Mourning
By
Aeriel Ravenna
Rating: G
Summary: —If you haven't read OotP yet, don't finish this summary and go read! Harry, on the one year anniversary of Sirius' death, visits the Veil that stole his godfather and begins closing the gap between his friends. One-Shot, and better than it sounds, I think.
A / N : I just finished re-reading Order of the Phoenix, and this came spilling out. It may be weird or odd or whatever, but, well, I miss Sirius! He at least deserves a one-shot in his honor. I hope you like it—it was real bizarre writing it. I hope it's okay!
Harry's eyes burned, and his mouth was dry. He was lying awake on his bed. He wasn't aware that he had ever fallen asleep, actually, but he did not feel tired, nor refreshed. His clock stroke seven, and he rose as the other boys did, pulling on his jeans and robes silently.
He turned to leave his dorm. He would not be eating breakfast today, no, nor would he be attending classes. He noticed that Ron wasn't in his bed, but couldn't bring himself to care very much.
When he reached the bottom of the staircase, he saw that Ron and Hermione were the only people there. He felt relieved, yet very tense—he didn't want to talk about it, not today, no…
"Harry," said Hermione, her eyes bright with tears. "Oh, Harry..." she pressed her arms gently around him. He stood stiffly at first, unsure how to respond, but gradually relaxed and allowed her to embrace him. She was sobbing, now, into his chest, he noticed, and people were beginning to stream down the staircases and through the common room, all of them looking oddly at the three of them. Ron was patting Harry's back awkwardly, looking embarrassedly sorrowful—Ron had never dealt well with emotion.
"Harry," Hermione said again, sniffling. She brought her right hand up, and Harry saw with a jolt that she was carrying a large bouquet. He was unsure how he hadn't noticed.
"Bring this to him, please? I—I want—oh…just, bring them?" she said, her voice breaking and tears streaming anew down her face. Harry suddenly felt a rush of love toward the girl, who seemed to be the only one mourning.
Ron patted him on the back again. Poor, bumbling Ron, never quite sure what was right and what was wrong. Harry felt a muted stream of regret that he had not let these two people who cared for him most stay close. He had pushed them away, pushed away anyone who might care, anyone who he might care for, and now he paid the price.
"I'll bring them," he heard his voice respond and saw his hand grasp the bouquet, but he was only faintly aware of actually doing it. The bouquet was gigantic, and filled with understated flowers surrounding one white rose. Harry thought he had never seen such beautiful blossoms. "I'd better go," he said.
"You…you go get 'em, tiger," said Ron, trying very hard not to fidget. Harry appreciated his effort, although the phrase was entirely wrong for the occasion. People had stopped milling around them, now. Harry nodded to Ron and turned to leave.
He turned at the Portrait hole to look back. "Thanks, guys," he said. "Thanks. And—"
"We love you, Harry," said Hermione, who still had tears streaming down her face, now silently. He nodded, and his lips turned up in the closest semblance of a smile that he had come close to in months.
"I'm sorry I pushed you away," he said, still not moving.
"We forgive you." It was Ron who spoke this time, Hermione nodding violently. Harry nodded back and climbed out the portrait hole.
The castle seemed darker today. Now, without his friends to distract him, he felt the empty, raw pain grasping at his heart. His feet unconsciously followed the right path.
Two corridors and a staircase away from his destination, he bumped—physically—into a man with lank, greasy hair and a hooked nose. Harry felt his throat block up. No longer did he feel anger or rage or even hatred for this man. It was hard looking at him, though, for the memories always came rushing back…
"Er—Potter," said Severus Snape awkwardly. "Shouldn't you be at breakfast?"
"Have you forgotten the date, Professor?" Thankfully, his voice did not break, though it was clumsy and strained. The professor's brow wrinkled, for a nanosecond, in thought. Then, as clearly as a veil, recognition descended upon him.
Snape, who had lost his edge toward Harry, nodded. "On your way, then." Harry did not bother to respond and kept walking the dimly lit halls. His heart was empty, but full, his throat closed but open, his mind broken but shatteringly intact. He didn't know how he felt anymore. Everything had blended together in a spinning wheel of nothingness.
His emotions had become a palate of colors. He had painted them, himself, on the too-small canvas, one over another over another, until the colors had melded together, indistinguishable, into a green-red-blue-grey-yellow brown.
