The vaulted ceiling slid backwards, moving in his heightened perceptions with all the urgency of treacle dripping off a spoon. His last laugh seemed to ring out like the chiming of a wine glass, one long note that hung in the air for far too long, his mouth still frozen in a smile that would never leave it. His head turned slowly as he fell back through the air, twisting with the imagined grace of an acrobat, to meet a pair of bright green eyes wide with fear and sudden stark comprehension.
He felt the brush of the curtain on his back. Somehow that soft sensation of etherial cloth on his shoulder blades drowned out the panicked feel of having a heart that no longer beat in his chest, of blood that was finally slowing it's life-long momentum, of neurones that were flashing slower and slower, like fairy lights running out of battery one at a time. The air behind him seemed cold, and infinitely soothing.
Sirius Black let loose his last breath.
And fell back with a hard crunch onto warm tarmac.
He rolled instinctively upon hitting the ground, whipping back up into a crouch with his wand pointed out at where Bellatrix had stood moments before, a spell on the edge of his lips, panting.
But the road in front of him was empty. No one there, no curses flying, blues skies up ahead, the faint smell of spilt petrol…
He spun round, and felt his eyebrows slowly lifting.
Slowly he straightened out of his crouch, absent-mindedly tucking his wand back into his belt, sliding his hands into his pockets, relaxing his shoulders.
"Some after-life," he muttered, eyeing the tattered gas station into which he had come crashing down. It was an unremarkable place, the same as any you could find on a quiet country road. Well, not these days, he amended. This one was a dusty, quiet little place with weather-beaten signs and a dingy shop that lacked even the plastic bouquets of flowers muggles seemed so keen on. Not one of the modern ones that had spread like weeds whilst he was locked up, franchised by one of the big brands and with all the personality of an inferi. No, this was like the ones he remembered from his childhood, one of the poky ones that closed at 5pm sharp when it was open at all, run by grouchy old muggles who kept shotguns behind the counter, which they always shuffled towards when long-haired motorbike riding layabouts like himself came riding over the horizon.
He turned back around, eyeing the landscape for the first time. The road was a straight one, single laned, stretching off to the left and right until it faded into the horizon. The landscape was a bit hazy, and not familiar, other than in the sense it was about as stereotypically british as you could get. Like a damned landscape in an oil painting, all fluffy clouds and rolling fields and blue skies and crappy tweeting birds.
He sighed. "Well," he said to the empty vista. "If I'm honest I wasn't expecting any kind of afterlife, so I don't suppose I can complain." He smiled. "You may ask how a man could possibly be doubt the existence of an afterlife when he's sat next to a ghost at dinner. Well, I'll tell you, I-"
"If it's all the same deary," a high voice behind him said, cutting off his monologue with casual determination, "I'd rather you just filled your tank and got on with getting on, if you don't mind. I've got work to be doing."
Sirius span, hand flying instinctively back to his wand, and found himself pointing it menacingly at little old lady with swollen ankles and hair-rollers neatly poking out from underneath a flower printed scarf.
He didn't lower his wand. You didn't need youth or your original set of teeth to cast an unforgivable curse.
The old lady just tutted and raised an eyebrow.
"Young man," she said, "you're dead."
He nodded briskly. "I'd caught on to that fact, yes."
She gestured to his wand. "So what are you afraid of?"
Sirius gave a one shouldered shrug, keeping his wand-arm steady and pointing true. "You tell me. Where am I, and who the hell are you?"
She shook her head sadly. "You can always tell the ones that die in battle from the rest," she said with a frown. "Jumpy buggers one and all."
He didn't say anything. She hadn't answered his question.
After a long moment of silence she sighed. "I'm you're intermediary son. Here to help you on your way."
Sirius pulled a distasteful face, eyes flicking down to her clumpy shoes and brown stockings, skimming up to the bags of skin hanging under he chin like a pelican's gullet. "Don't tell me your an angel."
She snorted. "Not my fault if I'm not a buxom blonde with golden hair and great big old… um… white wings. You imagined me here. My guess is you're feeling a big short of Mother figures or something."
Sirius chose not to dignify that comment with a reply. He'd never been much interested in analysing his sub-conscious, not when there were rules to be broken and death-eaters to…
Death eaters.
He spun round once more. "Shit."
"What's that deary?" the old woman asked. "Didn't quite catch that."
"I said shit you infernal old bag. Shit shit shit."
"Shit what?" she said, "If you don't mind the inquiry."
