Back from behind the Veil

Author note: Sorry if the last chapter was a little confusing but I needed to get through all that information so that the rest of the story will make sense.

This chapter gets really dark and sad near the end but that will be the darkest this story gets. After this it's mostly humor, romance and adventure. I promise.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything associated with it. Anything that you recognize from another publishing I do not own. I make no profit from this.

Chapter Three: A World of Voldemort

Sirius found it much harder to get out of this veil this time then it had been the other three. He discovered this to be because the veil was not standing upright but was lying on the ground, causing him to have to climb out of it. As he started to hoist himself out someone spoke.

"Nice and slow and I won't be forced to kill you." Sirius looked up to see none other then Fred Weasley, at least he thought it was Fred and not George. There were two problems though, one Fred looked to be in his late 30's maybe early 40's, and two he had his wand pointed at Sirius. "Bill get over here I found someone." Fred called out. As Fred's older brother Bill came over Sirius noticed both men were wearing black robs with their hoods up. Could they be Death Eaters in this dimension? Sirius thought to himself. Fred watched him closely as Sirius, very slowly, pulled himself the rest of the way out of the veil.

"Now tell us who you follow, the Dark Lord or the Resistance?" asked Bill. Sirius wasn't sure which he should pick, but in the end decided anyone against the Dark Lord was best choice. If they were Death Eaters he would just have to fight them.

"I side with anyone against Voldemort." Said Sirius proudly. After saying this Sirius felt a feather like touch in his mind. What was that? He thought to himself.

"He's telling the truth though he doesn't know who the Resistance is." Fred told Bill.
"Who are you." Bill asked, a little less hostile now.

"Sirius Black."

"Sirius is dead! Now tell the truth." Demanded Bill.

"He is." Said a very shocked Fred.

Sirius wanted to explain who he was but the two Weasley's told him this wasn't a safe place to talk. They also wanted to take him back to meet the Commander. Sirius followed the two brothers back to what they called the Resistance headquarters. At first glance Sirius didn't think it was much of a headquarters, more a shack in the middle of the woods. Inside the shack was a small table and one chair. Bill walked up to the chair and sat down and kicked the leg of the table five times. A very gruff voice filled the room.

"Password" the voice demanded.

"Queen Side Castle" Bill said to the room.

"Our head of Security has a thing for chess." Fred whispered to Sirius with a smile.

"Identify yourself." The voice again demanded.

"Bill Weasley, Fred Weasley and possible prisoner." At this the table in the middle of the room floated up to the ceiling. Bill stood up and stood in the place where the table had been. Sirius following Fred's lead and did the same. The floor they stood on began to sink down into the ground like an elevator. The elevator took the three very deep underground, Sirius would guess 10 or 11 stories down. Finally it stopped and Sirius followed Bill down a hall with Fred right behind him. The hall was very damp and was lit with torches. There were no doors or other tunnels leading off of it, just one long corridor. Finally they came to a small wooded door. Bill knocked twice, paused and knocked three times more. A small silt in the door opened and out peeked a set of eyes.

"Place your wands in the tray." The person said. Sirius watched as Bill placed his own wand and Sirius' in a small wooded tray next to the door. Fred did the same. The tray disappeared to the to other side of the wall and then the door opened. Inside Sirius saw a very different place then he expected. The large room they had just entered had a much warmer feel. The room was well lit, dry and even had windows with views of bright sunny skies. There were doors and hallways leading in all directions. This place must be huge thought Sirius.

All three of them were checked with dark detectors and then given back their wands, except Sirius who's wand went back to Bill.

"The Commander is in the Battle Plan Room." Said the guard.

"Thanks." Said Fred. Sirius followed them through many doors and down a few hallways. Finally they came to a wide-open room. The walls were lined with maps of every place imaginable. In the middle of the room was a large table with five people bent over discussing something.

"Commander" Bill spoke as they walked into the room. The man in the middle looked up and Sirius saw to his shock that the Commander was Harry.

"Harry!" Sirius said full of happiness to see him alive and well in this dimension.

