one looked bigger than all the others, was it really bigger than all the others?
"I'm sure they... I'm sure they made it to the mainland." Alphard smiled grimly, but Regulus could not see his face, so he never found out. Sirius, though, was frowning. "We'll see them tomorrow."
"How do you think they got there?" Sirius wondered, "They couldn't- they couldn't take a boat, could they? Ow, ow, ow!" His uncle had stuck the syringe in his arm.
"Sorry, son, but I'm going to have to keep giving these to you," Alphard said quietly, "Until we run out of needles, at least. Let's hope the storm breaks, because I'd rather send you to St. Mungo's."
"N-no, I don't need-"
"Sirius."
He fell silent.
Alphard disposed of the last syringe and crouched down to his level- Merlin, did Sirius feel short.
Alphard looked like he wanted to say something else, but six-year-old Regulus was watching them. He just smiled thinly. "Try to get some sleep, Sirius. I'll wake you up to check on your arm. Now, go back to the corner with Regulus, okay?"
And now he was being treated like a child.
Sirius went back over to Regulus, who was staring silently at him through big eyes. He didn't know what kind of strange world he'd ended up in, but seeing Reg again, real or not, was a gift in itself, he supposed.
And it was an even better gift, he thought, when Regulus snuggled up beside him, his little body fitting with his. Sirius tried to fall asleep there, on the wooden floor, feeling somewhat content, if not for the roaring of the wind and thunder.
A particularly loud banging sound woke him, and he wasn't sure how long it had been. But Regulus was awake, with his arms wrapped around his side, crying. Where am I?
His Uncle Alphard was sitting on top of a crate. "It's only been about twenty minutes," he said.
Sirius sighed. He held Regulus close, and wished for the storm to be over.
When he awoke next, he didn't hear as much howling or crashing from the wind. Regulus was still pressed up against him, and had Sirius been uncertain that he'd actually fallen asleep, he wouldn't have believed he was really in another world. None of this made sense. Could a wizard sleep if he was dead? Could a wizard sleep if he was hallucinating? Could a wizard sleep if he was dreaming?
His tiny six or seven-year-old brother was still next to him. His Uncle Alphard, looking worn, was across the room in the cottage's cellar. Everything was just as he remembered it to be, with once crucial detail wrong. Sirius was never ill and he never had haemophilia. If that wrong, then someone had made a fatal error. And if no one was doing this, what else could be different and unsettling about this strange world? And could he escape?
The thought was on his mind for the next several hours, when Alphard went upstairs to check on the storm. It was supposed to be light out, he said, and the winds had died down a bit. Alphard came back downstairs for them after that and, looking worried, ushered him and Regulus upstairs.
The wind was ferocious, still. Dead leaves, slips of seaweed, knots of dead bracken were flying through the cold dark air. Much like last night, the lighthouse looks diminished by the booming noise of the wind. Its flickering light was no longer any comfort. It was barely light out.
Alphard slipped another blanket around the both of them, but it was more like a cloak, anyway. Regulus and Sirius stood watching him as he went outside to strengthen the doors, then came back in. He siphoned up all the water on the floor with his wand, did his best to repair the wooden beam that had fallen, creating a hole in the dining room ceiling. When the roof was repaired by magic, the horrible moaning and howling was muffled, but still audible.
"Uncle Alphie, I'm frightened."
Regulus was standing next to Sirius but he looked around at the house in fear.
"The wind is so noisy, Alphie."
Uncle Alphard came closer. "It's only a storm, Regulus," he said, waving his wand at the windows- three had broken. The broken glass swirled around to repair themselves. When the house looked mostly okay, he turned to them. "We've just got to sit it out a bit longer, hmm? We'll be fine. We've got food and I found some firewood. It will be like an adventure. Now, why don't you both go back down to the cellar?"
"Are Mother and Father going to come back to help?"
"Not tonight, son, but maybe tomorrow. We'll see."
Alphard was telling them lies, now. Sirius could tell that Alphard really had no idea where Orion and Walburga were, if they were even here, in this strange world.
"But last night you said-"
There was another distinct banging sound. As if someone was screaming let me in let me in let me in, pounding on the door. But it wasn't, it was just the wind.
Sirius moved closer to the kitchen window, gazing at the dreary flats toward Broadford, but it was pointless. In the fog and darkness, he could have been staring into space: a deep grey saddening void. Without stars.
