As is to be expected, the Disclaimer from last chapter... Still applies. Heh.

Author's Notes: Eeeh! Reviewers are, truly, some of the most lovely things ever. Funny reviewers are especially lovely, and intelligent reviewers are extra lovely! And those that are both... are divine! Thank you, thank you, to everyone that reviewed since I updated yesterday morning. (I blush, I blush! I've never gotten that many reviews before, ever. Forgive me if I'm absurdly pleased with the attention from you, dear reader peoples.)

As for this chapter itself, well, it speaks for itself, I think. Though, it's not quite as long as I'd have liked, but ah well. I'll just have to polish up the next chapter extra quick to make up for it. -- That noise you hear is me cracking my knuckles, btw. Lol.

(Oh, did I mention that I've been awake for more than 38 hours? Straight? Yeah. I'm a bit odd right now. Sorry. Hehe.) Here. Nibble on a couple of review responses. Random review responses.

BEX: You're an evil sister. I'll hit you with my pillow. I will, see if I don't.

Little Buddha: Oh, my! I love it when cats read my work.

o.o.o.o

Little Times Left

Harry Potter awoke groggy, sore and naked. What he was feeling was almost exactly what waking up with a hangover feels like, actually, but he didn't know it, of course, having never been hungover before. He was also, he realised, very cold. Sleeping on unprotected stone usually did that, he figured.

Opening his eyes cautiously, Harry blinked and tried to look around. Without his glasses, though, he couldn't see much of anything. He was feeling incredibly vulnerable, and just a little scared, as he frantically searched around him with his hands, hoping to find his glasses. Or at the very least, his wand. He couldn't believe he didn't have his wand.

He touched a slender shaft of wood on the stone floor, and he hastily scrabbled to get his fingers around it. The familiar feel of it, the weight in his hand, assured him that this was his wand, and he felt much better. Not much could go wrong now.

Or rather, wronger, he amended, considering that he really couldn't remember how he'd gotten here. Everything was a bit fuzzy. He remembered something about being in the Dursleys' kitchen, and something about letting go of his wand. But, he was fairly sure that the kitchen floor at number four wasn't this cold, or rough.

'Ah,' murmured a voice from Harry's left, sounding delighted. 'I see that it worked. You must be him, then.'

'Must be who?' asked Harry warily, turning his head and squinting in an attempt to see the speaker. 'Who are you? Where am I?'

Shuffling noises started a ways off to Harry's left and got progressively closer. 'Nevermind all that right now,' the voice said, a hint of gleeful expectation shading it heavily. 'A better question would be, when are you, lad. Tell, what's the date, as you know it?'

Extremely confused, his head hurting worse than before, Harry frowned. He almost shook his head, but then figured that would only make his headache worse. 'I... 31 July 1996. Why, what's going on?'

The eery voice suddenly crowed happily. 'Yes! By Merlin, YES!' There were more shuffling noises, not moving in any particular direction, but not staying in the same place. Harry was rather afraid that whoever'd been speaking to him was dancing.

Harry started to get annoyed. 'Excuse me, sir-- mister-- whoever you are,' Harry was fairly sure the voice was male, but he wouldn't bet much on it (the last thing he could remember, after all, seemed to be something to do with making a very bad judgment call), 'but I'm rather... Look, I'm cold. And I'd like my glasses, please.'

'Oh dear.' The shuffling noises stopped. The voice, suddenly more subdued, inquired, 'Glasses? Eyeglasses? Spectacles? Oh no, no no no, this won't do!'

Harry expelled a gusty sigh of extreme annoyance.

Then he felt something, suspiciously like a wand-tip, touch his forehead, and he tensed in sudden fear. The voice quickly said something in Latin. Then, as a strange sensation both soothing and painful swept over his head, settling just behind his eyes, the wand-tip was withdrawn, and Harry suddenly found that he could see perfectly. He blinked.

In front of him hovered one of the oddest men he'd ever seen. About Harry's height when standing, spindly, wide twinkling dark blue eyes, and long greying red hair, were all overshadowed by the garish but faded robes of once brilliant bright purple. There were little paisley patterns of light pink on the shoulders of the odd robes. Harry blinked again.

'Who are you?' he burst out before he could help himself, once again completely forgetting that he was naked.

