a/n: I think this is the quickest I've ever posted after posting another chapter. I feel so proud! lol. Just a warning, towards the end of this chap, I get into some pretty bizarre philosophical stuff, almost none of which has factual evidence to support it, so it might be a bit mind-boggling. Please forgive me. I also just realized that I have no reference of Athena in here, like I meant to when I planned this chapter, so that'll just hafta wait till later; but trust me, she does have a point to the story and isn't just some random thing I decided to throw in.
to my reviewers:
Tania: thanx for reviewing, even though you disagree w/ me about Sirius. Its good to know that some ppl stillrespect other ppls opinions. as for your comments: 1) james was just pretending to be busy,really he was sitting in his study trying to figure out what had happened and if sirius was dead, alive, or somehwere in between...he was worried that there might be no salvation for his best friend. 2) i haven't really figured out what they were doing in the DoM, so I'm just going to write it off as a coincidnce for the moment. 3) I'm glad you liked the whole pork thing. My friends who read it just thought I was being a nut. 4) sirius was worried about what was going on, he just didn't want to bring down the good mood by bringing it up. 5)Athena refers to Umbrige (the evil taod) by her first name, because she knows it ticks her off. Umbridge thinks of it as a sign of disrespect.
Tanya J Potter and jealousofhermione14: don't worry...I'm getting sirius back to harry as soon as I (and my muse) can possibly manage...thanks for reviewing!
Patriot Girl: ironically, my name is actually Sarah...thats a bit odd,you asking me if i were a sarah clone, and my name being sarah...it kinda freaked me out. you cried?? great., now I feel bad. my friend did the same thing, and she told me its a compliment, but i still feel bad. Sirius would like to say, on his behalf that: "I sat in the back of the room, and the room was all foggy! how do you expect anyone to read the board accurately in such abominable conditions? besides...our prof. had bad handwriting" lol. and i'm sorry it sounded corny, but i need athena in the plot, otherwise, its not gonna work out quite as well...
final a/n: sorry, I won't keep you much longer, but I really liked writing this chap, so i hope you enjio!!!

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Sirius stood at the entrance to a long and winding hallway. Wand out, he slowly made his way through the hallway, suspecting that there'd be some perilous danger around every corner. He walked for sometime without any sign of life; suddenly, around the next corner, he came face to face with Bellatrix and her husband, both of them grinning sadistically. However, they seemed to not notice that Sirius was there. Puzzled, he waved his hand in front of their faces. Nothing. They must not see me, he thought to himself. He strode past the two and down the hallway. There were other Death Eaters everywhere. Malfoy, Nott, Avery, Goyle, amongst others, almost of all whom he recognized, either from school or from seeing them taken into Azkaban. He saw Wormtail, the despicable little rat, standing next to Antonin Dolohov, both of them laughing mercilessly. The pit of Sirius's stomach dropped; as far as he was concerned, happy Death Eaters was not a good sign. Turning around the next corner, he saw what amused them so much.

At his feet lay both of the Weasley twins, and not much further along, he saw the rest of their family, save Percy, Molly and Arthur, and Ron. All of them were dead. As he moved along, he saw more faces he recognized. Tonks, Mad-Eye, Mundungus and Dedalus. All members of the Order. He started moving faster through the corridor, fearing what would he seeat the end, but knowing he had to get there. He stopped paying attention to the faces he saw, though he did pick out a few here and there. McGonagall, Hagrid, Shacklebot. Soon enough he had accounted for almost everyone in the Order. Almost suddenly, he reached a large set of double doors. His heart tore as he saw who laid at thethreshold of the doors. Ron, Hermione, Arthur, and Molly. Shedding silent tears, he moved their bodies away from the doors so he could see what lay behind them, though in his heart he already knew.

He wrenched the doors open to see a flash of vivid green light. As soon as the light cleared, he saw a large vast field. Voldemort standing at the far end, Harry standing closer to the doors. Laying near Harry's feet was Dumbledore, who had obviously fallen trying to defend Harry. The light had cleared just in time to let him see Remus, standing in front of Harry as one last attempt to save him, fall helplessly to the ground in a crumpled, defeated heap. Sirius let out a gut-wrenching cry, as though he himself were dying. Voldemort let out his cruel high-pitched laugh as he saw Harry tremble with fury and greif. Mixed with his laughter was one curse, barely audible on the other end of the field. Neither of them had to hear it, though, to know what it was. Before either of them had anytime to react, a flash of green light spread across field. Harry dropped to the ground. Sirius sank to his knees, crying pitifully, holding his godson's dead body. Amidst his cries of despair that filled the air was the cold sound of Voldemort's laughter. He had won.