"Bill, who is this man?" Harry asked. Sirius was not shocked by this question, from what Fred had told him The Sirius of this dimension had been dead since Harry was 13 years old.

"He claims to be Sirius Black Sir." Answered Bill.

"And you believed him!" asked the blond man next to Harry. The man couldn't be who Sirius thought he was.

"Lucius Malfoy." Spat Sirius.

"What do you know of my father." The blond man demanded.

"Draco." Harry said. It wasn't a threatening voice but definitely one that held authority. Draco shut his mouth. "Now Bill, Fred, care to explain to me why you brought this man here." Asked Harry.

"Well Sir." Began Fred. "We were patrolling the ruins of the Ministry of Magic when we found this man climbing out of the ground that was covered with a black cloth. Bill asked which side he supported and he told us whichever side was against the Dark Lord. As Bill asked the questions I used Legilimency and found him to be telling the truth though he had no idea what the Resistance was. Bill then asked him to identify himself and he told us he was Sirius Black. Again I found him to be telling the truth. He wanted to explain but the area wasn't safe and we thought you should probably hear his story."

Harry looked long and hard at Sirius. Again Sirius felt the feather like touch to him mind. Harry turned and whispered to Draco who nodded and the two men came around the table. Harry waved his hand and six chairs appeared.

"Thank you Bill, Fred." At this obvious dismissal the two brothers left the room and shut the door behind them. "Please sit." Invited Harry. Sirius sat and so did the other members in the room.

"Explain." Demanded Draco. Sirius took a deep breath and plunged into his story. He told then everything he could remember that the 80-year-old Hermione had told him about the veil. When he finished Harry looked over to the only woman in the room.

"Hermione?" he asked. Obviously he didn't need to state his question for her to know what he wanted to know.

"It is plausible. Even very possible. It would explain quite a few things about him. Tell me Mr. Black, in your dimension what year is it?"

"1996. You are all just finishing up your fifth year."

"He has to be lying! We never made it to our fifth year." Argued the man on the end.

"Maybe we did." Said Hermione thoughtfully. "Mr. Black, do you know of Voldemort?"

"Of course, and please call me Sirius."

"Sirius then, can you tell me of Voldemort in your dimension?" Sirius nodded and told them the whole story starting with Harry's parents going into hiding to the battle at the Department of Mysteries.

"That would explain why he didn't know of the Resistance." Spoke the red headed man for the first time. Sirius looked at the man closely and realized it was Ron Weasley.

"That also explains why he though I was my father." Added Draco.

"I still don't trust him." Said the man on the end.

"Why Neville?" Asked Harry. His voice wasn't accusing, he seemed to want everyone's opinion.

"I seems a bit far fetched to me, and all of his facts are wrong." Sirius looked at the man. This shifty eyed man couldn't be Neville Longbottom, could it?

"You just don't like the fact that you are a scared little weakling in his dimension." Stated Ron. There was obviously no love lost between these two.

"Hermione, do you believe him?" asked Harry. She nodded. "Ron?" he too nodded. "Draco?" he too gave a sharp nod. "I have to agree. I believe he is telling the truth." Said Harry. At this Neville stood up and stormed out of the room. "You will have to excuse Neville. He is not a very trusting person." Said Harry as he handed back Sirius' wand.

"Thank you Harry. Well if someone will show me back to the Ministry of Magic and the veil he won't have to deal with me."

"I'm sorry but that will have to wait." Said Harry. "We are planning a major battle and I need all my people here. Besides I think Hermione would have my head if I let you leave before she could study you."

"Hmmm… that's what the other Hermione wanted to do too." Said Sirius. Draco and Ron roared with laughter.

"Why doesn't it surprise me that Hermione never changes even in other dimensions." Ron laughed. Hermione crossed over to him and hit him upside the head.

"For that you can sleep on the couch tonight."

"What has my brother done now?" They all turned to see a beautiful red headed woman walk in holding a little girl in her arms.

"Ginny, so glad you came in, I would like you to meet a very interesting person. Ginny this is Sirius Black, Sirius this is my wife, Ginny Potter. And this little angel is our daughter Margaret."

