Everyone struggles against despair, but it always wins in the end. It has to. It's the thing that lets us say goodbye. –Jeffrey Eugenides
Deep Waters Still Run
He knew that it was dumb.
No, it was ridiculous and idiotic and outrageously nonsensical.
Completely so, and yet Harry could not compel himself to stop and turn around. His hand lay on the doorknob, waiting for his mind to come to terms with itself and initiate the movement of his wrist. He seemed incapable of the movement as his conscience screamed at him, protesting his every thought, blinding his sight.
He released his grip on the doorknob with a breath.
Harry glanced at the map in his hands, locating the moving figures with the lit tip of his wand. His eyes followed Professor McGonagall's footsteps, and he released another breath, assuring himself that every possible interference was a safe distance away.
He stared at the doorknob, and wondered vaguely if it would be open. Professor McGonagall wouldn't leave her office unlocked, surely, with years of tyrants like Fred and George Weasley flying around the castle. Harry hadn't even thought as to how he was going to pry the door open if it was locked. He had been running purely off of his instincts and it seemed as if his thoughts were just now regaining coherence.
But the thought only grew in clarity, grabbing his mind and possessing his movements. He was already this far.
He lunged at the doorknob suddenly, before his conscience could form another protest, and stumbled through the door as it swung on strident hinges. The shrill sound stabbed at his head and he stood still for a moment, bewildered by the fact that it had taken so little effort.
What did that mean? The screeching of the hinges had jarred his thoughts completely, disorienting Harry as he glanced around the office. He pulled his dad's old invisibility cloak down from around his head and took in a fresh breath of air as he examined the Marauder's Map. He spotted Professor McGonagall's footsteps moving back towards his direction. She was at least half of the length across the school, but her potential return ensued panic nonetheless. She had to have only left her office unlocked because she'd intended to be gone for no longer than a couple of minutes. Harry didn't have much time.
Hurriedly, Harry stuffed the map in his pocket and slammed the door shut. It closed with the same awful strident creak, sending chills down his back and pinching at his thoughts. The sound brought the familiarity of a scream to his mind. Beneath his closed eyelids, he could see the horror that had driven him to this place.
He choked back sobs and screams, but was incapable of calming himself down. The distant image of a glimmering silver chain filled his mind and took control of his body, and he focused his mind on that instead. That was why he was here. He had seen it only a month before when the fifth years had been called to McGonagall's office to speak with her about careers. He had been sitting in the chair across from her desk, and his eyes had roamed aimlessly to a table in the back, where a distinctly familiar chain lay exposed and vulnerable...
Harry's body was then driven by mad desperation. Frantically he found that same table and scattered the surface of the papers that lay upon it, eyes darting about for the chain. He threw drawers open and ran his hands through piles of parchment, quills, ink wells, irrelevant confiscated items...
Where is it?
His mind roared at him, and an overwhelming feeling of despair shook him from his core. The sound of his own scream returned to his mind and echoed through his skull. He could feel the chill returning to his fingertips, the violent tear of his soul in his body...
He couldn't think of it right now. He had to find it... he couldn't waste time thinking about it, because he would fix it...
I can't think about this now!
But the image haunted his mind. A jet of red light had lashed across his vision, and momentarily the light had been all Harry could see. He had been so caught up in the color that he had misplaced his sense of the moment. Where had the light come from...?
But he knew, and he didn't want to remember. He couldn't remember. Professor McGonagall would be back in a moment. He had to find it now, or he would be damned with the memories forever.
His godfather's face drifted through his mind, acting as a soft, gentle memory, but the memory sneered at him. The image cut Harry deeply and he almost gasped aloud in pain. He could see it again, the way Sirius's laugh had crumpled as the red light erupted across his chest. There was flash of fear in his eyes, of shock, and he had stumbled backwards...
Harry fell to the floor on his hands and knees, searching beneath desks and tables for the chain. Weak. These memories were making him weak. He couldn't stand it. He was going to go mad.