Sirius woke up, still crying. This wasn't the first of dreams like this, but this was the worst, the most graphic and vivid. Sitting up, he rested his head on his knees, trying to erase the images of Harry and Remus dying. In all the dreams he had recently, he had just seen the dead bodies of members of the Order, typically people he hadn't known as well. The nightmare he had just a couple nights before, he had seen all of the order, save Dumbledore, dead. Every time, however, he noticed just one other person was missing, it was the same with this past dream. In every dream, every single one, he was not there. He was still alive, James and Lily had assured him of that, and yet he wasn't there to defend those he cared about.

He knew what the meaning of the dreams, or nightmares rather, were. He needed to go back. He didn't belong here, no matter how much he liked it. He wasn't going to sit around and idle his time away when there were others that he cared about risking their neck by fighting the good fight. With a heavy sigh, he rolled out of bed and headed downstairs. He needed to talk to James.

He found James in his study, his head resting on his hand, pouring over some book. He looked some much like Remus that he couldn't help but laugh. James looked up and smiled.

"You couldn't sleep either, I take it," Sirius said, sitting down across from James, propping his feet up on the desk.

James looked at Sirius as though he were nuts, which he probably was. "It's 11:37 in the morning, mate. I've been up forover two hours," he said, still smiling.

"Oh, well then..."

There was a brief silence between them, something that didn't happen often. Well, I may as well just dive into it...here goes nothing, Sirius thought to himself, before breaking the silence and saying, "James, I need to go back. I don't belong here."

James sighed and looked back up at Sirius. "I know. Why do you think that I've been in here so often lately? I've been trying to find a way for you to get back."

"Wait– you already knew that I wanted– needed– to go back?"

"Sirius, I can read you like a book. Better than, actually. It's obvious you've been sleeping weird, and so I just figured that you conscience was bothering you. Telling you that you needed to be back with the living, where you can do something useful, instead of sitting around eating my food."

"But you don't need to eat."

"That doesn't mean I don't want to."

Sirius laughed. "So, when am I going back home?"

"You're not yet."

"But didn't you just say–"

"I said I was looking for a way, Padfoot, not that I had found one," James said, laughing.

"Well, why don't we just knock me out and shove me back through the Veil? That's how I got here."

"Because all that would do is leave you on the other side of the Veil here. Experiments have been done, to see if people could go back through the Veil the way they came. And never once has it worked."

"There is a way, though, right? I'm not going to be stuck here for time and all eternity."

"There should be a way. I just haven't found it yet. Trust me, Sirius, no one wants you here for 'time and all eternity.'"

Sirius reached over and threw a paperweight at James, which he caught. "Damn you and your reflexes," he muttered under his breath. "So there's a way for me to get back in one of these books?" he said louder, indicating the bookshelves behind James.

"I don't really think so. I've read all of them, and I would have remembered reading something that allowed someone to go back to the living realm," he said sensibly.

"You honestly expect me to believe that you read all of those? Come on, James. You only touch a book when you're bored or when you're looking for something," Sirius said.

"Mate, I've been dead for, what, 15 years? You run out of things to do after the first month. Besides, I was looking for some way to at least communicate with the living. I wanted them to know that you were innocent. I mean, I was going to add the fact that Peter was our Secret Keeper into my will, just in case something happened; I didn't want the blame to fall on you. But Voldemort came just a week after we cast the charm– I never had the chance to put it in," James said quietly. He had blamed himself for Sirius being in Azkaban for that very reason. If he had just gotten around to fixing his will sooner, his best friend wouldn't have been unjustly locked away in Azkaban for twelve years.

Sirius was shocked to hear the guilt in James's voice. "No, you got it backwards, Prongs. I shouldn't have convinced you to use Peter. I should have known that if anyone knew that he was your Secret Keeper, they'd immediately go after him. It was pretty obvious that even if he hadn't been passing information to Voldemort that he would have cracked as soon as anyone asked him."