"Harry I don't understand. How can he be Sirius?" asked Ginny, as she put her daughter on the floor. Harry and Ron pulled Ginny off to the side to explain who Sirius was.

Sirius watched the little girl, who could be no more then five. She had long red hair like her mother, which was pulled back into to two pigtails and green eyes like her father.

"She looks like Lily." Sirius said.

"Yes she does doesn't she." Said Draco as he scooped her up. "Hey Firefly."

"Hi Dragon." She replied with a big smile.
"I have to admit, I am quite shocked about you Draco." Said Sirius.

"Well that's because our history is quite different from yours." Explained Hermione.

"Yes lets sit down and we will explain it to you Sirius." Said Ron as he Harry and Ginny came back to the group.

Harry took Margaret from Draco's arms and plopped her in his lap. "Maggie May, will you do Daddy a big favor?" She nodded her head sending her pigtails bouncing. "Will you go find Grandpa and bring him here? I think he might want to meet our new friend." "Okay Daddy!" she said as she jumped down out of her father lap and ran out of the room.

"Well I guess we should start our story where it differs from yours." Said Hermione, taking charge of the conversation.

"And that would be where?" asked Sirius.

"With Voldemort's choice. You said that in your dimension he attacked Harry when he was a baby. That was not the case in this one. After Voldemort found out about the prophecy he did not go after Harry but after the other child who it could be about, Neville Longbottom."

"But he didn't go himself." Draco jumped in. "Such a task was beneath him so he sent his right hand man, my father. The story goes that Lucius went to the Longbottom's house and killed both of Neville's parents and then went after Neville. No one knows what happened after that. All we know is Neville lived and no one has seen Lucius since."

"Voldemort decided not to risk another attack on either of the two children, Harry or Neville." Hermione continued. "Instead he and his Death Eaters went underground. Quietly building up their forces."

"So Lily and James lived?" Asked Sirius.

"Yes." Answered Harry. "My parents, along with You, Lupin and Peter continued to fight alongside Dumbledore against Dark Wizard activity. Not that there was much of it with Voldemort underground. Our generation had pretty normal childhoods. You, my father, Lupin and Peter all were Aurors and my mother was a teacher at Hogwarts. Everything was fine until I was 10 years old. That's when things started to go bad."

"Your friend Peter, like in your dimension was working for Voldemort." Continued Ron. "He, using the knowledge he got from helping write the Marauders Map, lead Voldemort right into Hogwarts. The Death Eaters were able to attack the school from the inside. The staff along with some of the upper level students were able to drive the Death Eaters back but at a high cost. We lost Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, and Hagrid along with over 50 students. The loss of Dumbledore hit our side hard, many people saw it as hopeless without him and went to Voldemort's side."

"Things were getting bad but my mother was determined to keep the school open." Harry picked up the story. "She said without knowledge we could never have any chance of winning. She became headmistress and when we turned 11 years old we all went to Hogwarts. Ron, Draco, Hermione and I all met on the train and became instant friends. I introduced them to Neville, who I had known for years, and in our second year Ron introduced us all to Ginny. Our schooling concentrated mostly on attack, defense and survival spells."

"Outside the school things were not going well." Draco continued. "The Marauders, now minus Peter, lead the Resistance against Voldemort. Unfortunately people still saw it as hopeless and were fleeing the country or joining Voldemort. Before too long, Azkaban was taken over by Voldemort, and all of his prisoners were moved there. The Resistance was dwindling; Lord Voldemort´s power increased by the day and the death toll piled higher and higher. Then in our third year of school Voldemort attacked Hogwarts again. Most of the staff, most of the students and Headmistress Potter were killed along with many Aurors, You and James Potter. Hogwarts fell to the Dark Lord."

"What students and staff left fled and went into hiding or joined the Death Eaters." Hermione went on. "Lupin and Madame Pomfreytook us and brought us here. The resistance had been working on this place since the first Hogwarts attack. We hid here and recruited anyone we could. Lupin and Madame Pomfrey taught us everything they knew. After that we taught ourselves, but none of use were old enough or ready to fight with the Resistance. So we waited and built up our powers and numbers."