He began to feel extremely unsettled.
Alphard gave them sandwiches and told them to go eat them downstairs. Sirius didn't like the idea of going back down into the dark cellar, but the wind was much louder up here.
Regulus followed him down. They ate in silence. Alphard came down later.
They waited it out.
When they came upstairs next, it was light out. The wind still whirled, but it had slowed considerably. Alphard fastened coats on the both of them and told them that they were going to get on a boat to the mainland, as mainland as mainland could get on Skye. Regulus asked if their parents were going to be there. Sirius hoped they wouldn't be.
Alphard avoided the question, and focused on pulling his old dingy from behind the cottage. The tide had completely come in now, and Sirius could see the icy cold water, moving with the gales. He didn't like the look of it, and after swimming from Azkaban to the mainland as a dog, he was less inclined. It had been freezing.
Alphard helped them into the boat, picking up Regulus and putting him inside, and then lifting Sirius, which Sirius hadn't expected, stumbling when Alphard put him down. Alphard had a pair of trunks inside the dingy, forcing Sirius to wonder where exactly they were going.
The water was rough, and Regulus and Sirius shivered inside of the boat as Alphard tapped it with his wand, giving them a little bit of help. Regulus looked frightened. He shut his eyes and pressed against Sirius, who couldn't stop looking over the side as the boat rocked back and forth. When they finally anchored, even Sirius was shaking. He didn't like being on the open sea any longer than necessary, not after Azkaban.
"You alright, boys?" His uncle asked them, and it was only yesterday that they'd been walking across the mudflats, Alphard carrying them both. Sirius nodded, his teeth chattering. It was biting out. Alphard then got out to tie them up, lifting Regulus and helping Sirius out of the dingy. When he was on his own two feet, he frowned at the pier at Broadford- he remembered a scene like this, in his early childhood. They could be almost sacred in his memory. He could remember stories Alphard used to tell him word for word, happy holidays and scary fables on the west shores of the Sound of Sleat. Warm fires in the living room with his brother and his cousin Cissy. His parents not being there. Bellatrix and Andromeda at school. The kids happy. Listening to the old tales from their ex-pat Londoner uncle. The bonny road which winds around the fernie brae- ach, that's the road to death and heaven, the auld place of the fairies...He remembered looking for faeries with Cissy, on the beach and on the flats. Cissy never liked the mud though.
He remembered that no one was supposed to go on the flats. And somehow, that's where he'd ended up last night, at night, when you really weren't supposed to go.The tide will come in, cold and lethal: you'd drown, Sirius.
How did he end up there?
How did he end up here? Back in this old world?
Regulus was nudging him. Alphard was several feet ahead, walking on the path toward an old pub. Sirius hurried ahead, and his brother was right beside him. There weremuggleshere, muggle cars. Branches and bracken covered the car park, the wind swirling dead leaves around them.
They followed their uncle into the pub. It looked like the pinnacle of an old, stained, fisherman's bar, with muddy carpeted floor, and wooden tables. Sirius might remember coming here before, as a child, but his memory was so fuzzy it was shapes and blurs.
He glanced across to the corner, where Alphard was talking to some muggles. Five muggles- men, of varying ages and virtually identical jumpers, sat at the largest round wooden table. The pub was otherwise deserted. The men were silent as they squinted back at Alphard over their pints.
Then they turned to each other, and started talking again. In a very foreign language.
Sirius tried not to gawp as he came closer to stand behind Alphard, as his uncle started talking to the muggles again. "My nephews," He was saying. "We were looking for their parents, lost them night before last, in the storm. Have you seen them around here? Very unfriendly folk?"
The men eyed the boys. "Bit young t'be camping in'tha, innit?" One of them said.
"Yes, thanks," said Alphard.
They weren't going to be any help. Alphard ushered them to a table and ordered something to eat for Reg. Sirius said that he wasn't hungry, although he wanted a sip of his uncle's scotch, if he could.
"Where's Mum and Dad?" Reggie said, peering around the pub, "You said they'd be here. And what language were they speaking?"
"Gaelic. But I bet they were speaking English before we walked in. They do it as a joke, to wind up the incomers," said Alphard. "And I dunno where your mum and dad are. They may have tried to apparate in the storm, beats me why. Every good wizard knows that 'it's a splinch you've earned, if the weather takes a turn!'"