Sirius was falling.
Harry shot up to his feet and rummaged through another desk, panic leaving trails of destruction after his straying hands. He pulled at a drawer, but it wouldn't budge. He yanked and jerked and wrenched with all the force he had, but only the miscellaneous items scattered on top of the desk rattled onto the floor.
He could see Sirius's body bending backwards, the back of his head dipping into the veil, disappearing from sight...
Harry drew his wand and blasted the drawer open, sending a wild flurry of splinters through the air that nicked at his exposed hands and face. He was probably bleeding now, but his mind darted past the thought. He scoured through the contents of the smashed desk in rapid, berserk movements, suddenly unable to control his breathing.
Sirius's smiling face was gone now too, fallen into the veil, followed moments after by the rest of his being. His laugh was drained from the room, leaving only the sound of air rushing through an empty crack in the world.
Harry felt it. The cool metal of the chain sent a sickening chill down his spine and he yanked it free from the drawer, holding it up to his eyes with ragged, wasted breaths.
Sirius was dead.
Harry's eyes scrutinized the hour glass on the end of the chain as his heart pounded in his chest, threatening to abandon him. This had once belonged to Hermione, two years ago now, in their third year. It was the last of its kind. The rest had been destroyed only yesterday, and this...
He squeezed it, clenching it in his fist, as he remembered when this Time Turner had first saved Sirius. When he and Hermione had rescued the man's innocent soul, saving Harry's very last link to anything he had ever had of a family.
His godfather could not just die. Not when he was meant to be free. Not when Harry was meant to live with him, and escape the horror that awaited him with the Dursleys.
How could he have just watched as Sirius was shoved out of this life? How? How could he not have done anything?
But he could. He still could. It was waiting right in his hands, waiting to be spun, waiting for Harry to escape back into the depths of the Ministry and free the man that so greatly deserved to be freed.
His mind screamed at him. He could hear Hermione, warning him, repeating the dangers of time travel. How time was delicate. How time was not to be messed with. What was done was done, wasn't it?
You'll see, Hermione, Harry thought, reasoning against the contradictions in his mind. You'll see. You'll get it. Sirius can't die.
Sirius was never supposed to die.
Harry's eyes skimmed the clock, and he calculated the number of spins quickly. In a swift motion, Harry looped the chain around his neck and slipped the cloak back over his head so that he was concealed. He counted the spins aloud and watched as the sand spilled and turned, time after time, until the world was spinning around him and he was no longer in Professor McGonagall's office.
He felt the cavernous room fall around him, with its thick walls and wet floors, ominous and all too familiar. It was too soon to be here again. He couldn't bear to relive it again. He had to a swallow a harsh gulp of air and bite his lips together to suppress the retch that was clawing its way up his throat.
Harry fell back against the wall, making a conscious effort to slow his breathing and remain undetected. The room came into focus slowly, and he spotted the chaos that he had caused only hours earlier. He spotted himself, struggling to hold the fidgeting Neville upright, but his eyes darted quickly away to the reason he was here.
Sirius...
Harry drew his wand, pointing it from under the safety of the cloak.
Where is she?
He searched the room for the woman, a curse rising in his throat like he was going to be sick. He had it... he was ready for her... he wasn't going to let her kill Sirius, not this time...
He watched as sparks of brilliant, scarring light bounded across the room, striking the walls, the ground, the valiant witches and wizards. He longed to burst free of his cloak and fight alongside them, but he was already there. Hermione's words were resurfacing in his mind from third year: You can't be seen.
And even if he could risk it, fighting alongside them would distract him from why he was there. He couldn't let his gaze stray from Sirius. He had to save him. There was no other reason to be there.
His head pounded, blurring his senses together. What was supposed to happen next? He couldn't remember what had happened afterwards. All he could see were the incredible, jarring duels of the Order of the Phoenix against the Death Eaters.
But she was hiding from him... from Harry. She must have known he would come back. She was hiding. She was taunting him...
