Title: Harry Potter and the Tearing of the Veil
Authors: LadyV-Nalana-Creations is the joint account of LadyV77 and NalanaSpinderOfSouls, please check our bio for links to both of our individual accounts.
Rating: T for the usual HP fare: language, violence and scary images
Disclaimer: Accio Rights. ACCIO RIGHTS! Darn, didn't work, JK Rowling still owns them. There are original characters in this story, however, and they belong to us!
Authors' Note: Set immediately after OOTP, so this will contain spoilers for the first 5 books. This is a collaboration effort, and we both have other things going, so updating will depend on response to the story (hint hint – if you like it and want to read more, review!), our real lives and the mood of our muses. This is the first Harry Potter fan fic by either of us, so be kind (please!).
Italics signify thought or emphasis. This story has been updated to better fit the HP timeline, which we did a bit more research on lately.
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Harry Potter and The Tearing of the Veil
Prologue: Broken Silence
This section written by LadyV
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Number Four Privet Drive was quiet. Had it been light outside, one might have heard yelling from Vernon Dursley. Vernon was a portly man whose face became beet red when he was angry, which seemed to be most of the time when his orphan nephew was at home for the summer. Vernon told anyone who would listen that the boy was a 'bad sort,' a juvenile delinquent who needed to be punished for the slightest infraction. It was the only way he would ever learn, Vernon asserted authoritatively when anyone dared question, which wasn't very often.
Those forced to listen to Mr. Dursley's rants never quite knew what to make of the situation. Harry Potter, a scrawny boy with an untamable thatch of dark hair and bright green eyes hidden behind round glasses, was rarely seen outside during the day. And certainly never doing anything more nefarious than lying in the Dursleys' bushes, evidently trying to listen to the news. The neighbors had all heard Vernon Dursley shouting about that just that past summer.
Of course, Mr. Dursley's shouting wasn't always limited to the daylight hours. He could frequently be heard screaming during dinner or just before bed. Of course, Vernon wasn't quiet when he was asleep, either. Anyone close to the house when the Dursleys were asleep could hear Vernon Dursley and his whale of a son, Dudley, snoring loud enough to wake the long deceased.
But tonight the house stood silent. Vernon and his wife were out late at a party Vernon's boss had thrown, and their precious Duddlykins was supposedly at a sleepover (though if one had been at the neighborhood market, one would have found Dudley "hanging out" with his gang of followers and intimidating passersby). The only one in the house (for he would never willingly call the place home) was Harry Potter himself, locked (from the outside by his Uncle before he had left hours earlier) in the smallest bedroom.
Harry Potter was sleeping. Those who had seen him the few times he had come outside since returning from school two weeks before would have said he needed it from the gaunt look that continuously haunted the boy's face. A large white owl stood in a cage on Harry's dresser, staring unblinkingly out the window at the half moon hanging low in the night sky. Hedwig had been locked in just as Harry had, both by Vernon. Hedwig's head suddenly swiveled, in that odd way that only owls' do, so that she stared at her master.
Seconds later, the silence in the house was broken when Harry sat straight up in bed reaching out desperately for someone who wasn't there. Sweat dripped from the teen, the lightning shaped scar on his forehead burned brightly, and anyone who had heard the anguish in his cry would have felt their heart break for the boy.
"SIRIUS!"
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"He hurts," Sirius Black observed. "And it is because of me."
Being in Limbo was odd, to say the very least. It was a vast nothingness, and some of the time Sirius and the few others he had encountered lacked the ability to talk or move. But unlike the others, Sirius still had a connection to the outside world through his godson. The Boy Who Lived, the boy who loved him and mourned him though the vast majority of the Wizard and Muggle worlds never would. Through Harry, Sirius knew that more time had passed in Limbo than in the real world. What Sirius thought of as the past few months since falling through the Veil was actually just shy of twenty days.
A presence beside Sirius moved slightly, trying to feel the connection to Harry, to life, through Sirius. Sirius waited patiently, knowing it wouldn't work. Knowing too that it didn't really matter to his companion. The attempt was made more for Sirius' benefit than anything else.
"He loves you," the gentle voice he had grown accustomed to hearing everyday said. "Harry wouldn't want you to feel badly about what happened."
Sirius sighed. "I know. Harry has always wanted to help me. I just wish there truly was a way he could this time."
There was hurt in his companion's voice this time. "You would leave me here? I thought you were happy with me. At least, as happy as one gets in Limbo."
Sirius reached out and soothed with a light caress. "If there was a way out I would take you with me. I don't want to be apart from you, but I'm the only thing close to an adult family member that Harry has left."
Sirius's companion drifted away slowly. Sirius stayed where he was, wishing he could calm his godson's nightmares. He didn't hear the sad, determined vow from the one who had moved away from his side.
"If there is a way out, Sirius, my love, I will find it for you."