Author: Astarael
Rating: PG (revolves around death)
Pairings: None
Spoilers: BIG TIME OotP.
Into the Darkness'DUBBLEDORE!'
Someone – perhaps it is Neville, my brain is too occupied to tell – yells. For a moment I can't tell what they are trying to say. I am battling staunchly with Bellatrix, determined to win. For the first time since Azkaban, I am surrounded by people I truly hate – and I am determined to triumph, determined to get rid of the filth and rid the world of the veil of danger.
A Death Eater behind me tries to run away and gets pulled back across the floor, and as Bellatrix and I spin around, duelling, I see Albus Dumbledore standing in the doorway. A surge of hope courses through me – finally, someone to help us.
Bellatrix doesn't seem to have seen Dumbledore. I figure this could only be an advantage – after all, Dumbledore is the only wizard that Voldemort ever feared. I had to keep her from seeing him.
She shoots a spell at me, its bright red light streaking through the air as I duck, laughing without real mirth.
"You can do better than that, Bellatrix!"
My voice echoes ominously around the room, the battlefield. Some of the people in the room turn around to stare. I am too busy to notice.
Suddenly – as if in slow motion – I see another jet of light, golden this time, streak from her wand and slowly, slowly, make its way towards me. It is like I am in a bowl of molasses; I can't move, can't defend myself, can't …
To my horror, I realise I am still laughing … then the spell hits me in the chest. It feels like an entire house has just fallen on me. I can't breathe. My face registers the shock, but I can't make a sound.
I try to fight for a split second – then I have lost control. My wand falls to the floor, useless.
My world goes silent. I can see Dumbledore turning towards me, his expression incomprehensible; Bellatrix, a victorious glint in her eyes; worst of all Harry, wearing the face of horror and disbelief. I cannot look at him – can't accept that I am responsible for his grief after how much he has done for me.
Yet I cannot move. I am forced to watch Harry as I fall, slowly, through the veil behind me. The last thing I see before the veil completely obscures my vision are his eyes, fixed on my body, watching me die …
I give myself over to the blackness.
It's dark, I think.
Obviously, I answer myself cynically. You fell through the veil. You're dead now.
If I'm dead – wouldn't I know it?
A thought pops unbidden into my head. I have an uneasy feeling someone (something?) in the inky darkness around me put it there. You're not dead yet. You're on your way down.
On my way down where?
But whatever or whoever put the thought into my mind seems to be gone. I am alone.
Out of the corner of my eye I can still see the veil, light sneaking through occasionally as it waves slightly in the air. If I can just … get back up there … Harry …
I can't. I've lost almost all sensation, almost all control over my body. I can't move towards the veil, even though it is so close to me. I can't get back to them.
Got to try … got to … Voldemort's back … can't let them die!
But I am helpless.
With a jolt, I realise my hearing has returned. Or perhaps, I had just blocked it out with shock. I can hear Bellatrix, screaming triumphantly. Her voice makes my heart feel like it's been dropped in a bucket of ice.
'SIRIUS!'
From my motionless position in the darkness, I recognise Harry's voice. Footsteps. He is running – 'SIRIUS!' – and suddenly someone else running too, more footsteps, shouts, and then they stop.
'…nothing you can do, Harry …'
Moony, I think. He's given up hope.
Then why I am I still floating here? Why can't I go anywhere?
Another thought, a random appearance in my brain like an unexpected raindrop hitting me. You can't move because Harry doesn't believe you're dead. You float here until the world can accept your departure.
Harry can't let me go.
I want to cry, but I can't.
'save him … only just gone through …'
I want to will him to let me fall. It is unbearable floating between two worlds, belonging neither to the living nor to the dead. This is worse than anything, I think, lost. It rips your soul apart.
More shouts. Remus. Harry. Remus again. I am still floating, can still here almost every word being shouted as though they are right beside me. And though part of me still maintains they are just beyond the veil, the rest of me knows that we are a world apart already … and getting further.
'he can't come back, Harry … can't come back … he's …'
It is like I can feel what Harry is feeling, can hear what he is thinking. I realise I must have a temporary link to him because he is trying to hold onto me.
'HE – IS – NOT – DEAD!'
Struggles. I can feel Harry's desperation wash over me in suffocating waves. His frustration is uncontrollable.
I did this to him.
I can almost see him in my mind's eye, struggling against Lupin, wanting to believe I am still there.
Harry's voice again. I can hear only bits and pieces now, as if they were getting further away from me. The shouts are quieter.
I realise Harry is beginning to understand what happened to me, that I am – well, will be – dead.
You're all he had left.
And he has to let you go.
His thoughts hit me like Bellatrix's spell.
Sirius had never kept him waiting before … Sirius had risked everything, always … the only possible explanation was that he could not come back …
The connection is broken. The veil stills, cutting off the light from me. The last thing I hear is Harry crying my name, before sound is gone too.
I fall.
