I DISCOVERED A FLAW! So this is just a fixed version of the chapter and it makes it a little bit worse, but at least it's canon. Just because I am WAY to lazy to try to fix it so it's only a little better and canon. so now it's a little bit worse and ... canon. yes, ahem.

So please forgive me, but with all these stupid AP classes and grrrr... french i really have no time to make this any better, but now it makes sense. and please read the new chapter and review, cuz that makes me happy.

THANK YOU TO NBKWRITTER, A.K.A. PADFOOT, FELLOW MARAUDER AND CO-CREATOR OF THE MARAUDER'S MAP, FOR THE INSIGHT OF SIRIUS BLACK'S PSYCHE.

One year later.

Sirius sat alone at the table in the Order of the Phoenix Headquarters. He had made himself a cup of tea to have something to do, but he couldn't find any mugs, so he watched as he swirled the last drops of his drink, disturbing the settled dregs at the bottom of his glass.

There was a small pop in the other room, and Freya soon walked into the kitchen as Sirius drained his tea, looking pale, tired and disheveled.

"Oh!" she said at seeing Sirius sitting at the table. "I was expecting you'd be home by now."

He shook his head. "I left Remus a note saying I'd be out. He'll be gone all night, anyway, so it doesn't really matter."

"Why?"

Sirius looked out the window towards the beaming full moon. James said he's stay with Remus this time. "He said he had something to do," lied Sirius. Snapping his head to look at Freya, who was standing uncomfortably in the doorway, he said, "There's still some tea, if you want any."

"That would be great, actually, thanks," she said, walking shyly over to a teapot still on the stove. She opened a cupboard and pulled out a thick, red mug, stared at it, set it back in the cupboard, then got out a thinner one decorated with strawberries.

Sirius frowned. He hadn't looked in that cupboard.

Freya walked over and sat down with her tea across the table from Sirius.

There was an awkward silence between the two before she inhaled rapidly and said, "Have you ever been cubed?"

Sirius looked up. "Cubed?"

"Yeah."

"As in… what?"

"Well, I can't tell you until you do it. You agree?"

"Uh… sure."

"OK, so, as I tell you what to imagine, tell me what you're seeing, OK?"

Sirius nodded.

"Now, I want you to close your eyes, and lose everything around you. Everything I say is just another image appearing in your head. You're not here. You are now in a desert."

His desert wasn't there when he closed his eyes. When he closed his eyes, all he saw was black. So he turned his attention to his tea leaves.

Looking into the dregs at the bottom of his glass, he saw a desert emerge. And he spoke.

"Well, there's this single palm tree in the middle of an island surrounded by a … small moat. The water looks kind of chaotic, and there's no way on. There's no way off. The … sand on the island is a somewhat iridescent clear, lit from inside… but with no actual … colour. The sand on the other side of the moat is … black. Just the blackest … black you can imagine. Almost … empty."

"Now, in your desert, there is a cube."

Sirius paused and jerked his head up to look at Freya, his trance broken.

"A cube?"

She nodded.

Resuming his calmness, Sirius looked back into his glass and told her what he saw. "OK, so, so the cube is made of fire, and there's not a flame or spark that escapes the cube … at all. But there's a small plume of smoke coming from the topmost corner, because it's balancing on the opposite corner on top of the palm tree. It's fairly big. About the size of … a large … cauldron. It's rotating slowly." He looked up at Freya. "Counterclockwise." He gazed back down.

In the background of his mind, as if her voice wasn't there, Freya said, "Now add a ladder."

"There's a ladder leaning on the side of the tree, and it just barely touches the cube."

"How many rungs?"

"There's only four." Sirius frowned all of a sudden as if he didn't like what he saw.

"What?" asked Freya.

"The – the top rung! It's disintegrating!" Freya looked at him questioningly. "There's like this … I can't … just this … trickle of … of sand coming from the middle of the rung. It's brown. It's the same colour as the ladder, but … it's turning black and it's … it's staining my clear sand." He looked up at her sadly again. "It's like a blemish in … perfection."

"OK, Sirius, I want you to add a horse."

He tried closing his eyes, concentrating only on his desert. "It's, a flying horse. And it's going away from me. This … white, beautiful, prize horse with wings. It's circling above me like a … a vulture or … or an angel. But it keeps going up."

"Can you add a storm?"

"It's just a simple shower. The horse is ignoring it, though. In fact, it's almost … smiling, or … or laughing or something. But it's helping the ladder disintegrate. It's only over the island, though. It doesn't hit the moat or the black sand across it." He chuckled. "It's making the cube sizzle … but it's turning the sand black."

"Now, somewhere in the desert, there are flowers. Can you see flowers?"

Sirius laughed quietly to himself, as if trying to fight back tears. He whispered. "There are no flowers." Then he said something Freya would never forget for the rest of her life. "How could there be any flowers?" He lifted his heavy head to look into her green eyes. His own were red and swollen.

Freya put her hand on his cheek, looking at him and seeing him in a completely new light. There lips came closer together when she started to smell something.

"Do – sniff – do you smell that?" she asked.

Sirius blinked.

They both got up, following their noses to the burning smell. It led them to the oven. Staring at each other, Freya pulled it open, and they both comically bent over to see what was burning inside. Using her wand, Freya levitated the charred object onto the counter.

It had been a woolen sock.

Sirius sighed, filled his glass with water, the remnants of his tea floating aimlessly as he dumped them on top of the glowing sock. He set his glass mindlessly on the edge of the counter, and as he turned around to leave the kitchen, it slipped and shattered.

He didn't notice it. Freya just watched him quietly close the door.

At that moment, Dumbledore silently became visible in a corner of the kitchen, sitting on one of the counters. He climbed down and stood next to Freya, who was still staring at the closed door.

"Professor?" she said.

"Yes, Freya?"

"You know how people say that no man's an island?"

"Well, I can believe that it's true, yes."

"His destruction has made himself one."