Premature Exit

Disclaimer: I still don't own Harry Potter. I think I had a dream about owning it once, though.

A/N: Reviews! I love you people so much, it was so great to sign onto MSN messenger and find I had four reviews, and even better for a few hours later to have two more reviews. I must admit, I was worried if people would like this. I plan to update a lot and have this finished before Half-Blood Prince comes out. Maya100, Lady Padfoot716, Serribi, Pure Black and Moonfyre thank you all for reviewing. Sirius Fan, I am really grateful you took the time to write me such a great review. Thank you very much. I'll also try and keep the A/Ns out of the story, I must admit I'm not a fan of doing this, but so many people do it I just started. :P Love you guys, here is the next chapter of the story.

Chapter 2

For the second time that night, Sirius had given Harry an answer without saying a word. It took a moment for Harry to digest this, then he gulped, and he prodded his Godfather. He needed to be certain. He needed to know and extinguish any hope that he was misreading Sirius. He needed Sirius to say the words out loud.

"We can't go back, Harry," Sirius replied finally. He looked away and Harry felt his stomach sink, although in this strange new world the feeling was unfamiliar. What were they to do now? He had hardly dared to hope against it but now he knew he couldn't go back he still felt that that one strand of hope had been significant enough. He already missed Ron and Hermione, despite the fact he had been away from his best friends longer than this before. He could not imagine never being able to see them again. Trying to focus on anything other than what he had just been told, Harry asked Sirius something that had been knawing away at him since he had found out.

"Sirius, what do you know about prophecies?" Harry asked, Sirius looked mildly surprised.

"Well, not that much. I never took divination. Why?" Harry surveyed Sirius' face as he said this, looking for any traces of recognition. Looking eagerly to see if Sirius knew anything about the prophecy he, Harry, had thrown and broken. The prophecy that Voldemort had wanted, his only thought of comfort was that now Voldemort would never be able to hear it. This was still hardly comfort, the fact that Voldemort was still living in his own plane whilst he was not sent shivers down Harry's spine.

"It's nothing, just something Malfoy said," Harry replied shortly, as though he was going to change the subject but yet couldn't think of anything to say. Sirius looked at him quizzically.

"What did Lucius say?" he asked. Harry shook his head, he noticed that his scar had not so much as twinged since he had fallen through the veil. That was because Voldemort wasn't here, he told himself.

"What did Lucius say?" Sirius asked again, Harry regretted mentioning it, he did not want any more confusion in his life, and he had now had enough of it to last a lifetime. Harry looked down at the knuckles on his hands and flexed them, he should have known that Sirius would be far too persistent.

"I picked up a prophecy," Harry began, Sirius raised his eyebrows, "it had my name on it!" Harry said defensively but Sirius just nodded him on. "And then, Malfoy, and the other Death Eaters appeared, they wanted me to hand over the prophecy to them. I didn't, of course."

Sirius looked alarmed.

"Harry, I was never told about a prophecy about you," he said. Harry nodded his head.

"The prophecy got smashed anyway…so at least Voldemort never got it," Harry continued. Sirius perked up considerably.

"Did you hear the prophecy?" he asked, Harry shook his head, he was just as curious as Sirius was. "I was never told about a prophecy, I thought they were a load a bull, personally." Harry shook his head. Sirius looked thoughtful.

It was nice to have Sirius around, Harry knew that he would have gone crazy here on his own. He looked down at the misty substance swirling by his feet; everything was so very strange in this dimension. Harry looked up to see that Sirius had an expression on his face that looked like he was thinking hard. He had sounded very serious when asking about the prophecy.

Do you want to…er…have a look around?" Harry asked, startling Sirius out of his daze. He then raised his eyebrows and looked around, Harry caught a glimpse of amusement on his face, but then he was almost certain he had imagined it. They were surrounded by darkness and there was clearly not very much to see.

"Yes," Sirius replied, although he looked troubled to Harry.

"It can't all be like this, can it?" Harry asked, hoping for a better answer.

"I bet it can," Sirius predicted darkly, but he still followed Harry as they moved in a northerly direction. Harry noticed that he could not feel his feet hit the ground as he moved, it was an unnerving feeling, as though he could fall any moment.

The smell was strange too, only they weren't really smells. There was, sort of a feeling, or a general awareness, how the place should smell. It should have smelled slightly musky, although Harry could not smell anything at all. It was odd, without half of his senses he almost felt blind. All the time they walked and apparently moved nowhere Harry continued to think about how the strange everything was.

They had been walking for what Harry guessed must have been a half-hour (although he had a thought that time might be illogical where they were) when he decided to try and speak to Sirius again. He turned back and waited for him to catch up, Sirius looked lost in thought, and looked to be clueing something together in his head. What it was, however, was a mystery to Harry.

Sirius noticed Harry was waiting for him and strode a little faster.

"Harry," he asked anxiously, "what did the prophecy say on it? The one with your name."

It occurred to Harry that this was a very strange question, he had not really thought about the prophecy since telling Sirius. He tried to think back and remember the words printed on the prophecy. They had not seemed important at the time and he had barely so much as glanced at them. Other than his name was there, he was not entirely sure about it.

"There were…initials," Harry said, concentrating very hard, "and my name…it also said the dark lord on it."

It instantly hit Harry that perhaps he should have wondered why there was a prophecy about him and Lord Voldemort, but before he could, Sirius spoke again.

"Initials…well, that would be presumably who said the prophecy and who heard it," Sirius said, tossing the words aside, "but the dark lord…that's just what I assumed." Then he stopped talking when Harry really wanted him to go on.

