A/N: And so, here we go... Part III...

PART III

Chapter XXXV

Hell is Empty

[London | 1995]


"It was a big gamble, I'll admit…" Albus Dumbledore seats himself by the fire, shifting his robes about his feet, his back aching, his lips parched. The room is empty save for himself and Remus Lupin, who is distracting himself with the tea kettle. Poor guy, his hands won't stop shaking, despite such concerted effort. Lupin hands him a cup of tea and he takes it gratefully, setting the saucer down in front of him and raising the cup to his nose, taking a deep sniff. Earl Grey has such brightness, he thinks, even though it's color is so dark. The kitchen, it would seem, has become the strategy room of late, as everyone's in need of the comfort only the crackling fire and proximity of food can provide.

"Can I ask…Albus…what exactly was your plan? Regarding Ms. Spektor?" Remus says, pouring a cup for himself, the letting the hot water run on to his hand. He knows it burns, but he doesn't care. "Forgive me but, it doesn't seem very logical…"

"Well…" Dumbledore's taken aback. It's not everyday someone questions his wisdom — at least, if the people in question are his friends. "I had stumbled across her case as I was researching. Of course, I immediately remembered her being one of my students, and then I remembered who her classmates were — one very important one in particular. I asked Minerva about her and she had some juicy gossip, which I will not repeat to you, but she also told me about her close friendship with Tom Riddle. They worked together often, and she was in that gang of Slytherins he went around with. I had to know more, naturally. Maybe she knew something important. I looked into her case some more and discovered there was no possible way she could have committed the murders the Ministry charged her with, as she had, during the exact time of murders themselves, been seen by the innkeeper at the Leaky Cauldron eating dinner with who else but Tom Riddle. This evidence was suppressed though, of course, during the trial, as was most of the evidence that would have exonerated her. The Ministry wanted to place the blame on someone, wanted to show the wizarding world they were doing something to combat Grindelwald. She was a convenient scapegoat. I thought Tom Riddle might have also had an interest in suppressing the evidence, and I can now understand why… I was convinced she was one of the first death eaters, that he had discussed his early plans with her, and that he'd possibly told her things he hasn't told anyone else. It turns out I was correct, I suppose, I just didn't understand the full extent of what I'd stumbled upon."

"And what's that then?" Remus asks gloomily, the brightness of the bergamot doing nothing to lift his spirits.

"She was his wife, Remus." Albus's voice is seeped with dread. "They were married."

"Wait, what? How? I thought you said…" Remus sets his cup down, thoroughly distracted from the other bad thoughts weighing on his mind. "Isn't that impossible? Hadn't you concluded it was impossible for him to love?"

"Yes. I did. But I was wrong." It visibly pains Albus to say these words.

"So…what? Now we've re-united him with his teenage bride and they're going to destroy the world as we know it?"

"I'm not sure. He let her sit in Azkaban for fifty years. In my dealings with her I sensed some anger there, some tension… Just because you're married doesn't mean you're happy about it."

"I'm sorry I just…can't…I just can't imagine…" Remus lets out an uncomfortable little laugh at the idea. He imagines them going on painfully awkward double dates with Lucius and Narcissa, babysitting Malfoy, taking their kid… "Wait, they don't…do they? Have a child? They don't have a child."

"I…hadn't thought…" Dumbledore says quietly, setting the teacup in it's saucer and placing his head in his hands. "I don't know."

"Merlin's beard — what if? It's possible, isn't it? That before she went to Azkaban… or now even?" Remus shudders at the thought of it. "Where is she?"

"She's dead, Remus." Dumbledore looks up at the drooping, sleepless face of his colleague.

"Right." Remus says, nodding. She went through the veil. Sirius also went through the veil. Naturally that means both of them are very much…dead. The pair fall silent, both sipping their tea, both locked in their own heads.

"Um…Professor?" Framed in the doorway is a rumpled and roughed-up Harry Potter, his eyes red around the rims, his mouth drooped in an imprisoning frown. "May I…"

"I should go see to the preparations…" Remus collects his empty teacup and places it near the sink. He gives Harry a sympathetic half-smile and Harry reciprocates. It's all either can manage. As he leaves the kitchen, Harry takes his vacated seat. Dumbledore continues to sip his tea, avoiding eye contact.

"Professor…" Harry starts. "That veil…Sirius…where did he…"

"I'm sorry, Harry." Dumbledore says solemnly, shaking his head. "He's gone to a place where no man has ever returned from."

"But what about Professor Spektor? She's there too…"

"And will suffer the same fate." Dumbledore says, when something hits him. A terrible realization. "Harry, did you notice…when you were with Professor Spektor in the Department of Mysteries, was she wearing a ring?" Harry thinks hard on this, and then remembers, when she took his hand, feeling the metal against his skin.

"Yes, she was." Harry says. "Why, is that important?"

