Disclaimer: I do not own Sirius Black, anyone from the Harry Potter series, the song about celebrating, or a unicorn…read on!

Sirius Black: Unicorn King

Sirius Black was dead. Despite this being a well known fact, not much is known about his passing, other than how he tragically fell through the veil in the department of mysteries. This is, in fact, the completely true story of the events that took place after the departure of dear Sirius from our world. This is the utterly, totally, 100 percent true story of how he came to hold the eminent title of the Unicorn King.

Falling, floating, flying, Sirius was plummeting surprisingly slowly down into an unknown abyss. His short life flashing before his eyes as he disappeared behind the veil: splinters of memories from his childhood…little clips from his long duration in Azkaban…that one time when he and James turned Snape into a half-toucan in sixth year, which he still found hilarious as he tumbled into darkness. Eventually, the blackness of the abyss gave way to the startling green of a pasture in the spring, and he came to a halt as he hit the hard, green, grassy ground.

Feeling vaguely disoriented, Sirius rolled onto his back and gazed upward into what he hoped was the sky. Sadly, it was not. Instead, he found himself face-to-face with…a unicorn?

"What the…?" Sirius muttered more to himself than to the creature before him. The animal's wide mouth formed into a grin.

"Welcome," it began in a strangely cheerful voice, "to your death!" It whinnied joyfully at the end of the phrase, and began to prance around the pasture.

"Er…excuse me? What? Did you say that I was dead?" Sirius queried confusedly. The happy creature continued to dance about. "Hello? Are you listening to me? Can you hear me?" It simply circled him, prancing merrily. "What in the…" The unicorn galloped off into the distance. Shaking his head he stated, "This is just ridiculous."

Suddenly, with a patter and pounding of hooves, the unicorn reappeared. The wide grin still playing across its mouth, it began to speak in its shrill, strange voice.

"Sorry about that, little buddy! I just get a bit too excited on occasion! Anyways, follow me, pal! I know we'll have tons of fun together!" whinnied the unicorn. It pranced off once more, looking back to nod at Sirius to follow it. Sprinting to keep up, Sirius trailed after the beast through the rolling hills of the emerald meadow, then on into a thick forest. In his haste, Sirius tripped over a large log and went sprawling onto the foliaged-covered ground.

"All right there, friend?" the unicorn asked a sickeningly sweet concerned voice.

"No," Sirius sputtered, spitting leaves out of his mouth. "What is wrong with you?" he questioned severely. The unicorn's smile refused to falter, and it began to look somewhat manic.

"Oh, you are so silly! Nothing is wrong with me! Is something wrong with you, chum?" The unicorn gazed wide-eyed down at him, its nose within an inch of his. Sirius stared directly into its round blue eyes, which was rather difficult seeing as they were on the sides of its head. Eventually, Sirius gave up trying stare into its annoyingly bright eyes, and stood, brushing the brown leaves off his body. He stared at the irritant of an animal coldly, before beginning to speak.

"Before you go galloping off like that again, I have a few questions," he stated evenly, trying not to lose his temper with the maddening animal.

"Fire away, buddy!" Sirius rolled his eyes.

"OK, first of all, how in the name of Merlin did I get here?"

The unicorn blinked its buggy, bright eyes, before replying, "You died, of course!" Suddenly, Sirius recalled the events at the department of mysteries. Fighting the Death Eaters, dueling with his cousin, and then falling through that cloth at the archway…

"What about Harry, is he all right?" Sirius gasped.

"Oh, sure he is!" it whinnied.

"How do you know?" he asked suspiciously.

"Mars is bright tonight…" the unicorn replied enigmatically. Sirius rolled his eyes once more.

"Don't go all centaur-ish on me," Sirius stated, eyeing it cautiously.

"Why, whatever do you mean?" it queried, blinking innocently.

"I think you know perfectly well what I mean."

"Maybe I don't, partner."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Yes you freaking do! Now just shut it and tell me where we're going!" Sirius declared, his hands balled into fists. The unicorn blinked its big blue eyes, its lips quivering, and promptly burst into tears. It turned on its hoofed heel, and galloped off, weeping all the while. Momentarily, Sirius thought of chasing after it, but decided it for the best to let the creature be. After all, it had been badgering him incessantly since their introduction. Sighing, he turned around to survey his surroundings. Besieged by the trees, there was no obvious way out of the forest, and he could not clearly recollect how he and the beast had entered. Holding his head high, Sirius set off briskly, promenading directly ahead.