"What did you assume?" Harry asked, his heart was beating so fast and so loud that Harry felt that if Sirius were to reply he would not be able to hear him.

Sirius looked at Harry straight. He looked very, very grim.

"I know you're young but I also know you're very mature for your age, Harry," Sirius began, Harry nodded him on, willing him to continue, "well, more mature than James and I ever were…" if the joke were to lighten the mood, it failed. "Here's what I am guessing, Voldemort tried to kill you as a baby. Why? Because of some sort of prophecy," He said this slowly, before Harry could take any of this in and ask the inevitable next question, he added, "no, I don't know what the prophecy would have been about. Voldemort may not have done either, because then he probably would have known that the curse would rebound upon him."

Harry felt shocked at what he was hearing; however, the evening had been a waterfall of non-pleasant surprises. He tried to find something to say, but words were failing him, instead he stood there, opening and closing his mouth yet saying nothing.

"I know," Sirius said, seeing Harry's expression. But Harry was hardly listening, was Sirius right? Everything was making sense, and somehow not making sense at all. Questions arose in Harry's mind. Questions that he knew Sirius could not answer. Questions that only one individual could answer.

And he wasn't there.

Albus Dumbledore was not there. The time he really needed him. Harry's first emotion was anger, why was he stuck in this place? Why had Dumbledore opted to leave Hogwarts and save him from being expelled? Why had Dumbledore never told him? Why had he never told him anything, even when he asked?

The next was confusion, one he had quite frankly had enough of. What was this prophecy about? Why had Dumbledore not thought he was ready to understand it when he had asked? But then he asked himself, was he, had he been ready to know back then? Clearly there was much more to the prophecy. He needed someone to explain. If only he could have heard it. If only he had not been so foolhardy to throw the prophecy to Neville. He should have known Neville would not catch it. Neville was useless…

But Harry knew deep inside that he was wrong. He knew that he was lying to himself to make him feel better. Neville was a brave and gifted boy who had risked everything in the department of mysteries for Harry. Harry knew not to forget that. Although now he would never be able to hear the prophecy at all…

He might have done though, a nasty little voice said in the back of his head, had he not followed Sirius through the veil. Had he been able to survive the events at the department of mysteries, surely Dumbledore, or someone, would have been forced to tell Harry the truth. Lupin had told him not to go, but he had refused to listen. But what was the alternative to what he had done? To not save his Godfather? He had not had very many options after Sirius had not reappeared.

Harry did not regret following Sirius.

"Harry?" asked Sirius, he seemed almost in the background now, he was second to Harry's thoughts and questions.

"Yes," Harry replied, rubbing his forehead. He could not feel his hand on his face, but he still felt a very realistic pain inside that told him he had a headache.

"I know what you're thinking," Harry wanted to question this, how could anyone possibly know what he was thinking? How could anyone possibly imagine the emotions he was feeling? "You're thinking 'what if', I used to think the same way when I was in Azkaban. It doesn't do you any good, Harry."

"I don't care," Harry told him bitterly.

"If you tell me that, I don't believe you," Sirius replied simply. Harry felt annoyed by this, he wanted to kick and scream and rage with the emotional overload. He would have done, even, but there was nothing around them that he could kick, and even if there was, in this stupid plane he didn't have the ability to feel things. This was ridiculous, how could there not be a way to let anger out in this plane?

"You know what's the most irritating 'what if?'" Harry asked Sirius, unable to keep his voice from raising towards the end. Sirius nodded.

"What if you had never gone to the department of mysteries, because then none of this would have happened," if Harry had not been going crazy at the time, he would have marvelled at Sirius' ability to read him and understand him.

"Then none of this would ever have happened," Harry repeated angrily, "and then what? I'd live my life blissfully unaware that there was a prophecy about me…and about Voldemort, because Dumbledore would never have told me!"

"Dumbledore would have told you, there must have been a reason. You're jumping to all the wrong conclusions, we're not even sure about this prophecy yet."

"Jumping to the wrong conclusions? It was YOU who realised what the prophecy must have been about, YOU who announced it, not thinking about how I would feel!"

"Harry, don't you see?" Sirius asked gently, Harry did not need him speaking nicely to him, he wanted more than anything to kick somebody's head in, and Sirius could be that person if he gave Harry a reason. "You've grown up, you wanted to know, if I hadn't said anything then it would only be worse later. And you know it."

Harry was about to say that no he didn't see at all rather hot-headedly. But he was distracted. Something was moving behind him. Something was coming towards them. He could feel it inside of him; he swung around and instinctively reached for his wand.

But when he saw it, he froze.

The wand fell uselessly from his hand and into the swirling grey mist…


Voila! Was that ridiculous? Were Harry and Sirius out of character? Please tell me if they were, because I'm very conscious about it. I'd love it, of course, if you could review and tell me what you thought. Did you think Harry overreacted? After all, he didn't hear much. Was this chapter a waste of time reading? I'm sorry if it was, but I needed to write it for this story to progress. So what…or who…was behind Harry? You'll have to find out in the next chapter. I want to also clear things up with the prophecy, Sirius is a clever man, and I guessed that he'd be able to figure out what the prophecy would be about. If you want to write me a review about how bad this was, then please remember that I lost my No Doubt CD today so I'm feeling a little low.

NOTE: Did Sirius know about the prophecy? But surely, if he did then he would have urged Dumbledore to tell Harry, or even, rather rashly, told Harry himself? If you think he did, remember, in my story he didn't. And my story is, thankfully, alternative universe.