At least, it makes sense that I would fall. The 'thought' had expressly said that I was 'going down,' which meant some sort of descent, I reason with myself. There is no movement, no wind to suggest that I am going anywhere. But after a moment or two, I see a tiny pinprick of light in a spot I assume is below me. I am not sure of anything anymore.
As I near the light, I discover my body is gone. I have no visible self. It is my awareness that is floating downwards. Which explains the lack of sensation, I think. I am strangely calm about everything. I'm dying, and I can't think to panic. Why? There is no danger here.
'Padfoot … Padfoot?'
My heart (or whatever it is, now that I have no body) gives a curious wrench. I know that voice. That voice accompanied me through my boyhood, there from the beginning. That voice was always beside me. That voice kept me going.
That voice had been waiting here for fifteen years. Patiently. Just like …
James.
A moment passes before I realise that I have somehow spoken the name out loud, even though I have no visible means of doing so. It seems now that my thoughts are starkly exposed in this curious cavern I am floating towards. It occurs to me even through my confusion that I still 'think' in my own voice, which I find bewildering.
'Is that you, Padfoot?'
There is no doubt in my mind now. James Potter. My best friend.
It's me.
My 'voice' reverberates off unseen walls. The light has grown closer, and as I float downwards I discover that there is actually a sort of tunnel filled with light on one side of where I am looking, and a great gaping hole of intense blackness on the other. I am coming down straight between them.
Suddenly, I come to a stop. I assume I am still hovering in the air, although I could really be anywhere.
'Sirius … why are you here so soon?'
James' voice again. He sounds frightened.
A battle. Voldemort. Bellatrix.
I cannot seem to form proper sentences. I am trying to take in what this place might be. Two tunnels … light and dark … heaven and hell?
I don't want to think about it.
'Harry … is he …?'
James can't say it.
Alive.
He says nothing, but I can feel his profound relief. He didn't want to say it. He doesn't have to. It's not Harry's time.
'… I've missed you, Padfoot.' His voice breaks. He bears upon himself the weight of the war, the horror of fifteen years of silence.
I am silent, afraid to speak.
Another voice suddenly breaks through. 'Sirius?'
It is Lily. Lily, Harry's mother. Lily, the love of James' life.
Lily?
'Yes. Yes, it's me. Oh, Sirius … you shouldn't be here.'
Neither should you, I say quietly. Neither should you.
I still feel like there are tears inside of me that need to be shed. I can't grasp the pain that runs through my conscious like a knife, the frustration at the inability to do anything. I want to scream, to run away, to fight.
Instead, I try to calm myself.
Where am I?
'Well – this is where you have to make a choice,' says Lily softly. 'Whether you died for courage or cowardice, for others or for yourself, for love or for greed.'
I don't understand. I return to my previous thought. Heaven and hell?
'No,' says Lily. 'It doesn't work that way. You have fought all your life, and stayed strong – there is no eternal fire. But there is still one choice to be made, and only you can choose between the light and the dark.'
I am beginning to realise there is no way out of this. But how?
'I can't tell you what to do, Sirius,' Lily says. 'You will know.'
Then it is silent.
James?
Not a sound.
Prongs? Lily?
They are gone.
I am ready to panic. Suddenly, another voice, completely alien to me, speaks.
'THINK OF HOW YOU DIED … THINK OF WHO YOU LEFT BEHIND …'
Silence again.
James and Lily spoke from the light, I reason. Because they fought Voldemort three times in their lifetimes, and they died for Harry. Lily died to save her son – and he is still out there. He is still fighting for wizardkind, and indeed the world.
They died with courage, I thought. Their courage strengthened others.
What about you?
I had been dreading that question.
It's my fault Harry is in so much danger. It's my fault they are here at all, my fault Bellatrix and the Death Eaters are after them. Harry came to save me. I was all he had left – like his father, his father he barely knew. He cared about me.
With a feeling like a gigantic hole had been opened in my soul, I think that Harry perhaps was the only one I had had left, too.
I cared about him.
And then what? I left him there? I was too cocky to run away from Bellatrix, I think hopelessly. I don't deserve the same fate as James and Lily … they had no choice … they died for Harry …
I had a choice.
And I threw it away.
It's my fault.
I know what my decision has to be.
I can't stay with James. I can't be with them knowing that it is my fault their son is so unhappy all over again. That he has to fight the war without any family at all. I was the last he had, and now I'm gone too. What kind of godfather are you, anyway?
SHUT UP! I cry desperately. The self-admonition echoes around the chasm. There is no one to respond.
Goodbye, James, I say softly. Goodbye, Lily. Goodbye, Harry …
I know they have heard me. I turn away from the tunnel of light with one last look down its golden pathway, and face the darkness.
I'm sorry.
Now I don't have to do anything – something is bearing me towards the dark, slowly, like a feather buoyant on the wind. My decision is made.
I accept my fate.
I'm sorry.
And as the light fades away, I can hear one last call from the friends I spent my life with. The friends that I know I will never see or hear from again. With the fading light goes my last hope.
I am left with nothing but darkness.