"Everything Has A Price" A fan fiction by: Raven Wehmeier

**Standard Disclaimers apply* I do not own Sirius Black. He is owned by J.K. Rowling.**

The voices; sadly they whispered in the darkness of lives long lost. I walk among them now, lost within this confusing dark, everlasting black depths of the eternal dead. I fell through the veil. It could have been avoided, but everything has a price.

He was my godson. I wasn't about to sit idly back in that old house, listening to the portrait of my mother screaming and yelling her hatred of me while Harry was in trouble. Moony insisted I stay; that I remain and wait for news. But, no, I couldn't stay. Not when Voldemort was so close to my godson. The godson who looked so much like his father. The godson that kept me anchored to the world and sanity.

But everything has a price.

I knew that long before I even stepped foot out of that house, much to my mother's approval. Kreacher had been overjoyed, smiling something fiercely triumphant. I suspected him then, but there was no time to deal with him. I had to save Harry. I had to keep Voldemort from killing off the only living person that I had left in this world that was even relatively close to family.

But everything has a price. I just didn't know what the price was going to be. Oh, I had an idea; but I hadn't expected exactly what had happened.

We'd arrived just in the nick of time; Moony, Mad-eye, Tonks, Dumbledore and I. Harry was so close to being killed when we dove into the fray. Bellatrix and I engaged in a fight almost immediately. She wasn't as strong as she used to be and I seemed to have been handling her with ease. Until that paralyzing curse struck me at top blank speed at the dead center of my chest.

I felt a numbing cold seeping into my veins first, then the loss of feeling in every limb. I realized then my mistake. I'd let her get a curse in on me while my guard was slightly down.

Everything has a price.

It felt like decades before I realized I was falling backwards; falling back through the veil and through the archway beyond. I heard screaming seconds before I feel through; heard Remus shouting for Harry to stay put. I could see, I could hear, but I couldn't move. Nothing could be done.

I could feel nothing and couldn't move my lips in order to answer Harry's pleas. I felt my heart pumping rapidly in my heaving chest, felt the color drain from my cheeks as I had realized what had actually happened. I'd fallen beyond the veil. And as I let that sink in I realized the price that had to be paid in order for Harry to survive.

I wanted to cry out to him that I was all right, but the effects of the curse hadn't worn off yet. And when they finally did, they had long since disappeared from the Department of Mysteries and the room containing the Veil.

Now I stand within the void, those that are truly dead walking around me, as oblivious to my presence as among them as Dumbledor had been two years ago when I had escaped Azkaban and had been roaming the grounds of Hogwarts to keep an eye on Harry and my prey.

At one point, I had thought that Harry would figure things out. That he would stumble upon the secrets of the veil that would ultimately lead to getting me the hell out of here! And now, considering how much time has passed.

Everything has a price. I understand that now. And I accept it. Harry and his friends are safe, for now. I can only hope that soon I will be released back into the world where I belong. The chilling cold is almost unbearable. Maybe not to those already dead in here, but I'm still alive. As far as I know anyway. I still have a pulse and I still have my natural tanned color to my skin.

I don't want to die here. But, I may already be dead. Oh Harry, please, please figure this out. I love you and want to be able to watch over you as your parents wanted me to. Get me out of here!

Everything Has A Price.

~~FIN~~