"I'm afraid so…" Dumbledore says, withdrawing back within himself. "Harry, Professor Spektor is…no longer a member of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Obviously." Harry says.

"What I mean is, when she was at the Department of Mysteries, she was not there on our business. Harry, she withdrew her allegiance. She…" He looks at Harry, who's regarding him with a blank, if somewhat impatient, stare. "When she resigned, she gave me a memory. I've since viewed it and…I fear I put you in great danger."

"Ok." Harry says, waiting.

"Her name is not Victoria Spektor, Harry." Dumbledore skirts around the subject. "Her name is Victoria Riddle."

"Wait, what?" Harry yelps, confusion descending upon him, enveloping him, like a dark cloud. "You're saying she's his sister?"

"No, Harry. She's his wife." He finally gets it out. The anger in Harry is rising slowly, his hands clenching, his cheeks reddening.

"She said she was there to help me! But all along… And you brought her to Hogwarts! Was she ever on our side? How could she be? His wife? Who could love him? I thought you said he couldn't love! I thought you said that was one of his biggest weaknesses — why he almost destroyed himself trying to kill me. Because he didn't understand…" Harry rants. "So you're wrong about that, and it makes me wonder what else you've been wrong about! You act like you've got everything under control, that you understand every piece of the puzzle, and you bring her into Hogwarts! She took me right to him, in the Department of Mysteries. He could have killed me, right then and there if it hadn't been for the Order showing up." He takes a break, his voice getting thin, his breath unsteady.

"Harry, please, take a deep breath." Dumbledore says, "I understand why you're upset with me. But you must understand, I cannot know everything. I do not claim to know everything. I'm merely trying my best to sort all this out. I value your trust, Harry, and I hope you can still find it within yourself to continue to trust me, because we have a lot of work to do before this is all over."

"Yeah, like what?" Harry slams his elbows on the table and thunks his forehead down on the hard wood surface, rattling Dumbledore's teacup in its saucer.

"The memory that Professor Spektor gave me, before she left, revealed some crucial information on how to defeat You-Know-Who." Dumbledore says.

"Wait, why would she do that?" Harry says to the table, slightly muffled.

"I'm not sure." Dumbledore says. "I don't understand her motives at all, I'm afraid. But I also suspect I'm not alone in that regard, or at least I hope."

"So what is it then? What's the big secret?"

"When he was young, when he and Victoria were at school together, they figured out how to perform a very rare, very dark piece of magic that enabled them to conceal bits of their souls within objects. The ring that Victoria wears is one of them."

"That's why my scar hurt when she shook my hand." Harry says, sitting up. "So as long as these objects are safe, he can't die?"

"Precisely. But we've got a problem. We don't know how many there are, or where they are. And the only one we're aware of is beyond the veil."

"Great." Harry huffs. "But if it feel beyond the veil, and if that killed her, wouldn't that kill the ring also?"

"Perhaps, but there's no way to know for sure…" Dumbledore says, standing up. "Harry, I think it best for you to rest now. I'm going to see what I can do…" Harry rises to his feet, his body a hunk of stone that would rather sink to the bottom of the ocean than climb the stairs to his bedroom.


V's laying flat on her back, caught upon the surface as though the floor had risen up to meet her. Hair a tangled nest beneath her skull, she tries to move but is already standing, it seems, her feet resting on a solid pane of thick nothing. The air catches in her lungs and it's absence echoes across the expanse of shimmery emptiness. She takes a step, and the ground rights itself and gravity readjusts, providing a vertigo unparalleled. After a moment of quiet self-adjustment, she is slammed with another body that's manifested itself straight through the floor. He's swinging wildly, his limbs clawing at the air, tears streaming from his eyes. His mouth moves but no sound comes out, just flapping lips, teeth gnashing at each other. She grabs his wrist and pulls him down to the proper floor.

"No! Harry! No! Wait! I'm…I've…died…I'm Dead! I'm…" Sirius follows the arm of the hand that's grabbed him all the way to its shoulder, to its neck, to its face. "Oh bloody hell, how'd I end up with you?"

"How did you…" V starts, looking at him curiously, "did I do a thing…to the…thing…?"

"What? I don't know what you did, but…wait, where are we?"

"We're in Hell."

"Ha. Very funny." Sirius barks.

"You're the only one laughing." V says, releasing his hand. He starts to float away again.

"Hey, wait, come back! I mean, bring me back! Stop whatever is happening!" Sirius cries. V reaches up and casually takes his hand and pulls him back down.

"You're not supposed to be here." She says, lacing her fingers through his. Her smile is one of devious pleasure. What an interesting twist…she thought she'd have far less entertaining company during this endeavor when she'd initially planned it. "Funny how this keeps happening. You turning up places you're not supposed to be, and me having to help you escape. What would you do without me, I wonder?"