"With no one to resist him, Voldemort grew even more powerful." Harry went on. "Hogwarts was rebuild and became his center of Dark Activity. The war has been raging for twenty-two years. Voldemort has destroyed the Ministry, raided Hogsmeade, and massacred innocents in Diagon Alley. The government is in pieces, the Aurors are gone and now this Resistance is struggling to hold our little part of the world together. Little stands between the Dark Lord and final victory except for the prophecy."

"When we were old enough we each took a position in the Resistance." Ginny continued. "Harry became our Commander because of his leadership skills. Draco became his second in command. He leads the small army we have managed to put together. Ron is our leading strategist, in charge of battle plans and head of Security."

Ron picked up the story from this point. "Hermione is in charge of research and development. She invents new spells and weapons to use. Ginny is the resident teacher. The war has left a lot of kids without parents or homes. We have seven orphans living here plus Margaret. Ginny is their teacher. Lupin has become like a grandfather to all of the children. After all of the deaths in the second Hogwarts attack he lost his will to fight, but still wanted to help. He found he was quite good with the kids."

"Last but not least," continues Harry "is Neville. Neville is our secret weapon and our beacon of hope. When we came here Lupin told us of the prophecy. According to the prophecy Neville is the one who will bring the Dark Lord down. As long as we still have him we still have hope."

At that moment there was a knock on the door. Draco got up to see who it was. He came back with Margaret in his arms and Remus Lupin following behind.

"You realize you spoil her." Lupin was lecturing Draco.

"It's the privilege of being her Godfather." Draco told him. "You don't mind me spoiling you do you Firefly?"

"What's spoiling Dragon?" Margaret asked.

"It's when Godfathers treat their favorite little girl like a princess." He told her as he ticked her under the chin.

"Lupin, so glad you could join us, we have someone we would like you to meet. But first Ginny, why do you take him into the other room and explain to him what's going on. It might be less of a shock." Harry said. Ginny and Lupin left and Sirius' attention was brought back to Harry's daughter. She had made herself confertable in Ron's lap and Hermione was trying to fix her hair, which didn't seem to want to stay out of her face.

"Uncle Ron, who's he?" Everyone chuckled. It was wonderful how children always got right to the point.

"This is our new friend Sirius. Do you want to go over and say 'Hi' to him?" Ron asked.

She nodded and crawled off Ron's lap. She walked right over to Sirius and stuck out her hand.

"Hi, I'm Margaret Lily Potter. Who are you?"

"I'm Sirius Black. It is very nice to meet you." He shook her little hand.

Lupin and Ginny came back and the group continued to talk about many subjects. Sirius found out that Harry and Ginny had been married since they were 17. They had never planned on having a child until after the war was over but accidents happen. They had named Draco her Godfather and Hermione her Godmother.

The conversation slowly turned to the major battle that Harry had mentioned earlier. It seemed that they all believe Neville to be ready to face Voldemort and this was to be their last stand. Sirius joined in the battle briefing and planed on fighting alongside them.

A few hours latter Sirius watched as Harry, Ginny said goodbye to Margaret.

"Don't worry sweetie. We'll be back soon. We always come back right?" Ginny soothed Margaret.

"She's like this every time Harry and Ginny leave." Draco told Sirius with a sad smile. "Children of war never have it easy." Draco walked up to Margaret and hugged her too. "Hey now, no more tears Firefly. Don't be scared, you have a Dragon protecting you. I'll never let anything happen to you." He whispered to her. Sirius turned away feeling like an intruder.

Soon everyone was ready and they disapparate out of the base.

The plan was to apperate to about half a mile outside of Hogwarts and uses the Forbidden Forest to advance undetected. It was a good plan or it would have been if it hadn't been a set up.

When they arrived they found themselves surrounded.

Sirius couldn't tell who fired the first spell but soon the air was full of shouts and colored lights. They were loosing, badly. They were out numbered and had no way to retreat.

All of a sudden a hush fell over the two groups. They all looked and saw there in the middle of all this madness stood Neville and Harry, side by side facing Voldemort.