The group of men had finished their pints and looked to be heading out, maybe back to work. One of them, one of the younger looking ones, with ginger hair and a beard, came over to them.
"You' migh' wanna check w'the blokes d'own near Camuscross," The man said to Alphard, "Migh' leave the kids tho', heard itsa bad scene."
"You mean they've found someone," Alphard was frowning. "That's what I heard your mate say before. Do you know what they looked like?"
Sirius was trying very hard to listen in, but it was harder when Alphard stood up to go talk to the man over by the bar.
"A wummin, flo'tin in tha tide-"
"Thank you very much," Alphard was saying, and Sirius frowned. Then, their uncle came back over to them.
"Right," He said, "Right, I'm going to go have a look in Camuscross. You boys stay here in the pub, you can get what you want, just don't leave, alright?"
His eyes lingered on Sirius, who was frowning very unhappily. Then, he left, after having a word with the barmaid.
"What d'you think that was all about?" asked Regulus, his big eyes narrow as he watched Alphard leave the pub.
"I think they found someone," Sirius said, without really thinking, "I think they found someone who was dead. In the tide. And Alphard's gone off to make sure it's not Mother."
Regulus stared back at him, his lower lip wobbly. Then, he opened his mouth, and with some hesitance, said, "Why did you go out on the mudflats, Siri?"
Sirius looked off to the side. He couldn't really answer him. Why had he been out there, all alone at night? He didn't know, or couldn't remember. If I found out where I was, that'd be great. But now I'm sitting in a haunted fisherman's pub with the ghost of my brother sitting in the opposite seat.
"I don't know," he said, "It was kind of like... I dunno, I was in a trance? And then I woke up and I was stuck out there, stuck in the mud."
His little brother was frowning.
"When did you last see Mum and Dad, Reg?" Sirius decided to ask his brother a question instead, maybe it would help him get out of this strange place, with its strange muggles and evil gales.
"The night you went out on the flats," Reg said, "Da' came back and said he'd been looking for you, an' Alphie thought he might've heard someone out on the flats, but the wind was really loud. An' Mummy was gone, Da' didn't know where she went. But, but then we came back, Siri, and Daddy an' Mummy weren't there?"
His little brother sounded like he was more six than seven. Maybe five. Sirius didn't know what year it was, or if time even ran in this stupid place. He looked young enough, all long hair and baby fat.
"When did you see Mum before then?" Sirius said, "And why did father go out on the mudflats?"
"No, Da' came back on the boat," answered Reg, "He said he was comin' back from the pub, that's why Alphie wanted to look here. An' Mummy, I saw her..."
Sirius watched as his brother broke off, his eyes flickering. Scared?
"I saw you and Daddy go with her later, an' after that it was just me and Alphie," Reg said, "Only Alphie didn't know 'cause he was asleep, an' when he woke up, he asked me where you were, an' I said I didn't know, so me and Alphie went to the flats to look."
Sirius was frowning at his brother. He ignored the troubled syntax, because his brother was young, but none of this was adding up. He hadended up on the flats. He did get stuck in the mud. Alphard and Regulus came to save him. But their parents were curiously absent. And according to that ginger fellow who'd left the pub just now, there was a body on the beach somewhere south of here.
His mother?
He remembered none of this. This must be some other world, some horrible vision. Or maybe it was another woman washed up on the beach, and their parents were still prowling Grimmauld Place in London, and he couldn't wake up. Maybe his old life had been a dream. Harry, Azkaban, James, Lily, the Marauders, all of it. Even Padfoot was just a faint shape in his memory, now. Battling Bellatrix, Voldemort... eating rats in Hogsmeade...
None of it. He was trying to grasp for their faces, in his mind. Wire glasses, green eyes, brown eyes, they were melding together. A big black dog. A sallow-faced, screaming woman in a portrait, coupled with a big hand leading him through mud, as he asked, "In the dark? It's too dark, Mummy." And this woman, this woman, "That's alright, darling, I have my wand." "But the wind? And the dark an' everything?"
The first outlines of an old memory emerged in Sirius's mind. Like breath misting on a cold glass. He remembered the strange dream he had, before he woke up in the mud, straight from duelling Bellatrix and fighting in the Death Room, of a place he didn't know but he remembered, he remembered a pub, and a storm in the 1960s, coming to see Alphard when he was about eight, and of some local muggles- what had that man said? Something about a place where the spirit world comes close. How Skye was a thinplace. He remembered his mother pushing him into the hurling rain, straight into the black and howling wind. He thought of her wand, pushing into his back, maybe the sound of his name- Sirius Sirius Sirius Sirius- carried on the wind. He remembered her touch on the flats and then when he turned around, it was gone. Shewas gone. He remembered screaming.