The odd old man smiled brightly. 'I'm... well it doesn't matter -- you can call me Cain. Who are you?'

o.o.o.o

'... And, well, Hermione's worried about her, sir,' Ron finished, more than a little uneasily. Across the table, his thoughtful Headmaster was stroking his beard absently.

'This is most interesting, Mr. Weasley. Why did you think it necessary to make me aware of this?' asked Professor Dumbledore, though Ron got the impression he was more musing to himself than anything.

Ron swallowed thickly. 'I just thought you should know, sir.' He honestly didn't quite understand why it had seemed so important to him that Dumbledore be told about this. There was just this feeling in his gut, and his gut rarely lead him wrong.

'I see.' There was a pause, during which Dumbledore's gaze seemed to go a bit glassy. He came back to himself with a sharp shake of his head, frowning in frustration. 'Thank you, Mr. Weasley. I will... look into this for you.'

As Ron stood, giving his Headmaster a respectful little nod, he couldn't help but notice that the man looked much older and tired than he'd used to. This saddened Ron immensely, and he left with a heavy heart indeed.

o.o.o.o

The day right before Harry's funeral was scheduled to take place, was a very tense one, for everyone concerned. It had been agreed upon by all that it should be a relatively small affair, and very private, as Harry most likely would have wanted it that way. Only the Weasleys, Remus, and several of the Order members who'd been on the most friendly of terms with him, would be attending. (The extremely public and highly publicized general memorial service, to take place the day after the funeral, was expected to be almost the largest event of its kind in recent history, as it was open to any of the wizarding public who chose to attend.)

People kept scurrying to and fro, doing this job or that task that Dumbledore gave them, most likely to keep them from thinking too much about what it was they were preparing for. Molly Weasley kept cooking, and occasionally she could be heard sobbing over her pudding about Harry.

As a matter of fact, Molly hadn't left the kitchen in over six hours, which was starting to worry quite a few people rather considerably.

'It's not healthy,' stated Fred, warily watching the kitchen door. He and his twin were standing in the hall plaguing their older brothers with their fears.

Charlie frowned, unmoved. 'Mum's always cooked, Fred.'

George crossed his arms, and insisted very firmly, 'I think she's going a little mad.'

'More than usual, you mean?' Bill queried teasingly, also not taking the Twins' concerns very seriously.

'Would we be talking to you otherwise?' The two younger men were clearly becoming annoyed, as evidenced by the way the started speaking in unison.

'What do you want us to do, eh?' snapped Bill in retaliation. 'There's not much we could do.'

'We haven't quite got to that part yet, actually,' Fred said sheepishly. He shared a glance with his twin, and George continued, 'We thought maybe you could, oh, distract her, or something.'

'All right, all right,' Charlie sighed. 'But that still leaves the how.'

'They keep telling you, they don't know the how,' said a rather amused voice a little way down the hall. They turned to see Ron leaning against the wall. Ron, who had become strangely central to everything lately, and actually somehow seemed to manage to be everywhere when anyone could possibly want him. It was quite unnerving, actually.

Bill actually snorted in amusement. 'And Charlie and I are supposed to think up that part, I suppose?'

Fred beamed at him.

'Exactly.'

o.o.o.o

Severus Snape was having a terrible week. He felt like every person on the planet -- barring himself, of course -- had gone barmy. And he really couldn't perceive a reason for all these useless theatrics, either.

For example, the Dark Lord had been throwing what was, effectively, a week-long temper tantrum, that almost all of his followers were at a loss to explain. After all, hadn't he wanted Potter dead!

And as for all the people at Order Headquarters... Severus really didn't even want to think about all the melodrama there.

Okay, so the saviour of the wizarding world sort of happened to have managed to get himself murdered, under unbelievably odd circumstances. And it was definitely the Potter boy, all right. Severus had been one of the people responsible for helping Albus verify this, and trust him, that hadn't been one of his favorite tasks.

Less of a desirable one, however, was having to help prepare for this memorial ceremony. It seemed expressly designed to garner Potter even more fame, regardless that he was, in point of fact, quite dead. Damn fool way to spend a day, chasing after a corpse.