"For the record, I did not ask for your help." Sirius scowls, his cheeks ruddy as he tries to wriggle his hand from her grasp.

"But you're going to need it." She tightens her grip. "Let's make a deal." She faces him, looking straight into his eyes. He tries to avoid her gaze but in the end loses out and becomes locked in her stare. "I help you get out of here, I bring you 'back to life' or whatever you want to call it, and you…" She smiles very broadly now, "help me die."

"What?" Sirius blinks.

"See, it's going to be too painful to do myself." She reaches down the front of her robes and pulls out a necklace with a glittering eye pendant dangling from the delicate chain fixed around her neck. "And I can't let him know I've done it because…well…it's all very complicated but…it's for the best, really. I think. I mean, I don't really know what's going to happen, but…I would like you to do it."

"Um…you seem to be forgetting I'm actually not a murderer." Sirius says.

"Don't think of it as murder. Think of it as…just…ending a life…" V shrugs cheerfully.

"That's the same thing!" Sirius yelps.

"Do we have a deal?" She says, loosening her hold on Sirius' sweaty hand. His feet start to hover above the floor, and he feels himself being pulled upward by the scruff of the neck.

"Yes! Yes! Fine! It's a deal." Sirius hastily tightens his grip, heaving a deep breath.

"Good. Lets get out of here."


Their footsteps make hollow clinks on the invisible surface, which seems more like glass than anything else, except for when it starts melting. Crystal liquid pools around their feet, rippling outward into the darkness. The air feels less solid now, easier to breathe, as though they're somehow ascending from the depths of a cave, even though they appear to be walking in a straight line to nowhere.

"How do you know you're going the right way?" It feels like the sort of place you should whisper, so he does.

"Things get weird down here. There's…uh… there's no up and down, no left and right, no here and there, it just…is…." She muses. "You may be one place one moment, and blink, another the next, upside down, with your shoes missing. Not that there's time. There was never time. Do you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"The passing of time?"

"How long have we been walking?"

"There's no way to say. We might have just begun, but maybe we have been walking forever. Maybe you've never done anything else."

"How do you know you're going the right way?"

"Do you feel yourself sinking?"

"It's harder to move."

"We're almost there."


They emerge from a hole in the ceiling and climb out of a deep pool set into a great slab of white marble. Their hands slap upon the white stone, the strange dry liquid sliding off their bodies and settling back into the wide circular hole — the dark mirror. Sirius slumps on the floor, breathing heavily and attempting to orient his brain. V stands before him with her arm outstretched and he takes her hand, which grounds him immediately. He briefly considers never letting go of her hand again. Wait, what? No. He shakes his head, then glances around the solid marble box enclosing them.

"Where are we?" Sirius whispers.

"The Observation Room." She says. "See that thing we just climbed out of? That acts sort of like a pensive." Sirius nods, not entirely getting it. He follows her over to a wall and watches her place her pale spindly hand upon the smooth stone, and staggers back a bit when the stone shifts to the side, allowing them to pass. The passage is lightless and cold and eerily quiet.

"Where is everybody?" Sirius asks as they enter a dimly lit room full floor to ceiling with filing cabinets. V smiles broadly and unleashes a cackling, almost gleeful laugh that reverberates caustically off the mass of steel surrounding them.

"Hell, my dear Sirius, is empty." She observes his face as it takes on an uncharacteristically worried look. "It always has been."

"But…but where are the…" He's putting the pieces together.

"Oh there are some here. But there aren't many of us." She starts reading the labels on the filing cabinets. "Due to stricter rules, and the subsequent 'cleansing,' there are only a handful left. The Guard runs the Embassy. The others, so I've heard, have retired."

"What's the Guard?" Sirius asks, watching V rifle through a cabinet. "Some sort of infernal law enforcement agency?"

"Something like that." V pauses thoughtfully, then continues her search. "To be honest, I'm not really sure what the Guard is. But it's something. And it's fucking terrifying."

"Oh. Great." Sirius exhales, looking over his shoulder. The room remains empty, thankfully, except for the two of them. V plucks out a scroll and unfurls it. "So…what's that then?"

"My birth certificate. My records. The conclusive proof of my existence. All of it." She says quietly, rifling through the leaves of parchment. It's all there. Everything. She closes the cabinet, turns to face Sirius, draws her wand, and mutters incendio. The parchment in her hand goes up in flames, and she grins as she watches the fire consume it, inch by inch. Sirius' jaw slackens. She drops the last bits on the floor and grinds them under her foot. "Right. So… Your place, or mine?"

"What?"