She drowned him?
He had started to struggle through the mud, thought that maybe, he could have actually made out a figure- maybe two figures, an adult and a child. Both of them could have been hunched against the ferocious wind, like he had. But why would an adult and a child have been out there, walking across the dreadful muds, in the storm, in pre-dawn darkness? The child had to be him. The memory was a mere shadow in his mind, so blurry and made of shapes that he was barely sure it had been real. It was him and his mother that were walking across the flats.
His eyes were angry, wet, and frightened. Regulus was prodding him.
"Sirius?" He asked. He looked sad, but he wasn't crying. "Sirius?"
Sirius didn't answer him. He couldn't.
Regulus was staring back at him, his face twisted into a frown: maybe a panicked sadness.
"Sirius, where have Mummy and Daddy gone?"
"I don't know, Reg, I don't know!" Sirius turned to his brother, an unintentional snappiness in his voice. There were two armchairs, over by the fire, and a coffee table. They had left their wooden table by the bar behind.
Reg looked down. "Sorry," he said.
The brothers sat in silence for several moments. Sirius had his eyes on the fire, licking, angry, and hot. Regulus was staring at his shoes.
"Sirius?" Came his little brother's voice again.
"Yeah?" Sirius twisted his body to look at him.
"Think it scared me, Sirius. That night. Mummy scared me."
Was this what he was not seeing?
"What did she say to you?" Sirius swallowed his grief, he was thinking of Harry, of a boy he didn't really remember.
"Nothing."
"What did you say?"
"No one."
No one?
"What do you mean?"
"She took you away, an' there was no one. Think they were gonna hurt you. An' I told Alphie and... an' he said he wasn't going to leave me with no one, and, we went..."
His brother was mumbling now, barely audible. Sirius leaned in, his gaze troubled. His parents really tried to kill him, didn't they? Back then, in 1966?
So why was he here?
"An' Daddy was gone already..."
"Where do you think he is? Did he say he was going to go?"
"Daddy said he was gonna follow 'Burga."
"Mother," said Sirius, carefully. Regulus nodded.
"He said she was gunna do somethin' stupid, and then he said goodbye and then he left to go find you and to find her." His brother's tiny voice held as the pieces of the puzzle slowly came together.
Slow down.
His own mother had tried to drown him, for whatever reason, during the storm in the 1960s. Then they lost each other, in the cold. Then their father went out on the flats to look for them, because he knew that their mother was planning something, maybe planning to drown Sirius. And then Alphard must have woken up, found out that the three of them had left the cottage, in the howling wind and rain, and went out to look himself, with Regulus.
And that's when Alphard found him on the flats, screaming for help, half-submerged in mud already and trapped by the icy, imprisoning water. But where had their parents gone?
They sat in that pub for what seemed like another hour. Alphard still hadn't come back. The barmaid brought them more juice and told them it was all going to be fine, in a garbled Scottish accent that neither of them understood very well. Sirius never got why his uncle wanted to live out here, in the torrential and untamed wilderness. Or why anyone did.
Sirius stared at his little brother as he stared at the fire, the flames reflected in his shining blue-grey eyes.
"Boys."
What?
"Merlin."
"Alphie!"
It was Alphard. He was in the frame of the pub doorway, looking drawn. Behind him was some other men, they were all standing there with grim looks.
"Alphiealphiealphiealphiealphie!" Regulus ran over and hugged his leg.
"Hey, Reg."
"Did you find Mummy and Daddy?"
Sirius gazed at their uncle, rapt, but also worried. "Yes, Alphie, where...?" He wasn't worried, who was he trying to fool? Sirius was, more than anything, unnerved. He was unnerved by this strange world.
Alphard smiled, but his smile was fake.
"We'll talk about that a bit later, boys. But first, these people want to ask you some questions, hmm? Think you can do that?"
His brother looked at him. Sirius could tell that even though Regulus was young, he could easily spot Alphard's game.
"Yeah," Sirius said.
"Good," said Alphard, carefully. "Just answer them, okay? As honestly as you can."