"Have you come to finally kill me Harry Potter?" Voldemort mocked.

"No, I'm leaving that honor to Neville. He has waited a long time to see you dead!"

"Are you sure? You should be more careful with whom you put your trust in Potter."

Sirius saw, to his horror and everyone else's, Neville not lift his wand at Voldemort but Harry. Neville, with his wand still on Harry walked over and stood next to The Dark Lord.

"Don't understand do you Commander." He sneered at Harry. "I am sick of living in your shadow. I was the chosen one, not you. And yet you were made our leader. Everyone followed and worshiped you! I was the one The Dark Lord marked as his equal, but still no one listened to me. Well that all ends now. The Dark Lord has marked me his equal, he has named me his heir. When the time comes I will step up as his most faithful and will get my reward. But I need to get rid of you and you weak little resistance first."

"No Neville!" Screamed Ginny as Neville started to say the Killing curse. As the curse left Neville's wand Ginny jumped in front of Harry taking the full force of the curse.

"Ginny No!" Yelled Harry.

"Stupid wench." Muttered Neville as he said the curse again. This time hitting Harry who died crying over his wife's body.

From there all Hell broke loss. Resistance members tried to run, tried to apperate away but couldn't. Sirius took a stunner to the back and blacked out.

XXXXXX

Later he awoke to find the battle over. He tried to get up and found a body lying on top of him. He pushed it off and found it was a resistance member. He looked around and saw most of the bodies were. Voldemort, Neville and the Death Eaters were gone. Pulling himself out of the shock of the sight in front he realized he needed to get back to the base. If Neville was with Voldemort then the people left at headquarters were in danger. Without another thought Sirius disapparated.

Sirius apperated into headquarters to find it a mess. He was too late. Sirius wandered the base looking for survivors, but found none. He made it to the schoolroom and was almost sick. The children, they had killed all the children. And there in the middle of all of them was Lupin. Sirius fell to his knees by the body of one of his oldest friends. Deep down he knew that Lupin was still alive in his dimension but it still hit as if he wasn't. Sirius broke down and cried. He cried for Lupin, for Harry and Ginny, for everyone.

Suddenly there was a noise behind him. He raised his wand ready for fight. He didn't need to. In stumbled Draco holding his bleeding side.

"No! Margaret where are you. She can't be dead!" Screamed Draco. Forgetting his injured side Draco started to tear the room apart looking for Margaret.

"Dragon?" came a little voice from the far wall. Both Sirius and Draco ran over and lifted a cabernet that had half fallen over. And there curled up in a little ball was Margaret, alive and unharmed. Draco fell to his knees and held her close.

"Oh Firefly, I though I had lost you." He said as he rocked her, trying to calm her.

"They hurt Grandpa, I couldn't wake him up Dragon, I tried but he wouldn't wake up." She cried into his chest.

"I know Firefly, don't worry. Everything will be okay now." As Draco said this he was overwhelmed with a hacking cough. Sirius could tell he was struggling to breathe.

"Now Margaret I want you to do something for me, okay?" Draco said between coughs. "I have to go but Sirius is going to stay with you." As Draco said this he looked over Margaret's head and looked Sirius right in the eyes. "He's going to take you away from here. He's going to take you somewhere safe, where you can grow up happy. But don't worry Firefly, your parents and I will always be with you, even if you can't see us, we'll be there watching over you." Sirius looked back into Draco pleading eyes and gave a small nod. He would take her with him back through the veil. "Now I want you to go with Sirius okay? Can you be a big girl and do this for me?" Draco now looked at her and asked. With tears rolling down her face she nodded. Draco kissed her on the forehead and let her go. Sirius took her hand and lead her out of the base.

It took him some time but he finally found the veil. By this time Margaret and fallen asleep in his arms. It's probably better that way. She had enough shocks for one day. He thought to himself. Holding Margaret tightly in his arms Sirius jumped back into the veil.

Author note: Wow that was a hard chapter to write. But don't worry. Everything will be better in the next chapter. In the next chapter we will be back in the present, back in Sirius' own dimension, and Margaret's new life will begin.