"Shit, I've gone an died in the middle of a war," Sirius said impatiently. "Harrys back there right now! On his own, in the department of mysteries, with Bellatrix and Lucius and… and Voldermorts back, and the Orders been reformed, and I finally had a chance to fight again. And now…"
He let out a long growl of frustration, aiming a kick at a likely looking rock. "That was the first proper fight I'd been in for, oh god, had it been fourteen years? And I was just getting back into my groove, you know? And there's work to be done, back there. I can't go yet! I just can't!"
Behind him the old woman sighed. "Yep," she said with resignation, "too many of them say that."
He spun back round to face him, expression desperate. She gave him a short smile. "Not as many as you'd think of course," she continued. "Most find peace in death, even if they hadn't been expecting to. But not all."
"Where does this road lead?" he demanded, having barely processed her last comment. "Can I go back?"
She shook her head slowly. "Sorry lad. This 'aint no near death encounter. You're about as dead as a body can get."
"A ghost then?" he said, now desperate. "Please! I'll take anything. I don't care. I've just got to get back. My God-Son needs me! And I wanted to fight again! It wasn't supposed to end like this."
She shook her head slowly. "Not your path I'm afraid my dear. Not by a long shot."
Sirius felt another growl of rage coming on. The tweeting birds and blue sky and empty road seemed to be mocking him. He didn't want eternal peace, he didn't want an end to his travails. He wanted to be back on the front lines. It was all so… so wrong. He'd had so much left to do. So much time to make up for.
Slowly he felt his shoulders slumping as the old despair crept back over him. He was trapped again, locked up as surely as when he'd been in Azkaban.
He felt a paper light hand on his shoulder. "Don't get yourself upset yet dear," his aged guide said, slowly turning him round. "You got round to wondering why you've landed in a gas station yet?"
Sirius shook his head numbly. "I…what?"
The old woman beamed, pointing to something leaning up against the far wall. "I believe that metal monstrosity's yours?"
Sirius let out a small whoop as he focused on the object. "Hey!" he cried. "That's my bike!"
He was over at the battered old thing in less than four strides, running a hand over the cracked leather seat with a slightly mushy smile fixed on his face. As far as he knew Hagrid still had this thing, back in the real world. He'd asked round after it more than once since coming back to London, but everyone had just said how he could hardly roar around on his old bike when he was a wanted fugitive, and how it was best if someone who could actually use it kept hold of it. Never mind that it was his bike. Patronising bastards.
"She's a bit battered isn't she?" he said fondly.
"Still some life in her yet though," the old woman said. She tottered over and flipped up the stand. "Come on, let's fill her up."
The old woman heaved ineffectually at the heavy vehicle for a second before Sirius remembered his manners and started pushing on the back, leaving his aged companion to steer the handlebars towards the nearest gas pump.
He hadn't laid a hand on the thing in fifteen years, but he found himself unscrewing the fuel cap and sliding the nozzle in without having to think.
"Ah," he said fondly, giving the handlebars a pat, "the only woman I ever loved."
"Nothing like a heart-warming reunion," the old lady said, throwing him an almost lascivious wink. "Now dear, I think it's time we talked about that road."
Sirius pulled a face. "Don't tell me. It leads to a set of pearly gates and lots of very cheerful smug people playing flutes and sitting on clouds." He had a brief mental image of himself in dog form, romping round the pristine white realm with muddy paws, tripping up all of the saints and angels as he went.
"That's not for me to divulge dear," the old woman said with another knowing smile. "Though yes, one path does lead to what you might call a restful place."
Sirius frowned. "One path?" he looked around. "You mean there's another?" He couldn't see any other way out of the gas-station. There was just the one road, and hadn't the old bag said that he couldn't go back, even as a ghost?
The old woman just tutted again. "Pay attention before your tank overflows!" He jumped, whipping the nozzle out of the hole as the first drops started to spill back out. She tutted, eyeing the meter. "Dear me, the youth of today. Come on, you owe me eleven-fifty for that."
He followed her into the tiny shop, feeling slightly bemused. "You know, I didn't realise I'd still need to pay for things in the afterlife," he remarked.
"Then why'd'you still have your wallet in your pocket dear?" she asked, flipping over the counter and waddling behind it, her orthopaedic shoes flumping on the linoleum floor.
"I… I don't know," Sirius said, feeling slightly flustered. Had he had it with him when he'd apparated into the Ministry? He couldn't remember.
"What we're engaging in at the moment son," she said, squinting at the heavy till buttons as she jabbed the cost of his petrol in with her gnarled index finger, "is the comfort of normality and routine. Not strictly necessary, but what really is? Nothing worth-while I reckon. Anything else dear?"
