I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling owns this Magical world. I'm merely borrowing it to entertain myself, and hopefully, others.

Chapter 23: Answers and Questions

Harry stood outside the door to the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's office, Hermione, Ron and Ginny surrounding him. They had decided to come with Harry to collect the professor and take her to see the Room of Requirement, figuring that the sooner they decided on a location, the sooner they could get the Defense Association up and running.

But as they had approached they had heard the distinctive sound of raised voices issuing through the crack in the door. They stopped, looking at each other uncertainly. Harry lifted his hand, then paused in mid-knock.

"...was not over-reacting, you just can't understand." Professor Lanya was saying angrily.

They glanced around as the other voice became recognizable as Snape's.

"You may be surprised at what I can understand, Professor Lanya." He replied in a silky, sarcastic voice. "But all this over a book?"

Professor Lanya said something in Hungarian that would probably translate to a very nasty word. "That's not all there is to it!"

"Such language," Snape purred.

"Don't you talk to me about..." She cut herself off, "You speak Hungarian?" she said curiously.

"Igenis." He replied haughtily.

"That surprises me." She said in a ruminative tone of voice.

"We're getting off the topic." He reminded her sharply.

Harry could almost hear her grinding her teeth. "You are the most..." She seemed to be searching for the word. "...infuriating man, Severus." She finally told him in resignation. "The point is, if Karsis is USED..." At this point she stopped.

This was most likely because, at the sound of the name Karsis, Harry had moved closer to the door to hear more clearly. In doing so, his shoe scuffed against the ground. Not loudly, but Professor Lanya had an Auror's trained senses.

A moment later the door to the office was flung open, and a very displeased looking Professor Lanya was standing silhouetted in the light from her office, Snape standing some distance behind her and scowling daggers at the students standing in the hall.

"Potter..." He began, his tone of voice threatening lecture, death, detention, but Lanya forestalled him.

She forced a smile that almost didn't look forced. "Oh, Harry, I am glad you came to see me so quickly, Ron, Hermione." She paused at Ginny, whom she hadn't yet had for class, and Harry provided her name. "Ginny, very pleased, I am. But I am afraid I am being very much distracted tonight. Will you come back tomorrow, yes?"

"Certainly, Professor." Hermione said, beginning to herd the others away.

The door slammed shut before they left the pool of light the green lamp inside the office threw upon the stones of the hallway.

They waited until they had taken their regular chairs near the fireplace before they even took the time to look astonished.

"Surely it can't be the same one." Ron said finally.

Hermione thought a moment before replying. "I think, I think that it must be. Remember, Professor Snape said something about a book, then, not a minute later, Professor Lanya said Karsis."

"But Karsis doesn't exist." Ginny protested, "It's just a legend, a fairytale for people who have lost someone."

"All legends have a basis in fact, you should know that, Ginny." Hermione told her, very gently. Ginny paled and sunk back in her chair. But she nodded. Hermione reached over and squeezed her hand.

"What was it that Sarven said?" Ron asked, oblivious or pretending to be. "There was something about a book that said it was real?"

Hermione looked impressed that he had remembered. "I think this just confirms it."

Harry, meanwhile, was listening with half an ear, saying nothing to the subject of conversation while his mind worked furiously.

A book that could bring back the dead. A book that could bring Sirius back to him, alive, well, whole. It was almost too much for the mind to comprehend. And if he could bring back Sirius, would it be impossible to bring back his parents? Could he finally have them with him, after all these years? Could he have a family again?

He stared hard into the fire, feeling distant from the voices around him, though they buzzed about him like an insect that is too insistent to be ignored.

He suddenly wanted Durry, wishing he had his small furry self curled up against his neck, purring in his ear. He wanted that link to Sirius. Perhaps then this would feel more real, more tangible.

"Do you think it's really possible?" He said suddenly, startling his friends by breaking in where they had been talking of something else, though were still on the same subject, and had already gone over this.

Hermione frowned at him worriedly. "Well, like I said, pretty much anything is possible." She apparently didn't like the look in his eyes, though he was sure she could not see beneath the mask he had firmly in place to hide his desperate hope.

Some time later, Harry lay in his bed, the curtains drawn and Durry snuggled securely against his chest. Near his toes, absorbing the warmth of his feet, Cord was curled in a loose coil.

He answered Ron's concerned, "Harry, are you all right, mate?" With an intentionally sleepy sounding grunt, not wanting his friend to think that he was ignoring him.

His mind was still reeling with hope and the thought of dashed hopes. Even if the Book of Karsis existed, how could he even get his hands on it? He didn't think he could, and the thought of having the means to get Sirius back, but not having access to it drove him to the point of distraction.

He rolled over, taking Durry with him and being careful not to disturb the snake curled up at his feet. As he made himself comfortable again, he suddenly thought about one other time that something that had so taken up his thoughts that he could barely think of anything else.