And then the first muggle sat down- a wiry one, with a thick vest and a bobby hat. He started asking them both questions about the night of the storm- and, with a glance to Alphard every time Sirius answered, he could tell that someone was dead. That, or still missing.
He told them hollowly about how his mother had taken him out on the flats, but he didn't know why. The memories were restoring themselves as he explained, and the shock of it all started to catch up with him. He might have started to cry. Regulus told them about how he had seen their father go out onto the flats after getting back and realizing that his mother and brother were gone.
Sirius realized that these were muggles from the get-go, and didn't mention magic, only that his mother had a torch. And that the wind had picked up and he didn't know where she went after that, and he was stuck in the mud trying to scream.
The man with the vest was a portly, middle-aged, kindly gentleman who nodded as his younger assistant took notes on a pad of paper. Sirius told them how Alphard found him, in the howling wind, and how his mother was gone, and he didn't see where she'd gone. At that point, Alphard took over, relaying the entire story of the cottage cellar and staying there until the winds have died down.
"Dae ye hae onie photographs ay their faither?A recent one?" The younger vested bloke piped up, after the story came to a close. Alphard's eyes flickered to Sirius and to Regulus, and Sirius began to gather what was going on. Their mother was dead, and their father was probably missing. Their mother was the "wummin, floatin' in the tide," as that other Scottish muggle put it, earlier in the day.
"Yes, I have a book back at the cottage," their Londoner uncle intoned, moving to get up. "Feel free to look around there as well, the damage was quite extensive from the storm, I'm afraid."
"Yeah, we'll come an' dae 'at." The younger vest said.
"We'll meit ye in an hoor," There was a third, who hadn't spoken at all, but he was putting his pen back in his front pocket.
"Thenk yer wee jimmies fur all th' help," The older one who had asked all the questions said, nodding to Alphard, as they left the dingy fisherman pub.
Sirius didn't catch a word that they had said.
Alphard got down in front of them. "Boys," he said, quietly, "Boys, I have something to tell you."
Sirius and Regulus didn't say a word.
"Boys, your mother..." Alphard swallowed, "They found your mother. She was... she was... well, I'm afraid that... she drowned."
At first, Sirius had nothing to say. Regulus's stammer of "Wh-what?" seemed to fill the space enough. It must have been the shock of it all- first, he was in this world, second, he was confused, third, his mother was dead. Everything was confused, everything was on its head.
And then he began to feel the need to get out of there. It was suffocating him- Scotland, Skye, all of it. He hadn't been back here since he climbed ashore from Azkaban. And that was a long way away. Before that, the last time he'd been here, he was a child.
And he was a child here.
"What about father?" Sirius dared to ask, afraid. He didn't know where he was. Anything could have happened. He could be anywhere, in another world- maybe the Veil of Death never led to the other side-
Alphard didn't seem all that sad that his sister was dead, just grave. He was telling his boys, that might have been what made him look that way, but Sirius saw no sadness, no vacant expression. Not in those grey eyes.
"And I'm afraid your father's gone missing," said Alphard. His hands were clasped together in front of him.
Sirius looked over to his little brother, who looked as if his whole world had been lifted off his axis and thrown into space, with no direction, safety net, or light to guide him. The poor thing looked absolutely gutted. His head jerked, from Sirius to their uncle, as if he couldn't believe what had happened.
"Boys," Alphard said, reaching out for them, "I'm sorry."
"B-but," Reg stammered, "B-but, b-but Mum's gone? Mummy?"
And then he started to cry. Sirius didn't want to watch, he closed his eyes. Think of something else. Anything else.
Wire glasses. Green eyes, brown eyes, where?
James. Harry. Lily. Remus. Moony. Padfoot.
Gods, where am I?
"Sirius," His uncle was bent down in front of him, he had moved off his seat. "Sirius, it's alright to cry..."
Was he crying?
Maybe he was.
"But we're gonna stay out here for a few days, just until the police are all done on our island," Alphard kept talking, kept soothing him, go away-
"We're gonna stay at the inn and I'm going to take you to hospital tonight and everything's going to be alright," Alphard was looking straight at him, "And then all the pain will go away. You won't even feel it, promise."
Sirius opened his eyes, just a little. "Promise?" He whispered, wanting to cry. He didn't know what kind of pain Alphie was talking about, or where he was supposed to be feeling it. Everything felt like when Regulus died, everything hurt.
You're dead, you're dead, you're dead, you're dead.