He stopped only when he reached the stone gargoyle.
"Ice Mice," he said, quietly. The gargoyle leaped away and Harry headed into Dumbledore's office.
Minerva McGonagall was there when he entered, speaking softly to Dumbledore, her eyes slightly red. She had clearly remembered the date. Dumbledore saw Harry, patted Professor McGonagall on the back gently, and whispered something in her ear that made her rise.
He was right in the middle of the exit path. Her eyes softened when she reached him, and reached out a quavering hand, as if to put it on his shoulder, but then thought better of it. "Stay strong, Harry, for all of us." She whispered, and then was gone.
"Ready, Harry?" came the quiet voice of Dumbledore. Harry looked up from his feet, between which there was a small sliver of silver instrument. Harry wondered vaguely if it was from his last attack on Dumbledore's office last year, a year and a day ago exactly, or if it was the result of some other enraged student.
"Yeah," he said softly. Dumbledore glanced at the bouquet in Harry's hand. "It's from Hermione," he said. Dumbledore smiled sadly.
"I should have known," he said. The twinkle in his eye was almost extinguished, he noticed, and he suddenly felt an urge to get it back, to make Dumbledore look younger again, to make him happy and more carefree as he had in first year.
Dumbledore took a pinch of floo-powder from a small ceramic mug beside the fireplace and threw it into the flames cracking in the hearth. "Ministry of Magic, Minister's office, London," he said clearly and pushed Harry gently into the fire first. Harry tucked in his elbows and closed his eyes, waiting for the nauseous feeling to fade and for his traveling to be over.
Finally, the spinning stopped with a halt, and Harry climbed out of the fireplace in Cornelius Fudge's office.
"Ah, Harry," said Fudge, grinning. "Right on time, old chap,"
"Yes," said Harry dully. Dumbledore suddenly unfolded himself from the fireplace, too.
"Cornelius," he said briefly, with a nod. "I thank you for this small favor,"
"Ah, no more than what the Boy-who-Lived deserves!" said Fudge jovially. Harry wondered why he was so happy, on such a sad day, and while a war on evil was raging. Must be a Cheering potion, he thought lifelessly.
"We will be off, then," said Dumbledore, steering Harry to the door. "Good day,"
"And you, and you!" Cried Fudge, before Harry closed the door.
Harry and Dumbledore walked side by side in silence to the lift. Harry snuck edgy looks in the lift at the workers who were there. Each got off, one by once, until finally—"Department of Mysteries," said the cool, monotonic female voice. Harry walked swiftly out of the lift as soon as the grilles gave way.
He was not very aware of striding down the hall to the blank, black door. He was at it in what seemed to be seconds, and was about to open the door when Dumbledore stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
"Harry," he said gently. "I will direct you to the right room once we get inside. I will be waiting outside, of course, and anti-Apparating charms will be on the room, as well as some other wards. I do not expect an attack, but I warn you, be ready," Harry nodded. "Here, before we go in—drink this, my boy,"
He held out a vial containing a green, slimy-looking substance. Harry took it, and, trusting the old Headmaster, drank deeply of it.
Harry had expected it to taste horridly. Instead, it tasted oddly nutty and refreshing, although the texture was rather crawly and unpleasant. He looked at Dumbledore quizzically.
"It's a Will-Strengthening Potion, Harry," Dumbledore said. "There are temptations—" he broke off. "Come." He said finally and Harry turned the doorknob.
It was exactly as he remembered it, but there were guards—Unspeakables, he was sure—around the doors, all dozen or so of them. They seemed to be expecting him for they were not perturbed or startled by his entry. One or too nodded at them, and Dumbledore nodded back graciously.
Dumbledore steered Harry toward a door to the left. "Here, Harry," he said gently and the Unspeakable stepped aside. Harry reached for the doorknob, hand shaking, and turned it.
One of the stone steps was still broken. The arch was still standing, and the black veil was still fluttering in some non-existent breeze. There was still a faint whispering.
Harry stepped into the room.
The door closed behind him.
He took a hesitant step down, his heart pounding. He felt like it was about to explode.
He made it to the third step down before breaking down into furious sobs. "Sirius…Sirius," he groaned. "Why….why now…Sirius.."
