A/N: A great big thanks to Templa Otmena who diligently reads and reviews every chapter and makes nasty little digs at my lack of updating. Excuse me; there hasn't exactly been a flood of updates from your end either! Christmas? You should be so lucky.
Thanks also to The Morrigan Three, otherwise known as my little sister, who often reads a chapter and reviews if she hasn't anything better to do and makes nasty little digs about the angsty-mushiness which is just hard cheese because other people quite like it.
Last, but not least, thanks to Karen who was so kind in her review of my last chapter. Wow, I hadn't realised that it's been two years since I posted the first chapter! I assure you, it's taken this long because I'm friggin lazy and it's about time I got it finished. I haven't read any other Sirius-goes-through-the-veil fics, partly because I didn't want to inadvertently re-use somebody else's plot and partly because I usually only read parodies but I am deeply flattered that you enjoy my story, I do try to keep the story as plausible as it can be when talking about magic because I can't stand reading stories where people make the characters do things that they never would and leave huge holes in the plot, if you're going to write a story you might as well put some effort into it.
Well, here's chapter 13, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. Please review and tell me what you think! It's been reworked because as Lina Thantos correctly pointed out, Lucius Malfoy isn't actually related to Sirius, not closely anyway! Thanks for pointing that out!
Chapter 13: PurebloodHarry slowly walked into the dimly lit room, a cold pale light emanating from the stone dais in the centre of the room supporting a crumbling stone arch. A tattered black veil fluttered silently, beckoning him forward. His heart was lead in his chest as he gazed at the object that had haunted him for weeks. Stumbling forward, he ascended the dais until he was almost touching the torn cloth. The room until then had been silent but the sound of people whispering made Harry lean forward to try and hear what they were saying but to no avail. He walked around the arch, looking for any marks or writing on the dais or archway to indicate why it was here. Should he walk through it? The thought was tempting, to just walk through and leave the world behind. His breath hitched, he would be able to see Sirius again! He stood still for a moment, listening to the eerie whispers that lured him into moving closer. With his heart pounding he stretched out his trembling hand to brush the curtain aside.
"HARRY!"
The shout made him spin round and he saw Ron burst into the room and tackle him, sending them both tumbling to the floor.
"GET OFF! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" yelled Harry, scrambling to his feet. Ron leapt up and positioned himself in between Harry and the veil with his arms outstretched,
"You'll die if you go through there! What do you want to do that for?" He gasped.
Harry breathed heavily. Didn't Ron understand that he had to go in after Sirius and bring him out again? He tried to dodge round Ron but his training as a goalkeeper meant he easily blocked Harry's attempts. Harry yanked his wand out of his pocket and pointed it at Ron, his hand shaking.
"Either move or I'll stun you."
Ron stared white-faced at Harry then fiercely shook his head,
"I'm not moving. I'm not going to allow you to kill yourself. How do you know you can find Sirius? How do you know that there's anything through there? Perhaps there isn't, it could be just nothingness!"
"NO! Sirius must be in there! I can hear whispers, I can bring him back again!"
"If people can come back, why has nobody done it?"
Harry glared at Ron, "How do you know nobody has come back through? Maybe nobody wants to come back again!"
"How do you know Sirius wants to come back then?"
"If I'm not supposed to go through," he snarled, "Then why did it appear when I asked for a way to save Sirius?"
"Perhaps there's some way of bringing him back without you going through." Harry stopped and stared at Ron, who quickly continued, "A spell maybe."
He lowered his wand and Ron slowly walked over to him as though he was half afraid Harry would suddenly rush to the arch again but he just stood with a bowed head. Was there another way? He glanced at Ron and was ashamed at having threatened him, he was his best mate and after all he'd done for him he had threatened to stun him. Ron picked up the cloak and Marauder's Map off the floor and steered a suddenly drained Harry out of the room,
"Come on, we can ask Hermione what she thinks."
When they told Hermione and Ginny what had happened over breakfast the following morning, they both sat staring at Harry in horror.
"You tried to run through the curtain!" asked Ginny, aghast.
Harry suddenly found the fork he was holding very interesting. Looking back now it seemed a stupid thing to do but at the time all he wanted was to find his godfather.
"Is there any way of bringing him back?" Ron asked.
Hermione sat open mouthed at Harry, who wished she would stop it and just get on with lecturing him on how stupid he was but instead she just closed her mouth and sighed heavily. Suddenly registering Ron's question she shook her head. "Maybe when they were first created, there were ways of communicating with spirits but seen as the veil is locked deep in the Department of Mysteries, I presume that nobody knows much about them any more. We could look in the library, see if there's anything about them there."
Ron rolled his eyes, obviously not relishing the idea of spending his summer holidays pouring through rows and rows of books but with a sharp look from Hermione he quickly finished his breakfast.
As was expected, the library was deserted. Harry felt far more relaxed without Madam Pince glaring at him through gaps in the bookshelves. Hermione suggested they split up and look in different sections, she would look at death and contacting the dead, Ginny would look for anything on ancient pagan practises, and Harry and Ron would look for information on veils. The girls wandered off to the other end of the library whilst Harry and Ron slowly trudged down to the section labelled 'V'.