Severus would never understand wizarding public.

o.o.o.o

Sirius was walking. It had taken him awhile to start, but now he felt he couldn't stop. At first he wouldn't go because he couldn't see. Or so he told himself.

So he sat for hours, next to the pane of nothing. But then the day came, a soft breaking of pale blue over the surface of the whole land, with no rising point, only gradual lightening. It was the strangest dawn he had ever seen, and it allowed him to see the landscape properly for the first time.

The ground he rested on was an unnatural blend of dust and rock, looking like grey sand packed solid in a child's play box by hundreds of very tiny, toeless feet. This continued until roughly thirty meters out, in a wide circle with it's midpoint the thing that should have been the Veil. After this stretched a vast wasteland of rock, riddled with ravines, that if one didn't look past in just the right way, was seemingly endless. If you looked properly, however, you could see mountains rising in the distance.

It was to those mountains that Sirius looked as he picked a direction at random and started walking. His eyes did not linger long there, however, for they soon turned to the darkness of the gorges that littered the ground in all directions. The air got colder as the night wasted and gave itself fully over to day.

There was no vegetation at all. No matter which way he looked Sirius could see no plant life, nor life of any kind. In the deep ruts of the stone, he fancied he could see some movement, every now and then. Through the clinging, impenetrable darkness that shrouded the hollows, he could not tell just what it was, but his scarred mind felt any kind of company would be better than none. He kept himself from them for a goodly time, however, until his longing for the inexplicable warmth of the mysterious shadows.

That was the beginning of Sirius's learning the first of the many truths about the land of the dead. Nothing was the same as that of Life.

It did not act the same; you could not call it the same; you were not the same; none was what it had been. You could not live in Death and be the same.

Sirius moved over the edge of one of the ravines and unto the shallow rock incline that led to the surface from the ravine floor. There was heat in the darkness as he stepped out of the shelter of the light, where it drove the all-encompassing shadows away. He reveled in it as he at last rested his feet on the bottom.

He took a few steps, and the ravine bed looked as if it turned sharply. He made to follow it, but after a few more steps, a wave of confusion swamped him. He suddenly didn't recognize where he was, though he'd been looking in the same place just a moment ago. Trying to reorient himself, he glanced over his shoulder at the ramp down, and felt his heart sink as he saw exactly what he'd been afraid of.

The ramp had disappeared.

Looking ahead again, he saw that the solid wall blocking the way directly forward had disappeared, as well. The ravine was a completely different place. It was no longer just a crack in the ground, it was a labyrinth of connecting, jagged lines. From above it was a sea of random gorges, from below... it was a maze of crags, rising up to prevent you going the way you thought you wanted to, blocking you out and confusing you.

It was like a death trap, Sirius realised in despair. He'd never be able to find his way out, of this hole, much less the land of the dead.

'Fleshie,' hissed a voice from a sharply narrowing crack in the ravine wall. Sirius spun around, coming face-to-face with the shadow of his brother, lurking just beyond the point where Sirius could make out the eerie darkness. Only his face could be seen, hollow and jutted in the strange play of blue light and cold dark. 'What are you doing here? Isn't it enough that we can't touch you?'

'Regulus...' was all Sirius could manage to stutter, surprised, and some faint part of him scared, but only slightly.

The shadow stepped forward, coming as close to Sirius as the man dared let him, before the living would move back slightly, repulsed and frightened by the dead on some strange, unspeakable level. 'Yes, brother,' he whispered harshly. 'I know you. Sirius.'

Sirius wanted to run away. To turn and scramble back up the slope to the relative unknown safety of the strange light of the blue day. But something kept him standing there staring into the long dead eyes of his younger brother.

'I need to get out,' he said at last, watching Regulus closely. The shadow laughed.

'You can't get out, Sirius. No-one gets out. Dead can't come back to life. Life cannot come back once it has become death.'

Sirius gritted his teeth, and said around his clenched jaw, 'I'm not dead, Regulus.' This startled his brother into momentary silence. Until, that is, Regulus remembered that he already knew that. He was excused, though, because being dead made you tend to forget things.

'It doesn't matter,' the shorter shadow said at length. 'Fleshies can't get out, either.'

'Has there ever been one you didn't... eat, or whatever it is you do to them?' snapped Sirius, glaring.

'No,' was the curt response.