"Mine it is. You'll have to excuse the mess. I wasn't expecting company." With her wand she draws a rectangle on the wall of cabinets facing them, and within the boundaries of her lines, a panel of reflective glass appears. She takes Sirius' hand again and drags him through the mirror, only to stumble a split-second later into a cramped, dim living room. The stench of stale alcohol permeates the place, which makes sense, as Sirius' eyes fall on about fifty or so empty or half-empty wine bottles strewn about the floor. Something squirms under his foot, and he jumps up in fright as the rat scurries on, only to be incinerated by V's quick reflexes. He thinks briefly on the fact that she just used the killing curse to snuff a rat, but tries not to dwell on it.

"Now then." V reaches behind her neck and unclasps the necklace. She holds it before her for a moment before handing it over to Sirius. He winces as it falls into his hand. "Ah, I feel lighter already." She sighs. "Shall we have a toast before you do the deed?" She peers around at the bottles at her feet, finds two that are roughly half full, and hands one to Sirius. He sniffs it apprehensively, but after observing V take a generous swig, he does as well. He's probably dead anyway, so what harm could it really do? He staggers back, the wine going straight to his brain. Wow. That's powerful stuff… He looks at the label and blinks about a dozen times.

"1437? You just have 500-some-odd-year-old bottles of wine just lying around then?"

"This is my grandfather's apartment. I took the liberty of helping myself to his wine cellar. It would be a crime to let it go to waste." V smiles and takes another swig. "This one's from 1666. A very good year."

"Ah. Right. Of course." Sirius laughs. "Are you sure…you really want me to kill you, right? You can change your mind, you know, at any time." Sirius surveys her apprehensively.

"Oh, don't tell me you like me now." V rolls her eyes. "Although, that wouldn't really be a recent development, would it?" She smiles devilishly. Sirius crushes his fist around the necklace, scowling.

"You're wrong. I'm a good person." Sirius shouts. "That's all."

"You could be a bad person." She sets her bottle on the floor and takes a step closer. He stands still, breath shallow, bones of solid stone. "If you wanted to." She whispers, her lips just brushing his ear. He shudders. Her hand clasps around the fist he's made. "But it's not really bad, is it? If it's for…"

"The greater good." Sirius spits, turning his head sharply to face her straight on, their noses mere centimeters apart. "I'm not a murderer."

"This isn't murder." V says softly. "It's freedom." She plants a very soft, very light kiss on Sirius' lips. His knees weaken and threaten the stability of his entire posture. When he tries to kiss her again, she steps away, that infuriating smile on her face. "Please, Sirius."

"How am I supposed to do this then?" He asks, breathless.

"I think this'll do." V walks to the mantle and takes down a small brass gavel. "Just give it a whack." She hands the instrument to Sirius and he drops it on the floor, yelping in pain, a long red scar appearing on his palm from where he tried to grasp the handle. "Sorry. Ok…Use this." She goes into the kitchen and returns with an oven mitt. Sirius slips the oven mitt over his hand and picks up the gavel again. He then drops the necklace on the coffee table, kneels down, and, after gauging the heft of the instrument and the force he thinks necessary to bestow, he lets the thing slam down on the pendant.

There's a deafening shriek that seems far away and all encompassing all at once, and the two are surrounded in a cloud of thick black smoke. Sirius coughs violently, dropping the gavel on the ground and batting the air with the oven mitt. The smoke clears and V has collapsed on the couch. Sirius rushes over to her and shakes her arm, but she doesn't respond. He searches for a pulse in her neck, but there is none.

"V? Hey, come on. What do I do now? We didn't…you didn't tell me what happens next! If you're dead, am I alive? Are you more dead? Can you be deader than dead? Tell me!" Sirius whines, looking helplessly around the strange, filthy apartment. "Bloody hell." He slumps on the floor next to the couch and lays his head back on the cushion, staring up at the ceiling. "And I still don't know where on earth I am…"

"You're in Hell." Says a whisper in his ear. He whips his head to the left to see two black eyes blinking back at him.

"You! You…You're not…Oh my God…" Sirius gasps, clutching his hand to his chest. Silently, she sits up on the couch, stretching her limbs, letting out a big yawn. Sirius remains on the floor, blinking up at her. She then slips down beside him, looking deep into his eyes. "So what are we then? Dead still?" Sirius stammers. V shakes her head slowly, places her hand on his thigh, and leans in to kiss him. There's something different about her kiss, Sirius notices, although he'd be embarrassed to admit it…because it is a very good kind of different. Unlike anything he's ever experienced before. The only thing he can liken it to is that one time he and James ran into that muggle farmer's electric fence by accident while playing Quidditch. His hair stood on end for weeks afterward.

"And now, my end of the bargain." She says softly, her hand inching higher on his thigh, her lips upon his again. Oh…he's done for. "Where would you like to go? I can take you anywhere in the world. Just name it."

"Um…uh…" Sirius stammers. "Back to the Order. Back to Grimmauld Place."

"Back to your parents' house?" She smiles. "Well…that's the last place I'd want to go, but…It's your life…"