Half an hour later none of them had found much information. Ginny had found quite a few books on druids but nothing on archways and Hermione had joined her because there was nothing on the afterlife apart from a bit about ghosts. Harry walked along another row and turned his head on its side to read the book spines. He pulled out a small red one at random with a blank cover but it turned out to be about Veils of Illusion and shoved it back on the shelf sourly.
After another two hours of fruitless searching they gave up and left the library, brushing dust from their sleeves and rubbing stiff necks. Hermione was muttering to herself under her breath, the failure of her usual source of information obviously annoyed her a great deal. Harry was thinking back to the Room of Requirement and whether he should go back and look again to see if he missed anything. Perhaps if he walked past asking a slightly different question, something else would materialise along with the veil.
They got lunch from a typically overly enthusiastic Dobby who piled baskets of food on them and walked down to the lake. They sat under the same tree as they had the day before, watching the Giant Squid float past in the deep blue water.
"I wonder how it got there," said Ron lazily as he lay back in the sunshine eating a chicken leg.
"It was a gift from the wizard Gwalstawt in 1740 to the headmaster of Hogwarts at the time," answered Hermione as she poured drinks from a chilled flask, "and he decided to keep it here in the lake where it would have room to grow. There are reportedly only a few specimens as they usually live deep in ocean trenches but they can live for several hundred years."
"Sorry I asked," muttered Ron to Harry who gave a faint smile. He was too preoccupied with the matter of getting Sirius back to pay much attention.
"What do we do now then?" asked Ginny, picking up a cheese sandwich. Hermione glared at the surface of the lake as if expecting the answer to be etched in the ripples and didn't say anything.
"Call through the curtain?" shrugged Ron, "Shout his name?"
Harry remembered the magical amplification spell that Bagman had used to commentate at the Quidditch World Cup and doubted something that simple would work.
"I expect that's been tried before," said Harry quietly. What he really wanted to know was who was whispering on the other side of the curtain. Suddenly Hermione leapt to her feet, knocking the pumpkin juice over and shot off back to the castle, yelling over her shoulder that she was going back to the library. The other three looked at each other and Ron sat up perplexed, "What did we say?"
Following at a slower pace and with Ron carrying as much food as he could, they entered the library to find Hermione sat cross-legged on the floor in the middle of piles and piles of books. When Ginny asked what she was looking for Hermione just hushed her and brushed her hair out of her eyes, flinging the book she'd been flicking through to one side and pulling another onto her lap. Ron suggested through a full mouth that they left her to it and had a game of Quidditch instead. Hermione glanced up briefly from the book she was skimming to give him a disapproving sniff. Harry felt he needed a good long fly on his broom anyway to help clear his head from all the theories rushing round and round and readily agreed so they fetched their brooms from their dormitories and carried the school box of Quidditch balls down to the pitch.
Harry pushed hard off the ground and soared quickly into the air, rising high above the swaying grass until the spectator towers were specks below him. The wind was stronger up here and he closed his eyes, relishing the breeze blowing back his hair before diving suddenly back down to where Ginny and Ron had started tossing the Quaffle to each other. Harry and Ginny took it in turns to try and get the Quaffle past Ron, who made some impressive saves then Ginny took his place whilst Harry let the Snitch go, watching it glint in the sun before disappearing from sight. He soared around above the pitch for a minute or two before beginning his search for the tiny golden ball. He spotted it at the other end, accelerating quickly after it and made a neat catch before turning and speeding back to the other end. This is when he saw Hermione in the distance hurrying down to the pitch from the castle. He called to Ron and Ginny and they all flew over to meet her.
She looked excited when they landed and hope blazed within Harry, had she found something to bring back Sirius?
"What is it?" asked Ron eagerly.
"A Summoning Charm!" Hermione turned the book around that she was holding and handed it to Harry. Harry felt disappointment wash over him. A Summoning charm? How would that help them? Hermione saw Harry's face and elaborated.
"A Summoning charm specifically for Sirius!"
The three blank faces in front of her made Hermione snatch the book back in impatience and search down the page with her finger.
"Here. Read that." She handed the book back over and Harry focused on the words she was pointing at,
"A Summoning charm calls to the caster of the charm the object desired. The further the distance between the magic user and the object, the stronger the charm required." Harry looked up again, still not understanding why Hermione was showing this to him. He knew how a Summoning charm worked, he had used one in the first task to bring his Firebolt to him had he not? "How will a simple Summoning charm bring Sirius back out of the veil?" he asked.
Hermione shook her head, "A simple Summoning charm won't, you can't summon people, only inanimate objects but I was looking through some of the books Ginny found and there were several mentions of blood being used in magic. It was thought to enhance the strength of the spell but of course this was found to be false, which is why no one uses their blood in potions these days. However," she interrupted Ron who opened his mouth speak, "Your blood is unique to you isn't it? What if we used some sort of Summoning spell combined with the blood to call Sirius." She looked at them eagerly. Harry thought it was all a bit far fetched but he did not have any better ideas and if Hermione thought it might work it was worth a try.
"Who's blood though?" asked Harry.
