Loss

by Breninblack

Disclaimer: All belongs to the ever-wonderful JKR.

Chapter Notes: Yay! Another chapter! And so quickly! My, how does she do it? (She has no life, that's how.) Enjoy the chapter! I hope it's good enough!

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Chapter Eight: Too Many Creeps

Remus Lupin sat in the little makeshift library annexed off his own bedroom of Grimmauld Place. He had been reading since he woke up at 6 o'clock this morning. As a matter of fact, he was still in his night clothes. But it wasn't like it made a difference. No one ever showed up at the Black House during the middle of a weekday. Except Dumbledore, but he had seen him in states far worse than this.

Remus sighed and looked at the various books strewed around him. There was one in his lap, a few on the couch and one lying on the floor. The books on the couch were titled Death And How To Cheat It, The Afterlife Experience and Famous Veils in History. He had already looked through those to no avail. Famous Veils in History had been useless, as it had told him very little about Death Veils. It had a mere paragraph on the subject:

Death Veils are a recent discovery, the first recorded creation occurring in 1557. They are widely considered a Dark Art, probably due to the fact that little is known about them. Many a valiant wizard has tried to study them but there isn't much to study without going through the veil itself. It appears that when those wizards went through the veil they died, thus being incapable of finishing any research they had started.

The Afterlife Experience turned out to be a very unhelpful, too. It had been written by a ghost, who had dictated it to a still breathing wizard. It was apparently unaware that such things as Death Veils even existed. Death And How To Cheat It had more or less said the same thing as Famous Veils in History; many have tried to study the veils, none have succeeded because they all decided to go through the veil.

The huge book on the floor was simply called Death. It had to be more than 5,000 pages. He had performed a simple searching spell on the book to pick out any selections concerning veils and read through them all. Surprisingly enough, there was little on the subject and none of it was anything he didn't already know. It had given him a little more about the inventor of the first Death Veil, but that person was long dead and the craft apparently gone with him.

He had at this for weeks, scouring the Hogwarts Library (through owl with Madame Pince) and the National British Wizarding Library for books on the subject. He had even gone so far as to visit a muggle library and search their weird computer things and what the librarian had called the Internet. He had put ads in both the Daily Prophet and the Quibbler inquiring about veils and such and he had gotten very few replies. However, one owl from a Daily Prophet reader had led him to the book he currently held. It had come with a standard issue post owl and a note saying, 'I hope this helps.' There had been no name or return address, but Remus was grateful anyway. The book itself was a rather skinny book. It was brown and ragged and on the front in silvery script Death Veils: What They Are And How They Work was written.

He had perused the book briefly the other day, but before he got very far he had to leave the room. There had been a sudden change in the energy of the room that had been quite overwhelming. You never knew what kind of spirits and ghouls lurked in the Black House. He had to admit that sometimes it kind of freaked him out.

Half an hour later, Remus shut the book and put it down. Death Veils: What They Are And How They Work felt more like a term paper then a book, yet it was still more information than he'd found anywhere else. The story went something like this:

In 1523, there had been a powerful, but unknown, wizard named Wolfgang de Gauss was looking for a way to separate body and soul. He learned this was possible after an overdose of a primitive form of what is now known as LSD that put him in a coma. He liked the spirit world so much that when he woke up he was determined to go back. After some near fatal experiments, he managed to master the transition between the spirit world and the physical world. But in his later years he found it too troubling to get so high that he became comatose, so he began looking for other ways to visit the spirit world. In 1557 he succeeded in creating the first Death Veil. In the weeks leading up to the unveiling of the veil, de Guass was touted as the most innovative inventors of his time. However, when the public saw the veil in action, they were revolted. What they saw was a device that allowed someone to kill a person with no trace of the body. They immediately wrote him off as a dark wizard and exiled him. By the time of his death in 1569, de Guass had yet to discover what exactly happened to one's body after one went through the veil. Because of his exile, de Guass never had an apprentice and the craft of Death Veils seems to have died with him.