James shook his head, knowing that it was pointless to try and convince Sirius that it wasn't his fault. I'll let Remus know that that's his job when I get Sirius back, he thought to himself. "Anyway, back to the task at hand. I actually don't think anyone has found a way to get back to the living world. I think part of the problem is that anyone who tried was already dead. I mean, there is no possible way to bring people who are wholly dead back from the dead. Man wasn't made to play God."

"But I'm not dead," Sirius said wryly, catching on to what James was saying.

"Exactly. So, all we have to do is figure out how the Veil really works, and how to reverse whatever it does, and apply it to what we need to do," James said grinning. It felt remarkably like the 'old times' to both James and Sirius; sitting in a library (or study), huddled over one obscure book or another, plotting their next scheme. It was rather rejuvenating.

"How do we do that?"

"No idea, however, I do understand the basic principle behind the Veil. Look at this,"he said. He grabbed two ink pots and carefully balance his quill over top of them. Looking around quickly, he grabbed a tissue form the tissue box, and draped it delicately over the quill.

"What's that supposed to be?"

"It's the Veil."

"No it's not. It's two ink pots, a quill, and a tissue."

James growled, "Use your imagination."

"You always have stupid models like this. I swear, it comes from you playing quidditch all the time," he said, chuckling. It was always so fun to tease James like this.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means ever since you became quidditch captain, you were always crouching over some model of the field and the team. It made you nuts. Well, it made you more nuts," he added as an after thought.

"Just because you have the imaginative capability of a bloody flobberworm, doesn't mean you have to take it out on my ingenious models," he said, joining in on the spirit of things.

"Ingenious? Yeah, right," Sirius snorted.

"Moving on," James said sharply. He picked up a paper clip. "This paper clip represents someone, anyone. Anyway, so this person, let's call him, I don't know, Padfoot, falls through the Veil." He pushed the paper clip under the tissue. "Now, normally, Padfoot would disappear for a couple of days. Those who've fallen through say that they're stuck in this black room during that time, although no one has proof that this room actually exists, so it might be some mental ploy or something. However," he said moving the paper clip back on the other side, "if Padfoot is unconscious, he goes straight through. I don't know why. Maybe the Veil, being the inanimate object that it is, doesn't have power over the human subconscious."

"Wait– what was that last part?"

"This is just a theory, more of a hunch, really. I have no evidence to back it up, but it's the only way I can explain it. You see, when people pass through the Veil, they all say the same thing. They stayed alive for a while. Time passed between when they passed through and when they actually died and were confronted with the choice of being a ghost or coming here. Nothing ever physically happens to make them die. It's more of a mental death, really. Their conscious mind is so convinced that they are dead, that it over-powers the subconscious, causing them to die. Philosophically speaking, when someone believes in something like that so firmly, it becomes real, to them at any rate. So when their conscious mind is so wrapped up in the idea that they're dead, the body and subconscious have no choice but to follow. Are you following me here?"

Sirius nodded weakly. James most definitely had way too much time on his hands.

"But," he said, carrying on, "your subconscious was in control when you passed through. You didn't have your conscious mind telling you that you were stuck in a dark room and that you were dead. Because of that, you didn't die. You subconsciously knew that you were still alive and that your heart was still beating, and since you were unconscious at the time, your conscious mind couldn't tell you otherwise." By now James's eyes had grown wide, and he was talking with great enthusiasm, something that happened often when he made some sort of beak through. The same thing happened when he had finally figured out the key to becoming an animagus in the beginning of their fifth year.

Sirius blinked several times, processing what James had just dumped on him. "You know what," he muttered. "That actually made some sense, in a very bizarre way."

"Tell that to Lily. I tried explaining this to her, and she told me that I was mad," James said, still smiling.

"So, bringing this back to what we're trying to accomplish here, you're saying that we need to harness whatever causes the Veil to, to transport people between these two worlds–"

"But harness it in the way that it works over the subconscious mind."

Sirius shrugged. "Sounds easy enough, sort of. When do we get started?"

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a/n: I lied, this is the final authors note, lol. i hope you all liked this chap. things are starting to pick up in the story (yeah!!) and i hope to get the next chapter out soon. please review...thank you much!