And for the second time that hour (for how could he allow himself to believe it had really been over a month), Sirius passed through the threshold of the crumbling stone archway. He had not paused to consider what might occur in that moment, but had he done so he may have anticipated a blinding flash or a thunder clap, to signify his transition from man to ghost. There was neither.
Rather, midstride, Sirius felt lightened. Considering he was being stripped of his human body, the effect was strangely not like being relieved of 170 pounds of flesh and bone, but just the lifting of a very heavy cloak, like a dentist's lead-lined x-ray blanket.
He was in the steeped stone room of the Department of Mysteries, and some debris of the recent battle remained. A torn robe here, a shattered fragment there, all looking quite abandoned and forgotten. Sirius was surprised to find that he was able to pick up the tattered corner of robe lying near his feet; he'd had a vague expectation of passing through solid objects. But as he strode to the exit, he felt very human indeed.
That changed as he left the Department of Mysteries. Once he passed through that dark door, Sirius's feet fell straight through the floor. He would have just kept sinking until he hit bedrock, had the floors of the Ministry not been sealed with an Impervious charm.
Sirius slowly lifted a foot and gingerly placed it on the illusion of a floor. He no more expected this to work than you or I would expect to be able to walk on water. But to Sirius's delight, he found that if he placed his foot just so, he'd sort of slide forward. Thus Sirius discovered the curious form of ghostly perambulation most often described as gliding.
Sirius glided forth, amused that this old dog had learned a new trick. His first agenda was to leave the Ministry and find Harry. But as he approached the lifts, he noticed a faint disturbance in the air. Heading into an open lift was a shaky, glistening column of air. Though physically no different from the air around it, looking through this column the world seemed to be drawn with a squiggly pen, like the reflecting haze of a hot summer day.
Curious, Sirius followed the disturbance on to the lift. No one seemed to notice the foggy column, nor did they notice Sirius himself. Interdepartmental memos buzzed through Sirius's head. The closed doors of the lift were mirrored, and he saw that the column did not reflect on the mirror. The fat witch next to Sirius coughed, and in the mirror he saw her rummage in her bag for a lozenge, pushing the bag away from her body and into Sirius's leg. Or what should have been his leg. For in the reflection, there was no leg there, and no Sirius.
A cool female voice spoke from nowhere. "Level three, Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes," she said, and continued to describe the various agencies and committees included in the department. Several wizards and a memo left the lift. The watery light advanced towards the door until it was surrounding an unaware young witch. The lift began to move again.
"Level three and a third, Department of Ghosts, Ghouls, and Poltergeists." Sirius had never noticed this level before. Apparently, the other wizards and witches did not notice it even now. The lift had not stopped, but the column had passed through the doors. Sirius hesitated for a moment, then followed suit.
He found himself in a vast waiting room, lined with chairs of all heights and styles. Sirius's feet sank to the floor with a more solid thud, and a feeling of human existence returned to him. A mirror behind the desk proved that he had regained his reflection.
But what sort of reflection was that! He looked like himself, yes. But he seemed to have been stamped out in a single color, a dull shade of grey, while the walls of the room were painted a revoltingly cheery pink. And with little trouble he could see right through himself to the chair behind him.
"Please take a clipboard from the desk, sir!" exclaimed the ghostly witch behind the desk. She was holding a bottle of red nail polish, and half of her left hand was painted. But as the polish dried on her fingernails, it slowly turned from the garish red of the bottle to the same grey hue of the rest of her skin.
Sirius took the clipboard back to his seat to complete. As he walked back from the desk, he looked around. The room was full of ghosts… like himself, he realized with a pang. The shimmering column of light was nowhere to be seen.
"Name," he muttered, reading the clipboard's questionnaire. "Gender. Species. DOD?"
"Date of Death," offered the ghost next to him. The ghost turned towards Sirius and tipped his lavishly plumed hat, taking most of his head with it. He looked at Sirius for a moment, then grew bug-eyed.
"Sirius Black?!"
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