Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Nope, not me.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews for the last chapter - keep 'em coming!

And now The Space Between The Stars is getting translated into French! Wow! Thanks Cerulane!

This chapter is a Sirius interlude, in which (unusually for Sirius interludes, I guess!) something happens!

And remember… I have other stories on fanfiction.net as well that would like to be read… especially Cheese!

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Sirius sat up hurriedly. What the hell just happened? he thought. Looking around, one thing became apparent.

"Toto," he said under his breath, "I don't think we're in Kansas any more."

The Void-bubble had been dark, and there had been no light until that day when Sirius had fallen through and lit up his wand. But this place…

…well, it looked like the real world, only much more real than the world.

He scrambled to his feet. He seemed to be in the middle of a forest somewhere, in a glade. The trees were green and the sun beat down on his head. It felt like the middle of summer.

Am I, Sirius thought, back home?

But then he realised where, in fact, he was, and he began to run through the trees, blindly, till he got where he knew he had to go.

Godric's Hollow.

*

The last time Sirius had visited Godric's Hollow, the entire place had been a blackened ruin. He had pulled the bodies of James and Lily from the rubble, unmarked but irresistibly, inexorably dead. He had asked Hagrid - sent on Dumbledore's orders - for Harry, but Hagrid had refused. After Hagrid had left, Sirius took a shovel from the detritus of James's garden shed and began to dig.

There they lay, side by side. James and Lily Potter, their headstone read, followed by one word in Latin.

Percarus.

Much loved.

And then, after he had buried them, Sirius wept.

But now…

Now Godric's Hollow was whole again, the cheerful little cottage that he thought dwelt only in his memories. Smoke was puffing from all three chimneys, and roses, red, yellow and white, grew in the front yard, while honeysuckle and ivy crept up the walls.

Sirius went to the door, raised the knocker shaped like a stag with many-tined antlers and knocked.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

There was a moment of silence, and Sirius was about to turn away, believing it all a delusion, an illusion, when…

…with a familiar creak, the door opened.

"Come in, Sirius," a voice came from within. "We have been expecting you."

*

Blindly, numbly, Sirius followed the red-haired woman into the house. It was just as he remembered it. The place was littered with photos - photos of the Marauders, photos of Lily and her friends, Lily and James on their wedding day, baby Harry. But there were more photos now - photos of Harry growing up. There was one of him at fifteen, and Sirius, realised, numbly, that it was a picture from Grimmauld Place, and Ron and Hermione waved from the frame as well as Harry.

"Is this -" he asked.

The red-haired woman - it could not be Lily, his mind refused to accept it, smiled and did not answer. "He is waiting for you, Sirius," she said.

And Sirius felt his heart breaking as, for the first time in fifteen years, he looked on the face of James Potter, who smiled and, once more, embraced him like a brother.

"James," he murmured, his voice hoarse.

James drew back and smiled. "I've missed you, Padfoot."

Sirius cast around with his eyes. "What - what is this place?"

"This is the afterlife," James answered.

A fist of ice clenched around Sirius's heart. "Am I - dead?"

"Not unless you choose to be so," James replied. "Sit down."

Sirius sat. "So -"

"You have a choice to make, Sirius," Lily told him, taking a seat beside James.

"A - choice?"

"The place you were in is falling apart," James said.

"The Void-bubble?"

"Yes," James replied. "It was inevitable that as soon as something from the outside was drawn in - in this case, magic - it would start to collapse. Only nothingness can exist in that place, and when there is not nothing, it will fail."

"So I fell through. To the afterlife," Sirius said.

"Yes," Lily answered. "The walls are splintering and cracking."

"What will happen when they break open altogether?" Sirius asked.

"The Void will pour in and consume it," James replied. "The souls there will be lost. The wights…"

Sirius buried his face in his hands. "Sweet Merlin."

Lily put her hand on his knee. "They will welcome it, Sirius," she told him gently. "It will give them death."

"But they don't deserve to die," Sirius said hoarsely.

"They are ready to die," James said, "and death isn't so bad, really."

Sirius looked up. "But James," he said, "Regina."

"You want to save her," Lily said.

Sirius nodded. "I love her. You know that."

"I do know," Lily answered. "But her battle is hers to fight." She sighed. "Regina is powerful, Sirius, but she could never have broken open the veil for all of you. She could transport herself out, but that is all."

"She would not leave them," Sirius said desperately. "You know she would not."

Lily smiled sadly. "I know, Sirius. I know. But the choice is hers and hers alone to make."

"I have to go back to her!"

James shook his head. "It is not possible, Padfoot."

"Why not?"

"There is no way out of death for the dead," Lily told him, "though there is one for the living."

Sirius knew what she was going to say before she said it, and it almost killed him to hear it.

"It needs blood, and a man's soul," Lily said. "A great deal of each."

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