A/N Okay, so I PROMISED myself (for the thousandth time) that I would not start anymore fics until I had finished at least one. Then the plot bunnies struck, and you all know the rest. Hence, a oneshot was born. I hope you all enjoy it.

Death's Cloak

It always took a moment to grow accustomed to the sound. You see, it was unlike any other sound one could hear. It was all at once too loud and busy for to be properly processes and just quiet and delicate enough so as to give one the sense that, were the unseen source of the noise to be scared away even by just one inch, the sound might vanish forever, eternally out of earshot. To some, the whispers had already faded into silence. To others, the whispers didn't come at all.

Harry, still standing in the ancient doorframe with green eyes shut, took one step forward, polluting the sound of silent murmuring with the faintest of footsteps, and opened his eyes. Careful to close the door through which he had entered, the young man descended, unheard and unseen, toward his goal. Twenty feet down he traveled, the noise becoming louder and more elusive with every step, until he found himself faced with a dais. Familiar with every step of his path, his feet brought him up and onto the platform, his eyes never breaking contact with the object he had come to visit.

It looked the same, the arch. Harry vaguely wondered if it had ever looked new, or if it had always been ancient, fully formed and rotting from the beginning of life itself. He circled it, running hands along surprisingly smooth stone as he passed the pillars. Passing from side to side, the young auror wondered again whether it had sides. When he stood on this side, did he stand among long lost friends? If he were to circle once more and land on the other side, would he be among kin he had never known? He knew he would not. The two, plain sides he could see were really just one side, after all. It was not around the archway, but through the veil that the other side lay.

His footsteps came to a halt.

It was then that he really came face to face with the veil, and not merely the arch that carried it. It was the same as always: black, ominous, ageless, and fluttering. Though it appeared a solid color when he focused, each time he blinked or looked away, he could have sworn it adopted a silvery, almost iridescent quality.

It was not the first time Harry had come into the Death Room during his time at the ministry. It had not taken him long at all to discover that sneaking in when employed in the building was far easier than doing it as a teenager accompanied by friends. He came in almost monthly to marvel.

Harry shed the cloak of invisibility that had brought him there, and the sound quality shifted. It was as if mufflers had been removed from his ears. He understood. The cloak was just another barrier between him and the other world. After all, it had been torn from the very same cloak as the veil before him: the cloak of death himself. The realization that he had just willingly removed half his protection from the force that had taken away so many of his friends and family made Harry feel vulnerable and naked, but the desire to retrieve the cloak lying in a pool by his feet did not cross the wizard's mind. The vulnerability was necessary.

Now, at the mercy of death and standing on the literal brink of life, Harry faced the veil and stared, so close that, were the billowing to increase for just a moment, he would risk being engulfed.

"Hello, mum," he said. Every inch of his being longed to believe he had heard something—a murmur that could have belonged to a woman or a single voice standing out in response—but he knew that he had heard no such thing. All he could do was believe that, though he couldn't hear her, she was listening to him, maybe even mere feet away. "And dad… Sirius, Remus…. Professor Dumbledore…" he swallowed a lump in his throat. "Jamie started school last week. He's a Gryffindor… just like you all. Ginny and I, we're so proud of him… not because we were really pushing for one house over another, mind you… Just," he laughed a bit, though his eyes still stung with suppressed tears, "it's just that Ginny kept saying that the sorting hat would send him straight home once he got a glimpse of the mischief going on in that boy's head… Though I suppose they did let in George's kids. Fred," he shifted his eyes to a different patch of veil, as though he could see the young redhead standing just there, "it looks like that nephew of yours is really living up to the name… Though, from what I hear, Roxanne's the one to look out for. I suppose Hogwarts is going to have to prepare for a whole new generation of Marauders, when James joins forces with them…"

Harry stopped for a while, breathing deeply and watching the fabric before him, seeing that it was identical to his cloak, and yet, at the same time, completely different. It was closer to it's origins, still hanging in the clutches of death himself as lost souls breezed through, while Harry's cloak had been relinquished from his grasp, and belonged firmly in this world, while the veil floated somewhere between. Tearing his mind away from his pondering, Harry resumed his conversation, still praying for the responses to come into sharper focus.

"Cedric, you know Cho named her son for you, right? He's same year as my James. Slytherin. Seems like a good kid. I only met him once… I reckon Hogwarts's never seen so many old names repeated at once…" Harry drifted off.

It seemed like hours he had been standing there, and it might have been. Finally, he found his hand outstretched before him and was not sure how it got there. His fingers tickled the fabric, and he was half surprised not to be dead from the touch. He was more surprised that the cloth had no feeling. No icy chill spread through his body from the place he touched it. His fingers grasped no silky textured cloth like that of his cloak. In fact, were he to fall through, he would hardly notice until landing on the other side.

It was as that fact dawned on him that Harry noticed himself, already wrist-deep into the abyss, sinking in at a growing pace. Alarmed, he brought himself to a stop, but couldn't bring back the hand. Just as he summoned the strength, he felt it. A hand, neither solid nor imaginary, but tauntingly familiar, entertained its fingers with his own. He ripped his hands away and headed for the door.

As he reached the door, he took one last look at the Death Room and readjusted the cloak over his body. The murmur was gone. It was the last time he entered the room alive.

A/N yeah yeah yeah. I know. Not great. Whatever. Had to get it out of my system so I could get back to writing stuff I ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT. Anyway, if you did like it, I would ADORE A review! Thanks for reading.

-KF