As night began to fall, Sirius grew tired, and found himself sitting at the base of a large pine. Looking up into the numerous needles of the tree, he suddenly found something wet in his eye. Was he crying? Today had certainly been traumatic, what with his dieing and all, but it seemed far too sudden to be a tear. Reaching up to his gray eye to wipe away the wetness, he found – a spitball? Indeed, it was a wad of paper that had been soaked in saliva and spat at him!

"Who threw this?" he called, but to no answer. "I know your there!" Yet again, no reply came. His eyes darting around like a soaring snitch, he searched for the culprit, and found none. Perhaps his time in Azkaban really had gotten to him; perhaps he had gone mad!

"No, don't think like that, Padfoot!" a voice inside his head scolded.

"Padfoot? Who?" another voice questioned.

"Oh, well you obviously aren't the brightest of the bunch. You're Padfoot, remember? You know, you turn into a big, black, shaggy canine?" the fist voice hinted.

"Of course, how could I have forgotten!" Sirius cried aloud, slapping his hand to his forehead. "I'll just sniff out whoever threw this…thing!" With that, his body began to reshape itself, and become even hairier than before. His hands and feet became padded paws, and his nose grew cold and wet. Looking down, he was much closer to the leafy ground, and he could smell every little earthworm and grain of dirt beneath the layers of foliage. He lowered his nose to the ground, and sniffed around until he located the wad of paper and spit. Uck. The odor of stale chocolate and artificially flavored candy left out to mold filled his nostrils; he had smelled some pretty nasty things in his life, but this had to be one of the nastier ones.

Speeding through the forest, Sirius was determined to find his spitball-attacker. After all, it was not as though he had much else to do; he had died, and currently had no idea as to what he was meant to accomplish in this…after-life, if anything. Then, out of the blue, another spitball attacked him! Angered even further by this second assault, Sirius darted through the forest faster than ever, his nose going like mad. Nobody pulled the wool over Sirius Black's eyes and got away with it! He would find them, even if he had to go to the ends of the earth…or wherever this was.

Several hours later, Sirius found himself flopped down on the ground, panting exhaustedly. Without warning, yet another spitball found its way to his head. Whoever was doing this obviously intended on driving him insane, and honestly, they were thus far succeeding. Rapidly, a large onslaught of spitballs attacked his side, covering him with saliva-covered gobs of paper. Thoroughly repulsed, he growled fiercely, only to be besieged once more with the icky clumps of wet paper. Unknowingly, he rapidly became human again, and stood on his two long legs.

"Whoever is doing this had better knock it off before I do something very cruel and unusual!" He whirled around, and was suddenly met by a massive mound of wet paper. The force of the encounter knocked him backwards, throwing him against a huge tree, and knocking him unconscious.

Blinking blearily, Sirius rubbed his eyes as he regained consciousness. Glancing around, he realized it was the second time that day he had awoken in a foreign place. He laid on a bed of hay, in what appeared to be a horse stall, complete with a horse comb, and an enormous container of sugar cubes. Standing shakily, Sirius made to move towards the stall gate, but before he could swing it open, a familiar voice called out to him.

"Hello there, friend." Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Marvelous. You again," Sirius stated, not turning to face the bothersome unicorn.

"You know, what you said hurt my feelings very badly, little buddy. Nobody had ever been that mean to me before." There was a sorrowful tone in the creature's shrill voice. Sirius slowly faced the animal, its blue eyes watering as they gazed down at him.

"So…can I go now?" Sirius asked impatiently. The unicorn blinked slowly several times at him. "What?" he questioned as the creature continued to look blankly at him.

"You have a trial to attend."

"What are you talking about? Are they having one to clear my name? Have they finally realized it was Pettigrew?" He dared to hope that he would be able to live a normal life again, be able to live with Harry, and never have to eat rats again! Suddenly, reality crashed down upon him, and he remembered that he was, in fact, deceased.