He saw his godfather shouting to him and Harry's skin tightened. The flashes of him falling through the veil passed Harry's eyes, almost obsessively, and he blinked them away, thrusting himself from the wall.
He couldn't sit still. Fury was building in his chest, and it burned hotter than any fire Harry had ever felt. It ignited his skin, set his heart racing, and cast a ghastly smoke in his mind that set his thoughts ablaze.
WHERE IS SHE?
A jet of green light flashed past Sirius's head. "Harry," he shouted, and Harry's body felt numb with a suddenly icy chill as the fire faded away. He was molded to the spot. He couldn't move. "Take the prophecy, grab Neville, and run!"
No, no, it was all happening too fast...
The rest proceeded in a mad blur. He saw himself rushing to support Neville, who was still fidgeting frantically about, and then watched powerlessly as Sirius ran to meet Bellatrix in her tracks.
Bellatrix...
Harry's mouth went dry in panic, and he stood with his wand drawn beneath his cloak at the sadistic fiend. Spells, hexes, curses all flew to his mind, all rested on the tip of his tongue, ached at his throat, but he parted his lips and no sound came out.
He was paralyzed by the scene. Nerves darted their way up and down his arms, shocking tiny bits of skin and making his hair stand straight up.
He was going to kill her, stop her, something...
He watched, growing increasingly horrified as bright, brilliant spells exploded between the two of them.
She's going to kill him...
Harry blinked rapidly, the stagnant air beginning to burn his eyes.
He couldn't—he couldn't move forward—
But she's going to kill him...
Flashes of Bellatrix taunting him, laughing at him, her cruelty ringing out in tones that made Harry's skin crawl.
SHE'S GOING TO KILL HIM!
And in his mind, Harry could see the ire in Sirius's eyes when he'd finally discovered Peter Pettigrew. He could see the way Azkaban had etched permanent lines in his face. He could see the struggle it took Sirius to smile sometimes. But, then Harry thought of the way Sirius had breathed in the fresh air like he'd never felt anything so amazing. He thought of the way his broken features lit up when he talked about Harry's dad. He thought of the way he had hugged Harry and promised him a home. He thought of the way Sirius fought so valiantly, of the way he had never feared death.
And in his mind, Harry saw the only father he'd ever known crumple before his eyes, taking the light of the world with him. Flames ignited in his veins, and before he could question himself, Harry flicked his wrist, screaming.
"CRUCIO!"
No one had known it was Harry that had screamed the curse; they were distracted in their own situations, and time continued on just like the flow of water, pushing him on forward...
Harry heard his own cry, but there was no cry in his throat. He saw Lupin, holding him back, shouting things at him to calm him down, but Harry couldn't feel anything now.
Sirius was dead.
Harry sunk back against the wall as the chaos continued to unfold around him. He closed his eyes, oblivious to the throbbing of his head, and fell into the delirium that was his mind. He only half heard the sounds of shouts and cries until finally they were dragged from the room, somewhere far away...
He'd had a clear shot of Bellatrix, and he'd missed.
Purposely?
Harry was ashamed that he could even wonder. Ashamed that he didn't even really know the answer.
The ghost of Sirius's smile haunted Harry's mind. He had never seen Sirius happier than when he spoke of James. Harry buried his face in his palms, letting a tortured sob escape him. He had no reason to hide anymore; Harry was alone with the veil now. The others had gone.
He couldn't stop Bellatrix, because in a sick, twisted moment, Harry had wanted Sirius to die.
He wanted him to be free.
He'd wanted that for Sirius, because he knew that Sirius could never really be free. Part of him would always be locked away in Azkaban. A part of him had died that night with Harry's parents.
But it hurt. His chest rose and fell in rapid pants and he found himself competing for breath between his sobs. Sirius was the father Harry had never had. Sirius had loved him, and Harry had loved Sirius, too.