He felt like he was drowning in sorrow. Everything came rushing at him and he stumbled down the stairs, keening in pain. He hadn't let this out for a year. It was bottled inside him, and now he was stumbling down the stairs and he was on the dais and why, Sirius why I need you I need him he was the closest I came to a dad.
The veil was right in front of him. It wasn't like before, cramped for time and being called by the odd force that emanated from the scrap of lace. He could see it for what it was—a crumbling, ruined old arch with a tattered curtain. He suddenly wanted to break it down, snap the twiggy, pathetic old stone pillars that held it up, rip the veil, melt the headstone.
He knew he couldn't, and probably wouldn't do it anyway. What he also knew was that he had lost the person closest to a brother, father—a family—in that archway. And he couldn't forget it.
He went as close to the archway as he dared. He placed the bouquet at the foot of it, then thought better of it and pulled out a marigold, still smelling sweetly, and, gathering all his courage, chucked it through the arch. It didn't hit the back wall—it simply disappeared. Harry choked a sob back.
Harry, hesitant, put an ear close to the stone. The whispering was louder, but he strained to understand it. Could they hear him? Could Sirius hear him?
"Sirius?" he whispered back. "Sirius?"
Perhaps it was his imagination, or his grief, or even his desperation—but he thought, perhaps, he heard the gruff, rasping murmur of his godfather.
"Sirius," he said, more loudly. The whispering seemed more furious, torrential. Angry, even. Harry dropped to his knees, and the pain of the hard stone beneath him seemed nothing to the ache of his heart.
"Sirius, dammit, come back. Sirius—it's not over yet, Sirius, come back. Jesus Christ, I miss you so bad. It was the wrong time—the—wrong—time, Sirius," his mumbling fading. He pressed his head against the floor by the archway and tried to look through to see the arch. He saw only the wall behind it.
He was still lying there, wide awake, three and a half hours later, when Dumbledore came to get him. He was silent on the return trip home, and Dumbledore did not coax him into speaking, nor did he waste time on petty condolences. Fudge was not in his office, wither, which was a relief to the noiseless boy. He muttered "Gryffindor Tower," and that was the total of his words.
When he stepped into the warm common room, Ron was asleep on the couch and Hermione was reading a worn tome, eyes looking very red and sniffling slightly. She looked up upon his soft step, and gave him a wavering smile.
She did not stop him until he had placed his foot on the first step up to his dorm.
"Harry?" she said, so softly that he wasn't sure she meant for him to hear. "Are you going to be alright?"
He felt the need to answer her. "Some day," he said, heavily. His voice croaked from hours of non-use. "Some day, with you and Ron beside me. I just—god, I miss him. I don't know how to get through the final battle without knowing that he'll be waiting for me—hell, even with the training I don't know that I'll get through it. Sometimes it all builds up in my mind and I cant see how I'm going to remember this flick, this incantation, this charm, for it." he said. This was the most he had said to her for a while. He was getting off the subject of Sirius now, he knew it, but he couldn't stop worrying about it.
"Harry," came Hermione's voice. "It's like this. One summer, I took it into my head to learn golf, just like my father. It seemed impossible while he was teaching me—as soon as I got a hold right, my footing was wrong. As soon as my footing was right, I couldn't et enough pressure, or too much, or whatever. I told my Daddy this, I said, 'Daddy, how am I supposed to remember all this on the greens in the middle of a competition?'
"He said to me, and I remember it quite clearly, 'Hermione, this is the practice field. Here is where you learn all of the holds, the footing, test out pressure, all of the dull parts. When you get out there, my girl, there's one thing to remember—and this is all you will need to know—just hit the damn ball.' You just need to hit the damn ball, Harry, and you can. Don't worry about it, you have enough power to do this. All I'm concerned about is whether or not you'll pull yourself far enough out of the hole you're in to actually get on the pitch," Hermione finished, slowly.
Harry stared at her after this lecture. He wasn't quite sure how to respond to it. Finally, he broke out into a small smile—small, but genuine. "Golf, Hermione? Sirius would have loved to see that."
And, for the first time in a long time, his voice didn't catch on the name.
'Hit The Damn Ball' story courtesy of my director, Kirsten, who gives kick-ass pep-speeches even when the show sucks. Review if you liked and have the time!