Remus sighed. 1557. That was a long time ago. If the veil in the Department of Mysteries was the same veil that Wolfgang de Guass had created all those years back, it would have to be over 500 years old and, according to the book, made of mahogany. If he remembered correctly, the veil in the Department of Mysteries was made of grey stone. Which could only mean one thing: someone else knew how to make Death Veils.

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Find that Søren character, it turned out, was easier said than done. With Grimmauld Place and Malfoy, it had been easy because he was familiar with the both of them. Søren, however, was someone he had never met and heard virtually nothing about, which made it impossible for Harry to locate him.

The first try had landed him on a dry dusty red dirt road. He had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't in England any more (he had read about a place like this, some place called Kansas). Over the next hour, he saw more sights than Hermione could ever hope to read about, but he was still nowhere closer to finding the Malfoy Manor.

He knew he could just ask Sirius. Sirius would probably know who he was after talking to Draco. Even if he didn't he probably knew how he could find him. But that was not an option at the moment. He was still sort of pissed at Sirius about having given up on finding a way back.

He gave it one more try, closing his eyes and trying to focus on the Malfoy Manor. He felt a strange whirring sensation and then everything was calm. He waited a moment before opening his eyes, desperately hoping that once he opened them he would be in standing in front of the no doubt grand manor that belonged to the Malfoy's.

Very slowly, Harry opened one eye and then the other. He wasn't sure where he was, but he was pretty sure it wasn't the Malfoy estate.

He was standing in a bright green field. Tall green grass speckled with tiny white flowers surrounded him. Off to his right, there was a small dilapidated house, standing in ruins among the shiny grass.

Great. Another strikeout. At the rate he was going he was never going to find Srren. It looked like he was going to have to swallow his pride and go talk to Sirius.

Just as he was about to leave, something in his peripheral vision moved. He spun around and looked in the direction of the movement.

The house. There was someone in the house.

Harry quietly waded through the knee-deep grass until he was pressed flat against the house. He peered around the corner and saw that there was a window and a door that both looked as if they hadn't been opened in years.

Harry whipped around the corner and peered into the window. He was so surprised by what he saw that he forgot he was trying to be stealthy and let out an audible gasp.

Inside the ruined house was the nicest looking parlor Harry had ever seen. It was a small room, slightly bigger than his room at the Dursley's, but certainly not as big as his room at Grimmauld Place. There was a hearth at one end of the room and to wingback chairs in front of it. The floor was covered by a large red Persian rug and the walls were papered with a beautiful royal purple motif. There were gaslights that lined the walls and a small lamp that sat on a table between the two chairs. In the middle of the room sat a large table with four chairs, two of them covered with books and papers, just like the table.

'Can I help you, young man?' came a voice from behind. Harry jumped a clear three feet off the ground and stumbled backward into the voice. He and the voice crashed into the ground with a muffled thud.

'Oh my. A little jumpy, aren't we?' said the voice, which, Harry now saw, belonged to a short, curiously dressed elderly man. He wore a pale pink polo shirt underneath a bright lilac sweater vest and neon green trousers that came rode up half way up his calf.

'You frightened me!' Harry said.

'It was you who frightened me first, my dear boy. Now I ask again, is there something I can help you with?'

'Uh, no. I was just about to leave anyway. Sorry to have bothered you.' Harry quickly tried to excuse himself from the old man's presence, but the old man caught him by the arm.

'Nonsense. It's not often that I get visitors,' said the old man, dragging him forcibly inside the house. 'You might as well stay since you're already here. It's not like you've got anything else better to do. Come on inside.'

Inside the house, it is warm. It really felt like a home, like a place where somebody lived. It had a feeling that the Dursley's house had never had. The old man sat down in one of the wingbacks and directed Harry to do the same.

'So, boy, what's your name?' the old man asked.

'Harry.'

'Does Harry have a last name?'

'Potter.'

'Potter. Hmm. That's decent. Good enough. How old are you?'

'Seventeen,' Harry said unsurely. This was all very strange. Why this man was interrogating him, he could only guess. But it couldn't hurt, could it?