The creature stared at him confusedly before replying, "No…this trial is to determine your punishment for being a meanie to me." Sirius was aghast.

"What the bloody hell are you talking about? I never did anything to you! This is just-" Before he could finish, the unicorn burst into tears again, and galloped out of the stable. Grunting angrily at the unicorn's bothersome behavior, he made to push open the short gate, but found that it would not budge. Shaking, rattling, kicking, he attempted to move the gate, yet it refused to be opened. Eventually giving up on opening it, Sirius threw one leg over the top of it, and clambered over to the other side, falling to the musty stable floor in the process. Once out of the stall, Sirius turned to hurry out of the stable, but instead found himself nose-to-nose with a giant snow-white unicorn with a long horn the color of shiny silver.

"So you are the criminal who dare to offend a poor, innocent, sweet, dear, darling, adorable, cute, nice, pious, kind, beautiful, lovable, peaceful, friendly, sugar-loving, unicorn?" the creature snorted in his face.

"Erm, no, I don't think I've offended anybody," Sirius protested. The unicorn glared at him with a detesting eye.

"Oh no? Well, what about this poor creature?" It gestured to that same infuriating unicorn Sirius had encountered in the meadow. "Did you not tell this poor creature to 'shut it,' and then more recently use foul language in front of it? Do not you realize the damaging effect that anger and cruelty have on poor, innocent, sweet, dear, darling, adorable, cute, nice, pious, kind, beautiful, lovable, peaceful, friendly, sugar-loving unicorns?" The snowy colored creature's contemptuous yet shrill voice rang irritatingly in his ears. This long-winded explanation did not help Sirius's frustration, and to add to that he was developing a severe headache.

"Well, I've no idea about damaging dear unicorn darlings or whatever, but do you know who was throwing those spitballs at me?" Sirius figured he might as well ask the unicorns something useful while they were pestering him with their bizarreness.

"Yes, we threw the spit balls," it stated proudly.

"And why would you do this?" Sirius asked confusedly.

"It is the first part of your punishment. The rest shall be decided at your trial," it explained impatiently.

"Oh. So what are you going to do to me—make me write an apology card to it?" he asked lazily, pointing to the first unicorn. The other unicorn snorted.

"I have already told you, human! We will inform you at your trial!" it declared, stomping its large hoof. Then, it smiled at him in the same manic way as the first unicorn, and asked, "Would you care for a sugar cube?" As if on cue, the human's stomach growled immediately after this statement, and the unicorns whinnied merrily.

"Erm…I suppose I'll have one," he replied, not knowing if this was some sort of trick. After all, that giant unicorn had just berated him a moment ago for offending the other unicorn. The large unicorn picked a bucket of sugar cubes up with its mouth and offered them to Sirius, who in turn retrieved one from the bucket. He popped the treat into his mouth, and immediately tasted the strong sweetness of the sugar. The unicorns gazed expectantly at him, before trotting outside. Sirius followed them out of the stable, and was surprised to find that night had arrived, and that he was standing in a cluster of unicorns, all of whom were looking up interestedly into the sky.

"Mars is bright tonight…" one nearby him remarked in an unbearably high-pitched voice.

"Indeed," another concurred.

"Quite," stated yet another.

"It is true," another declared assuredly. Other agreements rang through the air, until the large unicorn stomped its hoof and neighed loudly.

"Mars is bright. So bright…we must…celebrate!" it declared, joyfully.

"Yeah!" the first unicorn Sirius met shouted. "We gotta…CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES, COME ON! IT'S TIME TO CELEBRATE!" The unicorns whinnied and cheered in agreement.

"Let's roast marshmallows!" one cried.

"Let's sing songs!" another hollered.

"Let's eat candy!" another exclaimed. Each declaration was met with a resounding cheer from the other unicorns, and the large one proceeded to yell:

"To the barn!" With that, all the unicorns galloped off to the barn like a children skipping to a playground. Sirius was left standing in the dust, shaking his head.

"This is going to be interesting," he drawled. And as he heard the excited whinnies and cheers of unicorns singing an undistinguishable song, he indeed, new that this after life would be interesting.