The date of around 8th of December it was, and its cloudless night hosted the bright full moon. Harry, Ron and Hermione had ultimately gone to sleep following a long-deserved break succeeding an intensive study time for the O.W.L.s.
However, Harry was feeling more dejected and more isolated — on top of that sullener on simply everyone as an outcome — than before for reasons not even himself knew. Just as usual, he was thrashing by the surface of the four-poster bed lest he dreamt horrible mares. But he eventually commenced to asleep though with difficulty.
Not after long did his scar throb frantically, for the who-knows-which-th time Harry had dreamed of the windowless blue-lighted corridor where a cornucopia of planets and stars were approaching. Then, the fantasy of an unreasonably irate snake-like-faced and bloody-eyed figure cropped in, and such was his groaning that enveloped his very frustration.
"Not again, not again, not again!" screamed Voldemort having presumed he had finally found the location of the thing he had been looking for. "But I thought. I thought I made it to it." And he continued and continued like that, whereas the boy yelped and yelped at the same time until...
"Harry!", said a voice absolutely not familiar to him. "Harry!" It talked again, yet louder. It did not belong to a boy or girl, neither to his own mother, but to a woman never known to him before. The scene was slowly fading amidst all the fury and screams. "HARRY!" shrieked the voice as though she tried to grab his hold to prevent him from falling down to abyss.
Harry found himself somewhere in the glade of a mainly coniferous forest nearby a medium-sized lake which reflected the light of the full moon. His scar was still throbbing, yet he couldn't dream about Voldemort at this moment.
"Who are you?" inquired Harry and his voice echoed throughout the place. He was wondering whence the voice came and how come that person knew him. Likewise, it was as though she wanted to aid him. Then, he sat on the edge pensively and beheld his own face's reflection on the water. Whatever he felt was nothing than a slightly soothing sensation considering everything that had been happening to him for a while.
"It's alright, Harry, you're in good hands now." came the woman from nowhere, more specifically from behind him, and he glanced her stepping towards him. As he raised up, the instant he turned around, for a split of second, he thought he saw his own mother, Lily. But it was a long- and black-haired woman dressed in a long immaculate, albeit plain white gown. It was obviously the spirit of a departed one. Furthermore, she looked ageless, neither young, nor old judging by her face, which presented a slightly haughty look. In addition to that, Harry felt something quite familiar, more precisely spiritually, between them, like he had known her for a long time. What captured Harry's attention, however, was her eyes that were grey and cold being met by his own bright green. They were exactly the same as Sirius's.
"Are you Sirius's mother?" asked Harry quite confused. The lady confirmed that. Mrs. Black looked nowhere like the eternally vitriolic old woman with black cap from the most likely exclusive abnormal wizarding portrait he has ever seen, who would spend much of her time screaming and screaming and direct insults about filth and scum to those not pure of blood whose slightest presence makes her go round the bend.
"I'm Walburga by the way" said Mrs. Black, "and your need for guidance in such times it was that brought me here, alongside my longstanding wish and strive to get hold of you since my death."
Then Harry went tempestuous being informed of these insolent words.
"HOW YOU WANT TO HELP ME AFTER THE WAY YOU FOOLISHLY ATTEMPTED TO STUFF SIRIUS WITH YOUR IDIOTIC PRINCIPLES? I SUPPOSE YOU HATE ME MORE THAN HIM, PERHAPS THE MOST OF EVERYONE."
Even the last matriarch of the House of Black, who had been known to be domineering and perfectionist, became quite terrified the moment she beheld him in his acrimony - another of reasons to empathise with her own grand-godson - and she became pretty undaunted after a few good seconds.
"I acknowledge that I wasn't the best mother, yet I tried and erred like many others do. You may think I loved Regulus the most of the two. No, I may have preferred him, but it's Sirius whom I actually loved more.
"It's also my and Orion's fault, Harry, that you've had to grow up with those wretched people all those years." Mrs. Black was shedding tears and sobbed.
"But what do you have to do with the Dursleys?"
"It became apparent to me that how I and Orion had treated our sons, especially Regulus, has been reflected upon you, informed Mrs. Black. "Each I saw you going through that abuse, I understood how I neglected Regulus. It is a fitting punishment for how I had been as a mother.
"I am so sorry that Lily — who was objectively better a mother than me — had got a sister like how I was once.
"Riddle — sobbed Mrs. Black terribly — has destroyed — my own — family!" cried Mrs. Black ragingly while she was having her own face covered in her palms.
"Even you know the truth about him?" inquired Harry promptly
"It was only too late when I and Orion ultimately learned what's the thing with the so-called Dark Lord - the very year before your birth. Then, we realised that wants to end not only the whole race of Muggles. But also, his entire kin.
"The Death Eaters, as I had known before, were called the Knights of Walpurgis." informed Mrs. Black.
"He named them after you?" Harry wondered. She nodded afterwards.
"It really touched my heart. Similarly, it meant an homage to the values I then adhered to." declared Mrs. Black.
"Wait, Voldemort was in love with you?" asked Harry curiously. So true was his feeling as she saw her admitting that quite grimly.
"And so was I." she said saddened. Hearing these, Harry felt nothing but revulsion at such truth.
"Good that you haven't become his Dark Lady!" grinned Harry.
At the hearing of these words, Mrs. Black turned back in the of an instant, albeit with her countenance changed from guilt-ridden to scandalised.
"Well, even you could have become the new Dark Lord", such was the snarl she said it with and she immediately pointed her right index finger towards Harry's scar, "and you still have got the chance!" continued Sirius's mother furiously. "But I know for sure you will invariably choose the right path no matter what." she concluded hopefully.
"You should bear in the mind that I am James and Lily's occasional messenger to you and Sirius." said Mrs. Black
"You are the messenger of my parents?" asked Harry enthused. "How wonderful! Now I can reach out them more straightforwardly, though still indirectly!"
"Before we part, I also have got a gift for you." after saying this, Mrs. Black embraced Harry like a son and at the same time a power inside him hitherto unknown to him was awakening, aside from receiving some dose of comfort he needed since the last summer. Owing to this, he sensed a purging inside him, both in the dream and real worlds, of much of the rage he had unwillingly encapsulated in himself and of some deep wounds he had experienced throughout his life. He felt like a little child and was shedding tears full of grief and traumatic turmoil while being coiled around by her immaterial, yet delicate arms.
He decided to start afresh and was eager to tell Ron and Hermione about that fabulous meeting that seemed so verisimilar. Therefore, the next morning he told them everything concerning this encounter.
"So that woman offered to help you?" enquired Ron
"But Harry", joined Hermione, "you know what kind of person she was in the end. You've seen how she is to Sirius and —"
"Voldemort's why she's got mad in the end" snapped Harry. "He deceived her. She lost everyone closest to her due to him, the same way he took my parents. While she was trying to do herself in by means of Avada Kedavra , a stark vision of my figure appeared in her own mind, obviously determining her not to do that and to accept what she had been living was a blatant lie.
"Unluckily, Walburga gave in to that, yet she nonetheless turned a wholly new lease of life. She finally repented and no longer believes in blood purity. The more I talked to her, the more I related to her and the more I saw Sirius in herself.
"Even if she didn't favour him, it didn't mean at all she didn't love him more of her two sons, though she failed to show that properly when she was still alive.