(Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

Behind the Veil

Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix's jet of red light: He was laughing at her. "Come on, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.

The second jet of red light hit him squarely on the chest.

The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock.

It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall. His body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backward through the ragged veil hanging from the arch…

And 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 a moment as though in a high wind and then fell back into place.

"SIRIUS!" Harry yelled, "SIRIUS!"

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Sirius felt the veil swish against his arms as he fell onto a hard marble floor. A cold chill ran up his spine as he caught his balance. Sirius could hear Harry calling his name, screaming for him.

Sirius looked through the veil to where Harry was running towards him. As Sirius stared through the moth-made whole in the veil time seemed to slow down. Harry's messy hair swung around his head.

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As Harry reached the ground and sprinted toward the dais, Lupin grabbed Harry around the chest, holding him back.

"There's nothing you can do, Harry –"

"Get him, save him, he's only just gone through!"

"It's too late, Harry –"

"We can still reach him –"

Harry struggled hard, and viciously, but Lupin would not let go… "There's nothing you can do, Harry…nothing…He's gone."

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Sirius pulled his head back in shock. Gone? Sirius brought his hands up to eye level and examined them. They were their but becoming increasingly clearer and clearer. I'm dead? He thought.

Sirius tried to look through the veil again but a bright light engulfed him. Two clusters of people stood before him.

On his right was James and Lily with their parents. Sirius was hit with a million memories of the past. He saw all of the good times he had had, before he was a convicted murderer. He could not help but look forward, into all of the memories that were yet to be made.

Here, in this other dimension, he would be remembered for who he really was. He would finally be free of the accusations that had held him captive in his mother's house.

Sirius felt a surge of joy rising in his body. Everything that he had dreamed of while huddled in the attic with Buckbeak was so tangible now.

Sirius' eyes moved from face to face before he glanced at the group of people who were standing in a cluster to his left.

Sirius' eyes rested on Harry first and everyone else who was standing with him seemed to disappear. Oh! The stories he had to tell James and Lily! They had so many reasons to be proud of their son. Sirius would tell them how Harry had his mother's eyes and his father's stroke of mischief…

Wait, Sirius took a double take, what is Harry doing here? Sirius looked at the group of people who were standing with Harry. None of them should have been here, none of them were dead.

"What's happening?" Sirius said.

"You are a wizard, you have a choice," said a rather bored, dull voice in Sirius' head. It was clear that this voice had gone through this explanation with far too many people.

Sirius looked back and forth from the group of people on his right to the group on his left.

"I don't understand," said Sirius quietly. He was not the shy type but this was clearly not the day to be getting on the voices' nerves.

"You can become a ghost. You can live with your godchild as a free man, not on the run from the law. You do not have to say good-bye to him yet."

Sirius' eyes focused on Harry.

"I can still be with him?" Sirius was talking to himself more than to the voice in his head. "I can be…what a godfather is supposed to be..." Ever since he had asked Harry to live with him and ended up sending him back to the Dersley's Sirius had not even dared to hope that…

Was it really happening? A small smile appeared on Sirius' face and his eyes became glossy.

"Then you wish to become a ghost?" asked the voice, impatient for an answer.

"Yes," Sirius replied, "Oh, yes." A Cheshire cat smile spread across his face.

"Then you understand all of the rules? You will forever be with the living?"

"Excuse me," said Sirius as he broke out of the trance-like state that he had entered. The voice gave a little sigh and Sirius imagined the little voice rolling his eyes. Or do voices really have eyes to roll? Sirius wondered.

"Can you just focus for a second, please, thank you," said the voice, "Ghosts can not visit those who chose not to become ghosts. You can only live in one dimension; the living, or the dead. But seeing as you have made your decision I will let you say good-bye to your friends."

Sirius looked at James.

"What do you mean good-bye?"

The voice heaved another great sigh and Sirius very vividly imagined a solid wall that the voice was contemplating hitting his head with. Then again, maybe voices don't have heads either…or at least solid heads in which case their heads would go straight threw the wall and the walls purpose would be lost.

"Really, you have a talent for giving people headaches, no wall required…and before you begin contemplating whether or not I have a mouth to smirk at you with,I'm smirking…now please, if you don't mind I'll continue?"

Sirius grinned, showing his teeth.

"Your friends live in the world of the dead. You chose to become a ghost; they did not. These are your last moments with them…not that they can hear you. They are just images but some people find it comforting to talk to them anyways. They get their last messages out…in a way."

Good-bye. Sirius hated the word.

"And what if I had chosen not to become a ghost?" Sirius asked. The events of a couple of minutes ago were finally becoming real and they were hitting Sirius with an unbearable force.

"Well, then you would have to say good-bye to everyone in life, including your godson."

"So," Sirius said thoughtfully, "we can never all be together?" Sirius felt the weight of the conversation that he was having with this voice suddenly, like it was a brick compressing his chest.

"No, you can not all be together, at least not at the moment. If you stay here, in the world behind the veil, then the others may join you when it is their time."

Sirius closed his eyes. A battle began to wage inside Sirius' mind. Which one of his dreams was he supposed to choose? He had the chance to be with James again, or he could choose to be with Harry for a little while longer. Sirius stared at the space between the two clusters of people; hoping that it would not disappear yet all the while knowing that the two groups could never collide.

"If you wish to stay you only have to say so," said the voice. A long silence followed. Sirius slowly stretched out his neck as he looked upward. He needed time to think and that small voice was pressuring him to commit to one answer. "Then again," continued the voice, "if you wish to rejoin your godson you need only step threw the veil once more."

Sirius ran his fingers threw his hair. What was he supposed to choose? Which life was better? Did he want life in death or death in life?

"No," said Sirius, drawing a deep breath. As he brought his eyes into alignment with Harry's a tear rolled down his cheek. "I could have dodged that jet of red light. I should be there, now. Protecting you."

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Harry realized, even as he fought to break free from Lupin, that Sirius had never kept him waiting before…Sirius had risked everything, always, to see Harry, to help him… If Sirius was not reappearing out of that archway when Harry was yelling for him as though his life depended on it, the only possible explanation was that he could not come back…that he really was…

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"Good-bye," Sirius whispered as his voice cracked. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, giving his face a watery shine. "I love you, Harry."

A door that Sirius had not seen before creaked open at Sirius' right.

"Sirius?" said James' voice. Sirius did not look away from Harry.

"Good-bye, Harry," Sirius repeated as Harry's image disappeared and James stepped through the doorway, casting a long shadow on the marble floor. For some reason Sirius could not look away from where Harry's image had been. No matter how much joy James' presence brought him he could not look away from that one spot on the floor and smile. He had no sense that he had made the right decision but nothing made it feel wrong either. It was just…Harry was gone.

Sirius closed his eyes. "Good-bye," he whispered so softly that he could barely hear himself. Silence filled the space around him for a couple of minutes before James' voice broke through the air.

"Sirius? That can't be you?" James said, stepping closer. Sirius nodded to himself and he knew what the first story he was going to tell James was.

In life we tell stories about the dead to ease the pain of their passing. So, why not, in death, tell stories about the living to ease the pain of their vacancy?

Sirius looked at James for the first time.

"You'd never believe the amount of trouble that son of yours has gotten into," he said. A smile covered his lips and laughter filled his face.