A/N 1. My first fic. Feedback, please!
A/N 2. After much hand-wringing, I had to edit this chapter and re-post. Will somebody help me with editing?
A/N 3. Copyrights of the Harry Potter originals are with JKR and whomsoever she signed it over to. My understanding is that JKR allows non-profit fanfiction.
Prologue:
The battle of the Department of Mysteries of the Ministry of Magic is a major event in the Harry Potter series. It happened by the end of book five, "The Order of the Phoenix", on June 18, 1996, three days before June 21st, the summer solstice for that year.
The following is a summary of the events.
Lord Voldemort sent a vision to Harry Potter via Harry's lightning scar. Harry's godfather Sirius Black was shown being tortured at the prophecy hall of the DoM. Wanting to save his godfather, Harry and friends evaded the loathsome Umbridge and traveled to the ministry. The rest is known to all readers: it was a trap to retrieve Trelawney's prophecy; Harry's friends fought with the death eaters; Sirius Black and the Order of the Phoenix arrived to help Harry; Bellatrix banished Sirius into the Veil of Death; Voldemort and Dumbledore dueled in the Ministry Atrium; the Ministry was finally forced to admit the return of Voldemort; Dumbledore revealed Trelawney's prophecy to Harry; Harry's injured friends healed under Madam Pomfrey's care; Luna ran into Harry and comforted him about the loss of Sirius. The book concludes with Harry reluctantly returning to his aunt's home at Privet Drive at Surrey, as usual, per Dumbledore's insistence.
I did not like the death of Sirius Black, which weakens Harry at his moment of vindication. This story is an attempt to further Sirius's role. It follows canon upto OotP. I add a very minor scene(Scene 1 of this chapter) to its original ending and the story takes off from the second chapter.
Sirius Black was hurrying through the DoM corridors to find and help his Godson. He stumbled into a bright long rectangular room with an enormous glass tank of deep green liquid in which some white objects were drifting around. Sirius distractedly picked up a couple of the objects which he realized was some kind of enchanted human brains, clearly the work of Unspeakables. Then the brains started to attack and Sirius realized their potential as a trump card in combat. So he stunned, shrank and pocketed them. He then rushed off in continuance of the search for Harry.
The prophecy about the solstice(source: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 35, "Beyond the Veil".)
"You dare speak his name?" whispered Bellatrix.
"Yeah," said Harry, maintaining his tight grip on the glass ball, expecting another attempt to bewitch it from him. "Yeah, I've got no problem with saying Vol—"
"Shut your mouth!" Bellatrix shrieked. "You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood's tongue, you dare -"
"Did you know he's a half-blood too?" said Harry recklessly.
Hermione gave a little moan in his ear. "Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad was a Muggle - or has he been telling you lot he's pure-blood?"
"STUPEF—"
"NO!"
A jet of red light had shot from the end of Bellatrix Lestrange's wand, but Malfoy had deflected it; his spell caused hers to hit the shelf a foot to the left of Harry and several of the glass orbs there shattered.
Two figures, pearly-white as ghosts, fluid as smoke, unfurled themselves from the fragments of broken glass upon the floor and each began to speak; their voices vied with each other, so that only fragments of what they were saying could be heard over Malfoy and Bellatrix's shouts.
"… at the solstice will come a new…" said the figure of an old, bearded man.
"DO NOT ATTACK! WE NEED THE PROPHECY!"
"He dared - he dares -" shrieked Bellatrix incoherently, "he stands there - filthy half-blood -"
"WAIT UNTIL WE'VE GOT THE PROPHECY!" bawled Malfoy.
"… and none will come after…" said the figure of a young woman.
The two figures that had burst from the shattered spheres had melted into thin air. Nothing remained of them or their erstwhile homes but fragments of glass upon the floor
Bellatrix banishes Sirius Black into the Death Veil(Source: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 35, "Beyond the Veil").
Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix's jet of red light: he was laughing at her.
"Come on, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.
The second jet of light hit him squarely on the chest.
The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock.
Harry released Neville, though he was unaware of doing so. He was jumping down the steps again, pulling out his wand, as Dumbledore, too, turned towards the dais.
It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch.
Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather's wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind, then fell back into place.