'Good. Good,' the man said, rubbing his hands together. 'About my age when I first did it.'

Harry sat there, horrified. Clearly, he was speaking with a deranged old man and clearly, he needed to get out of here. Fast.

'How would you say your health is? Good? Fair? Bad? You look fit. Mighty fit indeed, if I do say so myself. Tell me, what do you do for sport?'

'I, uh, am going to be late for class,' Harry said lamely.

'No, you're not. If you were able to go to class, you wouldn't be here, laddie. Now about your sport.'

Harry was just about to answer when a tall man appeared on the other side of the room.

'I couldn't find that last book on the lis--' He stopped short of putting his tall stack of books on the already crowded table when he saw Harry standing in front of his chair. 'Oh, I see you have a guest, dear. You haven't been frightening him now, have you, Gus? That's quite rude, you know.'

Harry was complete confused and more than a little weirded out. What was this guy doing with all those books? Why was the young man calling the old creep dear? Why did the young, blonde man seem familiar, so much so that the old man didn't seem so creepy anymore?

'I found this one lurking around outside, I did. He's ezactly what we're looking for, ain't he?'

'Forgive him,' said the younger man. 'He gets a bit excitable when we have guests, which, I must admit, is not often. However, it's a pleasure to have you.'

There was something about the way this man held himself with such grandeur that Harry could not identify. It was staring him in the face and yet he still couldn't put a finger on it.

'I would offer you some tea, however we have no kitchen, as you can see. And, alas, I fear it would be quite unavailing for us spirits in any matter. But do sit down.'

Harry cautiously sat back down in the wingback, while the young man crossed the room to grab a free chair from the table.

'May I be so intrusive as to ask your name?' asked the young man, as he carried the chair across the room.

'It's not intrusive to ask, really . . . ' Harry started, but the old man cut him off.

'His name's Harry. Harry Potter. Idn't it, boy?'

The young man set the chair down quietly, regarding the young wizard that sat in his home. 'So you're Harry, eh?'

'Last time I checked, yes.'

'I should have hoped I wouldn't have gotten to meet you this way. But I guess there's nothing for it now, is there?'

'What are you talking about?'

'Forgive me for not introducing myself,' said the young man, shaking his head and extending his hand. 'I'm Søren Malfoy.'

A/N: Ooh, so exciting! We get to meet Søren! Hooray! Okay, so maybe it's not that exciting for you because you don't know what's going to happen, but let me tell you this: Srren is a very good thing, as far as H/D goodness goes. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Don't forget to review!

To my loverly reviewers:
i-am-not-a-flower: That's awesome that the name stuck. I wish I had a cool name like that. I sort of do, but Bren really isn't all that exciting. Glad you liked the chapter!
Beth Weasley: I figured that, considering I am uploading/writing this several years/books too late, that many other people before me have written Sirius back into the stories. But I always wanted a way to prove that yes, he did go through the veil, but no, he's not dead. I am a FIRM believer that Sirius is still alive. My favorite sweatshirt, in fact, merely says Sirius Lives in pretty blue Harry Potter letters on the front. I'm glad you decided to check out Xylodemon's fic. I believe it's on but I could be wrong. Just google Xylodemon if you're having trouble finding it.
JitsaruJakara: Again, I am really glad that you really like this fic. :D:D:D It makes me WAY happy. As far as sexy Sirius and Draco (although not together...for this fic, at least...), I do believe there is more of that coming soon. Quite soon, in fact. Possibly even in the next chapter. However, I can't make any promises, so don't get your hopes up too high. *inserts Cheesecake Bites here because it's my favorite treat at the moment*. (By the way, if you're sister still doesn't believe you're funny, tell her I'll put it in writing.)

Next Chapter: Harry and Søren talk it up. Harry and Søren look at some books. Harry and Søren visit Draco. (They're starting to look like best friends, aren't they?) But then Harry breaks the chain by visiting Draco in the Changing Rooms. *evil smirk*