Sirius blinked. "What? Oh, a back of benson and hedges please," he scrabbled in his coat pocket, which was empty apart from his wallet. "And a lighter."
She grabbed one from the display behind him, then drew out a silver zippo with an S inscribed in it, flipping the lid up to test the wick and contentedly observing the flame for a moment before snapping it shut and sliding it across to him. "That's fifteen-fourty five then. And hadn't you noticed that though there's only one road, it goes in two directions?"
Sirius had already torn out a cigarette from the soft cardboard packet, stuck it behind his ear, pocketed the lighter and begun counting out the muggle notes in his wallet before her words caught up to him. "I… What?"
"One road dear, two directions. Do you not have anything smaller'n a fifty?"
He shook his head. "Sorry, no. What do you mean, two directions?"
She sighed, pausing for a long moment to hold his proffered fifty pound note up to the light and have a good squint at it. "Well, you've got to break it sooner or later," she eventually pronounced.
She thumped the note into the tills drawer and started counting out the change, silently mouthing the numbers as she slowly picked the coins out of the tray. He stared at her.
"Two directions?" he prompted after an impatient minute.
"Oh yes! That!" she said, slamming the change down on the counter. "Two directions. Yes. Come on out, I'll show you."
He fumbled with the loose coins and rumpled notes, which appeared to be a mixture of the kind he remembered from his childhood and more recently minted ones, sliding the lot into his pocket without bothering to count them. They clinked and rustled as he followed his strange spiritual intermediary back into the gas station forecourt, then onto the verge of the narrow road.
She puffed slightly from the walk as she spoke. "Right," she said, throwing a puckered hand out to the left. "Take a good look down there and tell me what you see."
Sirius aimed a dirty look at her, but then proceeded to obediently gaze down the long stretch of bare road.
"It's straight," he said in a long-suffering tone. "Perfect skies, rolling green hills, fluffy little sheep on either side. Quiet. Peaceful. Boring as far as the eye can see."
"And now take a good look at the road to your right."
"I don't see why I-" Sirius began.
"Has anyone told you that you've got an attitude you man?" the old woman cut in, sounding impatient but mildly amused.
"Not since I was about sixteen," Sirius said.
He glared at her.
She glared back at him.
"Oh, fine then," he said, stepping out into the road and leaning his head to the right.
"More rolling hills," he said," more sodding bleating sheep and verdant hedge-rows, more blues skies and bird song, except… hang on.."
He squinted into the distance. "Except there's a cloud on the horizon. A storm cloud. And the birds… they're singing, but it sounds… sounds more like alarm. And right there, in the distance, are those mountains? And the airs smells different, like it does right before a storm hits. The airs charged, almost electric."
He turned to face the old woman again. She was doing the knowing smile thing again.
"Trouble in paradise," she said.
"What lies that way?" he asked, somehow knowing it was the only actually important voiced he'd asked since arriving in this place.
"Some call it the second land," she said, her voice somehow deeper, more sombre. "Where those go that still want to fight."
Sirius straightened up. "Fight?" he asked, his voice suddenly alive again. "Like, real fighting? I… I can help?"
She frowned up at him, every wrinkle in her face standing out in the bright light. "It is a place of peace deferred. There is pain there, and suffering. I must warn you…"
Sirius wasn't listening. In fact, he was already striding back towards where his bike was still parked, key in his hands.
"You're going back to war Sirius!" the old woman said, voice rising slightly. "Turning your back on-"
"Yeah yeah," he said, jumping up to straddle the worn leather seat, foot gliding with glorious recognition towards the pedal. He turned the key, feeling the almost antique engine grind into life. He slid into first gear, swivelling towards the road as the tires bit into the ground.
"It's my duty to warn-" the old lady said, her expression now slightly panicked.
"No need," he cut in, his feet skipping on the ground as the wheels started to pick up pace. "Anyway, you're a part of my imagination, or my memories or something."
"So?" she demanded indignantly, hands now on hips as he drew level with her.
"So," he said with a growing grin, "since when have I ever listened to the cautious bit of my mind?"
He slid onto the road, and flipped up to second gear, and then rapidly into third, as the engine began to grind against the increasing speed.
"Besides," he called back as he swerved his handlebars to point right, straight into the gathering storm, voice barely carrying against the wind that rose as he picked up speed, his wheels screeching slightly as he jammed his foot down to tighten the angle of his turn. "Didn't someone once say that death is but the next great adventure?"