'Then how can you know that they can't get out?' Sirius demanded, feeling himself grow slightly bolder. It took Regulus a small bit of time to realise that he didn't have an answer to that question, but when he did, he scowled, looking confused. Sirius fought with himself to take just a step forward, in order to persuade the thing that had once been his brother to help him.

In the end, the only way he got his feet to move was when he looked at Regulus and saw, not the shade he had become, not the man he'd last seemed in Life, but the very small boy he used to be. The boy Sirius had once loved.

Then he was directly in front of the shadow of his younger brother, less than a foot between them.

'Reggie,' Sirius heard himself whisper sadly, urgently. 'Little brother. Help me. Please.' He did not say "I need your help!" because he didn't think sending shades on ego-trips would get him much of anywhere useful.

Regulus stared at his brother, who stared back. Sirius was morbidly fascinated with the look of his brother, all dark lines and pale spaces, like some grotesque mockery of a Muggle children's coloring book.

Something sparked in the dead Black's eyes, and he nodded. 'All right.'

Sirius's chest clenched up painfully. He hadn't really expected his brother to answer. 'You'll... help me, then?' he asked hopefully. There was another silence, and Sirius thought of Harry, and of Remus, and wanted to go back like he hadn't when James had disappeared. Sirius thought of Wormtail, of Bellatrix, and needed to get out, so badly it hurt. It hurt, it hurt oh Harry Remus I'm trying God it hurt.

Abruptly, Regulus agreed.

'Yes.'

Sirius nearly wept with delighted relief, but figured... It would probably undermine his position of superiority with his brother. Besides, it would have been unmanly.

o.o.o.o

She watched as the two men laughingly dragged the woman, protesting weakly, from the room. She knew who they were, she knew what they were doing, she knew why, but she didn't care.

She didn't care at all.

Everything was very empty. Even her. She was especially empty. It wasn't a good empty... but it wasn't really a bad empty, either, something told her. It wasn't an always empty, and when she wasn't she couldn't remember ever being. It was an unnatural empty.

She'd been this before.

o.o.o.o

'Bill, dear, really,' Molly halfheartedly scolded the young man dragging on her right arm. 'I was working in there!' Her aforementioned son chuckled, and from on her other arm Charlie did as well.

'Yes, well,' commiserated Bill, patting her arm soothingly. 'Some of us thought you could use a break. We don't want you working too hard, now do we, Mum dearest?'

That was perhaps not the wisest thing to say, as Molly immediately stopped moving and turned to stare shrewdly at her two eldest children. They just watched her studying them, innocent as could be.

'All right, what have they got planned, then?' she demanded, and when Bill and Charlie didn't reply immediately, she added pointedly, 'Don't even try to make me think you don't know what they're up to.'

'Haven't a clue what you're talking about,' mumbled Charlie airily, pulling her along again. He and his brother steered her cleverly toward the parlor, where they knew their father was sitting; if there was anything that could distract Molly from cooking, it was distracting Arthur from any kind of unhappiness (unless it was inflicted by her, of course).

'Honestly, Mum. Not a clue.'

Molly highly doubted that.

o.o.o.o

'WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?' shrieked Lord Voldemort with unbecoming shrillness. In the minds of the few robed people gathered around him, there was no doubt who he was speaking of -- since the news of Harry Potter's death, Voldemort had been even more obsessive than usual about him.

No-one replied. After stomping around a moment or two longer, the Dark Lord's demand was replaced with an inarticulate scream of rage.

Most of those assembled winced.

None tried to placate the master. Their mouths all remained, quite wisely, shut tight. Voldemort would calm down -- sort of -- on his own time, and anyone who got in the way of his venting, would get in the way of a very painful display of his rather violent rage.

The red-eyed Dark Lord turned his back on the room, staring out into the summer thunderstorm. Lightening cracked a warning across the afternoon sky, followed swiftly by the angry breaking of thunder.

They waited in silence.

Awhile later, Voldemort spun around, his eyes glowing. He looked just a little too pleased to have been so unhappy a short time ago.

'Bella!' he snapped harshly. The addressed Death Eater stepped forward slightly and bowed.

'My lord,' she murmured eagerly.

'Shadow Severus Snape -- find out what he was unable to about Potter's death. Now.'

o.o.o.o