The Mirror of Erised. It had showed the person who looked into it their greatest desire. When he had first looked into it he had seen his family surrounding him. The last time he had seen himself finding the Philosopher's Stone.

He wondered what he would see in it if he had it before him right at this moment. Would he see Sirius standing at his side, or would he see himself holding a book, an ancient moldering, musty tome, reading the incantation, and knowing his fondest desire would soon be fulfilled. Then he would no longer need to look in the mirror to see his family standing around him.

Unconsciously, he shook his head into his pillow. He also remembered what Dumbledore had told him, while they both sat upon the floor by the mirror. He shouldn't let himself be eaten up by an obsession of something he could not have.

It would be easier, he thought, once he again had the Defense Association to occupy his mind, and once the homework started rolling in. Then he could fill his mind with other things and would not be as able to dwell on it.

He tried to empty his mind, as Snape had told him to do, as Lupin had asked him to do. He rolled over on his back, again taking Durry with him, though this time Durry wriggled in protest at being moved again.

He stared up at the top of his bed, shadowed in draperies. He willed his mind to be like those shadows, empty.

After an interminable time, the blankness came, but in sleep rather than in meditation.

He sat in the common room, ensconced in his favorite overstuffed armchair before the fire. The hearth was blazing, the flames flickering and painting jumping shadows across the wooden floor. He was in his pajamas and dressing gown, his slippered feet stretched out towards the warmth of the fire.

He was watching and waiting for something. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew that if he sat there long enough, watched hard enough, then what he wanted to appear would come. It felt as though he had been waiting there for a very long time, not daring to blink so as not to miss a thing in the colors of the fire.

After what seemed like hours and again hours, though he knew it must not be for the fire would have died down and the light of dawn would have started tinting the horizon outside the window. Something appeared.

At first it only seemed like a particularly large shadow, rotating in the depths of the flame. Then it became larger and larger, and in the space of a second, became Sirius, stepping out of the grate.

He looked as young as Harry, though there was also a particularly ageless quality to his face, as though he could be any age he wanted to the eyes of others. There was not a speck of soot on him, as though he had only left the bath rather than the hearth. His eyes were unhaunted, his face full and happy.

Harry found himself unable to speak, though he felt the burning rise of tears in his throat.

Sirius sat down in the chair across from him. He did not dent the cushions, as though his form held no weight. He shook back his shoulder-length hair and lounged back, as though it were perfectly natural for him to be there in the common room of his old house.

It would have been perfectly natural but for the fact that he should not be there. It would have been perfectly wonderful but for the fact that he could not be there.

Harry finally found his voice. "Sirius..."

As though that were a cue, Sirius sat forward, his eyes intent on Harry. "You must do what she cannot." He said, his voice sounding less solid than he looked.

Harry felt like screaming in frustration. "What does that MEAN?!"

A sudden weight in his lap drew his attention down. There, across his legs, was a medium sized tome, bound in dark leather. The words on the front were written in runes that he could not read, gold and peeling. They glittered heavily in the firelight.

He opened the book to find words, though also in familiar runes, that he could nonetheless understand. He began to read them, but the book slammed shut suddenly, making him jump. It flew up off his lap and over his head.

Finding that he could move, he leapt out of his seat and whirled to see where it had gone.

It sat, the runes still gleaming with an odd oily light, in the small, slender hands of a small figure, robed. Though the hood was up, it slid back far enough to reveal delicate, shadowed features and glittering, golden, curly hair.

The face, though shadowed, was clearly and terribly tormented, as though this woman was wearing on her face what Harry felt on the inside.

She pressed the book against her chest with one hand, and reached out the other, beckoning. Harry turned again, and saw that Sirius had stood, looking at the woman, his eyes terribly sad.

"You must do what she cannot, Harry. You must." Sirius said again. Then he turned away, moving back towards the fireplace.

It was then that Harry noticed that the fire was out, the familiar mantle had turned into something far more terrifying.

The arch stood unsupported in place of the fireplace of the Gryffindor common room. In place of the fire, there was only a rippling gray veil. From behind this veil, within the arch, Harry could hear quiet murmurs, warnings and welcomes.

As Harry stared, the sun suddenly blazed in through the windows, too quickly. Harry squinted, trying to protect his eyes from the glare with one arm.

When his eyes finally adjusted, Sirius was gone, and only the arch and the rippling veil remained. That, and the murmuring voices, one rising above the rest. "You must, Harry, you must."

He spun around, and the woman was gone as well, taking the book with her.

"No," He whispered, "No, no, no! NO!" He cried. "Not again, Sirius! Don't leave me again!" He tried to throw himself at the veil, but found an invisible barrier blocking his way. "Sirius! Sirius!"

He woke, tears streaming down his face, Durry purring soothingly against his chest, his fur pale gray. "Durry," He whispered. "Do you think sometime, he won't disappear on me?"

Durriken, even if he knew the answer, was not going to be giving it to Harry any time soon. Knowing that, Harry resigned himself to attempting for sleep full of unresolved questions.

Please, please, please, review!