This question seemed to deflate Hermione's optimism. "That's the only problem. To call Sirius, we'd either need some of his blood or somebody closely related."
They stood in silence, the snap of the flags flying from the Quidditch towers being the only sound then Harry quietly spoke up,
"Malfoy."
Hermione immediately began work on devising a potion whilst Ginny, Harry and Ron thought up various plans to try and get a sample of Draco Malfoy's blood. Ron suggested walking up and punching him but Ginny pointed out that it wasn't the subtlest of options and they should make it look like an accident instead. Harry was all for smashing the smug git in the face when he least expected it but admitted that it would be easier to get some blood if Draco didn't suspect anything. Luckily for them, the opportunity to carry out their plan came a lot earlier than expected.
"Can you pass the carrots please Harry?"
Harry gave the dish to Ginny and carried on talking to Hermione about what the potion would actually do. What he gathered from Hermione's long-winded explanation, the blood would concentrate the Summoning charm specifically on Sirius Black though whether it would work or if there was anything left of Sirius for it to work on were things Harry preferred not to think about. It was a simple potion though and could be brewed within hours of getting the last crucial ingredient, Malfoy's blood. Harry helped himself to more mashed potato and was about to ask Ron to pass the gravy when a cold voice echoed in the Entrance Hall.
"Dumbledore, I hope you have an adequate explanation for this blatant favouritism!"
"Narcissa. How delightful of you to drop by without the inconvenience of myself having to issue an invitation. And what blatant favouritism would this be?"
Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione had stopped eating and were looking at each other in surprise. What was Narcissa Malfoy doing here?
"It is Mrs Malfoy, and you know fully well what I mean Dumbledore. Allowing Harry Potter and his friends to stay here when the school is shut!"
"Ah, I see." The sure tones of Dumbledore sounded completely unconcerned, "Well, as I am sure you know, the threat to Mr Potter is as great as ever now Voldemort is back in power and the Weasleys recently suffered quite a vicious attack on their home so I offered a safe place for them to stay whilst they sorted out the mess. I'm sure you will understand that I could not just stand aside and watch them struggle when I have a whole castle full of empty rooms! That would be the most appalling bad manners! I must admit that I also enjoy the company, with just myself staying here things do tend to get a bit tiresome."
Creeping to the doors of the Great Hall, they peered through the opening to see a livid Narcissa Malfoy, her long blond hair framing her flushed face. Opposite her stood a superbly calm Dumbledore dressed in light green with his hands clasped before him, a shaft of sunlight from the window above the main doors setting off his own long silver hair. The headmaster was giving the impression that he was merely having a pleasant chat in the street with an old friend he had not seen in years. Narcissa's lips twisted into a sneer,
"So you are telling me that Potter is more important than all the other students, including my son, that come here and therefore requires preferential treatment? Not even he has the right to stay here over the summer! My husband shall be hearing about this! And Fudge, I'm sure he'll be very interested to hear how you have been abusing your position!"
"Of course my dear lady, you have every right to converse with the Minister of Magic but I am quite sure that in these exceptional circumstances I am quite within my rights as the headmaster of this school to place the safety of my students before convention."
Harry flung the door he was hidden behind wide and was about to march out and defend Dumbledore against Narcissa Malfoy when he was roughly shoved aside by Hermione stalking across the main hall to the furious woman, who's sneer turned to disgust when she saw the muggle-born witch.
"She's here as well is she? Hardly surprising, everybody knows your love for those who sully magic with their very existence."
Her contemptuous smirk turned to shock when Hermione swung her arm around and backhanded her hard across her face. She staggered backwards, a red mark rapidly spreading across her left cheek and Hermione advanced with her fist raised threateningly,
"It's people like you who sully magic, pure blood obsessed bigots who think they are something special when you're really just a bunch of inbreds clinging to the idea that anybody gives a shit what you think!" Her eyes spat daggers as she advanced upon Narcissa, "So what if my parents can't do magic? I can still beat your pureblood son in every single subject by miles. You just-
"Miss Granger!" Dumbledore seemed to have shaken off the surprise at seeing one of his calmest and respectful students hit Narcissa Malfoy in the mouth and strode across to separate them. Harry, Ron and Ginny ran forward from where they had been stood gawping in amazement in the doorway of the Great Hall, pulling their wands from their pockets. Hermione jumped at Dumbledore's voice and lowered her hand in shock before looking back at Narcissa who was now looking mutinous. She glared back at her then in a derisive gesture pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and threw it in her face.
"I wouldn't let that pure blood of yours drip onto the floor, Mr Filtch wouldn't be very happy at having to come in and clean it up."
Flinching as the cloth hit her cut lip, Narcissa tore it away and flung it to the floor. She lunged forward with a snarl and lashed out, intending to rake her nails across Hermione's face but Dumbledore swiftly caught her arm, placing himself between the two livid witches. Bright red blood trickled down Narcissa's chin and onto the collar of her immaculate silver robes, contrasting sharply with her white face currently twisted in hatred.
"The Minister shall be hearing about this," she hissed at Dumbledore and without a glance at the others swept back out of the front doors and down the drive.