Harry lifted the cloak from himself, absentmindedly letting it fall to the floor. He climbed his way into a standing position and dragged himself towards the veil, falling to the ground in front of it.
"Sirius?" he whispered, his hand straying towards the spot in the floor where Sirius had stood. Where he had fallen. His eyes searched the airy curtains that now held his godfather.
His eyes flooded with hot, acidic tears, and he brushed them away.
"Sirius!"
But there was no response. The murmur of whispers was as soft as air, almost indistinguishable.
"Sirius, come back!"
Harry was a coward. He had the chance. He had gone through all of that trouble, just to see him die again...
He wrenched the Time-Turner from around his neck violently, squeezing the hour glass in his palm. He wanted to smash it against the ground, wanted to watch as the glass shattered and the sand spilled out, wanted to see it gone and destroyed, but he tucked it back in his cloak and told himself he would return it to McGonagall. She could decide what to do with it. She would know.
A coward, that's what he was. He repeated it in his mind, letting the thought stab at his heart.
Harry's palms brushed against the rugged ground and he dragged them across it, feeling every single ridge as it scraped against his skin and every bead of water as it stung at his gashes. He turned his palms upwards, gazed down at the streaks of red blood that trailed across his hands, and released a strangled breath that felt so unmistakably close to a sob.
The sound of the whispers soon began to cease; or, rather, the whispers began to run together, sounding almost like the running of water, and Harry felt himself pulled beneath its depths. The drowning sensation that nagged and suffocated his body had little effect on him. He stared ahead with his eyes open, and the tortured, mangled gasps of air that left him were hardly anything, really. In his heart, that vulnerable place in his chest, Harry had felt much worse things. In his mind, in that aggrieved place in his skull, Harry could see much worse things. Perhaps he would die. Perhaps he wouldn't even notice. Perhaps he deserved it. Perhaps he didn't even care...
Harry was falling beneath the tides of time. He spun and tumbled in the lashes of the water, sinking and resurfacing in nearly the same motions, and he found himself fighting against it, thrashing about wildly.
He wondered how time had become so oppressive, how it so violently shook him from his spot on the ground and uprooted all of his senses. How did the water run so deep? He had betrayed natural laws, trespassed back into time, and for what? He hadn't realized how deep the water ran, or really, how forcefully the deep waters still ran.
He found the flash of Sirius's blue eyes again, and the blue was like crystal, falling into the blue of the water and surrounding him. The blue oddly brought a kind of peace to him, and the tearing crashes of water massaged his barren mind. In the waves, Harry found the familiarity of Neville's eyes, of Ron's, of Hermione's. Lupin's, even, he recognized, and a swirl of other bright eyes, somewhat less distinguishable, floating about him, smiling and laughing, tearing his mind in two directions, implausibly taunting him...
But they weren't taunting, not really. The faces clarified and Harry struggled to free himself from their gazes, kicking and squirming his way to the rather aqueous surface of time.
And there Harry was again, lying upon the floor in front of the veil, completely dry, aside from his clammy palms and sweat beaded forehead. His green eyes met the curtains of the veil, and he stared into them once more, as if maybe he could see something this time, as if maybe he could join them without really moving at all.
"Sirius," he whispered, and his whisper fell into their chorus of water-like whispers. "Sirius, I'll see you again."
He blinked the burning tears from his eyes, and they fell to the ground, right to the place where Sirius's feet had betrayed him, had allowed him to be stolen away.
"Won't I?"
My entry for the Tentatively Titled Competition by KrossatGlas, with Deep Waters Still Run as my title, time-travel as my theme, and strident as my prompt.
This competition has plagued me in several unbelievable ways, and I think that Harry's emotions in this are somewhat relatively very close to my own, if not completely my own. So often have I wanted to completely rewrite Sirius's end and let him live on for endless years, but I think that the fact that Sirius died was important for Harry, and for Sirius as well, and Harry in this short piece comes, more or less, to terms with that.
Thank you all very much for reading, and as for reviews... well, they are lovely, aren't they?